Showing posts with label Isabel Rumble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isabel Rumble. Show all posts

Saturday, 25 October 2025

Anna of the North - North Riding - Malin Schell - Isabel Rumble - Louis O’Hara

Anna of the North - Call Me.

Global indie pop icon Anna of the North's latest single "Call Me" is a pop gem with 80s and 90s influences shining through and Anna’s vocals and lyrics as on-point as ever.

Anna of the North is the solo project of Anna Lotterud, an Oslo-based Norwegian singer-songwriter from Gjøvik. Originally formed as a duo with producer Brady Daniell-Smith in 2014, their debut studio album Lovers was released in 2017. Daniell-Smith left the group in 2018, with Lotterud continuing to use the name. The second album, Dream Girl, released in October 2019, was made by Lotterud in association with various producers. 

The music has been regarded as "soft, soul-baring electro-pop". During her studies in Melbourne, Australia, Anna met New Zealand producer Brady Daniell-Smith at one of his shows and together formed Anna Of The North, with Anna performing vocals and Brady producing the melodies.


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North Riding - Frio River (EP).

International award winning singer-songwriter Hayley Mckay and multi instrumentalist/producer David Neil Crabtree combine as ‘North Riding'. Following on from their 3 month USA tour - North Riding have played some of the biggest festivals in the North East of England this summer, including main stage appearances at Hardwick Festival alongside the Pet Shop Boys and Olly Murs & Mouth of The Tyne Festival. They also performed two headline shows at Durham Fringe Festival.

Legendary BBC presenter Bob Harris made North Riding his ‘New Horizon’ country artist of the week in October & played Frio River on BBC radio 2. A week earlier he had seen the band perform live at Rock N Raise in Newcastle alongside Kezia Gill & The Often Herd.

Their debut EP was released yesterday October 24th to coincide with an EP release show at Newgate Social in Newcastle. North Riding can perform as a 4 piece or 7 piece (full band). Over the years both Hayley and David have built up a strong fanbase. Hayley has won awards including Entertainer of the Year at the Hot Country awards in Ireland and International Single of the Year at the ISSA awards Atlanta USA. Between them they have supported artists on numerous occasions including Scouting for Girls, The Shires, Tom Jones, Martha Reeves and Albert Lee. In the past year David has done over 150 gigs and together they are a force!


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Malin Schell - Mother Nature.

Malin Schell has a vision: “When I sing, I merge with the sound and become one with the music. Through this, I reach a state of deep connectedness and inner peace. May my music touch many people’s hearts, inspire them, remind them of the light within themselves, and fill the world with joy, love, and harmony.”

And yes – her new single “Mother Nature” truly does touch the soul. With its rich instrumentation, rarely heard in the indie and folk genres, the song features shimmering harp sounds, romantic and wistful strings, percussion, and a moving voice. Together, they create an aesthetic reminiscent of the Nordic music scene.

Yet Malin Schell was born in Switzerland in 1990. Since childhood, she has been singing and playing the cello, guitar, piano, and various percussion instruments. She studied Music & Movement as well as Jazz Vocals at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, where she trained under Lauren Newton, and later earned a Master’s degree in Vocal Improvisation at the Basel Music Academy under Fred Frith.

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Photo - Elise Ideiens
Isabel Rumble - Hold Everything Lightly.

Isabel Rumble leans into life's gentle shifts on her second album ‘Hold Everything Lightly’, out yesterday October 24. Tracing the tender spaces between change and acceptance, the regional NSW-based indie-folk artist returns to the heart’s quiet centre, where resilience lives in vulnerability and softness becomes a form of power.  

'Hold Everything Lightly’ moves like a slow river, its currents shifting between intimate acoustic folk and fuller, textured moments of release. Fingerpicked guitars, bowed strings, slide guitar, percussion and piano each breathe new life into every track. Isabel’s voice guides the record, warm and weightless as she balances fragility with grace, creating a world that feels both grounded in earth and open to sky.

Across ten tracks, Isabel moves through cycles of self-reflection, drawing from the rhythms of the natural world and the resolve that comes with acceptance. Written in the wake of transition, the record captures moments of honesty, growth and surrender, gently returning to what remains when everything else falls away. Speaking on the album, Isabel shares:

"Following the release of my first album, my approach to songwriting began to morph into a new phase. The songs that make up my second album are the most raw and honest I have written. They let me turn inwards and meet myself honestly in the midst of big change and transition. These songs very much travel through internal landscapes whilst, or perhaps as a consequence of, listening to the cycles of the world around me."

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Louis O’Hara - Magpie.

West Wales songwriter Louis O’Hara announces the release of his debut album, 'A Peaceful Kind of Fun', out 7th November 2025 on Libertino Records. The news arrives alongside the release of 'Magpie', the album’s latest single, released earlier this week.

