La Lusid - Empty Bones.
Background - La Lusid is back with a new single called "Empty Bones". Warm, melancholic and dynamic, it’s impossible not to get drawn into their dreamy soundscape.
With a sound that is reminiscent of what we love most about 60’s and 70’s analogue music, La Lusid presents themselves with high quality songwriting and sublime vocal arrangements. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
I am afraid we are a bit thin on the ground when it comes to background information regarding La Lusid, the above few words are all we have received and a dig around on their website etc didn't yield much more. Anyhow it's the music that really matters and 'Empty Bones' certainly deserves some attention. An easy going indie song, the vocals come across as personal and are melodic and engaging. The music is delivered to a very high standard, seemingly unassuming and yet you know a considerable amount of attention has taken place!
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D.A. Stern - Bluedgenes.
Background - D.A. Stern signs to Slumberland and shares the new "Bluedgenes" video. D.A. Stern, the solo project of David Aaron Stern, is the musical amalgamation of crossword puzzle obsession, backgammon playing, and working as a recording engineer at Beastie Boy Adam Yauch’s (aka MCA) studio. Stern’s laid back, tongue-in-cheek lyrics effortlessly complement his dreamy pop rock arrangements of dense guitars and swirling organs. The music of D.A. Stern, who is more inspired by filmmakers Albert Brooks and Mel Brooks than any songwriter, could be compared to contemporaries Deerhunter, Real Estate, and Yo La Tengo but with the timelessness of Paul Westerberg.
A few years ago, someone lost in the wild of suburban New Jersey would have noticed Stern's Subaru with a NILSSON vanity plate parked in the driveway of a quaint kosher house, stumbled inside, and witnessed David and his mom, Annette, drinking red wine, cracking filthy jokes, and watching the New York Yankees in the afternoon. By nightfall, however, D.A. would toil away in the basement, recording what would become his debut album, Aloha Hola.
A move to LA found Stern steps away from Dodgers Stadium, spending nights at The Comedy Store, and releasing Aloha Hola in early 2017. Aloha Hola is an assured set of classic pop songs that flirt with folk-pop, power-pop and indiepop while remaining comfortable outside of easy genre categorization. Stern's songwriting talent is in ample evidence on earworm singles like "Am I Ever On Your Mind?" and "Bluedgenes," packed with smart lyrics, chiming guitars and indelible hooks. FACEBOOK.
We first featured D.A. Stern back in January although I notice the video for that song has gone missing (perhaps something to do with the recent new label signing?). Anyhow along comes the music video for 'Bluedgenes', where the music is uptempo and vibrant, the vocals surf along in the mix with a dreamy feel and to round things off the video adds some gentle humour.
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Post Louis - Little Jack.
Background - Angular art-rock quintet Post Louis have returned with their magnificent new single Little Jack. The infectious experimental-indie track studies the personality of a mysterious figure, mixing loneliness, pornographic fantasies and portents of disaster (“She says you’re gonna be a wolf someday / You won’t believe it till it’s happening”). Discussing the song, lead singer Stephanie Davin commented:
“Little Jack is a character study of someone who lives mainly in their own head. It’s about the pains of loneliness and low confidence, and what happens when these mix with naïve sexual desire. I wanted to hint at the potential for harm or even domination. “Little Jack isn’t a monster, but the song is in part about how monsters - or wolves - are made. We need to rethink how we make, force and mould some children into being ‘men’.”
Post Louis emerged in 2013, releasing two EPs and a standalone single to immense critical acclaim. The band then withdrew to write and record. Songwriters Stephanie Davin and Robbie Stern (Cajun Dance Party, guitar with Fryars) retreated to a remote cottage in Wales during the winter, armed only with a looper and a Dictaphone.
They took the material that surfaced from their time away to the rest of the band (Mattis Moviken, Andy Stern, Adam Turner-Heffer) and formed brand new songs through meticulous playing, testing, deconstructing and experimenting at the Norwegian Church (Sjømannskirken) in South London where the band rehearsed. The result was a collection of songs that are complex and interweaving, and like nothing the quintet had ever created before. Self-produced, the tracks are carefully composed to expose the playing styles and personalities of each band member. WEBSITE.
