Showing posts with label Adult Leisure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adult Leisure. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 July 2025

Alice Phoebe Lou - Adult Leisure - Dan Ashley - Kramon feat. Hunter Hawkins

Photo - Mira Matthew
Alice Phoebe Lou - Pretender.

Alice Phoebe Lou, announces that her sixth album Oblivion will be released on 24th October via Nettwerk Music Group. The news is arriving hand in hand with her beautiful new single ‘Pretender’; a stripped back affair that allows her storytelling and honeyed vocals to take the forefront.  

Alice’s pending 6th album ‘Oblivion’ takes shape as a deeply personal collection that delves into her journey of exploration both globally and internally. It will be her first album since the release of Shelter back in 2023. Alice shares, “After five band records, I’ve opened my treasure chest of personal storytelling songs that I’ve built up over a decade. Songs that didn’t make it into other albums, some songs I never thought would see the light of day. I embarked on the brave and thrilling journey of recording these songs as they are, with love and playfulness, simple and all my own. Leaning into imperfection and taking inspiration from some of my biggest influences who have made timeless folk acoustic albums.”

The empowered new single sets the bar for what is to come. ‘Pretender’ sees Alice commending herself for finding strength in her softness and never compromising on who she is, even when it would be easier to be someone else. Her authenticity is something that her fans have championed in her writing all along, but this is the moment where she can feel it in her own heart.

Alice describes the single as, “A loving ode to my younger self — reflecting on who I am and how hard I’ve worked to love her. The way I once used confidence as a shield to mask my insecurities has transformed into allowing my walls to come down as I can finally bask in who I am without the fear of being seen.”


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Adult Leisure - The Rules.

Following standout shows at VestRock in The Netherlands and Paris’ renowned Supersonic Festival, Bristol’s alt-indie quartet Adult Leisure release their new single ‘The Rules’, on July 25th 2025, the next single to be taken from their debut album ‘The Things You Don’t Know Yet’, arriving on October 3rd 2025.

The track follows ‘See Her’, May’s collaboration with longtime The 1975 / Sam Fender collaborator John Waugh, and the album’s previous singles ‘Dancing Don’t Feel Right’, ‘Kiss Me Like You Miss Her’ and ‘Borderline’ which saw support from BBC Radio 6’s Indie Forever show, The Line Of Best Fit, Pop Journal, Fresh on the Net and multiple Spotify editorial playlists with ‘Borderline’ being used to open an E4 Made In Chelsea episode, their first national TV sync placement.
 
‘The Rules’ was recorded and mixed with Ollie Searle at Humm Studios and mastered by John Webber (David Bowie, Duran Duran, Coach Party) and sees guest vocals from Jess Chivers. The song pulls you in from the very first note, expertly mixing rich, vibrant synths, lush guitar lines, driving rhythms and anguished vocals to deliver the perfect 80’s movie soundtrack, once again showing that this is a band that exists completely outside of time. 

On the creation of the single, vocalist and lyricist Neil Scott explains, “Starting off life via an ‘Islands in the Stream’-esque voice-note sent in the band WhatsApp from Dave back in December of 2023, our new single ‘The Rules’ is exactly the pop-soaked song Dolly Parton would be losing her mind at. We were listening to lots of Blossoms at the time and wanted to write a song from both sides of a relationship on the verge of breaking down. Fast forward to earlier this year, when we were lucky enough to work with the talented Jess Chivers who provided backing vocals on the track, the song and emotions we wanted to capture were truly brought to life. This is our take on the 70s golden era of pop duets.”


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Photo - Lily Dong
Dan Ashley - Get Lost.

Americana, Rock, and Country artist Dan Ashley invites listeners to escape the everyday with his latest release, “Get Lost.” Written by Ashley himself, the breezy, feel-good track transports you to that perfect place where worries fade, good company surrounds you, and a chilled drink is never far from reach. The official video, co-produced by Dan Ashley and Bill Bentley to support the new song, is available on the official artist's YouTube Channel. 

Dan shared the following about the song, “We all need to 'get a little lost' now and then! In this crazy, busy world, filled with pressure, expectations, and demands, who doesn’t want to feel the sand between their toes sometimes. 

I wrote this song about the need to get away with the one you care about for a few days of fun in the sun. The chance to, as the song says, “feel the breeze in your hair” is just the vacation we all want and need when things get a bit frantic in our everyday lives. “Get Lost” takes you to that place where you can stretch out on a towel at the beach and just relax with that special someone and maybe even an “ice cold daiquiri”. Enjoy!


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Kramon - Back Last Summer (feat. Hunter Hawkins).

Renowned singer-songwriter and composer Kramon releases his third single, “Back Last Summer”, from his forthcoming debut album. Dripping in lounge-y jazz vibes, “Back Last Summer” by Kramon features the bombastic vocals of Hunter Hawkins. With a melodious piano part played by Lee Pardini, the track invokes a type of nostalgic sadness that is hard to put a finger on. An ode to trusting your gut and finding freedom amidst the difficulties, regrets, and heaviness of adult life, the new single is out today.
 
