Showing posts with label Simone White. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simone White. Show all posts

Wednesday, 10 June 2026

Schizo Fun Addict - French Films - Simone White - Georgian - Silke Bischoff

Schizo Fun Addict - Desolate Ecstasy (Album).

Schizo Fun Addict New Jersey’s finest and the first band ever to grace to grooves of Fruits de Mer Records bring you their new album, ‘Desolate Ecstasy’. Is it dreampop? shoegaze? drone? maybe a bit of all three - you'll have to have a listen a judge for yourself. (A limited edition vinyl release happened today 10 June, however it was sold out on pre order a while back).

Over to Jet Wintzer from the band to explain the background to the band/album “Desolate Ecstasy a concept album about the 27 year career of Schizo Fun Addict. We were the first band on Fruits de Mer Records prophesied to be "a label of love" by Ian McCan reviewing us in Record Collector. 

We were Mark Barton's favorite band (see his liner notes to our lp "The Last Wave"). Greg Healey gave us 5 stars twice in Shindig! Brian Bordello is our biggest fan. Everett True said we were as good as The Stone Roses in Mojo. Prog compared our "El Shoegaze Bossa Nova" lp to Jobim and Brasil 66; Dave Thompson in Goldmine told everyone we were "the greatest musical secret of the 21st century." Another prophecy which remains true..." It’s true, the band stepped in to record covers of George Martin’s ‘Theme One’ and the intro theme to ‘Ogdens Nut Gone Flake’ back in 2008 when the label was all but dead in the water before we’d even learned how to doggy-paddle.


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French Films - Dearly

The return of French Films continues with Dearly, the band’s second comeback single. After almost ten years away, the new material has brought French Films back into the conversation around Finnish indie music. Helsingin Sanomat recently published a major interview on the band’s return, and this weekend French Films will play their first live show in years at Kesärauha Festival in Turku.

In the 2010s, French Films toured across Europe and Asia, played Roskilde, and became one of the most notable Finnish indie rock exports of their generation. Their biggest song has passed one million Spotify streams, despite being released in an era when CD was still a central music format.

Dearly is not nostalgia cosplay. It sounds like a band reconnecting with the thing that made them matter in the first place: bright guitars, romantic urgency and a little bit of northern restlessness.


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Simone White - Fortunately Gone.

Simone White has teamed up neo-classical composer, cellist, and producer Brent Arnold, and the pair have conjured-up a delightful take on The Breeders’ “Fortunately Gone”. Stripping away the grunge-infused stylistics of the original and replenishing them with bright string sections and crisp vocal duets; the result is a refreshing revision of the 1990 ‘Pod’ album classic.

As Simone White says of the track: “With pulsing plucked strings launching into a playful and soaring arrangement, this delicate short duet is sweet and like two swallows flying on a spring day, suddenly gone.” Tying-in neatly with her new album release ‘Letter To The Last Generation’, the producer of "Fortunately Gone”, Brent Arnold worked with Simone on the stunning recent single “Blueprint”, which preceded the record. "Fortunately Gone” is streaming on all services now.

Hawaii born singer-songwriter Simone White has released eight albums spanning simple acoustic folk, Americana and electronic indie. You may remember her from her records on the UK’s Honest Jon's label: I am the Man (2007) , Yakiimo (2009) and Silver Silver (2012) all critically acclaimed by Der Spiegel among others (MOJO, Uncut). German Rolling Stone made a five page focus piece on her in 2009 calling her "one of the really great American songwriters".


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Photo - Robyn Smalley
Georgian - Medusa.

Manchester-based Georgian have shared the final introduction to their forthcoming EP ‘Crackled Grounds’ with focus track ‘Medusa’ ahead of their debut full-length release on Friday. via Heist or Hit (Westside Cowboy, Her’s).
 
Formed in 2024 and with three previous singles in their musical catalogue, Georgian are a five-piece outfit comprising Georgia McKiernan (vocals, acoustic guitar), James Poole, James Polglase (both lead and rhythm guitar, BVs), Connor Alder (drums) and (bass). Together Georgian have an expansive sound that reflects each of the band’s tastes, retaining a modern approach, but keeping the sound of their influences alive. Wrangling ‘60s pop, country, folk, shoegaze, psychedelia and further-flung traditional styles, their songs tell tales of navigating harsh emotional environments and lived experiences.
 
The debut ‘Crackled Grounds EP’ was laid down with producer Arno Stols at Magenta Studio in the peaceful Amsterdam countryside. Taking a leaf from Brian Jonestown Massacre’s melodic revivalism, Georgian began emulating the warm, unsettling, mysterious 60s-70s production of artists to which they had mutually become accustomed. Lyrically taking the listener to a place of escapism, the songs tell of battling the elements, female empowerment, and deep-rooted nostalgia.