'Little Jack' exudes both quality and imagination from the very beginning. It's a song that has depth, atmosphere and edge. Powerful and beautifully structured it's not a misuse of the term "experimental" for the track, it's also very assessable.
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Tuesday, 6 March 2018
Monday, 5 March 2018
Curious Grace & Black Rabbit - Gang Of Four - Cicada Rhythm - Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders - Kip Nelson
Curious Grace & Black Rabbit - Fat Cats.Background - Chicago-based hard-edged art rock group Curious Grace & Black Rabbit has released the anti-consumerist single “Fat Cats.” Curious Grace & Black Rabbit is an indie art rock band featuring the work of husband-wife songwriting duo Tom and Mary Erangey. The group unites the talents of six performers who draw on everything from 70s/80s Brit rock, jazz, and classical, to Irish traditional music and metal.
Tom plays bass and sings. His curious nature comes from growing up as a “ginger” in London, and Galway, Ireland. Mary plays cello, sings, writes lyrics and dreams of glamor. Self-taught guitarist Mike Conley grew up with Rush, the Scorpions, Ozzy and Van Halen. Then he discovered Swedish virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen and neoclassical metal. He’s been experimenting ever since.
Bojan Kolevski is a Macedonian master of keyboards magic. Hippy chick, yogi, teacher-by-day, and USO performer Heidi O’Toole brings serious vocal pipes (and plays a mean cowbell). And Scott Way, native of the Keys with a background in Broadway, jazz and classical – plays drums. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
'Fat Cats' opens with some chunky riffs and when the vocals kick in, a bluesy alt rock feel quickly emerges. It doesn't stop there as the bands creative music takes us even further, curious indeed!
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Gang Of Four - Lucky.
Background - New single 'Lucky' is the first to emerge from forthcoming EP 'Complicit' (due out April 13). It's the first new music from Gang of Four since 2015’s acclaimed 'What Happens Next' album. In the interim the band have been championed by artists as diverse as Frank Ocean (who sampled them on 'Blonde'), James Murphy, Pharrell (who cites GoF as a prime influence on the new N.E.R.D. album), and St Vincent (rating Andy Gill as one of her favourite guitarists.
Guitarist & founding member Andy Gill wrote 'Lucky' with frontman John 'Gaoler' Sterry, with production by Ben Hillier (Blur, Depeche Mode). Speaking about the track, Gill says; "I’d been watching a serious debate on one of those financial news channels - six white men in suits arguing about the stock markets - and it set me thinking about how limited luck can be. A lot of trading is anyway now done by algorithms to try to eliminate the element of chance, but luck isn’t capable of fundamentally changing the system. Even if you believe market crashes are the result of bad luck rather than layer upon layer of human and machine error, the system shudders, restarts and goes on as before.”
Gang of Four came into being in 1977 and its first phase, incorporating several changes of lineup, lasted until 1984. Their debut album Entertainment! – voted in Pitchfork’s top ten albums of the 70s & a ‘Record That Changed The World’ by MOJO, equally beloved by the likes of R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana & Rage Against The Machine - felt like a blast of ice-cold water, both in form and content. Gill and King made two more albums in the 90s and another in 2011, Content. When King left the project, a reinvigorated Gill seized the opportunity to reimagine Gang of Four from the ground up. As guitarist, composer, producer and lyric writer, he was and remains the band’s driving force. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
The one and only Gang Of Four are back with 'Lucky' a vibrant, energised rocker that is as fresh as anything the band have previously produced. Clearly there is plenty of creativity and ideas around, as the band enter their fifth decade of musical exploration.
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Cicada Rhythm - Do I Deserve It Yet?
Background - Three years since their self-titled debut, Athens, GA-based indie folk band Cicada Rhythm has announced a new album, Everywhere I Go, due out April 27, 2018 via New West Records. With a tracklist that blends orchestral folk-pop and ramshackle roots-rock in equal numbers, Everywhere I Go is a “patchwork album” tracked in recording studios, living rooms, and gospel churches throughout Tennessee and Georgia. Bandmates Andrea DeMarcus and Dave Kirslis have upsized their sound considerably for the record, with new members expanding their once duo to a full touring band and a louder set of influences propelling them forward sonically.
