The Gina Furtado Project - Blue Violet - Team Me - Cassidy Mann

The Gina Furtado Project - It Wont Be Me.

Drawing on the distinctive sound that earned her a third consecutive International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year nomination in 2021, Mountain Home Music Company’s Gina Furtado starts off her 2022 with a new single, “It Won’t Be Me.” Backed by her eponymous Gina Furtado Project, which includes two of her sisters, the singer-songwriter serves up a characteristic blend of engaging music with a powerful lyric theme.

“It Won’t Be Me” mines the rich vein of Latin- and gypsy jazz-flavored sounds that has served Furtado well since her 2017 breakout hit, “Puppet Show” — and as it did there, the deft ensemble playing of sisters Malia (fiddle) and Lu (bass) Furtado, plus guitarist Drew Matulich, is deployed to support a woman’s declaration of independence from mistreatment.

Delivered in Furtado’s immediately recognizable voice, the lyric works its way over minor chords from an opening uncertainty — “I could see the writing on the walls/Sometimes it would fade/And sometimes it was all I saw” — to a dawning recognition (“You broke my heart, my home/And in my broken mirror/A woman said, ‘He’ll never break your spirit’”) before turning to a more optimistic sound that underpins the defiant lines of the chorus:

“I will be the one who’s standing firm and strong
And I will be the one who writes
Whatever kinda song I want
And when you treat somebody just exactly as you please

“This was a touchy song for me,” notes Furtado. “Domestic abuse is so prevalent that we're all bound to know someone who has, and/or is experiencing it. I know I do. It is often so confusing for victims, and so hard to leave a bad situation. I hope that this song might help somebody who just needs to hear an ending that is alternate to what they may currently be feeling they are destined for.”

 

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Blue Violet - Poster Girl.

“When I was a Poster Girl in 1984, you tore me from your magazine and pinned me to your wall” lulls Sarah Gotley, seemingly adrift in the bittersweet reflections of another lifetime.

A twisting ballad that touches on the fickle promises of fame, the fight for feminist rights and finding your own way through life, “Poster Girl” is the story of a shining star who’s unafraid to stand her ground. As Blue Violet guitarist Sam Gotley elaborates of the track:

“”Poster Girl” is a song about fighting back. The character it centers around resists objectification, defends herself from evil and keeps whatever company she sees fit – in the chorus she finds herself the leader of a group of drunken sailors that accompany her on her voyage… As the writing process went on we felt that a dystopian, Orwellian setting was perfect for the female protagonist: weary traveller, fighter, lover & saviour all rolled into one.” 

With shades of Slowdive or Sigur Ros’ subtly-epic sonic masteries to Mazzy Star’s brittle heartbreakers, “Poster Girl” finds the Anglo-Scottish duo of Sam & Sarah Gotley in perfect synchronicity as they pair lush arrangements to a narrative straight out of Hollywood biopic. “Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed definitely worked its way into the fabric of this one” adds Sam, “but we also wanted to give it an anthemic feel. We layered a lot of guitars & synths and have two drum kits playing at the end, giving a feel that the world is kind of collapsing around you.” 

Written in 2019 as Blue Violet found themselves well-into the throes of recording sessions for a full album with legendary producer Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Bat For Lashes), the track emerged as a standout from a clutch of new demos the band recorded during a particularly prolific creative spell. With pre-production perfected at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, “Poster Girl”’s swelling riff and lyrical narrative soon began to fall into place. With the final version recorded with Ellis, “Poster Girl” was mastered by Mount Olympia Mastering, engineered by Peter Miles and mixed by TJ Allen.

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Team Me - High Street.

Norwegian art-pop band Team Me release new single "High Street" - the third track to be heard from the their long-awaited third studio album 'Something in the Making', out 11th March 2022 via Propeller Recordings (Sløtface, Highasakite, Lokoy).

Mixed by Grammy-award winning producer/mixer Darrell Thorp (Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Beck) and mastered by Emily Lazar (David Bowie, Björk, Coldplay, Haim) the new album is their first for 7 years, following their critically acclaimed and Norwegian Grammy-winning debut album To the Treetops! (2011) and its follow up Blind as Night (2014).