'A Peaceful Kind of Fun' is a 14-track collection that distils O’Hara’s poetic lyricism, tender folk roots, and subtle chamber-pop flourishes into a deeply personal yet quietly universal debut. Recorded with his band His Burley Chassis and produced by James Trevascus (Billy Nomates, Young Fathers, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis) in Spain, the album is shaped by themes of memory, loss, joy, and the places and people that anchor a life.

The album gathers together fragments of memory, relationships, and place, weaving them into songs that honour the connections which shape a life. Moving between moments of joy, loss, and reflection, A Peaceful Kind of Fun lingers on the small details that stay with us - the echoes of childhood, the presence of family, the landscapes of home.

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Saturday, 4 October 2025

Isabel Rumble - Janita - ALEIA - Moving Into Tucson - Pilar Victoria

Photo - Elise Ideiens 
Isabel Rumble - Digesting History.

With a quiet strength and unflinching honesty, Isabel Rumble returns with 'Digesting History', out yesterday Friday, October 3. As the final single before her forthcoming album 'Hold Everything Lightly' (October 24), it carries the hushed weight of reflection and the gentle clarity of change, offering a key that unlocks the themes at the heart of the record.

'Hold Everything Lightly' is an assured statement of identity, a clear distillation of who she is and the gentle strength of Isabel's indie-folk style. Across ten tracks, she writes through cycles of change, transition, and self-discovery, moving between internal landscapes and the rhythms of the world around her. The record deepens her understanding of womanhood while reconnecting with the stillness at the centre of it all. As Isabel explains: 

“The songs that make up my second album are the most raw and honest I have written… This record is a return to the stillness at the centre of it all, and to the simplicity of the heart’s voice.”

For this newest track, 'Digesting History', Isabel Rumble reveals a different flavour to anything she has shared before, marking the first time she has released a song written on piano. Tender and heartfelt, the track opens with piano and Isabel’s dulcet voice, before plucked strings join in unison and a grounding double bass steadies the frame. As the song unfolds, the strings shift into smooth, bowed textures, expanding the arrangement like a breath held and released.

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Janita - Let's Go.

The May release of Janita’s tenth studio album Mad Equation has become the most successful of her career—what’s more, it’s become the most successful in ECR Music Group history. Now, the two-time Billboard Top-40 hitmaker, releases a rousing, Beatles-inspired music video for the track “Let’s Go,” directed by acclaimed independent filmmaker Alice Teeple.

“We made a fun, tongue-in-cheek video for the album’s new single ‘Let’s Go,’ and I think it’s just what the doctor ordered,” says Janita. “We filmed this romp in Central Park with director Alice Teeple, and there are homages and Easter Eggs in it to The Beatles’ ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ videos. How could you not make something fun when you have The Beatles as an inspiration!”

From the outset of her career, Janita has defied convention yet repeatedly enjoyed mainstream success. She’s commanded attention as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, and artist-rights activist who meets frequently with Congressional lawmakers. Rolling Stone praises Janita’s new album as one “in which echoes of PJ Harvey and St. Vincent resonate.” Billboard Magazine writes, “This woman’s got the goods. Janita has created a timeless, sensuous, musical mosaic that deserves to be heard.” Earmilk adds, “Janita is just getting started. Full of spirit, courage, and a refusal to fit into any box, balancing raw vulnerability with an unshakable sense of independence. It's the kind of music that makes you want to chase your dreams.”

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Photo - Stephanie Senior
ALEIA - Public Humiliation.

Perth/Boorloo indie-pop / alt / folk artist ALEIA has a rare gift for alchemising heartache into something luminous, and that gift finds its fullest form on her debut EP 'Public Humiliation', arriving Thursday, November 6. The title track, out Friday, October 3, spills first like ink across the page. It’s a tender, tear-streaked addition to a collection that traces the bruised outlines of modern love, the ache of almosts, and the quiet humiliation of wanting too much in a world that gives too little.

With just two singles to her name, ALEIA already shimmers as a rare presence in the Australian indie folk pop landscape, with a lyricism that speaks candid truths and lends to tender introspection. Her debut EP builds on that promise, unfolding as a gentle reckoning, a heartfelt unravelling of love’s emotional debris, pieced together with clarity, vulnerability and care. Speaking on the EP, ALEIA states:

“'Public Humiliation’ is an EP I wrote after being jaded with love. I was newly single with my frontal lobe fully developed and realising I had only experienced toxic long-term relationships, painful situationships, and a nightmarish uncommitted life of casual dating. Being in love felt like a humiliation ritual to prove that you can be loved. It was sobering to be so self-aware of how embarrassing it is to be vulnerable in a culture that is used to romanticising casual sex."

