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Showing posts from August 27, 2017

A Million Machines - OxenFree - Year of October

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A Million Machines - Come Tonight. Background - LA-based synth pop outfit A Million Machines have announced they will release their first full-length self-titled record in November 2017, preceded by the single ‘Come Tonight’. Featuring 11 tracks, this album is a synth pop kaleidoscope, densely layered in clean, modular synthesizers and a heavy melodic aesthetic between light and darkness.  ‘Come Tonight’ is a pulsating electronic burner that echoes Depeche Mode in its technical attack of modular synths, coupled with passionate male vocals. "This song encourages an awakening to the state of the world. An awakening to prejudice, corruption and human rights. An awakening to a revolution," says vocalist Fate Fatal.  The entire debut album is, in essence, a blast of heart-thumping beats, stomping propulsion and intoxicating melodies. Fatal injects his gloomy obsessions with an ultra melodic harmony, abetted by MIG, a conscientious technician with an understanding of the inn

Pageants - Whitney Rose - Oddnesse

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Pageants - Chai (חַי‎). Background - Pageants' (members of Avi Buffalo, Cherry Glazzer & Best Coast) first single "Chai ( חַי)" has just been released. This teases their upcoming album 'Forever' which will be dropping November 3rd. Pageants was formed by Rebecca Coleman in the aftermath of leaving Avi Buffalo (Sub Pop) in 2010, a band in which she was a founding member at the age of sixteen. Frustrated with clashing personalities and differences in musical sensibility, she, along with two other Avi Buffalo defectors, set out to revive the simplicity and spirit of earlier days. Diaristic yet dreamy and abstract in nature, her songs merge pop levity with melancholic lyrical undercurrents.  Collaborating with boyfriend Devin O’Brien to flush out demos, their debut LP, ‘Forever’ was close to completion in 2015. When label interest around the album hit a wall, the band decided to hold off on finishing the record while pursuing other opportunities.  Coleman

Desert Mountain Tribe - Michael Malarkey

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Desert  Mountain Tribe - Interstellar. Background - London based alternative/indie rock trio Desert Mountain Tribe are releasing the song ‘Interstellar’ from their 2016 debut album ‘Either That Or The Moon’ as a new single. It coincides with the band’s appearance at Manchester Psych Fest 2017 on 2nd September.      Edited from its original nine minute duration to just under five, the BVB Version of this epic track also boasts a superb video directed by Daniel Turner of Sound & Colour. Turner explains the extraordinary camera method employed on the promo clip as follows : “It is effectively made to look like one single shot - going from wide to super close up, with the band rotating on a stage, speeding up and slowing down in a sort of ‘Matrix’ effect, with lights flashing and streaking in sync with the music. Together with my Director of Photography, I have developed a way to use multiple cameras to make a super-huge frame that we can zoom in and out of, and a way to time al

Giant Flying Turtles - The Mining Co. - Julia P. - Anna Coogan

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Giant Flying Turtles - Waltz To The World (4 song selection). Background - With a sound about as unique as their name, Giant Flying Turtles are carving a place for themselves in, and beyond, the thriving Brooklyn, New York indie music scene. Their genre bending music has no bounds, inspired by rock, folk, jazz, bluegrass, and blues this high energy jam trio will blow you away. They have the uncanny ability to capture audiences small and large, young and old. Johnny and Calvin met while playing in Kreisor on Teepee Records. They soon found they had a lot in common and started playing as a duo in bars around Brooklyn. It was then that this Maryland Jazz cat and Kansas born Dead Head came to be the musical force they are today. Soon they met drummer Jim Toscano and the chemistry between the three was obvious. In 2016, virtuoso guitarist TJ Jordan joined the group making the sound complete. Their song Raven Hair is featured in the festival favourite One Wall – Kings of Coney Island.

The Sweetheart Revue - SPC ECO - Talullah Ruff

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The Sweetheart Revue - Civilised. Background - The Sweetheart Revue came into being when lead singer Gerard Sampaio tried to impress a woman at a party by saying he was in a band (which he wasn’t) and inviting her to see them play. Gerard had plenty of songs scribbled in notebooks at this point, but had never actually sung a single one in public. Friends were called, favours were begged, a practise was scheduled and a few days later The Sweetheart Revue took to the stage. That was pretty much the last time The Sweetheart Revue did anything in a hurry. They’ve been working on this album, their debut, for years, too many to mention, recording songs here and there, getting distracted by day jobs, having kids, that sort of thing. Along the way, they’ve played at Celtic Connections, The Kelvingrove Bandstand and The Grand Ole Opry (the one in their hometown of Glasgow). They’ve ventured as far North as Elgin, as far south as Pollokshields, and had a song featured in a Hollywood movie.

Kelsey Kerrigan - Radio Wolf - The Blue Hour - Gestures & Sounds

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Kelsey Kerrigan - Good Times. Background - "When I was 9, I used to sit in my closet in the pitch black with headphones on, listening to these meditational CDs. The music was really moody, with lots of production. I would get lost imagining all the different sounds, all the counter melodies, recalls the LA-based artist. I always loved production. While in school, Kerrigan kept up a grueling schedule of nine to 10 hours a day of songwriting while earning her degree in in audio engineering and production at Los Angeles Recording School. She was enrolled in the two-year production program. Initially, her decision to pursue production was so that she could make better demo versions of her songs, but the art of production would become integral to her musicality. A producers job is to decorate time and space, she says.   Immersed in the craft of production, and the art of songwriting, Kerrigan began to discover and refine her aesthetic. She became inspired by the lush textural in

Frøkedal - INHEAVEN - Knifey - Cody & Danz

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Frøkedal - LTF / Cracks. Background - Oslo, Norway based artist Frøkedal has released a new double single — ‘LTF’ / ‘Cracks’. Two captivating pieces of music, ‘LTF’ and ‘Cracks’ are similar in the sense that they both describe how feelings of love are often accompanied by an almost-physical fear. Yet, the two songs differ in their urgency, instrumentation, and overall artistic delivery. ‘LTF’ is full of twists and turns, as Anne Lise Frøkedal navigates her way around bustling drum work and complex guitar passages, hinting at a state of emotional bedlam: “Everything we aimed to be / The image stirs so easily / Too fast to follow / I don’t know what you’re doing to me”. Speaking a little more on the tracks, Frøkedal explained: "‘LTF’ is set in an urban landscape, and inspired by the escalating chaos of daily life, whereas ‘Cracks’ gets back to basics – it’s more vulnerable, and mature in that way. ‘Cracks’ suggests that the problem lies in our nature – nothing is more scary th