Psychedelic art-pop anchored by superlative songwriting, "High Street" is another charming taste of what to expect from Team Me's long overdue return to the fore. Led by Norwegian singer/songwriter Marius Drogsås Hagen, Team Me have received widespread international success and attention to date, creating an engrossing alternative pop universe in the process.

New album 'Something in the Making' continues in that vein, a journey which began with the band's surprise reunion in 2019: “When we first announced our reunion, the love and appreciation was just overwhelming to be honest. I was very surprised,” says Hagen. “Still, it was a good move to not rush into anything. It left everyone with hope and motivation for the future.”

It paid off. That compulsion drove Hagen to complete the most accomplished and world-beating collection of songs of his career so far. What makes it even more of a triumph is that this music finds a whole lot of light out of the darkness.

 

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Cassidy Mann - Fine.

By entwining her acoustic roots with gentle electronic textures, singer-songwriter Cassidy Mann finds her true voice on the upcoming debut EP, If It’s Not Forever. As a lyricist, she often reshapes a small moment into a powerful and poetic song that feels both personal and relatable. What makes these recordings stand out, though, is the way the sonic approach enhances the storyline, allowing her to share her most intimate memories in a singular way.

Co-producing with her friend Roman Clarke, Mann wanted to find a cinematic yet wistful sound to complement these emotionally driven pop songs. They achieved that effect through reverb and delay on the guitars, along with crafting lyrics about specific moments in past relationships.

“My favourite thing is to write about tiny things that make the bigger picture more important somehow,” she says. “I was wondering a lot about how two people can be in the same situation and have different memories attached to those times. It’s interesting to me how memories are interpretable that way.”

Mann notes that these songs also serve as a catalogue of how her early relationships ended and why – and she hopes that other people will feel seen and comforted by her stories. While processing one particular breakup, she remembers sitting on her bed and eating the same sour candy she once shared with the person she missed. When she discovered the metaphor – “this thing that seems sweet, but also physically hurts you if you have too much,” as she describes it — the song “Tropical Sour Candy” emerged.

She wrote “Election Night,” tweaking the melodies with Clarke, to capture the intense awakening and transformation that many people experienced over the four years of the prior presidency. The lyrics focus on a couple that moved beyond just friends that night but ultimately ended as strangers. Her skill as a writer is especially clear on “Fine,” as that simple word takes on multiple meanings in the context of a heartbreak.

Certain moments in a relationship are almost always at the core of her songs, whether it’s the potential start of something special (“Since I Met You”) or the inevitable end (“Stop a Heart”). There’s also an acknowledgement that listeners can carry those important parts of the past through the rest of their lives (“If It’s Not Forever”). “A lot of the time, whenever I’m remembering something, I find myself connected to these subtle moments that made me feel alive in some way. Those are the things that I replay in my mind a lot.”

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Clever Hopes - Dropper - The Inevitables - Crystal Eyes

Clever Hopes - The Other Side.

A few years ago, Andrew Shaver directed the musical, Once, in Montréal. Eva Foote walked in to audition for “Girl,” the female lead, and blew him away. Every night after the show, the whole team would drink whiskey and play songs in the dressing rooms until the wee hours – including Andrew and Eva. 

This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and musical collaboration. A few months later, Andrew’s girlfriend flew home from Paris to tell him to pack his bags. Tired of the fighting, he did. He hit the highway out of Montréal and called his buddy Matthew Barber (who produced the album). The two of them spoke for hours as Andrew drove to Toronto. 

This was the beginning of a new chapter for Andrew, that would see him bounce around a few winter sublets before heading to Australia to – as a buddy so wisely suggested – flip his chi. Artefact chronicles the journey of that flip. Clever Hopes was born when he got back to Canada and played those songs for Eva.

Clever Hopes · The Other Side

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Dropper - Ok Ok Ok.

