S.G. Goodman returns from the Western Kentucky bottomland with her latest full-length album,
Planting by the Signs, Available June 20, 2025 on her very own Slough Water Records via Thirty
Tigers. Composed of songs inspired by love, loss, reconciliation, and the aforementioned ancient
practice. Eleven tracks highlighted by the critically-acclaimed and award-winning artist’s singular
voice and her penchant for juxtaposing vulnerable folk music with punchy rock ‘n roll, replete with
chiming guitars, ethereal atmospherics, and her DIY ethos. Goodman provides a timely reminder
that the only way forward is together, and that we must always take into account humanity’s
dependence on and responsibility to the natural world.

Back in the early hours of 2023, Goodman told her late friend Mike Harmon and his wife Therese
that she wanted to base her next album around the concept of planting by the signs, which she
had heard about growing up, and recently rediscovered while reading a volume of Foxfire. She
remembered general points from her rural southern childhood - how planting a garden, or weaning
a baby, or getting a haircut are best timed in accordance with the cycle of the moon. A concept
diametrically opposed to the tech-obsessed, profit margin-driven mania swirling around her.
Through exploring themes related to planting by the signs, Goodman hoped to help herself and
others reconcile this jarring disconnect, as well to pass along the story of the practice to her nieces
and nephews - the latter being a role she took very seriously.

But it wasn’t an easy path to writing Planting by the Signs or to the recording studio. 2023 saw
the passing of her beloved dog, Howard, as well as the tragic death of Harmon, a father figure
and mentor. Mike was mentioned in Goodman’s song, “Red Bird Morning” on Old Time Feeling,
her debut. Her band used to practice in the quonset hut behind his house. He would check on her
house while she toured. Often, Goodman would call him for advice from the road. A few days
before he died, he advised her about putting chains on her van during a snow storm. He once
drove that same van from Boston to Chicago so the band could play a one-off in the middle of a
tour. He was a rock for Goodman, and a rock star in his own right.

Harmon’s death led to Goodman reconciling with her longtime collaborator and guitarist, Matthew
Rowan, who had become estranged from her following a year of grueling live shows in 2021.
Rowan and Goodman had met in their early 20s while at college in the Murray, KY, indie rock
scene, and eventually began playing music together. His idiosyncratic guitar work became an
essential part of her production. He wrote most of the guitar parts on her first two records, and
their creative relationship stretched for nearly 10 years. But life on the road isn’t for all, one thing
led to another, and Rowan decided to step away. After Harmon passed, Matt was one of the first
people Goodman called. From there they began to mend their relationship, and eventually, once
she started working on her new album, S.G. asked Rowan to be her co-producer. The album
would not exist in its current form without their reconciliation.

With over 150 performances on the books in ‘23, including headlining sold out tours and opening
for the likes of Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell from Red Rocks to the Grand Ole’ Opry, there was
also little time for songwriting, much less recording. As she sings on “Fire Sign,” S.G. was working
like “the sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass everyday.” So, after a restful, somewhat
celebratory winter in the beginning months of 2024, she began writing and demo-ing a new album,
eventually Drew Vandenberg, who also co-produced and engineered Teeth Marks, to join he and
Rowan as co-producers.

Finally, after nearly three years of promoting her critically-acclaimed and award winning album,
Teeth Marks, with a touring schedule that would make the most seasoned road-dog wince,
Goodman decamped to the Nutt House in Sheffield, AL, in the fall of 2024. Alongside co-producer
Drew Vandenberg, Rowan, and a cast of musical characters, Goodman tracked what is by no
exaggeration her best record to date. With songs like “Fire Sign,” “Satellite,” “Snapping Turtle,”
“Michael Told Me,” “Heaven” and “I’m In Love,” Planting by the Signs finds Goodman exploring
this old story and other themes in the only way she knows; with a fresh musical and lyrical
perspective, vivid, incisive detail, and a heaping dose of empathy and compassion.