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Silke Bischoff - Northern Lights.

For far too long, the artistic legacy of iconic German dark wave and synthpop act Silke Bischoff has been withheld from the world. This will change soon with "Tears - A Collection of Silke Bischoff Songs", which is the first step in making these important milestones of the goth scene officially available to the public again. The compilation album with carefully remastered tracks and even a new song will be released on September 4, 2026.

Silke Bischoff comments: "The track 'Northern Lights' was conceived during one of our creative forays into the Netherlands", Axel Kretschmann recalls. "We had rented a beach bungalow in Zandvoort to dive completely into our music for a while. Even all our studio gear and the instruments got carted there by our label, which meant that we were working under near perfect conditions. By the way, the song title, 'Northern Lights', had quite a profane origin. It was the name of our favourite brand of 'funny cigarettes' at the time. And yes, they were quite helpful and inspiring our creativity back in the days."

Silke Bischoff were an iconic band that left a massive legacy and were mournfully remembered far beyond the electronic and goth scenes that they championed particularly in Germany during the 90s. Their albums are regarded milestones until today, but internal friction, legal issues, and most of all the tragic passing of one of its founding members, Felix Flaucher, has left their works in a limbo for many years. The compilation "Tears - A Collection of Silke Bischoff Songs" is the first step in making their oeuvre available to the public again.


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Thursday, 5 March 2026

Trippers & Askers - KiKi Holli & The Remedy - Asara - Simone White - Kimon Kirk feat. Robbie Fulks - Sarah & Collin

Photo - Charlie Boss
Trippers & Askers - Kin.

Tried To Do’s is the second full length album from Trippers & Askers the songwriting and recording project of Jay Hammond (releases May 8 2026 via Sleepy Cat Records). Drafts of this record started as early as 2019. The initial idea was a Parable of the Talents concept album to follow 2021's Parable of the Sower concept album Acorn and/or an album about Hammond's hometown of Jackson, TN. 

Many moves, much traveling and many losses later the loss of his future child, the loss of his grandmother, the near loss of his father in law, and the hit of hurricane Helene in his adopted hometown of Asheville, NC - this record became a record about loss. It’s a record about ways of mourning, ways of "remembering", both with the family in which Hammond was raised as a child and the family of which he has come to inhabit multiple roles as an adult.

The songs on Tried To Do’s deal with the quotidian themes of love, family and loss through the prism of both Buddhist and Christian ways of mourning. Through songs and stories of loss in relation to Hammond's upbringing in the bible belt U.S. South, Tried To Do’s sets up a productive tension between Buddhist and Christian rituals and beliefs about mourning.


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KiKi Holli & The Remedy - Running Out of Time.

Los Angeles based indie-pop vocalist and songwriter KiKi Holli returns with her cinematic new single "Running Out of Time", out yesterday March 4th under her expanded artist name KiKi Holli & The Remedy. Rooted in indie-pop but layered with dream pop, baroque flourishes, and dark wave atmosphere, "Running Out of Time" creates a fully immersive sonic world. Lush synths and sweeping orchestration pulse beneath Holli’s voice, building a sense of urgency that feels both intimate and expansive. Her vocals move from restrained vulnerability to soaring intensity, drawing listeners into a space where time feels fragile and essential, a sonic experience meant to be felt as much as heard.

The release marks a continuing evolution for Holli. The addition of “& The Remedy” reflects the magnetic energy of her live band and her ongoing creative partnership with two‑time Grammy‑nominated producer Ethan Allen (Ben Harper, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Tricky). Together, they shape a sound that blends cinematic scale with emotional precision — immersive, transportive, and grounded in songcraft.

Her December 2025 single "Wish", the first release under KiKi Holli & The Remedy, earned widespread acclaim, landing on Atwood Magazine’s Songs of the Year 2025 list. Ladygunn praised how “from the very first listen… the artist blends emotion and strength,” and EARMILK highlighted the track’s spacious depth and captivating atmosphere, noting its exploration of hope, longing, and the tension between past and future. 

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Asara - Cute.

Asara releases her first single and music video today for the song Cute. Asara is a Parisian multi-instrumentalist artist launching her first solo project. After spending the last four years with the band Dog Park, in which she plays guitar, bass, keyboards, and sings, she is now opening up a more intimate space.

Composed throughout 2025, her first solo album is structured like an audio diary, almost a documentary, recounting the past year. The project sets the voice at the center, and the tracks navigate between melancholy and rhythmic energy influenced by the songwriting of artists like Clairo, Smerz or Blood Orange. 