The third single from NYC band Dropper is a break-up anthem called "Ok Ok Ok" and it's out Jan. 21. "I think most people have gone through at least one breakup or had a friendship end that pretty much wrecked them for a little while. "Ok Ok Ok" is about going to a party and being hyper-aware of that other person’s presence. It’s about trying to overcome discomfort but in the process overcompensating and being (maybe just a little) petty. It’s about that desire to prove to that other person, and to yourself, that you’re okay when maybe the truth is, you’re not." -Andrea Scanniello

Dropper is the brainchild of Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Andrea Scanniello, a lifelong musician and veteran of the NYC indie rock scene. Having played in local favorites like High Waisted, Stuyedeyed, TVOD and Russian Baths, Dropper shows Scanniello stepping into the spotlight as a songwriter and vocalist. She is joined by longtime collaborators Jono Bernstein (also of High Waisted), Yukary Morishima and Larry Scanniello.

The band will self-release their debut record, Don’t Talk to Me, in February 2022. Written and recorded pre-pandemic, the LP centers on the ennui and spiritual exhaustion that comes with working in the service industry and participating in a local scene: the drinking, the late nights, the shallow friendships born over too many beers and cigarettes. Scanniello wrote the record as she scraped by working odd bar jobs and even a bowling alley, a painstaking personal inventory of her life thus far, born of an ugly break-up and analyzing the habits and patterns that no longer serve her as she reaches the end of her twenties.

They say the record is for “People who have worked in the service industry too long and become curmudgeons at the ripe old age of 26. People who are lonely yet want to be left alone. People who drink because they are sad but also sad because they drink. Bisexuals with crumbs in their bed. Optimistic pessimists. Those with seasonal allergies. But overwhelmingly for people who, in lieu of being crushed by the eternal weight of existence, choose to scream internally with a smile upon their face.” In other words, all of us – every millennial struggling to remain true to themselves in a world as unrelenting as this one.

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The Inevitables - Florida Moon.

The Inevitables announce the start of Pre-Orders on Jan 21st for their new 7’ EP “Florida Moon” (EP release March 25, 2022 on LAW Records).

What if your love story was just beginning at the end of the world? Former Less Than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello and Westbound Train frontman Obi Fernandez of The Inevitables explore that question on their lovers rock-inspired new single “Florida Moon” (out now in advance of an upcoming 7’ EP to be released March 25, 2022).

“We wanted to write a love song about people who have only found each other just as their world is ending,” says Fiorello, “Are they going to fight for it? Or are they just going to say ‘why are we bothering to try to start something new when it's the end?’ When you're so deeply in love, yet things start to go awry, you have a choice whether you're going to fight for it, or whether you're going to succumb to the heaviness and just let it sink you”.

A multimedia project encompassing both comics and some fine ska music, The Inevitables story is based on a group of nobodies trying to save the world. While Fiorello and Fernandez have put together some great talents on both platforms, the aggregate on the music side also includes Matt Appleton (Reel Big Fish), Billy Kottage, John DeDomenici (Jeff Rosenstock, Bomb The Music Industry!), Alex Stern (Big D And The Kids Table) and Sean-Paul Pillsworth (Nightmares For A Week). Opening with the line ‘Are you running out of life to live under the Florida moon?’ the track’s stark juxtaposition of dark lyrical content and light, delicate melodies represents a spin on a central theme of The Inevitables universe, that of “Paradise and Grime”.

Our story starts in the not-so-distant future when Big Pharma has been able to produce a “cure for death.” Of course there’s a big number on the price tag for such a coveted item, which further divides the mega wealthy from the working class. It’s about time the corporations get a reality check that playing God has consequences and death is inevitable.

LAW Records · The Inevitables "Florida Moon"

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Crystal Eyes - Wishes.

The Calgary, Alberta-based psych-rock/dream-pop band, Crystal Eyes are today announcing details of their new record, The Sweetness Restored which is set for release via the beloved Madrid label, Bobo Integral (Motorists, Ducks Ltd, Quivers) on April 22, 2022. They are sharing details of the new album alongside the first single and its accompanying video, "Wishes."

