Violent Vickie - Jasmine Rodgers - Van Plating

Violent Vickie returns with a new video for 'Under the Gun' and once again our favorite Dark Synth-Riot artist is on fabulous form as the song reminds us of just how good her recent album release really is! ===== It's been over a year since Jasmine Rodgers last graced our pages and 'Flies' makes for a welcome return from this talented and creative modern folk artist. ===== Van Plating just released 'Bird on a Wire' and it's a fabulous singer-songwriter piece where her vocals are wonderful and the musical arrangement adds so much more as the layers build.

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Violent Vickie - Under the Gun.

Los Angeles-based Dark Synth-Riot artist Violent Vickie released the Music Video for "Under The Gun" on October 23.

The video was directed and edited by Nick Pagonakis of Underboss Films and shot in a parking lot in Long Beach, CA by Jennifer Miller.  The song is a seductively cold reaction to the pressure to conform and produce in a capitalist society.

Violent Vickie is a Los Angeles based Dark Synth-Riot artist consisting of Vickie and co-producer/recording guitarist E.  Vickie has toured with Hanin Elias of Atari Teenage Riot and shared the stage with Jessie Evans (The Vanishing), Trans X, Them Are Us Too, Aimon & The Missing Persons.  

She has toured the US & Europe and played Insted Fest, Solidarity Fest, Shoutback Fest & Gay Prides and Ladyfests.  Vickie’s tracks have been released by Crunch Pod, Emerald & Doreen Recordings (Berlin), Riot Grrrl Berlin, & LoveCraft Bar (PDX).  Her track "The Wolf“ was featured in a National Organization for Women film and she was interviewed for the documentary “GRRRL”, part of the museum exhibit “Alien She”.  Her LP "Monster Alley” was voted best album by KALX and her tracks have been remixed by 25+ artists.  Vickie's "Division" LP was released on Crunch Pod on September 4.

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Jasmine Rodgers - Flies.

Four years on from the release of her critically acclaimed album Blood Red Sun, Jasmine is back with “Flies”, the first release from her forthcoming EP. The track is set for release on 23rd October.

For anyone that doesn’t already know, Jasmine Rodgers has a rapidly-growing reputation for fusing influences from rock, blues, soul, folk and country into lush musical textures layered with poetic lyrics. Her stripped-back solo shows feature her complex guitar picking styles and intricate vocals, as she shifts effortlessly across her varied musical landscape, from folk to rock.

“Flies” is a lyrical study of survival and mortality and the minutiae of life that signpost hopes and frustrations. Building slowly from its guitar- and vocal-led core, Rodgers gradually and subtly elevates the track through the introduction of piano and layered-reverbs. The latter are used to create the constant ‘buzz’ in the track’s background, with it eventually dying out so that the song’s escalating tension neatly mirrors the message of its lyrical content. In conversation with Jasmine she says:

“People can take life too seriously, but life is so short in the grand scheme of things. But it’s a bit of a double-edged sword, as that is probably why people take it so seriously and make certain choices about the way they want to live”

This track showcases the ethereal beauty of Jasmine’s vocals and is driven by her finger-picked folk guitar technique, unusually deployed in the use of an electric guitar. “Flies” will be released independently on all major digital download and streaming platforms 23rd October 2020.

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Van Plating - Bird on a Wire.

Van Plating wasn’t sure how her self-titled album would be received in 2019 after a nine-year hiatus from music.

After attending Florida Southern College and majoring in violin and voice, Plating spent her 20s immersed in the indie rock scene, playing violin and singing with her band Pemberly (named after the country estate in Pride & Prejudice). The band was poised for success, receiving warm receptions while on tour with the likes of Copeland, The Postmarks, Matt Pond PA, and Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s. Things were going great — until they weren’t. The band broke up and she decided to take some time off. A year turned into three, which turned into six, and before she knew it nearly a decade had passed.

Plating woke up one day and wasn’t sure where she fit in musically anymore. The music business isn’t known for being kind to women after they reach a certain age — and she no longer had a band to blend in with. She knew if she took another shot at it, she would be front and center, and would rise or fall alone. Either way, she knew she wanted to try again, and cast any fears aside.