Assisting in that forward propulsion was production by Kenneth Pattengale, spellbinding guitarist and harmony vocalist of the Milk Carton Kids, and Oliver Wood, best known as the lead singer and guitarist for The Wood Brothers. “Armed with equally robust amounts of individuality and talent, Cicada Rhythm spin yarns of sound we haven’t heard before,” says Pattengale. “And aren’t we the better to glimpse their personal reverie?” Like interstate poets, DeMarcus and Kirslis sing about the country unfolding outside their car window at highway speed, spinning stories not only about the places they visit, but personal and social struggles as well.
Cicada Rhythm will be bringing their new songs and full-band arrangement to clubs and festivals throughout the Southern United States, beginning with an appearance of Savannah Stopover on March 9. They will support Lilly Hiatt in Dallas, TX on March 13 before heading to Austin, TX for multiple performances at SXSW. Cicada Rhythm’s April/May headlining tour will include a stop at North Carolina’s Merlefest and a hometown show in Athens, GA, as well as bring them to Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Asheville, Atlanta, and more. Please see below for full tour details with more to be announced soon. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Cicada Rhythm On Tour (More Dates TBA):
March 9 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
March 13 – Dallas, TX @ Shipping & Receiving*
March 14-17 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
March 30 – Charlotte, NC @ Visulite Theatre+
April 20 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement
April 21 – Chattanooga, TN @ Barking Legs Theater
April 27-28 – Wilkesboro, NC @ Merlefest
May 3 – Knoxville, TN @ Barley’s
May 4 – Asheville, NC @ Isis
May 10 – Athens, GA @ Foundry
May 11 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
May 12 – Huntersville, NC @ Brewers and Music Festival
May 18 – Huntsville, AL @ Flying Monkey Arts
May 19 – Waverly, AL @ Standard Deluxe
May 20 – Macon, GA @ The Rookery
June 17 – Hunter, NY @ Mountain Jam
July 13 – Mt. Solon, VA @ Redwing Roots Music Festival
July 14 – Bethlehem, PA @ Levitt SteelStacks
*appearing with Lilly Hiatt
+appearing with Sinners and Saints.
'Do I Deserve It Yet?' is a mixture of folk, roots, blues and rock all wrapped up into one sparkling and hook laden song. The vocals are splendid, the music dynamic and natural, this is one big tease for the forthcoming album.
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Background - Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders return with a first taste from their forthcoming album ‘Blue Poles’, the first new music since the May 2017 single “Susan”. “White Flag” is an unlikely love song about surrendering to a prison that binds two people together. In the music video we find him in Indonesia, struggling with a special kind of captivity. “It’s written from two perspectives”, says Ladder. “I didn’t want to duet so I sang both parts. It allows for more mystery.” The video and the forthcoming album maintain the recurring bone dry sense of humour that has been a thread through all of his work.
“I’ve got no fingers left to cross, each time I leave you cut one off.”
Blue Poles will be the fifth album from one of the most singular characters in Australian music. Sentimental and mournful, sardonic and surreal. Jack Ladder brings that towering and tender baritone to bear on tales of beauty, love, hope and redemption. A master of musical narrative, he conjures lyrics that celebrate the absurdity and sincerity of the human condition in songs that groove in subtle ways.
Burke Reid produced Hurtsville (2011), Kim Moyes shaped Playmates (2014), but this time Jack Ladder takes total control of his creative process. “Blue Poles is the most melodic thing I’ve ever done”, he reflects. “I really pushed myself into some uncomfortable places.”
Blue Poles was recorded at Oceanic Studios in Sydney, engineered by Tim Whitten (The Necks, The Church, The Go-Betweens) and mixed in Los Angeles by Noah Georgeson (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom). Once again he’s joined by The Dreamlanders, Australia’s very own misfit supergroup made up of Donny Benet on bass, Laurence Pike on drums and this time two guitarists - Kirin J Callinan and Ben Hauptmann. WEBSITE.