Crystal Eyes, who are made up of Erin Jenkins (singer/guitarist) and a revolving cast of musicians, currently Jordan Tettensor (guitar), Joleen Toner (synth), Will Johnson (bass) and Paul de Andrade (drums) describe the new record as a "feel-good self-help record for the age of existential dread." The Sweetness Restored displays a kind of wistful self-awareness right from the start, it's a collection of ten tracks that flirt with musical influences ranging from new wave, psych-rock and shoegaze, with songs driven by melody and steeped in texture.

Recorded at Montreal's Breakglass Studios with producer/engineer, Andrew Woods (The Operators, Legal Vertigo, Basia Bulat) before being mixed by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, The Unicorns, Peter Gabriel) the record contains thoughtful attention to musical detail thanks to the talented team of artists behind the project. And with the beautiful, warm tones of the Neve console, it's at once a unique sound, but one that feels comfortingly familiar. The prolific Scott' Monty' Munroe (Preoccupations, Chad VanGaalen) contributed bass and the talented Eve Parker Finley composed and performed string arrangements.

On the first single, "Wishes", the band serves up a conflicting happy/sad mood designed to be something that you can dance to, complete with a trippy rock 'n' roll fairy tale music video that's somewhere between Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz. Taking inspiration from the sounds of New Order and The Cure, the track makes use of the ghostly therevox, a touch-controlled theremin proudly made in Windsor, Ontario. Speaking about the single, Jenkins says: "'Wishes' is a song about the spiritual act of wishing as a form of the creative process, and the ultimately delicate and complicated relationship between dream and reality. It’s also a song about faith and redemption. Although we will experience loss and pain, we always have the promise of a new wish."

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Amelie Tobien - Ben Sures - Flamango Bay - Pillow Queens - Mear

Amelie Tobien - Ocean Girl 

Untie the knot, set sail, run away - that's her plan. If it weren't for that hand that keeps pulling the rope back ... In her indie pop anthem ‘Ocean Girl’, gently kissed by melancholy, the modern Trobairitz Amelie Tobien sings about life jackets that are too tight and lifts anchors to the surface, entangled in seaweed. Ropes get cut like umbilical cords and the compass needle is poled to freedom, the longing for emancipation breaks through Amelie's lines like cold rays of sunshine between clouds. 

‘You can't come with me,’ she says, and yet she pulls us into a sensitive river full of interpersonal flotsam. A gentle ‘... this time’ adorns the horizon as a ray of hope without sinking into false promises. With ‘Ocean Girl’ Amelie Tobien presents a gentle ballad about letting go. 

The singer-songwriter Amelie Tobien, born and raised in the mountains of Salzburg, developed her artistic work in the wine regions of Bordeaux and perfected her inimitable voice after work in Dublin's whiskey-soaked bars. After her debut album ‘We Aimed for the Stars’, Amelie Tobien is now targeting the seven seas with her single ‘Ocean Girl’, which will be released on January 21st.

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Ben Sures - Cry Like A Flood.

is a storyteller. On his poignant, natural-sounding acoustic tenth album, The Story That Lived Here, the Edmonton-based songwriter, guitarist, and author sings stories told to him by friends and fans. Songs about library ladies, yard sales and dive bars, accidents and grieving; and – because we’re living through a pandemic still – at least one song about the end of the world.

Sures’ 25-year-deep catalogue is eclectic, spanning folk, country, jazz and rock’n’roll, and borrowing from blues, Sinti swing and West African guitar. But The Story That Lived Here, recorded mostly live in Victoria, BC, with old friends Richard Moody (viola, violin, mandolin and vocals) and Scott White (upright bass), and with Rebecca Campbell adding backup vocals and percussion remotely from Toronto, is a satisfyingly cohesive and tender North Americana-tinged album with a steady heartbeat. It’s the perfect accompaniment for Sures’ funny, honest, quirkily wise and wistful tunes.

“In case it’s the end of the world, I’m gonna have a cinnamon bun…” Sures quips to kick the record off, addressing a universal desire for comfort going hand in hand with a newfound vulnerability. In “Before We Had Sarah” a couple with grown kids try to romantically reconnect (though they live in the same house); while “Boring People” is perhaps the most sparse, evocative performance of Sures’ career to date. Nearly every song on The Story That Lived Here has a strong, tender, sing-along-able chorus, including “Cry Like A Flood,” which is Kat Goldman’s story of a music career interrupted; and “No One Will Remember You,” which conjures cover bar culture.

