The Northern Territories - Seasurfer - Frankie Wesson

Photo - Chris Ruiz

The Northern Territories - Arizona.

The Northern Territories reveal the final advance single 'Arizona', which is taken from the forthcoming new full-length "A Star in Orbit Still". The fourth album of the Swedish melancholic synth duo has been chalked up for release on May 23, 2025.

The Northern Territories comment: "As the title suggests, this song was started in Arizona, on a road trip through the desert on the way to Mexico, while passing cities like Sedona and Tucson on the way to Puerto Peñasco, on the Gulf of California", singer Stefan Sääf writes on behalf of the duo.

"Following our return to Europe, the working title 'Arizona' remained although the song changed somewhat. The idea to start the song a cappella was a last minute thought when we were mixing the track. We had just watched Bon Iver's amazing live version of 'Heavenly Father' and that might have inspired the idea to start with only vocals."

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Seasurfer - Collapsing.

Collapsing is the first single taken from the fourth Seasurfer album Electronic Monsters, which will be released on May 30th, 2025. The main single track is a remix by M!R!M, the solo project of Jack Milwaukee, Italian producer & multi-instrumental artist based in East London. Jack is one of Seasurfer's favorite musicians and the band is very proud about the dark, hypnotic twist he gave to the track.

The single also features Dirk Knight's own Seasurfer single mix and another remix by M/A/T, the electronic music project of Matthias Bischoff, a founding member of the former Hamburg SynthPop band Cyber, who's also been active as a DJ for many years.

Collapsing is an anti-war song. Seasurfer singer Apolonia, who wrote the lyrics, recalls: "When Dirk first sent me the track, the war in Ukraine just started. It was heart breaking to see yet again another useless war, destroying innocent people’s home’s, which could also be my or your home and how it was presented on television like entertainment… 'Watching our own demise'...In the song I ask the question again and again: why?"

Electronic Monsters is the fourth Seasurfer full-length and, after the Zombies album, the second with the current Seasurfer singer Apolonia. Other guest singers can also be heard on the album: the wonderful Gloria Endres de Oliveira, a multidisciplinary visual artist from Berlin with Brazilian origins, the singers Jana Marie and Jade from Hamburg, with ethereal voices and long reverb tails.


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Frankie Wesson - This is Motion (Album).

Singer-songwriter Frankie Wesson’s third studio album ‘This is Motion’ has been years in the making. This coming-of-age record, although boasting two award-winning singles, is more than just a collection of songs. From start to finish it takes you on a journey through periods of Wesson’s life, loves, losses and coming to terms with what never was. A present theme throughout this album is nostalgia in motion, moving from time to place, visiting and revisiting memories and relationships through an older and more grounded lens.

Not only does Wesson explore time in this way through her songwriting on this record but also genre. From soft, folky, almost orchestral soundscapes in songs like Delicate and Valentines. She continues to move through her emotions leaning into country, ambient pop and heavier pop/rock sounds, showcasing her songwriting skills in a range of ways throughout.

Swansea’s Soundboard magazine described Wesson’s music as ‘timeless; appealing to fans of Fleetwood Mac and Paramore alike without compromising or diluting any of the style that makes Wesson’s music her own’.

Frankie Wesson · This Is Motion

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Seasurfer - Chris Williams and Kid Reverie

Seasurfer - Dive in (the alternative Mix EP).

This "fan-edition" is only available via Bandcamp and features four alternative mixes of songs from the debut Seasurfer album "Dive In" with singer Dorian E. The album brought Seasurfer worldwide attention in the dreampop and shoegaze scene, and was released by the cult label Saint Marie Records from the US/Texas.

The "Winterblume keen K-Mix" was done back in 2014 by producer keen K in Berlin, where Dorian recorded the vocals for Dive In. The other mixes are based on the last Seasurfer live shows with more electronic drums and sounds. In particular, the scene hit "Stay" gets a new, thrilling face here with its new beat machine drums and more electronics.

Dirk: "I'm still in love with Dorian's vocals and the wall of sound of Dive In. The album opened a lot of doors and it felt good to play these songs live, also with other singers. But they work better with drums more in the front, the whole sound is different and more powerful. The keen K mix is back from 2014 and has a different, more pop sound. It doesn't fit with the album, but again Dorian's voice works so well. I think fans of Dorian and of Seasurfer will like the tracks." Active since 2013, Seasurfer is the Hamburg-based band around songwriter & fuzz-reverb-lover Dirk Knight, forgoing the way of the conventional band by working together with a collective of singers & musicians to assist in building his idea of sound.

Back in the Nineties Dirk was in the so-called "Heavenly Voices" scene with his former band Dark Orange on the German cult-label HYPERIUM, collaborating with the likes of Robin Guthrie from Cocteau Twins and John Fryer (4AD, Mute Records, This Mortal Coil). As Seasurfer, he released four albums and some EPs and singles working with singers Dorian E. from Berlin, Julia from dream pop band Chandeen, Elena Alice Fossi from Kirlian Camera, Krissy Vanderwoude from US shoegaze band Whimsical, Apolonia and Ricardo Veloso from Porto.