Plating recently confessed about 2019’s Van Plating, “A year and a half ago, I thought I was going to write a little acoustic record to give to my friends, but that’s not what it turned out to be at all.” Instead, the album took on a life of its own, blossoming into a collection of songs indebted to the confessional folk tradition whilst embracing forward-thinking pop song structures, harkening to celebrated offerings from Lilith Fair icons like Paula Cole, Aimee Mann, Natalie Merchant, and Shawn Colvin. Plating also dipped her toes into the Americana world with songs like “Standing Still” and “Mountain” — both of which received praise from Americana-focused media outlets.

“I was literally in the studio experimenting and trying things,” she recalls. “Where I landed, which has been really cool, is in that Americana world, which I love a lot. And that just sort of happened organically after the record was released. I had a lot of momentum coming into the spring with a festival booked, and a lot of shows were coming in before they all got canceled, and they were good opportunities.”

It was the reception to her new sound that gave her the confidence to lean into a more singer-songwriter vibe on the songs she’s recorded during quarantine.

“The album I put out last year really helped me find my way,” she affirms. “Now I feel like I don't need anybody else to tell me or help me kind of uncover who I am anymore; I know that I'm a strong singer and a strong songwriter. That record taught me who I am.”

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Illuminati Hotties - Violent Vickie - Ketch Harbour Wolves

It's almost a case of "gotta love the song title, gotta love the song" and with Illuminati Hotties and 'will i get cancelled if i write a song called ‘if you were a man you’d be so cancelled' that resonates well and with this short blast of punk attitude, the new album is extremely anticipated. === Violent Vickie was featured here for the first time in May and it's a big welcome back with 'The Blame' her new single where the Dark Synth Riot Girl once again delivers and impresses with class. === Ketch Harbour Wolves have shared 'Little Magic' from their brand new album 'Avalon' and this well established band continue to create gorgeous indie music that exudes personable feeling with high quality musical landscapes.
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Illuminati Hotties - will i get cancelled if i write a song called ‘if you were a man you’d be so cancelled.

Coming off their critically acclaimed 2018 debut Kiss Yr Frenemies, tour-tight and ready to funnel those skills into festival dates and their second record, L.A.’s illuminati hotties instead found themselves in an immovable contract with a publicly collapsing record label. Songwriter and producer Sarah Tudzin began to write her way through contract purgatory, channeling personal and global anxieties into a vibrant mixtape filled with themes of aggression, claustrophobia and loss. As the mugshot-centric album art cheekily informs, this is NOT the record you’ve been waiting for (though you’ll hear that one soon). This is FREE IH.

The first track off FREE IH, “will i get cancelled if i write a song called ‘if you were a man you’d be so cancelled,’” is streaming everywhere and pre-orders for the LP are available now. Though it was tracked locally between drummer Tim Kmet’s rehearsal space and Tudzin’s home, FREE IH sounds like an homage to the bands you’d catch on club stages during a sleepless, electrifying cross-country tour. It’s a product of Sarah’s wide array of influences, ranging from snotty Californian forebears Dead Kennedys and Black Flag to the innovation and bravado of Death Grips and Cardi B.

It’s an instant cult classic, too––or should I say, it’s an occult classic. Last week a SoundCloud leaked under the name Occult Classic featuring the 12 songs on FREE IH, fans went into a frenzy. Soaking in the sheer audacity of one of the year’s best and most surprising records being released out of nowhere while also trying to work together to figure out who the mystery band was, they got a mere 24 hours with FREE IH before the link went dark again.

The LA-based band helmed by songwriter and producer Sarah Tudzin made waves with 2018’s Kiss Yr Frenemies, a debut of quirky, poppy rock lovingly fan-dubbed as “tenderpunk.” The record brought illuminati hotties critical acclaim and tour dates alongside contemporary heavyweights PUP and Lucy Dacus, pulling Tudzin away from the recording studio where she’s built up her C.V. engineering and mixing for artists like Weyes Blood, Slowdive and The Kills.

And while a follow-up record does loom on the horizon, someday... FREE IH plays an essential role in the illuminati hotties story; a giddy and meticulous document of a band that’s ready for what’s next, and making beyond-catchy music while they wait.