West Virginia songwriter and piano bard Brad Goodall established himself as a vivid storyteller with his 2022 debut Made In America, which boasted uproariously satirical character studies of sad, desperate men in the vein of Randy Newman and Warren Zevon. Where that album unfolded like a collection of biting short stories, his latest Hometown plays out like an autobiography. Across 9 audacious and personal songs, he trades humor for heart, sarcasm for earnestness, and solo-perfectionism for full-band collaboration. Out May 1st, 2026, this LP is joyful and reflective with tracks detailing love, marriage, grappling with where you’re from, and looking back at a youth spent in touring bands figuring it all out. It’s open and vulnerable music where Goodall is effortless, and finally, himself. 

After the release of Made in America, Goodall went through some transformational shifts in his personal life. He took a leave from the Huntington, West Virginia indie rock band Ona, which he’d spent most of his twenties touring and recording (the band reunited in 2025 for a string of shows). He also got engaged and married to his longtime partner. These major changes meant that he needed to break from the formula he perfected on his first effort. “I was already ready to do something new, even before that LP had come out,” says Goodall. “The biggest principle I wanted to follow was a truth in the songs. They had to just come from actual me, not an avatar me.” Instead of hiding behind jokes and character-driven lyrics, he had to write about his life as authentically as possible. 

Beyond a short stint in New York City, Goodall has spent his entire life in West Virginia. Like any place, he’s had his ups and downs there: heartbreaks, periods of boredom, and gratitude. It’s complicated, but it’s home. The first song he wrote for the album, “Hometown,” captures this sentiment with grace and self-awareness. He sings in the chorus, "You can run, you can hide, buy a one-way flight / For the cinematic touchdown / Pay your fees, break your lease, but you better make your peace / 'Cause it always comes back around / You’re nothing but your hometown."  It’s sparse with just Goodall’s voice and piano, but still immersive and evocative. It’s unlike anything he’s ever written before, but it highlights his perceptive lyrics and the softer side of his melodic sensibilities. A big question I had was, “Why am I still in West Virginia?” says Goodall. “This song became the seed for the rest of the album. It's the perfect umbrella to cover the rest of the tunes in.” 

“Once 'Hometown' came to be, it became obvious that I needed to write from a personal place,” says Goodall. “The writing process was faster, more enjoyable, and less overthought than the last one. I didn’t have to use my imagination as much, and it became more of a simple extension of myself.” Goodall lives a mile away from the Ohio River and wrote “River Water” as another ode to home. “Run blue / You can leave it / It’ll be there when you need it,” he sings over smooth guitars and shuffling drums. Compared to Made In America, which Goodall wrote, performed, and tracked by himself, Hometown was a more collaborative recording process. He decamped to Nashville’s The Bomb Shelter with a band featuring drummer Griffin Goldsmith (Dawes), bassist Macey Taylor (Bright Eyes), and guitarist Zack Owens (Ona). “This was a premeditated reaction to making my first album entirely by myself to have these really talented people playing the parts that I roughly envisioned,” says Goodall. “I got so much inspiration from those people, and the album is much more alive because of them.” 

So much of Hometown is ecstatic and meditative, song-length doses of growing up and realizing what matters. Goodall refers to the buoyant opener “Proximity” as “a love note that you stamp on the inside of a bathroom mirror for your girlfriend.” He explains, “ Learning about somebody deeply is going to come out in your writing, and that's what we were going through in my relationship.” Elsewhere, “We Made It” finds him reminiscing on his time touring with Ona. He sings, “An Appalachian version of Babylon  / A party that would come to an end / The families we built / The hangover guilt and so on.” It’s Goodall telling his bandmates that what they did mattered, was worth it, and making records with your buddies is an important way to survive your 20s. 

Hometown is a document of Goodall coming to terms with where he’s from and coming into his own as a songwriter. “The vein that’s pumping everything through this record is Huntington, West Virginia, of all places,” says Goodall. “There was no inspirational drive across the country for me: It all came from my own front porch and my own city.”