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Chris Williams and Kid Reverie - Half A Mile.

Chris Williams and Kid Reverie’s new album began with an inquisitive search for a simple sound. Having heard Steve Varney’s (Kid Reverie) open-back banjo accompanying fellow songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov on a YouTube video, Williams began tracking down something similar for his own personal collection. “That banjo sounded so amazing on one condenser mike, and I wanted to find one like it,” says Williams. After a long search, he landed on Varney’s website. Williams noticed that he offered lessons and decided to sign up for one or two. “I was so taken with his work and his instrument that I’d pay to talk to him,” Williams chuckles. Kid Reverie recalls, “Chris always came to our lessons with a solid idea. I routinely found myself saying something like, ‘This is great, now let’s make it a song.’”

The pair have just announced the upcoming album Something from Nothing—due out March 3rd, 2023. Born from their initial collaboration, the pair eventually c0-wrote the twelve songs that became Something from Nothing. C0-produced by Williams and Varney and mastered by Varney, the two played every instrument on the album—with the exception of Michael McKee who joins in on drums for five songs and Ayda Varney who plays cat toy sounds on a tune. “This process was very cathartic. It took a trying time for both of us and allowed us to open ourselves to a writing partnership that neither of us expected. I am grateful for this amazing musical experience and hope everyone enjoys these songs as much as we loved creating them!” Kid Reverie affirms that he’s “rarely had such deep collaboration with another songwriter. For so long it felt like we were just doing lessons. I think it took both of us quite a while to realize we were co-writing songs and making an album.”

This week, Chris Williams and Kid Reverie shared the first listen from Something from Nothing, the ebbing and flowing “Half a Mile.” Written a few tunes into Williams’ and Varney’s time writing songs together, “Half a Mile” was a marked point of exploration for the pair, entering a mix of time signatures and tempo changes. “Every writing session we had, I was blown away by Steve’s in-depth knowledge of theory, song structure and catalog of hundreds of songs and examples within each at his fingertips,” remembers Williams. “Very useful when reaching for ideas and inspiration.”

 

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Favours - Susto - Seasurfer

Favours - Call Me.

Favours are made up of Jacq Andrade and Alex Zen. They released their first LP, Made to Wait, in 2020. It was recorded at Candle Recording Studios in Toronto. Their song “Stowaway” was featured on Netflix and CBC Gem. 

Recently, Favours joined forces with Jacq’s brother, Mark Andrade and built a home recording studio in a former halfway house in Mimico. Throughout the pandemic, Favours tracked a ton of music in their home studio. Their EP, Left Behind, will be released in 2021 and it features a fresh dreampop, new-wave sound inspired by their shared love of the DIY post-punk feel of Robert Rental. 

The band collaborated with a strong team for this upcoming EP. They enlisted the talents of Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning who plays bass on the EP, the engineering chops of Tallies’ Dylan Franklin who engineered the drums and bass, and the mixing prowess of Alexandre Bonenfont.

Favours · CALL ME

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Susto - Summertime.

Susto will return with Time in the Sun on October 29th via New West Records. The 11-song set was produced and engineered by Wolfgang Zimmerman (Band of Horses) in the band’s hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. Time in the Sun follows their critically acclaimed 2019 studio album Ever Since I Lost My Mind which Paste raved was “a resounding triumph.” 

The joy of birth, the closure of death, the warmth of true friendship, and the future rotate on the axis of the band’s New West Records debut. Frontman Justin Osborne distills this ebb and flow into songs underpinned by lyrical eloquence, unpredictable dynamics, and a thoroughly alive rock and roll spirit.

Prior to entering the studio, Osborne became a father and midway through recording, lost his own father to cancer. Osborne says, “Because I had begun writing when I found out I was going to be a dad, these events were the biggest inspirations for the record. It felt like I was in between the beginning and end of life. Up until my own father passed away, I felt like it was an album about new life and becoming a parent. His passing shifted the narrative towards the cyclical nature of life, death, and new births.”

 

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Seasurfer - Drifting.

Shortly after Seasurfer’s acclaimed third album “Zombies” has also been released on vinyl in addition to the earlier CD edition, the Hamburg-based dream pop duo comes up with a new version of the song “Drifting”. The track turned out to be one of the fan’s favourites on the record, so Dirk Knight and Apolonia decided to produce an alternate mix.   

However, the song still captivates due to the rich atmosphere and the dark elegance of the floating synth sounds which reveal a blissful 80s feeling. This applies all the more so for the “Extended Single Mix” – almost 12 minutes long and probably one of the most impressing reworks in the band’s history.

Dirk Knight explains: "For me “Drifting” is the song with the coolest bass of the whole album “Zombies”. For the first time I recorded all the basses by myself and learned to love playing this instrument. Basses are extremely important to us and determine the harmonies and melodies, similar to how Simon Gallup (The Cure), Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) and Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins) are doing it. For the single and the extended mix we let the drums run straight through to make the song even more mesmerizing.

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