The musical arrangement is understated as 'White Flag' opens allowing Jack Ladder's definitive vocals to enchant the listener in moments. If that isn't enough the musical landscape broadens, the melodic vibes entice even more, this is one fabulous song.
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Kip Nelson - Mexico.
Background - Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kip Nelson makes his debut with his carefree single, "Mexico." Hailing from the beach town of Santa Barbara, Kip embellishes his slacker-rock style with twinges of psychedelia and lo-fi pop that will transport you to a desert festival dream-state.
Kip comes from a background of playing shows and touring around the reggae scene with Santa Barbara-based band The Olés. The Olés have toured across the U.S. and played festivals with artists like Damian Marley, Don Carlos, and Rebelution. The Olés played regularly in Isla Vista California, the UC Santa Barbara college town, and have been active in the California reggae circuit over the last few years.
Debut album, Waves After Work could be considered a ‘side project’ or a solo recording experiment for Kip. His debut solo album puts the limits of basic home recording to the test. Tracks came together one piece at a time over months of tracking all drums, guitars, synths, and vocals through a Tascam studio cassette player picked up at the local Goodwill. As a local beach sheik once said, “Hearing ‘Waves After Work’ on the loudspeakers sounds like the sonic equivalent of an Indian Summer Santa Barbara Santa Ana breeze gently slapping you in the face”.
Lyrically, Kip toys with themes of escapism throughout the record. Waves After Work is about taking a step away from the monotony of day to day routine. The album name eludes to how, in society, work comes before play. For Kip the after work reward is anything and all things waves, recording sound waves or riding ocean waves. The music is thematically based on dreaming, escaping, surrealism, and freedom of the open spaces. Waves After Work will be available worldwide April 27th, 2018. FACEBOOK.
A swirling bass line opens 'Mexico' and builds in style from there. The contrasting vocal styles are superb and the music imaginative and massively catchy. Debut's of this standard set the bar high, I have a feeling that's not going to be an issue for Kip Nelson.
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Sunday, 4 March 2018
Benjamin Jaffe - Ellie Schmidly - Clever Girls
Benjamin Jaffe - Susan the Cat.Background - Benjamin Jaffe announced today the release his solo debut album Oh, Wild Ocean of Love on May 11th via Diamond Family Records. Best known as one-half of the acclaimed Americana duo Honeyhoney, Jaffe steps into the spotlight with his debut and reveals his ingenuity as a guitar virtuoso, multi-instrumentalist, writer, composer, and arranger. Along with the announcement, Jaffe released his new song titled "Susan The Cat," a sweeping folk ballad inspired by an odd roommate.
Trading the rootsy stomp of Honeyhoney's three albums for an indie-alternative sound, Jaffe widens his approach with Oh, Wild Ocean of Love. These songs make room for a broad range of influences, from the polyphonic rhythms and improvisational freedom of jazz music to the soul and swagger of Motown. There are R&B ballads like "Everlasting Peace," where Jaffe layers his voice into gorgeous stacks of multi-part harmony, and dissonant rockers like "Blooming," where he shines a light on his skills as an inventive electric guitarist. Throughout the tracklist, Jaffe plays nearly every instrument himself, bouncing between drums, keyboard, bass, and guitar.
Inspired by a wide range of sounds and texts - including Paul Simon, Beck, Randy Newman, and The Essential Chuang Tzu - Oh, Wild Ocean of Love explores the wreckage left by a relationship that's poorly-defined and headed south. It's an album about the full spectrum of love: love for yourself, for others, and even your maker. An album about lessons learned. An album about the realization that even in these chaotic times, it's okay to relax. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Tour Dates:
03/06 - Atlanta, GA @ Eddie's Attic
03/07 - Nashville, TN @ The Basement
03/09 - Shreveport, LA @ Strange Brew
03/10 - Lake Charles, LA @ Luna Live
03/13 - Brooklyn, NY @ Baby's All Right
03/15 - Philadelphia, PA @ Ardmore Music Hall
'Susan The Cat' is a beautiful folk ballad that is awash with atmospheric feeling, both musically and with the vocals of Benjamin Jaffe. The production is sublime, allowing all elements to stand out and shine, the album just begs to be heard.