Two of the songs on The Story That Lived Here are inspired by Sures’ relationship with his father, ceramic artist Jack Sures, who passed away in 2018 and who the album is dedicated to (along with Mitch Pololak, Michael Laderoute, and Thérèse Duffy). “We put so much stock into people at the end of their life,” Sures says about the title track. “What was the last thing they said? The person is often on the wickedest cocktail of their life and they don’t know where they are. The meaningful time is the life.” In “Father’s Shoes” Sures paints a portrait of his relationship with his father and finds an apt metaphor for grieving that could apply equally as well to his music: “They’re a funny combination of neon green and blues,” he sings. The shoe fits.

Ben Sures · Cry Like A Flood

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Flamango Bay - LA.

Flamango Bay have today announced details of their debut EP 'The Fool', set to be released on 13th May via 0800-MOSHI-MOSHI. To celebrate, they share new single 'LA', which was written shortly before moving to the eponymous city.

"Because of life circumstances and the pandemic, we really romanticized moving to LA," say the band, who are originally from the Bay Area of San Francisco. "We put a lot of expectations on the city to fix our internal problems. However, when we actually moved there, we were still the same people with the same problems."

"Musically, the song is inspired by pop artists like Harry Styles, Lady Gaga and indie acts like Surf Curse, and probably anything off the Spotify Surf Rock Sunshine playlist."

Speaking about the 'LA' video, the band said: "we came up with a storyline loosely based around this drive from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, a journey we've been doing a lot recently."

"Ligaya Chinn (the protagonist) is moving to LA, and along the way gets a mysterious invitation to a party. Once she gets to LA, she meets up with us (Flamango Bay) and, after taking in some iconic Los Angeles sights, she goes to the party. At first it's fun, but when she goes to get water, she realises everything is not what it seems. The video ends with an ominous yet silly tone, representative of our feelings towards living in LA."

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Pillow Queens - Be By Your Side.

Dublin's Pillow Queens had been quietly building momentum on their side of the Atlantic since the release of their 2017 debut EP Calm Girls. Selling out shows in their native Ireland, supporting artists like IDLES, Pussy Riot and Future Islands, and earning enthusiastic support in the UK before they independently released their 2020 LP In Waiting. 

The album was a major breakthrough for the band, earning them praise from outlets like The Guardian, who called them "2020's most exciting indie rockers," NPR, NME, DIY, and The Line of Best Fit, a Band To Watch feature from Stereogum, an Irish Album of The Year nomination, and most remarkably of all a US national television appearance on the Late Late Show w/ James Corden.

The band are returning to announce their sophomore LP Leave The Light On, which is due out April 1st on Royal Mountain Records, and sharing the first single from the new album, a track called "Be By Your Side".

"This song is about the mechanisms that are used to hide your vulnerabilities and carry on," explains singer/bassist Pamela Connolly. "But also, the feeling of being about to burst and how cathartic it could be to allow yourself to let your emotions out and feel the world around you. This was one of the first songs we finished on the album as it was the quickest to become fully realized by all of us."

The album announcement coincides with the announcement of the band's first North American tour, which will include a stop at SXSW before the band return to the UK in May and their native Ireland in October. Full details can be found below.

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Photo - Jen Squires

Mear - The Order.

From Frances Grace Miller of Mear: In 2014, I lost the ability to do a lot of things I'd previously taken for granted. 

I wrote "The Order" during my early experiences living with a post-viral chronic illness, at a time when I was grieving the loss of my health.

I found I couldn't read for more than a few minutes a day and a short walk around the block could leave me bedridden. "The Order" was an attempt to voice some of the pain and loneliness of that; of not understanding what was happening to me. This single is from our upcoming full-length album, which will be released on April 22nd.

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness is often a long and painful journey full of misdiagnosis and gaslighting, "when nothing's right and nothing's wrong." The song's title is a reference to the loss of control that comes with no longer being able to count on your body.