Josh Kramon and Hunter Hawkins speak in further depth behind the inspiration for the new single: “For whatever reason, the first thing I could imagine was a kid growing up in the 60s/70s, without much parental watch. A feeling of eerie freedom, there. Then, if the narrator/singer is talking about the past, then it made me wonder why they are looking back, now? What has changed in their life? 

Like, how sometimes, as children, we express ourselves without thinking. We make decisions by gut. Then, later on, through social conditioning, and aiming to please those around us, we learn to second guess that gut decision-maker. Then, eventually, there’s a frustration in recognizing this huge loss, betrayal of self. So, it’s kind of asking, how can we learn to befriend ourselves/our own gut feeling, like a kid, free to roam, again? Even after adult life’s difficulties, regrets, and heaviness?”

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Sunday, 11 May 2025

Chimes - Adult Leisure - Lily Monaghan

Chimes - Pile of Parts.

With deep roots in the Gainesville, Florida's music scene, Chimes borrows just the smallest bits from their previous members’ work (Against Me!, Averkiou, and Sunshine State) as they veer towards a more synth-driven sound, striking a balance between post-punk, synth-pop, and dark wave.

Singer/guitarist Mike Magarelli and keyboardist/guitarist Kyle Fick formed the band in 2019 as a vessel for new ideas. Bassist/singer Matt Brink and drummer Todd Weissfeld joined soon after, and Chimes began playing live in early 2020. However, the pandemic quickly paused their efforts, and Todd Weisfeld moved abroad, being replaced by Warren Oakes.

Chimes' debut album, Pile of Parts, is the sound of something unraveling — slow, deliberate, and honest. A record born from the weight of living, where each track leans into the darker corners of the human experience: loss, disconnection, the quiet violence of time. There’s no false uplift here, just an attempt to sit with the ache and translate it into sound. It’s bleak by design — but not without purpose.

Written and recorded collaboratively between 2023 and 2024, the album was captured in Gainesville by Ryan Williams at Black Bear Studios, Kevin Bruchert at Little Wing Studios, and Kyle Fick in his home. Kyle also mixed the record. Mastering was handled by Jason Livermore at The Blasting Room. The artwork — stark and fitting — was created by Noelle Shuck. Pile of Parts sees release on May 23 via Ashtray Monument.


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Adult Leisure - See Her.

Bristol-based alt-indie quartet Adult Leisure are proud to announce that their debut album ‘The Things You Don’t Know Yet’ will be released on October 3rd 2025. Its next single ‘See Her’ is out this weekend, featuring guest saxophone from longtime The 1975 / Sam Fender collaborator John Waugh.
 
‘See Her’, recorded and mixed with Ollie Searle at Humm Studios and mastered by John Webber (David Bowie, Duran Duran, Coach Party) is a blink-and-you’ll-miss it pocket rocket of vibrant energy. Through nostalgia-laden melodies and singalong choruses that Adult Leisure are fast becoming known for, ‘See Her’ offers a sarcastic take on the breakdown of a relationship and the biting realisation that you’re happier now that it's over.

On the single’s lyrical inspirations, vocalist and lyricist Neil Scott explains, “We wrote ‘See Her’ towards the end of 2023. In its full form, almost two years later, it's developed into a song unapologetically soaked in pop, yet true to who we are and the stories we want to tell. Lyrically, ‘See Her’ offers a sarcastic take on the breakdown of a relationship. Far from doom and gloom or sorrow, it’s about that feeling you get when you realise just how much better off you are now that it’s over.

“The song features the incredible John Waugh (The 1975, Sam Fender) on saxophone. When we found out that he was interested in joining the project, we were over the moon - he adds the perfect bit of spice this tune has been waiting for since its inception.

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JSLVR Photography
Lily Monaghan - Snow In May.

As anticipation builds toward the release of her sophomore EP this fall, Lily Monaghan is sharing another preview with the single “Snow In May.” A haunting piano ballad, it is arguably Lily’s most affecting song to date, offering emotional swells like the waves on the sea near her current location in Scotland where she has been completing her higher education.

Still, the singer/songwriter from Edmonton, Alberta has also been fully concentrating on her musical evolution, and like Lily’s previous single “Willing To Wait,” “Snow In May” is a product of sessions conducted back home with producer and multi-instrumentalist Kurtis Schultz.

Lily explains, “I wrote this song while watching a snowfall in Edmonton last May. The unseasonable weather seemed ironically reflective of my own mood at the time. I was months away from moving out of Canada and although the change was exciting, I was very melancholic."

She continues, “‘Snow in May’ articulates this sentimental feeling of outgrowing something and the reluctant awareness of aging out of your youth. I wanted the song’s contrasting dynamics to mirror these complex emotions that I was feeling. The isolated piano at the beginning of the tune is me playing on an old upright piano at Blue Willow Studios, which had a very similar sound to the piano at my parents’ house that I’ve used to write the majority of my songs.”

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Celestial Bums - The Brook & The Bluff - KiKi Holli & The Remedy - Cut Flowers - The Legal Matters

Celestial Bums - The Letters. Shoegaze warmth and dream pop elegance converge in Celestial Bums’ “The Letters” Barcelona’s Celestial Bums ...