The first single, “cute,” addresses the difficulty and tenderness of watching someone cry. Carried by a deliberately bright tone, the song talks about break-up without dwelling on it, and looks resolutely toward the future. A fast-paced first single, “cute” relies on an effective drum machine and a voice brought to the forefront. A small rhythmic synth and a bouncing guitar riff carry the song, in a refined but haunting production. The whole finds its inspiration in contemporary pop music, direct and melodic.


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Simone White - Blueprint.

For her latest act, White conjures a curious baroque-pop composition that is as engaging as it is enigmatic. Reminiscent of complex, non-linear outings of Laurie Andersen, Agnes Obel, or Aldous Harding “Blueprint” finds White's gossamer vocal enveloped by dancing string arrangements by neoclassical minimalist composer Brent Arnold.

A song that asks as many questions as it ever gives answers, “Blueprint” deconstructs urban settings familiar to all of us and unravels their existential mechanics, line by line. “How much do you think it weighs? Is it possible to learn from within the maze?” she wonders here. The single is accompanied by an official video, which is directed by Mark Benjamin. Layered, gliding and hypnotic, it lulls the viewer into a thoughtful reverie.

“Blueprint” is taken from Simone White’s forthcoming album ‘Letter To The Last Generation’, available on CD + Digitally on 1st May 2026 (via Ghost Palace / Cargo). Something of a lost album, ‘Letter To The Last Generation’ has floated around the internet for some years. Lost in the twilight period of those first few weeks of the pandemic as the world readjusted to a new era, the album received an extremely limited vinyl release, before disappearing into the ether. With the majority of its tracks written and recorded in the weeks before White made a major move from LA to NYC, ‘Letter to the Last Generation’ feels like a collage from an artist in a restless, transitory state.

 

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Kimon Kirk feat. Robbie Fulks - Dashboard Hula Doll. 

Kimon Kirk & Robbie Fulks are excited to announce the release of “Dashboard Hula Doll” off Kirk’s forthcoming solo effort, Bikini Jardine, due Summer 2026. “Dashboard Hula Doll” chronicles the story  of a desperate man on the verge of losing everything – everything except his guiding light, the grass-skirted hula doll perched atop the dash of his family car. 

The story unfolds over the song’s two careening minutes and humorously evokes the downward spiral of a hapless husband “half-a-way to Denver on a three day bender,” to quote one of its lyrics. “Dashboard Hula Doll” pays tribute in spirit to one of Kirk and Fulks’s musical heroes, beloved NRBQ guitarist Big Al Anderson, whose tongue-in-cheek compositions and ferocious guitar playing clearly informed the mood of the recording.  

“Dashboard Hula Doll,” written with the pioneering alt-country artist Robbie Fulks, includes a video filmed in the Southern California desert. Recorded in one live session at LA’s Sunset Sound, “Dashboard Hula Doll” features Kirk on vocals and electric guitar, Fulks on vocals and acoustic guitar, Duke Levine (Bonnie Raitt) on lead guitar, and the powerhouse rhythm section of Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann) on bass and Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss) on drums.


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Sarah & Collin - She Made The Rain.

Sarah & Collin are a Los Angeles-based duo whose music lives in the tension between light and shadow, a place where atmospheric alternative-indie, industrial edges and cinematic psych-rock coalesce into something neither fully of this world nor outside it. Their debut album, This Time, out April 10th, embodies that meeting point with remarkable clarity, creating a world that feels immersive, dreamlike and charged with emotional depth.

This week the pair have shared their new single, 'She Made The Rain'. Of the track, Collin says, "I got rain-checked, and it humbled me, hopefully. A year later I met up with her and showed her the song and she didn't like it. I never saw her again."

Vocals from either singer drift above textured soundscapes before folding into one another and revealing a layered duality at the centre of their collaboration. On stage, they’ve already been described as offering a “cinematic music experience,” with listeners drawing comparisons to the strange, magnetic tone of a David Lynch film. The album extends that atmosphere, translating it into a fully realised sonic landscape.

Alongside the recorded work, the world around This Time has been growing through a series of intentional, carefully crafted DIY performances across Los Angeles. Rather than moving through the city’s traditional venue circuit, Sarah & Collin have rooted themselves in community-oriented, artist-driven spaces - pop-up shows in homes, backyards and unconventional rooms that mirror the cinematic intimacy of their sound. These events have become one of the main generators of early buzz, drawing crowds through word-of-mouth and the duo’s reputation for transforming everyday spaces into atmospheric environments.