Mear · The Order

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Dahlia Sleeps - Renata Zeiguer - Kindsight - Josienne Clarke

Dahlia Sleeps - The Calm You Keep.

London based duo Dahlia Sleeps release new track "The Calm You Keep", the latest cut to be heard from the band's debut album Overflow, out 8th April.

A pensive, indie-rock track "The Calm You Keep" is the album's closing song and completes the record in cathartic fashion. A stunning examination into motherhood; vocalist Lucy Hill captures the poise of a mother supporting her child through mental ill-health, with the lines "I climbed into your bed, just like a child I laid and wept / You did not show your fear, you knew the sun was somewhere near".

Filled with nostalgic electric guitar and live drums it paints images of a dreamlike world - "It's a portrait of a parent providing the calm within the storm; half a Dalí-esque soundscape from within an unwell mind, half a paradise of safety”, Lucy says of the track.

Two years in the making and almost 6 years since their debut single, producer/writer Luke Hester and singer/writer Lucy Hill bring a new weight sonically to their debut album Overflow, depicting a new kind of freedom for the duo – from managing and coming to terms with mental health problems to experiencing love in all its forms despite them.

With eclectic influences ranging from electronic acts including MOVEMENT, Autechre and Burial to the lyrically poetic works of Florence + the Machine, Radiohead and The National, Dahlia Sleeps shift seamlessly between genres; from dance to electronic to pop.

Dahlia Sleeps · The Calm You Keep

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Photo - Josh Goleman

Renata Zeiguer - Sunset Boulevard.

Renata Zeiguer—the Filipino/Argentinian, Brooklyn-based artist who has recorded on albums by Cassandra Jenkins, Landlady, Quilt, Ava Luna, Mr Twin Sister, among others—today announced Picnic In The Dark, her second full-length album for Northern Spy, will release April 8, 2022.

Zeiguer takes us by the hand and leads us into her surreal storybook realm by way of lead single “Sunset Boulevard”, which arrives alongside a music video by OTIUM (Hand Habits, Widowspeak, Ana Fox Rochinski). We are guided through the metamorphosis of a caterpillar, a kaleidoscopic metaphor for the process of letting go of the seemingly safe and familiar in order to evolve and thrive.

Picnic in the Dark follows Zeiguer through a dreamworld of magical realism as she navigates her memories and seeks to confront inherited dysfunctional patterns head-on. As Zeiguer reconciles her childhood and her adult lives with careful compassion, Picnic in the Dark reveals itself as an album not only of transformation, but of healing and self-actualization.

In collaboration with co-producer and old friend Sam Griffin Owens (Sam Evian), Zeiguer sonically invokes the meeting point of memories and dreams, calling to mind Broadcast, Cindy Lee, or David Lynch’s multidisciplinary ventures. With generous splashes of spring reverb, ghostly vocal harmonies, antique drum machines, cinematic strings, and the comforting warbles of synthesized organ, all bolstered by a tight indie rock sensibility, the sonic palette of Picnic in the Dark is magically anachronistic.

 

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Kindsight - Sun Is Always in My Eyes.

Danish four-piece Kindsight make music that draws from 80’s and 90’s alternative rock and combines it with the shimmering Scandinavian pop that the region has become so renowned for, resulting in a sound that is both fuzzy and melodic in equal measure. Releasing their first material in 2020, the up and coming Danish four-piece have been quick on the rise, picking up steam with a series of new singles over the last 18 months. Now, they are announcing their debut album, Swedish Punk, will be released on March 25th, 2022.  New single Sun Is Always in My Eyes is out now alongside a DIY video made by the band.

Kindsight formed when front-woman Nina Hyldgaard Rasmussen and guitarist Søren Svensson bonded over a shared love of The Sugarcubes. They went on to recruit bass player Anders Prip and drummer Johannes Jacobsen and over the past few years have earned a reputation within Copenhagen’s thriving indie scene for their exciting live shows.

On the album’s title, Rasmussen says “Swedish Punk’ was an off the cuff term our producer, Adam, came up with when we needed a working title for a new song we wrote during the recording sessions. Our bass player, Anders, then wrote some lyrics based on the working title and we ended up liking the whole ‘Swedish Punk’-thing so much it became the name of the album”.

