Honky Tonkin' in Queens in person with Dylan Earl and Two Runner

DYLAN EARL

" Among the artists rising up from the fertile twang-fields of the Northwest Arkansas, Dylan Earl might just make the music that goes down the smoothest..."

Born in Louisiana and naturalized by the Natural State, Dylan Earl seeks to understand himself by understanding others. His new album, ‘Level-Headed Even Smile’ (2025), charts territory into his formative years discovering Arkansas, the people who showed him the ropes and back roads; and who he hopes to become. Offering poignant nostalgia, history, and a refreshingly progressive approach to country and western music, his newest effort is rife with wry wit, irreverence, and an endearing desire to color outside the lines.

Charming and direct, he’s easy to root for, and has spent many hours behind the wheel, driving to play for you. Sharing stages with other fan favorites like Esther Rose, labelmate Nick Shoulders, Judy Blank, Willi Carlisle, Emily Nenni, and Rattlesnake Milk across the USA and the EU/UK, Earl has honed his performance and craft for nearly a decade.

Describing Earl’s catalogue as “an exploration of identity” is fitting, but it’s certainly deepened by the subtleties and clever turns of phrase across the 10 track run-time. Earl is a welcome, original voice in the scene, finding favor in mainstream and alternative spaces alike as a loveable, alt-country hippie. Travelling counter-culture and across vast expanses, not unlike the inimitable White River in Arkansas, Earl carves a path distinctly his own.

TWO RUNNER

Amid the excitement and ambiguity of a new start, Paige Anderson of Two Runner poses poignant questions on Porchlight, her resolute and tenderhearted new record. Beautiful string arrangements, intimate confessionals, and rollicking hymns for the lost and determined, here is an artist who’s been on the road consistently since early childhood - with persistence and commitment to her craft clearly in no short supply.

Porchlight offers tunes that are warm and steady, relatable nostalgia twinged with the ache of needing to move on. The result aptly links the uncertainty of letting go and simultaneous resolve of someone faced with no other choice. A destiny perhaps sealed from an early age, as Anderson began her touring career in a six-person family bluegrass band from the age of nine. Now nearly a decade into her own music career, she’s seen stages warming up for Sierra Ferrell, Watchhouse and Molly Tuttle.

Although change often comes en masse, it is surreal and jarring to start again. Paige Anderson offers Two Runner as solace and escape for those needing to reset, with sage comfort and kindness from her own accounts, the way all great songwriters do. Porchlight is perhaps best summed up by the chorus in track five, ‘Mocking Crow’: “Wake up tomorrow, there’s no in between - your heart knows what you need.” A reckoning, a stark look in the mirror, hope, and forward movement against all odds.