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Ellie Schmidly - Where To Begin.
Background - New artist Ellie Schmidly has released "Where To Begin," the first single from her debut EP, Blossom & Bone. "Where To Begin" is available today at all digital outlets, with Blossom & Bone following on May 11.
"When I first started working at music, it was hard for me to sit down and write or sing because it required me to ask questions of myself and to be vulnerable," recalls Ellie Schmidly. "It forced me to knock down some scaffolding in my own personal construction of how things are to be, and I wasn’t good at that practice yet. It was work and uncomfortable, and it was easier to not do the work, but then I would still feel this deep nagging need to express some big feelings I had ignored within myself – I was conflicted. There is a sort of parade that happens in the song, a big instrumental break with cheering, and it reminds me that doing the hard work of looking inwardly at ourselves is a small victory.”
Ellie’s journey to this point is a serendipitous story. Starting to write and record this EP was daunting process because she felt so far behind everyone else. She hadn't set out to become a songwriter. She wasn't attending a music program in Nashville, and wasn't considering music as her career path. Instead, her music was discovered by famed producer Charlie Peacock (The Civil Wars, The Lone Bellow) after one of her performances was posted to Twitter.
Peacock was so taken with her Springfield, MO house show performance that he reached out to her the very next day to introduce himself. Peacock invited Ellie to Nashville to partake in songwriting sessions and introduced her to those in the community that could help cultivate her music. She says Charlie’s encouragement was life-changing. It turned out to be literally life-changing because she left her home, friends, family, and school in Missouri where she was studying public policy, to make the move to Nashville.
On Blossom & Bone she collaborated with accomplished producers, arrangers, and engineers within Nashville. Todd Gummerman (guitarist for MuteMath) produced the EP and arranged many of the string parts heard on Blossom & Bone. Jeremy Larson (member of Violents), Composer Jordan Critz, and Darren King (drummer for MuteMath) all played, co-wrote, or arranged strings on this EP. With the encouragement of her supportive Nashville community, Ellie Schmidly is ready to begin. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Ellie Schmidly's vocals are personable and charming on 'Where To Begin' a song that mixes some gentle melodic moments with more powerful and dramatic interludes. The music builds into something quite special and unexpected, but for me, it's the vocals that ensure a second listen.
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Clever Girls - Loom.Background - Clever Girls have just premiered their new video for "Loom" via New Noise Magazine. Taken from their upcoming release, Luck, the album will be out on April 2, 2018, with a release show on April 5 at ArtsRiot in Burlington, Vermont.
Late at night, perhaps after Clever Girls' frontwoman Diane Jean has finished digging through dead people’s stuff, you may find her writing. Between running a vintage store and a handful of other odd jobs, Diane founded Clever Girls- a quartet formed in the drunken droves of Burlington, Vermont that creates sorrowful “confused rock.” With a knack for getting into trouble, the grunge pop four-piece is known for their unfiltered emotional deliveries, if not just for their accidental profanity.
Diane Jean’s quirky outlook buoy the band’s writing, while Rob Slater deftly reinvents percussive palettes between songs. Low, steady basslines from Tobias Sullivan anchor the music, while Winfield Holt’s guitar playing is able highlight each song. Together, the group creates hard-hitting and masterful rock, never slipping into diaristic monotony.
Above all, Clever Girls as a group will elicit the same emotion and nostalgia that Diane Jean seeks to find in her day job; the music will live somewhere between straight forward rock and roll of bygone eras and dusty, moth-eaten grunge pop. Clever Girls Luck is out April 2 on all major platforms. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Tour Dates:
March 9 - Rosegold - Brooklyn, NY
March 10 - The News Cafe - Pawtucket, RI
March 17 - Black Heart Sound - Manchester, NH
April 5 - Arts Riot *Album Release Show* - Burlington, VT
May 10 - Kick Off Sidebar - Burlington, VT
May 11 - Manchester, NH
May 12- O'Brien's - Boston, MA
May 13 - Rhode Island
May 15 - The Knitting Factory- Brooklyn, NY
May 16 - Asbury Park (brewery) - Asbury Park, NJ
May 17- Everybody Hits!- Philadelphia, PA
May 24 - Hole in the Wall - Austin, TX
'Loom' starts out with a bass line and enticing vocals and then builds layer by layer into a classy alt rocker. An underlying level of emotion alongside some melodic hooks gives the song some real edge, another album that's firmly on our radar.