There’s a real coming of age charm to Swedish Punk. ‘Don’t You Grow Up’ was the first song the band ever wrote together. Written in “a time when we thought to be a sunny teenage rock band, you had to write songs about teenagers in the sun,” they say. Atop jangling guitars, Rasmussen’s distinctive voice dances somewhere between that of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval and Alvvays’ Molly Rankin, leaving the listener drenched in the nostalgic optimism of summers gone by. Lead single ‘Sun Is Always In My Eyes’, an unrelenting indie-pop earworm, continues in that same vein. Recalling a time when life was carefree, the band say the track is about ‘stealing money from your mother and feigning to run away from home. Being blessed and unable to see because you've got too much sun in your eyes’.

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Josienne Clarke - Workhorse.

Today, award-winning singer, songwriter and producer Josienne Clarke has shared 'Workhorse', the second cut to be taken from her forthcoming EP I Promised You Light. ‘Workhorse’ is one of the most experimental tracks of Clarke’s career to date, with Sharon Van Etten and Sylvan Esso being the song’s musical touchstones. “This is the most joyous one on [the new EP], to me,” Clarke says of the song which she describes as a “weird dance acoustic mashup.” The song’s video, by Alec Bowman_Clarke, sees the artist roller-skating at a silent disco to emphasise the sheer joy of the track. “It’s just me in a massive room with loads of disco lights with silent disco headphones on just messing about to my own positivity anthem,” she smiles.

Of the track’s experimentation, Clarke says she has been “slightly flirting with synths and electronic sounds more” and using “less acoustic music” in an about turn from her usual style. “I don’t intend to  renounce my acoustic roots at all, but I feel like the old set-up in the industry was quite keen to tell me what type of music I could and couldn’t make,” Clarke explains. “I feel like ‘Workhorse’ is like: ‘What if I could do whatever I wanted? What would that sound like? That sound is this track,” Clarke says assuredly, mirroring the confidence of a track that is sure to become a standout of her career.

I Promised You Light follows on from Clarke’s critically acclaimed 2021 LP, A Small Unknowable Thing, an emotionally charged album bubbling with courage and defiance. If A Small Unknowable Thing were a sentence, I Promised You Light is the full stop at the end, or “the light at the end of that particular tunnel,” as she puts it. “People over the years have often tended to be a little intense at my merch stand, it sort of comes with the territory when you write the kind of music I do. But none more so than a lady who stood there and pleaded for me to ‘write a more positive song, one with a happy ending’” she explains. It was a request that stuck with Clarke over the years. “That’s basically what this EP is,” she says. “It’s all the positive lessons I’ve learned over the past few years and presented in my own, somewhat melancholic, way.”

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Owen FitzGerald - The McKenzie FIX - Landon Lloyd Miller - Partner

Owen FitzGerald - Don't Give Me A Pet.

Themes of dissociation are some of the major conduits running through Owen FitzGerald’s work. Somewhere in the narratives and world-building vignettes the characters that inhabit the universe of A deep clean you can count on! start with or wander deliriously into a state of bewilderment with the relationship to their own bodies, the utterly de-centering experience of being head-over-heels in love, the secret language of animals and plants and the atomization that the grist-mill of modern life inflicts.

Blundering through existential crisis after crisis, FitzGerald’s gives us a few anchors that tie us back to the physical space: feeding the dog, the biomechanical synchronization of a lover’s breath, the office politics of forest animals and core memories of singing out loud with friends. Musically, FitzGerald invites us to follow the breadcrumbs in the labyrinth of his knotty, surrealistic and, often, very funny and very dismal brand of Country music.

Of the single, Owen states, ""My family attended the 10am Mass at St. Raphael's every Sunday while I was a child. "Our" seats were on the left, and towards the front, if you were looking at the altar. I always held the aisle. After taking communion, a Catholic is supposed to kneel in prayerful contemplation until everyone has had their turn. Each week, dozens of congregants filed past me to and from the Eucharist. I kneeled and clasped my hands. I bowed my head low so no one would notice my open eyes. I stared at their shoes and pretended to pray. At a rate of about one second per pair, I logged style, brand, color, material, and condition and rendered judgement. My entire brain focused on sorting the shoes into "cool" and "not cool" while I tried to keep my posture devout. Honest to God, I've never told anyone about this game of mine until now."