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Violent Vickie - The Blame.

After being featured on The Electricity Club, Radio Wigwam, and Discovering Bands for her last single "Circle Square", Violent Vickie returns with "The Blame", a distorted synth and guitar driven track about letting go of an unhealthy relationship.  The third single from her upcoming Division LP, The Blame is reminiscent of the sounds of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Sleater Kinney, Sonic Youth and Le Tigre.

Violent Vickie is a Los Angeles based Dark Synth-Riot artist consisting of Vickie and co-producer/recording guitarist E.  Vickie has toured with Hanin Elias of Atari Teenage Riot and supported Jessie Evans (The Vanishing), Trans X, Them Are Us Too, Aimon & The Missing Persons.  She has toured the US & Europe and played Insted Fest, Solidarity Fest, Shoutback Fest & Gay Prides and Ladyfests.  Vickie’s tracks have been released by Crunch Pod, Emerald & Doreen Recordings (Berlin), Riot Grrrl Berlin, & LoveCraft Bar (PDX).

Her track "The Wolf“ was featured in a National Organization for Women film and she was interviewed for the documentary “GRRRL”, part of the museum exhibit “Alien She”.  Her LP "Monster Alley” was voted best album by KALX and her tracks have been remixed by 25+ artists.  Violent Vickie’s “Division” LP will be out in September of 2020 on Crunch Pod.

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Ketch Harbour Wolves - Little Magic.

Ocean fog. A city in decay. The dark humid valley that whispers ominous tales of impossible love. These place-specific images, evoked through personal narratives and set alight by driving indie-rock arrangements, have been the signature of Toronto/Hamilton based Ketch Harbour Wolves since their formation in 2007.

The band’s fourth studio release explores themes of social upheaval, love and loss, economic collapse, exile and mid-life crisis. “Avalon” is at once a utopia, a tarnished mirror, a possible future, a place of renewal and a swan song. The album began as the third instalment of the band’s Queen City project, exploring Toronto’s psycho-geography through song. Recorded and produced by Ketch Harbour Wolves over a painstaking 5-year period, reworked and then re-recorded, the album evolved from a short selection of location-based songs into a dense full-length effort capturing the band’s mature sound in 12 tracks. The record moves through an eclectic mix of genres, from the impassioned electric rock of “Reptilian” and synthetic dance of “Fever Shed,” to the slow atmospheric build of “Exodus” and intimate anthemics of “Little Magic” and “Yours, Still”.

Now in their 14th year, with a string of 3 critically acclaimed records to their name, “Avalon” exhibits the band writing and performing from the rung of life on which they stand, striving for sincerity and unconcerned with risking pretentiousness. The album was released July 10, 2020 on Dead Calm Records (independent). Ketch Harbour Wolves are Jonathan Tyrrell (lead vocals/synth/guitar), Liam Brown (guitar/vocals), Scott Winter (bass), and Brian Urbanik (percussion).

Ketch Harbour Wolves · 03 - Little Magic

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Immaterial Possession - Violent Vickie - AMJ Collective - Casual Fan - banfi - Nichole Wagner

The first track from Immaterial Possession forthcoming album is 'Midnight Wander' and it's accompanied by a suitably matched video as the bands dramatic doom-dance quickly demands more than a little attention. === Los Angeles based Violent Vickie releases 'Circle Square' today, where sweeping synths glide over techno/electro beats as the shimmering vocals drift in and out. === AMJ Collective have shared their extended single 'Earth Is Calling' where instrumental reggae and some fabulous dub music shine beautifully. === Casual Fan just released 'Runners' a melodic indie song which exudes natural personal feeling through the vocals. === The brand new album from banfi entitled 'Colour Waits In The Dark' is an absolute feast of wonderful music and is streaming in full below. Creative and superbly delivered musical ideas cover considerable ground on what is a really fine album, one to take time out for. === Nichole Wagner releases her new E.P 'Dance Songs For the Apocalypse' with five distinctly different songs Nichole covers a lot of musical ground her consistently fine vocals keeping the overall feel together, this is a high quality collection.
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Immaterial Possession - Midnight Wander.