On the title track, ALEIA’s instrumentation is delicate yet deliberate, a slow bloom where every element feels exposed. Gentle, slow-strummed guitar sets a mournful tone, soft at first, then growing sharper and more resolute as the pained feeling crests. Layered vocals glide in close, intimate and aching, creating a space that feels like a whispered confession shared in the quiet aftermath of heartbreak. 

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Moving Into Tucson - Please Don’t Go.

The wait is over: Please Don’t Go is here. This first single of their new chapter shows Moving Into Tucson at their most urgent and confident yet. A track that balances raw emotion with sparkling melodies, it’s a heartfelt plea wrapped in the kind of indie rock anthem you’ll want on repeat. With this release, the Amsterdam band kicks off the road toward their upcoming album All Dressed Up (2026). Big hooks, bigger ambition — and a sound that’s ready for the bigger stage.

Moving Into Tucson have never stood still. From the raw immediacy of their debut album Distraction, to the anthemic heights of People Of The World, and the unexpected treasures of Gems Left Behind—each chapter has been a step forward, a sharpening of sound and vision.

Now comes the leap. “All Dressed Up” (release 2026) isn’t just an album title—it’s a statement. A signal flare. The sound of a band ready to claim the bigger stage they’ve always been destined for. First single, "Please Don't Go" sets the tone: bold, urgent, unshakably alive. It’s Moving Into Tucson at their most melodic, their most dynamic, and their most universal—without losing the raw edge that made them impossible to ignore in the first place.

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Photo - Kate Bonin
Pilar Victoria - Mi Vida.

Following a wave of support from national radio and press, Argentine-American solo artist Pilar Victoria returns with the bewitching new single ‘Mi Vida’ - a heartfelt, bilingual single, blending Spanish and English, inspired by late-night calls with a long-distance partner. 

Written and produced alongside Grammy winner Happy Perez (Halsey, Ariana Grande, Kali Uchis, Miguel, Miley Cyrus, Kehlani among others), the single is another radiant example of the unique chillout-pop sound that has seen Pilar gain widespread support, as comparable to Mazzy Star as it is to Billie Eilish and ROSALÍA. 

A Houston-based singer-songwriter, born in Buenos Aires and raised in Texas, Pilar has become known for her dreamy, melancholic sound and her gift for turning personal experiences into songs that feel universally understood. Written late one night in her college dorm room, ‘Mi Vida’ reflects the quiet ache of a long-distance relationship. The song began after a FaceTime call with her partner, when Pilar sat down with her guitar and poured her emotions into music. What started as a way to ease her heartache quickly became one of her most honest compositions.

“I just want people to feel what I was feeling,” Pilar shares. “Even if it’s heavy, I hope it makes them float for a moment and know they’re not alone.”


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Sunday, 13 July 2025

Isabel Rumble - KĀMA - Mollie Elizabeth - Maddison Kate - MF Tomlinson

Photo - Elise Idiens
Isabel Rumble - Soften.

Indie-folk songstress Isabel Rumble just released her captivating single 'Soften' and its elemental music video. Her 2023 debut album 'Bird Be Brave' was embraced by the music scene with open arms, drawing praise for its intimate songwriting, gaining a Folk Alliance Australia Award nomination, and going on to spur an international tour across Europe and Australia. Having supported artists like Lior & Domini, Daniel Champagne, Holly Arrowsmith and Ireland’s David Keenan, Isabel Rumble is a rising star in Australia's sky. 

'Soften' is a perfect picture of the kind of songwriting that has earned Isabel Rumble her flowers: she aimed to write a song that encapsulated "acceptance of choices made, and a longing to return to the knowing of the body," and delivered in full. 

Exploring how it feels to surrender to an inevitable change through soft, intertwining guitar riffs and tender vocals this song feels like listening to a careful, vulnerable conversation. Then, with a gentle burst, the song blossoms with keyboard and slow-jam drums, exploring the quiet strength drawn from those who came before.

Filmed on Thaua Country, Yuin Nation, in the far southern valleys of NSW, this sepia-toned visual offering moves with the land that shaped it. Minimal and elemental, the video captures Isabel's body in gentle motion amidst ancient rock formations. It is a quiet conversation between self and place. 'Soften' is a song that teeters on the edge between light and dark, softness and strength, and this video captures that dance.


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KĀMA - Is It So Or Not.

KĀMA recently released the single Is It So Or Not, taken from the debut album Propaganda. Is It So Or Not blends post-punk, art-rock and experimental minimalism influences for a romantically restless anthem. 

The sonic energy crosses industrial territories: the tinkling of the guitars weaves a hypnotic plot for a gentle and deep baritone voice questioning the nexus between reality and imagination, while the pressing bass riff and the nervous and broken drums prepare an imaginary meeting between the Smiths, the Jam, the Talking Heads and the Einstürzende Neubauten; the rhythmic breaks wink at the concrete experimentations of Pierre Schaeffer; the crooked intersection of the final guitar arpeggios pay homage to the minimalist phasing of Steve Reich.