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Friday, 27 February 2026

Scorie - Ben Chapman - Eric Gabriel - Simone White - Lottie McLeod - Licorice Chamber - The Great Emu War Casualties

Scorie - Room Full of Gangsters.

The new single from French outfit Scorie "Room Full of Gangsters," is released this week. This new track heralds the release of the band's first 5-track EP, "Gallodrome," arriving on April 24th via Géographie. Room Full Of Gangsters, like an epic Western Spaghetti, tells the advent of an end, and glorifies human vice in order to ridicule it. This track is first and foremost a tale of self-awareness, through some sort of Death Row, where redemption does not exist. It’s the story of a monster whose epiphany occurs only when he ends up surrounded by his peers. 

This Purgatory’s waiting room, orchestrated by a burning crescendo, where trumpets rub against screams and punkish dirt, explores the classic theme of the last day of a condemned man, who fights his true nature to finally accept who he is, a preacher thirsting for decadence, a shabby, sweat-smelling Tony Montana, a lost sheep dreaming of being the Big Bad Wolf.

Scorie is a beef bourguignon where the red wine has been replaced by two bottles of  cognac. It’s a sunset drive with one wheel missing. It’s a tank top in the dead of winter and a  100% polyester turtleneck in the middle of a heatwave. After more than a year of meticulous distillation, the band is set to release their first 5-tracks  EP “Gallodrome” on Géographie. 


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Photo - Aubrey Wise
Ben Chapman - Everything’s Different.

Last year brought profound change for Nashville-based roots rocker Ben Chapman. Within ten months, he learned that his then girlfriend fellow singer-songwriter Meg McRee — was pregnant, they married in the spring, and welcomed their first child in September. It’s no surprise, then, that the phrase “Everything’s Different” were the words that defined their 2025. Now, today Chapman is officially entering a new era and releasing his first single of the new year titled “Everything’s Different” via Soundly Music. Written by Chapman, McRee and Bryan Simpson the homespun track finds Chapman reflecting on the passage of time over an ageless Southern rock sonic landscape with jangling keys, resonant organ and Chapman’s signature fluid guitar playing.

It was also recently announced that Chapman is featured in the 2026 music documentary Ten Year Town, which follows nine Nashville singer/songwriters across a pivotal stretch of their lives. The film celebrated its world premiere earlier this month at the Belcourt Theatre, and tonight Chapman will put on his first Peach Jam show of 2026 at the Basement East featuring other artists from the film including Brit Taylor, Gabe Lee, Chris Canterbury and more. 

“In a way this song was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy,” Chapman explains. “When we wrote it, the hurricane that was approaching my life hadn’t hit just yet, but just a few short months later we were expecting a baby and getting married. Even though 2025 changed everything, sometimes I still feel like the same kid trying to navigate it all. I love the way a song can grow in meaning long after the day it’s written, and this one definitely has.” 


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Photo - Alex SK Brown
Eric Gabriel - Lucky Day Roadrunner.

On a day off from tour in Phoenix, AZ, a curious stranger gestured toward Eric Gabriel from across the street. Following the direction of her finger, Gabriel saw the roadrunner perched on a curb. Remarking that they are always in motion, the binocular-clad woman said, “It must be your lucky day.”  

Fittingly, the NYC native's sophomore effort 'Lucky Day Roadrunner' is about the odd and meaningful connections found by taking a minute to look around or follow the directions of a friendly stranger. And it was a lucky day. Not just because he had never seen a roadrunner before, but also because the stranger shared her excitement, creating a collective experience and a new meaning in Gabriel's solitary, otherwise aimless walk in an unknown city.

Compared to his first solo record, Samara (2025), the album feels a bit looser, a bit less serious, and welcomes more roughness around the edges. Full of twists and turns, dive bars and long drives, Lucky Day Roadrunner presents a cohort of characters who feel as down on their luck as they do certain their luck is about to change. After all, we often feel luckiest when we escape near tragedy, or something bad almost happens: When a car almost crashes in “Blinded by the Light” or when the boy changes his wish over a birthday candle before "blowing it" on “Looking Back.”  The songs weave in and out of truth and fantasy, childhood memories and present moments, vulnerability and a humorous deflections — all together presenting a collection of magnetic stories filled with light-hearted cynicism and bittersweet nostalgia. 


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Simone White - Blueprint.

For her latest act, White conjures a curious baroque-pop composition that is as engaging as it is enigmatic. Reminiscent of complex, non-linear outings of Laurie Andersen, Agnes Obel, or Aldous Harding “Blueprint” finds White's gossamer vocal enveloped by dancing string arrangements by neoclassical minimalist composer Brent Arnold. 