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Saturday, 3 March 2018
The Noise Figures - Leitvox - Josh Rouse - Steph Fischer-Ivancsy - Guts Club
The Noise Figures - Lethargy / Telepath/Hypnotized.
Background - Two and a half years after Aphelion, the Athens-based drums-guitar duo of George Nikas (vocals, drums) and Stamos Bamparis (guitar) return more frenetic than ever with their third full-length studio work entitled Telepath. It's set to arrive on March 2nd via Inner Ear Records. Check out the first two singles and the entire album below.
Inspired by the theory of spiritualism and influenced by personal experiences, Telepath is an intoxicated concept album, with intensively sobering attention to detail in every single track, revealing a different side of the band's personality and crossing all the paths the duet from Greece has traveled so far, from heavy blues to psych garage to a fuzz vertigo.
With its swinging moods of bright to dark undertones, the album sounds sharper than ever, with more energy, intensity and tuneful sensibility, capturing the band's hundreds of live performances and touring thrust. With Alex Bolpasis' stamp on production and mixing, The Noise Figures develop the artistic freedom they have cultivated over the years, while keeping their primitive spirit of raw guitar and drum sound intact.
From the opening of Lethargy the track with the massive tribal drumbeat and the loyal-to-fuzz Anatolian guitar riffage, The Noise Figures welcome us to the dreamy delirium they intensively describe in their lyric sheet and sink us into a ritual vortex of hypnotism.
"Telepath" was the first song we composed and recorded during the demo sessions of our third album. Without even knowing where these demos would lead us, we actually had the whole concept of it before the birth of it, just trying out a groove ideal for the gigs and trippy, psychic lyrics. As we were jamming it we came across "Hypnotized", a slow-burning ritual of hypnotism, and it became one track split in two parts." FACEBOOK.
The Noise Figures present us with two tracks 'Lethargy' and 'Telepath/Hypnotized'. The bands psych, rock and blues styles are merged into some powerful music, where the atmosphere is intense and the rhythms are intoxicating as their material marches ever onwards, at times in a near trance like state.
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Leitvox - Black Feather ft. Emma Fox.
Background - Miami based producer Leitvox is back with his new single "Black Feather", an energetic and dreamy composition featuring a danceable beat and floating vocals. "Black Feather" switches up in between genres of synthwave, house and vocal electronic, all while being one cohesive track running through a musical realm. The single is the second release of Leitvox's upcoming EP Coded Matter.
On vocals is Emma Fox, an incredibly talented vocalist that has teamed up with him before on tracks such as "Two Tribes", off his previous full length Floating Promises. "I really can hear my strongest influences on this composition, from NIN to Jean-Michel Jarre. Emma does an amazing work with such elegant vocals, they take the track into a very surreal world." - Leitvox
Leitvox is a Mexican producer and composer based in Miami. He works out of his own studio in Wynwood, and has been working on his and other peoples music since arriving 2013. FACEBOOK.
It was back in November 2016 that we last featured Leitvox, coincidentally on a track that also featuring Emma Cox. 'Black Feather' is another notable song where the vocals drift above a swirl of synths and steady beats, indeed the music is cleverly arranged with layers building and ebbing away, this is addictive.
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Josh Rouse - Salton Sea
Background - "Salton Sea" is the third track off Rouse's new album Love in the Modern Age, out April 13, via Yep Roc Records. Similar to his work on his album 1972 where he captured the aesthetics of a specific moment in time, Josh’s new album Love in the Modern Age takes inspiration from the sound and production of early 1980's releases by The Blue Nile, The Style Council and Prefab Sprout.
Also serving as inspiration were Roxy Music’s Avalon, Leonard Cohen's Various Positions and I'm Your Man. Non-ironic touches like sax, handclaps, reverbed guitar, backing vocals and keyboards give the moody but infectious songs a New Romantic flair.
