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One last burst of summer. A few warm days before summer slowly gives way to autumn. It is precisely this bittersweet feeling that Zurich-based singer-songwriter and vocalist Heidy H King captures in her new song, “Summertime Is Over.” The slightly wistful, Latin-tinged singer-songwriter earworm tells a story of memories, love, and the hope that beautiful feelings can last beyond the summer.
“Summertime Is Over” was written during an inspiring stay in Tuscany. For the musical production, Heidy H King — who, incidentally, speaks English, Dutch, and German fluently — received prominent support. Renowned Swiss guitarist Jean-Pierre von Dach and producer Jeannot Steck (soundcheck.ch) contributed their musical and production expertise, giving the song its final polish. Together, they perform as a trio under the name Sound Affair.
“Summertime Is Over” is the latest in a series of releases through which Heidy H King continues her long-standing musical career. Her previous single, “The Washing Machine,” already attracted attention earlier this year. During the first half of the year, the song received airplay on numerous cultural and independent radio stations in Switzerland as well as on radio stations around the world.
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Songwriter Jesse James DeConto’s seventh full-length album as The Pinkerton Raid begins with the birth of his first child on Earth Day, 2001. Jesse became a father at 24, at the start of two-and-a-half decades of terror, genocide, climate disaster, economic collapse, crumbling democracy and an American culture war on the verge of a civil war, all piped into our fragile human psyches through the worldwide web and these supercomputers in our pockets. What kind of place is this to raise children?
If You Love Somebody, Tell Them is an unlikely title for a protest album. “Protest songs are love songs because the only politics worth a lick are those based in loving our neighbors,” Jesse says. “You tell somebody you love them by listening to them, by acting on what they say if you’re able, and, as fellow citizens, by voting in people and policies that serve them.”
If You Love Somebody, Tell Them – it’s a recipe for romance, for family, for friendship, for neighborliness, for work and money, for patriotism, for humanity. Jesse’s great friends David Wimbish and James Phillips showed up for these songs with their prodigious skills in production, engineering and musicality. This is a solo album, with Jesse’s pensive voice and melodic guitars as the framework and with flourishes of collaboration all over it.
The opening track “They Were the Children” features David on accordion and James on clarinet. David’s rubber-bridge picking, James’ synthesizer tones and the pair’s lush background vocals help to define the sound of “Plow the Fields / Smell the Roses.” David’s string arrangement or e-bowed guitar and James’ epic drums respectively built the big finales of “All the Protest Songs Are About You” and “How Does the Story End?” The droning E note of a felted piano string tapped directly with a drumstick is the foundation for the big pop sound of “Wishing Wells.” Perhaps ironically, knowing to let Jesse’s voice and guitar carry “We Tremble with the Noise” was one of the gifts that grew from the trust and teamwork.
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| Photo - Willem Volker |
Belgian artist Oliver Symons returns with "Wake up" via Los Angeles label Maison Arts. It is his most open-hearted release yet: an anthem about love, youth and freedom, and about the moment you stop waiting for life to begin. Where "What Is Happening?" turned inward, "Wake up" throws the windows open. Symons keeps the melancholy that has become his signature, but lets it rise into something euphoric. His intimate, close-mic'd vocal sits inside layered, cinematic production built for both late-night headphones and festival fields.
The single arrives as a global rollout gets underway, and marks the point where 2026 and going into 2027 become the time Oliver Symons steps fully into the spotlight. Now signed to Maison Arts, Symons is bridging his two homes of Belgium and Los Angeles with a prolific 2026–2027 release schedule.
In his words, “Wake up” is a song about love, youth and freedom. Inspired by films like “The Dreamers” and “One battle after another” the song represents a period of a free-spirited and almost revolutionary way of living while being young adults. Driven by naive but very heartfelt ideals and deep love during a summer that probably will never come back.”
Oliver Symons first made his name as the main producer and a member of Bazart, the Benelux band that commands arenas and major festivals across Belgium and the Netherlands. Alongside the band, he launched a solo project under his own name: more electronic, producer-led, and centred on his songwriting and distinctive vocal delivery.
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“Nevergreens” is the new album by the John Doe Band. It features twelve straight-ahead, catchy rock songs and will be officially launched on Saturday, November 7, 2026, at the event venue of the Schützenhaus Schwyz. After that, the time has come to make a name for themselves beyond their home canton as well.
“Folk’n’Roll with passion and joie de vivre — played with honesty and shared directly with the audience!” This is how the John Doe Band describes its new work and the album launch event that goes with it.
In their home region of Central Switzerland, the John Doe Band has long built up a loyal and genuine fan base. The band had become a veritable “way of life,” Schwyz Kultur wrote as early as 2015: “The band even has its own club. And what does a rock band do once it has built such a loyal community? Play live! Concerts at Gaswerk Seewen and appearances at festivals such as the Irish Openair Toggenburg are among the band’s milestones. Along with this came fans’ desire for new material.
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Austrian three-piece zeronic recently returned with their comeback single "The Hope and the Enemy," marking the band's first new material in years. Building on that momentum, this weekend they have released their new album Modernism.
Modernism is a record about life in an age of constant progress: the freedoms it promises, the uncertainties it creates, and the ways people continue searching for connection within it. Across ten songs, the album explores the tensions that define contemporary life — between closeness and distance, belonging and escape, optimism and disillusionment. Rather than rejecting modernity, it reflects on its contradictions, finding both possibility and unease in the world we've built around ourselves.
"Modernism is about trying to remain human in a world that's constantly being optimised” the band add “The songs explore the tensions of modern life—connection and isolation, progress and disillusionment, belonging and escape. But beneath those ideas, it's really a record about people trying to hold on to what matters and find one another."
Written over the course of a year, Modernism consists entirely of new material. Around twenty-five songs and demos emerged during the process, with ten ultimately forming the final record. The songs arrived naturally, and the album's musical identity revealed itself early on. There was a sense of openness and momentum throughout the writing and recording process that felt closer to the spirit of the band's earliest work than it had in a long time.
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Manchester alt-pop five-piece Marie Franc have now shared their expansive and darkly euphoric new single ‘Wildfires’. With a cinematic and melancholic sound that straddles both rawness and romanticism, coupled with haunting vocals and visceral lyrics shrouded in an ethereal haze, Marie Franc have been building fans through their recent releases ‘Vauxhall Casanova’, ‘Pendile Hill’ and ‘Fabric’. Fronted by Rachel Maria Francesca, the band have received support so far from Chris Hawkins at BBC 6Music, John Kennedy at Radio X and BBC Introducing Manchester.
New single ‘Wildfires’ is a grand dream-pop track with a warm yet moody melody and tender vocals, which thematically examine the cycle of life and love and how nothing ever lasts forever – “you win some, you lose some and then it’s done.” Rachel says,
“’Wildfires’ arrived at a time when the world felt like it was on fire this summer, and that feeling somehow found its way into the song. It is about desire, but also the beauty of impermanence, and the fact that love, like life, is transient. There’s something strangely beautiful about knowing that the people and moments we love won’t last forever. To feel tenderness is to make yourself vulnerable to its loss, but perhaps we’re all lucky to know that pain at all.”
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