Viv & Riley - Paging Doctor Moon - Meagre Martin - Dictator Ship

Viv & Riley - Imaginary People.

The new single from Durham indie roots duo Viv & Riley (formerly Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno) is a wistful look at our many selves, at the refractions of our identities as we navigate the world. "‘Imaginary People’ is about evaluating and juggling all of the different versions of myself," Leva (the songwriter) says. "Was I adventurous and a little reckless? Or was I grounded and measured? Am I kind to myself or too judgemental?"

A bittersweet nostalgia lies at the heart of Imaginary People, the new album from Viv & Riley, coming September 15, 2023 on Free Dirt Records. Over ten tracks, the pair applies an indie roots sheen to newly composed pop gems.

Rooted originally in the folk tradition, the pair reframe the production into experimental territory, crafting songs that speak to finding a path forward into adulthood in an uncertain world. Gifted songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno’s first album under the name Viv & Riley is a subtle masterpiece of thought and reflection.

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Paging Doctor Moon - Dirty Alcoholic.

Pittsburgh-based indie band Paging Doctor Moon has released their newest single, Dirty Alcoholic, available for streaming from August 18th.

“This is our Spaghetti Western (Appalachian) exploration of addiction and self harm.  Sonically, it feels like cowboys dreaming on a pirate ship,” says Kirsten Heibert, songwriter and founder of Paging Doctor Moon.  The guitars rock us gently back and forth as the drums roll the ship through the waves; Heibert’s dreamy vocals blow wind into the sails.  The band recorded the song at Audible Images in Pittsburgh, and at their producer Julian Giaimo’s studio in upstate NY.

Paging Doctor Moon started as Heibert’s solo project in Brooklyn.  With an album and EP under her belt, she relocated to her hometown in 2021.  This is the first single featuring the new band members.

Dirty Alcoholic is the first of three singles with accompanying music videos to be released this year.  It will be followed by “Scars” and “Middle Management.”  The music videos are scripted by Heibert and filmed/directed by Danielle Powell with creative consulting by Giuliana Fox. The content may be dark, but this group is dedicated to finding the joy in everything they create.  Heibert hopes that the music makes you feel deeply…even if she is afraid to herself.

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Meagre Martin - Please Clap.

Berlin-based trio Meagre Martin has their shared new single 'Please Clap'. The single comes alongside the exciting news that on November 10th, the band will release their debut album Gut Punch via Mansions & Millions, as well as heading back to their native USA for a slew of live dates supporting Alt-J.

The project was founded in the summer of 2021 by the African-American musician and songwriter Sarah Martin (guitar), who was quickly joined by Federico ‘Freddy’ Corazzini (drums) and Max Hirtz-Wolf (bass).

On Gut Punch, Meagre Martin create a sound inspired by shoegaze, 90’s indie, or 'faux country,' as the band calls it, and juxtaposes these beautifully light soundscapes with lyrics that belie the sweetness of the sound with their vulnerability and depth. Sonically evoking images of California deserts and Berlin basements, of long thoughtful conversations in the twilight, days turning into nights in the park and nights turning into day again at a studio, Meagre Martin have created eleven tracks that beautifully flow into each other.

New single, 'Please Clap', is a satirical take on the feeling of inadequacy. "The original inspiration for the song came from using performance as a means of connection and a way to feel seen," explains Sarah. "As the song was forming, a lyric I was writing reminded me of a viral video from the 2016 US Presidential race of Jeb Bush giving a 'rousing' speech, then having to ask his audience to 'please clap'." Despite being against everything the Bush family stands for, Sarah felt pity for the eldest son, since he has always been overlooked throughout his career. Being the unseen second choice is something she could relate to.

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Dictator Ship - City Girl.

Dictator Ship is back, ready to launch their second studio album ”Electric Jihad” in September 2023. Blending energetic and raw rock’n'roll with exquisite multi-layered vocal harmonies and melodies inspired by 60’s soul and doo-wop, the band has carved out their very own niche in the rock landscape, perfectly displayed on the new album.

The second single leading up to ”Electric Jihad” is called ”City Girl” and is released on the 18th of August on The Sign Records.

The band comments on ”City Girl”: It’s a song about romance. About meeting a fantastic someone that you really want to sleep with and hang out with but you know you won’t ever get the chance. What can you do? You just get yourself a drink and move on.

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Meagre Martin - The Lemon Twigs - Ivan Moult - Tom Emlyn

Meagre Martin - All My Thoughts

Berlin via Boston up-and-coming indie project Meagre Martin share their gripping and intimate new single, "All My Thoughts." The track is out now on Mansions and Millions.

On the track, the lead-member Sarah Martin offers: "All My Thoughts' is about the pervasive feelings of grief and how we internalize it. How we continue to reference grief and the ones we've lost for the entirety of our lives. It describes how grief can shape the way we move through the world after those people are no longer here to advise us. It talks about this afterlife connection and also the ultimate fear of mortality and failure."

Meagre Martin is a Berlin-based indie music project founded by African-American musician/songwriter Sarah Martin (she/her) in the summer of 2021. Sarah is originally from Boston MA, but moved to Berlin Germany in the fall of 2017. Searching for meaning in a crumbling global climate, this project was created as a means of survival, and catharsis through uncertain times. A few months into the project's culmination, Freddy and Max joined the band to make a solid trio.

