On This Track: Weekend Listening #13
Five releases shaped by love, ambition, groove and the art of staying true to yourself.
Some songs arrive with a story already attached to them. Others ask for a little more patience, letting their ideas take shape through repetition, rhythm or a feeling that’s difficult to put into words. This week’s On This Track: Weekend Listening 13 brings together five different approaches to songwriting and sound: Riley Green’s country storytelling, Shed Seven’s sweeping love song, Gooseberry’s self-aware take on ambition, We Contain Multitudes’ instrumental momentum and SEGO’s restless art-punk energy. From Nashville to Brooklyn, from the UK to Los Angeles, these artists approach their music from very different directions. What connects them is a willingness to follow a particular feeling or instinct and see where it leads. Here are five tracks to spend some time with this weekend.
Riley Green - “That’s Just Me”
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There’s something revealing about a song that introduces itself with the same words an artist might use to explain who they are. “That’s Just Me”, the title track from Riley Green’s fourth studio album, arrives as part of a record built around personal experiences, relationships and the places and people that have shaped him. Released September 18 through Nashville Harbor Records & Entertainment, the 19-track album stays close to the traditional country storytelling that has become central to Green’s work. The album’s subject matter moves through familiar but deeply personal territory: family, love, heartbreak, life on the road and the connection between a person and where they come from. These aren’t isolated themes in country music, of course. Their meaning often depends on the details, the voice telling the story, and the way a songwriter makes an experience feel specific without making it inaccessible to anyone else. That balance is part of the appeal of Green’s approach. With "That’s Just Me", Green stays close to the traditional country storytelling that has shaped his career while making room for the experiences and relationships that continue to define him. The album moves through family, love, heartbreak and life on the road, keeping the focus on the people and places behind the songs. Its collaborations also bring different voices into the picture, including Hannah McFarland, Jake Worthington, Brooks & Dunn and Randy Owen of Alabama. The title itself suggests a familiar human impulse: wanting to be understood without having to explain every part of yourself. There’s a difference between presenting an image and accepting that the things that make you who you are may not always fit neatly together. The album’s range of subjects gives that idea room to breathe, moving between relationships, personal history and the realities of a life shaped by music. Green has built much of his career around songs that draw on recognizable experiences. With "That’s Just Me", he continues working in that territory, keeping the focus on storytelling and the complicated connections between people, memory and home.
🎧 Stream “That’s Just Me” by Riley Green on Apple Music
Shed Seven – “The Centre of My Everything”
Love can change the way we see our lives. Sometimes another person becomes so important that it’s hard to imagine a future without them. That feeling sits at the heart of Shed Seven’s new single, “The Centre of My Everything”. Taken from their upcoming seventh studio album, "Shed Seven", the song pairs sweeping strings with a rousing chorus. Singer Rick Witter describes it as a song about two people becoming deeply entwined, until the other person feels like the center of everything. There’s a cultural tension in that kind of devotion. We often talk about independence, self-sufficiency, and the importance of building a life on our own terms. Yet relationships can still be the place where we feel most understood, and where the idea of being entirely self-contained starts to fall apart. The song’s central feeling speaks to that familiar contradiction: wanting to stand on your own, while also wanting someone beside you who makes the world feel different. Shed Seven give that emotion a big, melodic setting. Following lead single “Stand Together”, it reveals another side of their forthcoming album and puts connection, rather than distance, at its center.
🎧 Stream “The Centre of My Everything” by Shed Seven on Apple Music
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Gooseberry - “Gnash”
What happens when ambition turns life into a competition? Brooklyn trio Gooseberry take that question on in “Gnash”, a track from their second album, "Simple Sucker". The band describes the song’s narrator as someone who sees everyone else as a potential mark, believing that getting ahead means taking advantage of others. But Gooseberry also turn the idea inward. They admit that their own desire to make the band the greatest in the world comes with its own complications, describing ambition as a “dirty beast.” That admission connects the song to a wider culture in which success is often framed as a personal contest. We’re encouraged to stand out, get ahead, build a career, and make something of ourselves. Those goals can be motivating, but they can also make other people look like obstacles instead of fellow travelers. Gooseberry’s point isn’t simply that selfishness exists; it’s that the same competitive instinct can hide inside ambitions we otherwise see as admirable. The band sets those thoughts against 90s-inspired, guitar-driven rock, played in the unusual time signature of 7/4. The result is a song whose subject reaches beyond one fictional character and asks listeners to consider how much of that mindset they recognize in themselves.
🎧 Stream “Gnash” by Gooseberry on Apple Music
We Contain Multitudes - “Say Nothing”
We Contain Multitudes make instrumental rock, so “Say Nothing” has no lyrics to explain what the listener should feel. Instead, the track builds its momentum through interlocking guitar riffs, melodic bass and driving drums. For guitarist Jon Fine, the song was one of the first pieces the trio completed after playing together in 2017. He describes it as the kind of track that grows on you through repetition and groove, rather than relying on one enormous hook. That approach puts the focus on the experience of listening: the music keeps returning to its central idea, gradually building its own pull. There’s a broader appeal to that kind of repetition in a culture where so much music is encountered in passing. Songs compete for attention in crowded feeds and playlists, often reduced to a short clip or a quick first impression. “Say Nothing” follows a different logic. Its development depends on giving the groove time to work, inviting the listener to stay with it instead of rushing toward an immediate payoff. That doesn’t make the track a statement against modern listening habits, but it does offer a different kind of musical experience. The album itself reflects patience, too. The band revisited and reworked material across several years, with new recordings and changes to arrangements along the way. “Say Nothing” is both an introduction to their sound and a record of a song that has developed alongside the group.
🎧 Stream “Say Nothing” by We Contain Multitudes on Apple Music
SEGO - “Tandang”
SEGO have a description for their music that sounds like a deliberate refusal to be boxed in: “Art-Punk by non-punk non-artists.” The Los Angeles four-piece move between indie-pop grooves and art-punk unpredictability, leaving room for catchy ideas and stranger turns. This week, we’re featuring “Tandang”, the title track from their 2024 album. The band’s wider catalog also includes "Direct To DVD", released in 2026, and their live history includes appearances at Treefort and SXSW, as well as opening slots for Warpaint and OK Go. SEGO’s playful self-description touches on a question that comes up often in independent music: who gets to decide what a band is supposed to sound like? Genre can help artists find an audience and connect with a scene, but it can also become a set of expectations. A band that draws from several traditions may not fit neatly into one category, and that can be part of its identity rather than a problem to solve. SEGO’s approach leaves space for that uncertainty, allowing pop instincts and more unconventional ideas to sit side by side. Their upcoming European tour includes several German dates, with a Berlin show scheduled for October 27. For listeners who like their indie music a little difficult to pin down, “Tandang” offers a way into a band that seems comfortable keeping its own definition open.
🎧 Stream “Tandang” by SEGO on Apple Music
Maybe that’s what makes this week’s selection interesting: none of these artists is approaching music from quite the same place. There are songs about love, ambition, and the things that make us who we are, alongside music that leaves the words behind and lets the instruments do the talking. And sometimes, a track can make you think about something bigger without setting out to give you a message. That’s part of what I love about discovering independent music. You never quite know what you’ll find, or which song will stick with you after you’ve stopped listening. So take these five tracks for a spin this weekend. Maybe one of them will stay on repeat a little longer than you expected.
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