The Boot’s Weekly Picks: Mali Obamsawin, Temecula Road + More

Mali Obamsawin (Lula Wiles) is readying their first solo album, Sweet Tooth. The album, out in September, uses jazz, roots music, and the traditions of their own Abenaki culture to interrogate and uplift stories that have been silenced by history. In "Odana," the name of their reservation, Obamsawin adapts an old ballad that tells the tale of the Abenaki's retreat to what is now Southern Quebec. The lyrics mourn the lost of ancestral homelands forever lost to Englishmen — the heroes of country and folk music — who scalped them for pay. It's heavy, epic, and mournful — a song that encompasses the past, present, and future as it interrogates how grief reverbates across generations. -- Rachel Cholst

Temecula Road’s latest song will be stuck in your head for days, and fans of 2010’s country band Gloriana should love this fresh but familiar throwback sound.

Written by the duo's Emma Salute and Dawson Anderson alongside Chris Loocke and Corey Crowder, the feel-good number features delightfully layered rollicking drumbeats, vibrant bass lines, and fiddle solos, making it a boot-stomping earworm.

“Baby if you ain't getting ready to leave, is there another drink I can buy you? / Nobody's kissing them lips so sweet, I know somebody that'd like to / We can go fast as the horses run or slow as the float on a bayou / Baby we can go wherever you wanna end up, I just wanna end up by you,” Salute and Anderson sing in the exuberant singalong chorus. With its buoyant singalong chorus and witty wordplay, Temecula Road's latest offering is truly as a refreshing standout. Anyone else want to head to the "bayou"? -- Jeremy Chua

Shannen Moser remembers an old friend on "Ben," a pensive slow-burn with its roots in their rural hometown. Through long bus rides, Johnny Cash songs, and schoolyard crushes, they say goodbye to someone gone too soon over a standalone guitar and mandolin. The haunting refrain "hole in your shirt, bucket of paint" grows urgent and intimate before Moser ultimately asks, "if you knew what I know now, would you have lived the same?" -- Annie Parnell

Once you're submerged in the groove of Cara Louise's "Must Be Nice," keep an ear out. The song is a hypnotic and comforting embrace of steel guitar, groovy bass, and a catchy chorus, but the clarity of Louise's voice pierces through the noise. In the song, Louise critiques the hypocricy and double standards of religious fundamentalism and how it can impact relationships.  -- Rachel Cholst

Valerie June adds her own touch to this classic Bob Dylan track, a feel-good love song from her recent covers album Under Cover. While the Nashville Skyline original is more mellow and piano-forward, June lets the pedal steel soar, urging "throw my troubles out the door, I don't need them anymore" with her trademark clarion voice. The dizzying heights make for a giddy rendition that'll leave you head-over-heels. -- Annie Parnell

Tulsa-based singer-songwriter M. Lockwood Porter had a heck of a lockdown. With the dissolution of his long-term relationship, Lockwood left his San Francisco stomping grounds to his parents' home. Unfortunately, Porter's father passed away, which in turn led to a re-evaluation of his own life. Porter reconciled with his partner, remarried, and moved back to the bay. "Cried Through the Night" hints at just a part of this tale, with Zen-like serenity and an insistence that even when the worst happens, it's not the end. -- Rachel Cholst

Ben Gallaher brings a cowboy’s story to life in his anthemic new single, “Still a Few Cowboys Left.” The soaring country-rocker is a blue-collar anthem and ode to all who stay true to the cowboy way of life. Gallaher penned the imagery-packed song with Neil Thrasher and Tony Martin.

“Sounds like 1889 / Listening to the coyote cry / Somewhere under that moon tonight / There’s still a few cowboys left,” Gallaher sings with unrestrained grit in the chorus, with thick guitar chords and soaring electric solos accompanying his declaration.

The emerging artist's spirited performance here will resonate with fans of similar-sounding artists like Jason Aldean, Blackberry Smoke, The Cadillac Three and Brantley Gilbert.

“I believe we all have a little cowboy in us. In the literal sense, I’m not a cowboy but - figuratively speaking - I have a lot of cowboy in me,” Gallaher tells Taste of Country. “To me, what makes a cowboy is not the way you look or the place you live, but the type of person you are. It’s the direction you are headed - grit, integrity, and character. It’s getting knocked off and getting back on again. -- Jeremy Chua

"Blooming Yucca" was inspired by a long desert drive through the Southwest, and Sara Noelle casts an ambient-inspired folk spell on this otherworldly track. Over fuzzy guitars and loping percussion, Noelle becomes hypnotized by nature and urges "keep driving, keep driving...my head hurts." The watercolor-animated music video is another treat, referencing Dalí and Matisse in turns. -- Annie Parnell

Emerging singer-songwriters Georgia Webster and Jonathan Hutcherson have teamed up for their pensive new song, “Risk.” Released by Webster’s label home Sony Music Nashville, the wistful breakup tune chronicles the follow-up days of one’s life post-breakup. Though the once-passionate romance comes to an end, both heartbroken individuals don't look back without regret.

"I guess it's the risk that you take / That your heart's gonna break when it's over / And lately I've been wondering / If the hurt was worth getting to know ya / For all of our good times, I'm spending my nights / Crying alone in my bedroom / I guess it's the risk that you take / When you love someone like I loved you," Webster and Hutcherson reflect on the stripped-down and perfectly-harmonized chorus. -- Jeremy Chua

Alberta-born Métis singer-songwriter Cynthia Hamar almost didn't record "Light a Fire." The song was a struggle at every point, written in an attempt to connect the smoky-voiced talent to the simple joys of creation during a period of burnout. Nor did it come together in the studio right away. But you wouldn't know that from the airiness of the song's reggae overtones and easygoing pace: to follow the song's message, sometimes a spark of inspiration can light a whole fire. -- Rachel Cholst