The song is paired with a surreal video clip, featuring the metamorphosis in negative blue of the faces of the four members of the band, as a visualizer for the reality-imagination nexus on which the song's lyrics are built. With Is It So Or Not, KĀMA confirm their unmistakable style: contaminated, cultured, in the sign of the most audacious and contemporary alt-rock.


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Mollie Elizabeth - Doe Eyes.

Following her debut EP Dirty Blonde, Mollie Elizabeth delivers a visually stunning music video for “Doe Eyed” (dir. Maya Sassoon). The 21-year-old Washington State-based artist Mollie Elizabeth released her debut EP via Neon Gold / Virgin Music, known for her whimsical, melancholic, and empowering songs, the Pacific Northwest artist describes her music as “tiny worlds”, a refuge shaped by her upbringing in the Washington woods, suffused with old-Hollywood elegance and emotional depth. Mollie co-produced her newest song, “Doe Eyes”, along with her Dirty Blonde EP with Dean Reid (Lana Del Rey, Marina) and co-written with Reid and GRAMMY-nominated Casey Smith (Olivia Rodrigo, Ashe, Benson Boone).

Mollie adds: “I have always had a bad habit of romanticizing things/people that are now lost to time. This song is really the anthem for all the girls and guys out there who just can’t help but think one more night might be a good idea- even though it’s definitely not!”

Last month, Mollie released “Until We Meet Again” - a dusky, cinematic ballad steeped in Old Hollywood glamour. With a rare blend of chic elegance, playful confidence, and sincere sweetness, she infuses the track with timeless allure. The single was produced by Dean Reid (Lana Del Rey, MARINA) and co-written with Reid and GRAMMY-nominated songwriter Casey Smith (Olivia Rodrigo, Ashe, Benson Boone).


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Photo - Samuel Murray
Maddison Kate - More To Me.

Meanjin-based folk artist, Maddison Kate, continues to deliver raw emotion with her warm tones and tender melodies in her single 'More To Me' (just out Friday, July 11). She brings a contemplative and honest energy on this stunning new track, providing a glimpse of her upcoming EP 'What I'd Say To You', out on Friday, August 8.

Maddison Kate's journey into music started at age 9, where she would perform at open mic nights with just her vocals and her guitar, and since then her career has taken off to soaring heights. Now, she has a number of notable venues under her belt, including Gympie Music Muster and Queensland Music Festival, and recently, opening for Kyle Lionhart, on the Queensland leg of his 2024 ‘Careless’ Tour. 

Her poetic sound, folk melodies, and earthy tones have led to plenty of eyes on her and won her competitions like the 2TM Discovered Competition for Tamworth Country Music Festival and Queensland Music Festival’s On Song competition. 

'More To Me' is an introspective tune made from the gentle plinking of piano, soaring violin, charming guitar and vocals that play with the spectrum of emotion and become something angelic. This gentle song explores the overwhelming feelings about being better off without someone unless they grow and change, and hoping for that change regardless.  With her enchanting voice and delicate composition, this song is an introspective and meditative folk-pop number that moves like a playful dance. 

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Photo - Andrea Zvadova
MF Tomlinson - Die To Wake Up From A Dream (Album).

MF Tomlinson releases new album 'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' on PRAH Recordings. Tomlinson plays a run of in-store dates this coming week before embarking on a headline tour this October.

MF Tomlinson's third studio album 'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' marks the final chapter in a trilogy of self-produced full lengths, following his 2021 debut 'Strange Time' and 2023's 'We Are Still Wild Horses', respectively drawing universal praise from Uncut, Mojo, The Times, The Arts Desk, Record Collector, The Line of Best Fit, CLASH Magazine and many more.

An opus on human experience, new album 'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' is an urgent and vivid description of the times in which we live. Inspired in part by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov’s installation Labyrinth (My Mother’s Album), the album confronts darkness head-on; mapping the psychic geography of our reality, journeying through personal and collective dreamstates before emerging into a nuanced, grounded sense of hope.

Encompassing folk, shoegaze, art-rock, prog and orchestral traditions, the new album was produced by Tomlinson in his studio in Poplar, London. Meticulously captured one instrument at a time, 'Die To Wake Up From A Dream' is a psychoacoustic odyssey of impossible proportions.

From the post-punk pulse of today’s focus single 'Dream Of You' and the grandeur of album opener 'Blink And You’ll Miss It', to the liminal landscapes of instrumental pieces 'A Dream' and 'A Meadow (Part I)', Tomlinson’s work remains characteristically expansive.


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Anna Smyrk - ZOCO - Howling Bells - TCBYML

Photo - Michelle Grace Hunder Anna Smyrk - This is a Drill . Naarm/Melbourne based singer-songwriter Anna Smyrk shares a poignant moment o...