Kevin Bronson on October 13th, 2023

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Rounding up some recent folk and indie-pop singles: Hear new songs by Rett Madison, Matt Costa, Katelyn Tarver, Wax Owls and Joy Weather …

RETT MADISON, “One for Jackie, One for Crystal”

“One for Jackie, One for Crystal” is a positively chilling folk song about exacting revenge on an abuser. The track is lodged deep in Madison’s forthcoming album, “One for Jackie,” out Oct. 27 via the Warner-affiliated, Nashville-based War Buddha Records, founded by members of Cadillac Three. (Madison was the label’s first signing.) The album is itself deep, as the L.A.-based singer-songwriter tributes her mother, who struggled with depression, PTSD and alcoholism before she passed by suicide in 2019. “Writing this album, I was moving through grief,” Madison says. “It was part of my healing process.” “One for Jackie,” which includes previously released singles “Skydiving” and “Fortune Teller” (see also: Madison’s tarot card website), was produced by Grammy winner Tyler Chester and features a collaboration with Iron & Wine. Madison will do an in-store at Record Safari on the day the album is released.

MATT COSTA, “The Golden Ghost”

“Golden Ghost” is Matt Costa’s first single since the 2021 release of the deluxe edition of his album “Yellow Coast.” Not that he’s been slacking: witness his collaboration with Zero Skateboards, not to mention his film (and score) “Katabatic Flight.” “Golden Ghost,” released as Costa embarks on a tour with Cayucas, is a lilting track that he “wrote after meeting a long lost relative,” the songwriter says. “I started writing it in the morning, took an eight-hour drive through the Mojave Desert and came home late that same night to complete the song. I felt strange that an imagined reality can be more powerful than an actual one.” The Cayucas/Costa tour hits Pappy & Harriet’s on Dec. 7 and the El Rey Theatre on Dec. 8.

KATELYN TARVER, “Quitter”

The follow-up to singles such as “Parallel Universe” and “Ignorance Is Bliss” (two of the six singles she’s released this year), the breezy, shimmering “Quitter” is the title track of Katelyn Tarver’s just-announced new album, arriving Feb. 9. “‘Quitter’ is about wanting to stop living for other people’s expectations of me, or for my younger self’s expectations of what my life should be like now,” the L.A.-based Georgia native says. “It’s about growing and changing, but in a way, that’s celebrating it instead of being scared of what the change might bring. That’s really what I wanted this album to encapsulate as a whole: the idea that, yes, there’s a lot of heaviness that comes with trying to figure these things out, but letting go of all those expectations can shed some of that heaviness. It’s about tapping into the freedom that comes with saying, ‘I don’t have to abide by any of those old rules. I can make the rules up myself.”

WAX OWLS, “All on Red”

Wax Owls, the Gerry Hirschfield-led indie-folk project, have been walking in the footsteps of artists such as the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons since they got their start in 2020. Their harmonies and gang vocals remain at a fever pitch on “All on Red,” a song about indecision and the third single they’ve released this year (see also: “Start Again” and “Bring the Rain”). “Even the most self-assured people will occasionally suffer from not being able to make a choice,” Hirschfeld says of the new tune. “We’ll ask friends and family for advice, but ultimately it is up to us to make the final call on what we’re going to do, and even after making our choice we can wrestle with whether or not we made the right choice. Nothing typifies this more than the moments after you place a bet on the roulette table and you watch the ball spinning hoping it lands the way you want it to. Musically, the song exists in those hopeful moments after you make a decision and before you know the outcome, good or bad.”

JOY WEATHER, “Gold”

L.A./Tokyo trio Joy Weather — Brian Ishiba, Ed Baida and Joey Grabmeier — this summer released an EP that shows their indie-rock side. Now they’re back, and with a twinkle, on the new single “Gold.” Joy Weather plays the Shed in Porter Ranch on Nov. 18.