Blending together elements of lo-fi and new-Americana, Meagre Martin is a culmination of experience rooted in healing, through lyricism that gives nostalgia new layers and expands grief’s potential. Although Meagre Martin is a relatively new presence in the Berlin indie scene, they've already made a big impact, performing at shows all over the city. The band is now poised to broaden their reach beyond Berlin, having been hard at work on new music, including their newest single out now via Mansions and Millions.

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The Lemon Twigs - Everything Harmony (Album).

On Everything Harmony, the fourth full-length studio release from New York’s The Lemon Twigs, the prodigiously talented brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario offer 13 original servings of beauty that showcase an emotional depth and musical sophistication far beyond their years as a band, let alone as young men. While they eagerly devour musical influences from everything and everywhere, they have somehow arrived at a cohesive and dynamic sound that speaks to our troubled times.

Having bounded onto the music scene with their precocious 2016 debut Do Hollywood, they threw caution to the wind two years later on their followup Go to School. By the time of their third album, Songs for the General Public (2020) The Lemon Twigs had begun to pull from a wide range of multigenerational inspirations, expertly darting from twee chamber pop balladry to full on glam punk, mixing plaintive singer-songwriter confessionals with an almost Syd Barrett sense of outré pop. In an interview from the time, they expressed an interest in creating “something really beautiful sounding” based on vocal harmonies and developing their combined melodic sensibilities into a setting where “the sounds were as important as the songs” themselves.

On Everything Harmony, the brothers have fully realized that vision, with a unified “Lemon Twigs sound” that successfully blends their distinct personalities while giving voice to their diverse and eclectic influences. Opening the album with the unassuming acoustic folk of plaintive “When Winter Comes Around,” which echoes the sophisticated grandeur of classic Simon & Garfunkel recordings, they immediately switch things up to the sunny classic pop motif of “In My Head.” From that point on Everything Harmony makes it clear that the Lemon Twigs can’t be pinned down.

Having recently worked with friends like Natalie Mering, with whom they appeared on the latest Weyes Blood album, they also collaborated with classic rock hero Todd Rundgren on his most recent album, Space Force. Rundgren, himself no stranger to eclecticism, says he can relate to their time-tripping approach to contemporary pop.

“They started when they were five and six years old, doing TV and Broadway and things like that,” says Rundgren. “So, they have built-in appreciation for music that is of a couple of generations before theirs. I think they were bored by the music of their own generation, and since you can’t fast forward to the music of the future, you just start going backwards to music that was made before you were born. I can empathize with that impulse, because I did that too, back in the seventies.”

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Ivan Moult - Written On The Wall.

Cardiff-based singer-songwriter Ivan Moult announces the release of his new single 'Written On The Wall’, taken from his upcoming album 'Songs From Severn Grove'.

The single is released today May 5th. Following on from his last single, ‘Out Of Time’, Moult’s latest offering showcases hisunique blend of indie-folk, soulful vocals andpoignant lyrics that delve into themes of love,loss and hope.

Speaking about the single, Moult said: "Lyrically a song about having a conversation with a new partner about their previous lovelife/partners. Acknowledging their experience. Questioning whether or not you want to or need to know their romantic past. Trying to reassure them things wouldbe different.

Observing it’s apparent in other ways without needing to be discussed.” ‘Songs From Severn Grove’, which is due out on May 26th, showcases Ivan's voice front and centre, with layered harmonies and a soundscape of delay-soaked electric guitars, drums, and bass.

Ivan Moult is set to release his third album, 'Songs From Severn Grove', this Spring on independent Welsh record label, Bubblewrap Collective. His previous albums have received radio support from BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio Wales, and have been featured on Folk Radio UK.

Ivan's second album, 'Longest Shadow', released in 2018, won him festival slots at Cornbury Festival, Folk on The Dock, and Festival of Voice, as well as support slots with This Is The Kit, Becca Mancari, and Willy Mason. For this new album, Ivan played, recorded, engineered, and mixed all of the instruments himself at his home studio in Cardiff. The album charts a journey of growth and change, beginning with the lockdown during the 2020 pandemic and continuing through Ivan's experiences of fatherhood and the development of his love and relationships.

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Tom Emlyn - It Doesn't Bother Me.

Prolific Swansea artist Tom Emlyn has shared the video for his latest single 'It Doesn't Bother Me'. It's the follow-up to ‘Broken Mirror’ and ‘Like a Cigarette', it's the last of three singles leading up to the album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ released today Friday the 5th of May 2023.

Engineered by Randell Denning, BBC studios Swansea in 2018 ‘It Doesn’t Bother Me’ rattles with introspection, as Emlyn sketches out nightmarish visions of characters who lose themselves in the pursuit of success. Amidst a scorched strum of fuzzy guitars, battered acoustics and skippy keys and synths. It’s a raw earworm that tries to throw off the shadow of doubt.

Emlyn says: “This song is from the mind of an unreliable narrator, trying to convince himself of his own aloofness as much as he is the listener. It paints a nightmare picture of self-doubt, anxiety, dead-end jobs, bad decisions, time running out. Schizophrenic images of audible lights in the engine yard. Losing your real self in the pursuit of money, recognition, anything. The masks we wear to convince ourselves and others of our resilience.”

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