A song that asks as many questions as it ever gives answers, “Blueprint” deconstructs urban settings familiar to all of us and unravels their existential mechanics, line by line. “How much do you think it weighs? Is it possible to learn from within the maze?” she wonders here. The single is accompanied by an official video, which is directed by Mark Benjamin. Layered, gliding and hypnotic, it lulls the viewer into a thoughtful reverie. 

“Blueprint” is taken from Simone White’s forthcoming album ‘Letter To The Last Generation’, available on CD + Digitally on 1st May 2026 (via Ghost Palace / Cargo). Something of a lost album, ‘Letter To The Last Generation’ has floated around the internet for some years. Lost in the twilight period of those first few weeks of the pandemic as the world readjusted to a new era, the album received an extremely limited vinyl release, before disappearing into the ether. With the majority of its tracks written and recorded in the weeks before White made a major move from LA to NYC, ‘Letter to the Last Generation’ feels like a collage from an artist in a restless, transitory state.

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Photo - Carrie McLeod
Lottie McLeod - Important To You.

Magan-djin/Brisbane-based singer-songwriter Lottie McLeod who has quickly built a reputation for atmospheres and lyrics that connect and resonate deeply, tapping into art's ability to comfort and even quietly heal wounds this week shares 'Important To You', a song that dives into the complexity of "setting boundaries for your own preservation", especially when both parties are struggling. 

Released following the recent announcement of her signing to ABC Music, joining labelmates Emily Wurramara, Playlunch, Flynn Gurry and more, 'Important To You' and its bayside black-and-white visualiser is the first new music from Lottie since her critically beloved debut EP Bug (2025) and live performance for triple j's 50th birthday. With the single marking a maturation in sound and perspective for the young artist, 'Important To You' is out now via ABC Music.

On 'Important To You', Lottie McLeod's initially soft but assured vocals carry grief, regret and determination across low-slung guitar and a bed of plaintive, stare-out-over-the-sea indie/alt-folk instrumentation that builds with fuzzed-out guitar, McLeod's increasingly resolute voice and splashy drums to a spontaneous scream of release in the track's dense, noisy outro.

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Licorice Chamber - Remnants (EP).

Led by goth siren Layla Reyna, darkwave / goth rock quartet Licorice Chamber from Tacoma, Washington, have just released their new Remnants EP (24 February 2026), ahead of a string of US West Coast live dates. Remnants is Licorice Chamber’s third EP since forming in 2021, and the first to feature new drummer Cory Sorrentino in place of the drum machine: joining guitarist Marc Jones (also a former member of Strap On Halo), and bassist Joe Fox. Discussing the themes explored by the new three-song Remnants EP, Layla Reyna says:

“The EP title Remnants suggests aftermath, what survives destruction. Rather than romanticizing despair, the songs feel like they’re exploring what’s left when illusions fall away. ‘Heavy’ explores the invisible weight of self-condemnation and the lasting impact of what we carry in silence.

With ‘Never the Same’, I was thinking about that moment when you realize there’s no going back and that something changes you permanently. Its origin is a dream I had that tasted like falling — the idea behind my first EP, and what ultimately convinced me to start Licorice Chamber. ‘Feign’ explores the armor we wear. The ways we perform strength when we’re actually unraveling.”

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The Great Emu War Casualties - Wanna See You.

'Wanna See You’ (out Friday, February 27), the second single from The Great Emu War Casualties upcoming debut album, ‘Public Sweetheart No.1' (out Friday, March 27), is a slice of everyday happiness in the band's otherwise cathartic and emotional repertoire. 

Following on from their earlier single this year ‘Donut’, ‘Wanna See You’ is proof that the band can write a happy song - if they choose to. Their previous three EPs sing to broken hearts, existential reflections, and candid commentary on life, but as the band moves into album territory, ‘Wanna See You’ breaks up that anxiety and reminds us that life can still be ok. Joe Jackson shares:

“Wanna See You is proof that I can write a happier song and just choose not to 95% of the time. It’s actually not that happy is it? It’s a simple song about the fact that I wanna see you every time you call and sometimes that’s all you need.” 

Even for their ‘happy song’, The Great Emu War Casualties have demonstrated their skill in contrast, combining the light and the dark through their bleak but evocative imagery, and bright, spirited musicality. Continuing with their sharp and observant lyricism, ‘Wanna See You’ explores that feeling of wanting to see someone when they call. 


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Rusty Shackle - Mike Little - South Summit - The Indie Pea

Rusty Shackle - Riders Of The Purple Sage. Rusty Shackle are back with a moody new single 'Riders Of The Purple Sage' released last...