Midnight Wander is an energetic, doom-dance song, navigating the throws of impending earthly catastrophe, not without an uplifting shimmering view through the dark clouds.

Immaterial Possession was conceived by Atlanta natives, Cooper Holmes and Madeline Polites, whom share a history of the underground DIY Atlanta music, theater, and arts scene. The duo moved to Athens and was soon granted the seasoned drummer, John Spiegel, and eventually fulfilled with Kiran Jeremy Fernandes (keyboards, clarinets, flutes)- descendant of Elephant 6's beloved John Fernandes (Circulatory System, Olivia Tremor Control, Cloud Recordings).

All members bring forth a spectral hue unique to the ear- with Holmes' dark and driving punk-rooted base interwoven with Spiegel's vast repertoire of drumming artistry and sacral ardor. Polites, inspired by the musical scales of the Greeks and Spanish, weaves from her haunting bedroom classical guitar and transposes to a grittier electric. Fernandes' hands dance fearlessly along the keyboard as well as clarinet, offering windows into far away eastern lands as a light in the looming darkness.

The group's vocal charm is shared by both Holmes and Polites, tying the dynamic of the band into an intricate bow- sometimes in relatable rawness, other times by billowing operatic impulses. All together they create a sort of entrancement exclaimed as distinctly rare. "Immaterial Possession", the debut LP to be released on Cloud Recordings, is as much a visual journey as auditory. With Holmes, Polites, and Fernandes all sharing ties to surreal and abstract theater, each song on the album creates a distinct 'world' of impression and mystery.

The album commences with the apocalyptic fury of "Midnight Wander" to "See Through Stares"- the catching pop tale of altering the past through the present. It takes you through the psychedelic landscapes of "In the Loom", the hallucinatory darkness of "Accidental Summoning", towards the final 'Night Cap'- a soft, but inescapable ushering into the depths of the ancestral dream state. Cover tin-type by Salvage Sparrow.

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Violent Vickie - Circle Square.

Los Angeles-based Dark Synth-Riot artist Violent Vickie, is launching her latest track “Circle Square" today.

After being featured in EDM Joy, Brutal Resonance, and Fresh on the Net for her music video/single "Serotonin", Violent Vickie returns with "Circle Square", a gloomy, noisy electronic track with forlorn and haughty vocals that explores the illusion of not belonging.  The second single from her upcoming Division LP, Circle Square is a mix of techno/electro beats and noisy synth texture, reminiscent of the dark techno tunes Vickie partied to at Oakland warehouse parties.

Violent Vickie is a Los Angeles based Dark Synth-Riot artist consisting of Vickie and co-producer/recording guitarist E.  Vickie has toured with Hanin Elias of Atari Teenage Riot and supported Jessie Evans (The Vanishing), Trans X, Them Are Us Too, Aimon & The Missing Persons.

Her track "The Wolf“ was featured in a National Organization for Women film and she was interviewed for the documentary “GRRRL”, part of the museum exhibit “Alien She”.  Her LP "Monster Alley” was voted best album by KALX and her tracks have been remixed by 25+ artists.  Violent Vickie’s “Division” LP will be out in the fall of 2020 on Crunch Pod.

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AMJ Collective - Earth Is Calling.

Earth is Calling is a powerful instrumental lamenting the state of our planet with an uplifting call for a wiser, positive future. It was recorded live in the studio with the band.

The mixes feature once more the skills of Rob Smith at the controls. This tune will grow, there are more versions to come (including vocals), but we thought we’d share what we have with you right now and send some good energy out to the world. - Bless. AMJ

Led by producer John Hollis, the AMJ Collective is a group of musicians, thinkers and creators originating from the UK, Jamaica, Cuba, Colombia and Africa.

AMJ have been releasing fresh, modern dub tracks since 2011, steadily building a solid reputation for an original sound. Their first album, Sky Blue Love, a collaboration with dub maestro Rob Smith (RSD, Smith & Mighty), came out in 2016 to wide acclaim across the world. This was followed in 2017 with the Believe album. Now they embark on the 2020 Series, a collection of their latest recordings.

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Casual Fan - Runners.

It’s early March and you’re sitting in your car at a lookout on top of the ocean, looking down on the beaches you grew up on, thinking about a city you’re moving to and already missing the people you won’t get to see all the time.