"Don't Give Me a Pet" is the third single from the new album A deep clean you can count on! from the Durham based Country artist Owen FitzGerald. Swimming in similar conceptual and narrative waters as outsider-poet country artists like Cass McCombs and Simon Joyner, FItzGerald's nine song album on Sleepy Cat Records create distinct vignettes that tackle the dissociative effects of strained relationships with our bodies, falling in love, getting sober and surviving the grist-mill of modern life. These songs are shot through with similar philosophical and existential questions asked by artists like Glenn Campbell, John Prine and Bill Callahan.

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The McKenzie FIX - Don't Feed On Me.

Ewan McKenzie has an eclectic collection of songs and releases behind his back. His music is kaleidoscopic and diverse - he is continuously finding new ways to express himself through a broad sonic palette.

Following critically acclaimed self released songs 'Alone' and 'The Shining', The McKenzie FIX have launched their first album 'Pandora’s Box' through new label Crystal Seven Records . The  12 tracks  explore a surreal mixture of Gothic dream imagery with a distinctly 80's pop flair. 

There is a supernatural quality to the entirety of the record. Songs blend together into a vast kaleidoscopic array of colours. A true ear for melody appears throughout as there is a unique gracefulness to the way that these pieces unfurl. Layer upon layer gets applied with such care as the sound at times veers into the absolute symphonic.

By far the highlight of the album, blending its dark and light influences is the soulful third single 'Martin & The Artist'. The build-up of the piece feels gorgeous, from the synthesised strings to the otherworldly storytelling.

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Landon Lloyd Miller - Bluebonnet.

Confirmed for release on 4 March 2022 via the Twin Mesa label, The Wall Chargers frontman goes it alone to release this strident first collection under his own name. In anticipation of the release Landon has shared its first official single "Bluebonnet"; a tender, raw, confessional track that finds the singer opening-up about the tumultuous relationship with his father, to overcoming the mental pressures he has experienced as a touring artist.

The follow-up to recent teaser track, “Light Is Growing”, a song praised by Americana UK as “an uplifting dose of positivity", new single "Bluebonnet" finds Landon in an altogether darker and more pensive space. “You were only lying when you said why you’d never go. That’s alright. Only love lied so I’d never have to know" sings Landon through gritted teeth here.

A stark portrait of his father and an uncensored reckoning of his actions, Landon recalls of the intimately personal events behind “Bluebonnet”: "There was a moment when I was a boy that he swore to me he would never leave us and that he would always love my mother,". It was only a few years later that his father walked-out on him and his mother for good.

A song that finds an artist unafraid to face his demons and to tackle songwriting subjects others may find taboo, “Bluebonnet” also finds Landon admitting to the depression he has experienced as a traveling musician; opening a dialogue for countless other artists who have undoubtedly experienced similar feelings while out on the road.

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Partner - Time Is A Car.

Partner are back with a new single and video "Time Is A Car". It is a new single for a new era as we enter 2022 and the youngest member of Partner (Josée Caron) enters her 30s. This single follows Partner's Never Give Up (You've Changed Records) and their break out debut album, In Search of Lost Time.

A Message from Partner: "This is a song that we wrote while reflecting on the years that have passed and the way that the passing of time offers fresh perspectives. Fittingly enough it’s ready just in time for us to present it to you on Josée's 30th birthday. Time sure does fly!!

We had a distinct idea for the visual accompaniment to this track and we knew there was one person who could bring it to light; our beloved and frequent collaborator Lesley Marshall. However, when we were informed that the time to make a video was upon us, it seemed close to impossible that we would be able to make the trip to meet with her. While she is close to our hearts, we were separated by 4580km (2845 miles for our USA/UK friends). However, Lesley and the team at MAVN thankfully remained undaunted by such concerns. The result is one of our very favourite videos to date." - Partner

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