You stay there a while and it gets to 6:30pm and cos of daylight savings it’s still light outside. The surfers are still all out there, and the sun setting over the hill shoots beams into the blue and orange haze and it’s like everything stands still, just for a moment.

Recorded in Cairns in late 2019 by Mark Myers (The Middle East) and mixed by Tim Fitz (Middle Kids), “Runners” is a song about the slow jog of life, and the rare moments you get to sit and watch it all run by.

Casual Fan · Runners

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banfi - Colour Waits In The Dark (album).

Having relocated from North West England to South Wales via Edinburgh, Cornwall, Sheffield and 6 years in London, Joe Banfi has settled amongst the stark beauty of the Gower Peninsula. He entirely self-produced and recorded the album here, before heading to Eastcote Studios in London to mix the record with Eliot James (Two Door Cinema Club, Noah & The Whale).

Thus far 2 singles have been released from the album - the summertime-reckoning pop-hooks of ‘So Bright’ and the hypnotically addictive ‘Always Goodbye’.

Talking about these tracks and the album, Joe explains "Time and natural landscapes in relation to how I feel... I'm just trying to weave these things together for the listener... love and the passing of love among ancient things. Time and love entwined with the blood in the sky blessing my heart and the shells down on the beach that will go on sighing without me.

I've tried to voice a kind of void-fear amongst hope... John Keats’ gravestone (“Here lies one whose name was writ in water”) evokes a dread of time leaving each moment behind in a centreless dark, like goodbyes written on pages that'll one day float away.

But then there are no real grounds for believing that an afterlife, or lack of one, is any more eternal or real than the fact that you have once existed and always will have, forever in the past. We tend to project our linear view of time onto death, and maybe that's a mistaken view of the world. For me these answerless trails of thought create a flowing, bird-in-the-wind feeling of surrender to the force of time that I’ve tried to capture”.

banfi · Colour Waits in the Dark

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Nichole Wagner - Dance Songs For the Apocalypse (E.P).

Born and raised in the small town of Louviers, Colorado, Nichole Wagner grew up with a love of music and an extraordinary voice, but she had no way to really share her passion with the world. “I grew up writing song lyrics and wanting to be a musician, but I didn’t really play an instrument,” she says, “so that was a problem.”

At eighteen Nichole moved to Arizona to study journalism at Arizona State University, a career path that would offer a steady paycheck while also allowing her to indulge her love of photography.  But she found that it’s not so easy to let go of a dream.

“I wanted to be Stevie Nicks,” she laughs, “but I had no idea how to start playing music out in public, and I still didn’t play an instrument with any degree of skill.”  So I put that dream up on a shelf and said ‘well that’s probably a thing I’m not going to get to do.’”

After college, she moved to Austin, where she photographed the music scene and wrote articles from the sidelines. But the dream refused to die, and one day she found herself onstage at an open mic. She started writing new songs, learned to play guitar, and like wildfire the long-buried dream flared back to life.

In 2018 Nichole’s first album, And the Sky Caught Fire, was released, a terrific collection of country-rock that balances commerciality and integrity. It earned high praise from none other than Americana sage and No Depression magazine founder Peter Blackstock, who wrote in the Austin-American Statesman, “Wagner’s first full-length record establishes her as one of Austin’s most promising young singer-songwriters.”

Her new EP, Dance Songs for the Apocalypse, is another great leap forward. The first single, a funky, soulful take on the Talking Heads’ Life During Wartime, is a stunner: a deep and danceable track that takes David Byrne’s dystopian vision one step further and highlights Wagner’s abilities as an interpreter as she takes the song into deeper and darker territory. Those interpretive skills show themselves again in an intimate and mournful eight-minute take on Neil Young’s Ambulance Blues, a gorgeous piano and violin trip through sadness and reflection. Yet somehow none of it comes off as doom and gloom. There is the triumph of Better Son and Daughter, which starts off with an acoustic guitar and Wagner’s front porch delivery, but then builds as the band comes in, gathering steam and force. Finally, Bird Set Free shows off an electric piano and strings and carries you off to an ethereal and poignant place.


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