Josh Rouse has solidified his status as one of his generation's most acclaimed songwriters in both the US and Europe, where he's lived on and off since 2004. Spending the better part of a year touring behind his critically acclaimed eleventh album, The Embers of Time, Rouse was ready for a change.
"Coming off such a heavy record, I wanted to try something different," he explains. "I wanted to explore new sounds and write with a fresh backdrop." Trading in his trusty acoustic guitar for a synthesizer, Love in the Modern Age still bears Rouse's distinct fingerprints even as it pushes his limits and forges a bold new chapter more than twenty years into his celebrated career. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Back in January we shared 'Businessman' from Josh Rouse and now we have 'Salton Sea' also taken from his forthcoming 'Love in the Modern Age' album. It's another refined and catchy song, the vocals are classy and the music has hints of the eighties albeit with a flourish of more modern production techniques that just add so much more.
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Steph Fischer-Ivancsy - Warning Signs.
Background - Steph Fischer-Ivancsy’s unique brand of blues is a throbbing, stomping, wailing blast cut through with a voice that will bring you to your knees. After beginning her solo career in 2015 this young singer-songwriter has secured numerous residencies, toured alongside Melbourne blues legend Shaun Kirk, and brought her powerful energy to festivals and pubs throughout Victoria and New South Wales. Warning Signs is the latest single from Steph.
Warning Signs features heavy and gritty guitars, chillingly unique vocals with booming drums and a powerful blues-rock element topped off with harmonica. Warning Signs has a few messages behind it; being cautious of getting to know people but not to listen to all the lies about a person; not dwelling on the hard times and realising mistakes are okay.
“There’s a whole bunch of things in this song. It’s all about realising it’s okay to stuff up every once in a while, but we just need to keep going and to not always believe the lies people tell. Also to be cautious because we never really know someone.” - Steph Fischer-Ivancsy
Warning Signs was recorded at Kelsonic Studios Melbourne, Australia and produced, engineered and mastered by Mark Kelson.
To hear Steph play is to listen to hard times and heartache engage with the raw energy of a young woman full of fire. She backs her incredible voice with an arsenal of guitars, played with finger-slide, and the driving beat of stomp-box and tambourine. By combining the timelessness of swampy slide-guitar with a burning youthful force Steph has carved out a sound all her own. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Upcoming Shows:
12th April – Hume Blues Club, Coburg
28th April – Jamieson Autumn Festival, Jamieson (Supporting Shaun Kirk)
12th May – Baby Black Café, Bacchus Marsh (Supporting Shaun Kirk).
Some gorgeous bluesy vocals make 'Warning Signs' attention grabbing from the beginning and the music has power and plenty of natural rock & roll vibes to it, this is potent and very catchy.
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Guts Club - Mustard Tears.
Background - RIP Records has released a brand new Guts Club track, "Mustard Tears" as part of their RIP Introduces Series. This new single is the first to be heard from Guts Club's upcoming third album, which is due out sometime this summer.
Musician and visual artist Lindsey Baker self-released her solo debut album, The Arm Wrestling Tournament, in February 2015 and it caught a lot of ears. In a review from Tiny Mix Tapes they said “Baker carries a guitar the way Robert Frost carried a hatchet: as a tool through which tension and rage can be released,” and Paste said “The Brooklyn singer and songwriter behind Guts Club sings with piercing emotional intensity.”
She’s since moved from Brooklyn to New Orleans, where she recorded her second album Shit Bug, released on Moderate Fidelity Records on July 1, 2016. Baker brought along a band for Sht Bug and has since preformed with a rotating cast of musicians and friends.
While The Arm Wrestling Tournament dealt mostly with dark, obsessive love, the themes of Sht Bug further define Baker’s ongoing narrative about coming to terms with otherness and alienation via with her own brand of cosmic gloom. A third and fully electric album is just being wrapped up with a release date sometime in the spring or summer of 2018. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Upcoming Shows:
March 7 New Orleans, LA at Hi-Ho Lounge
March 13 Austin, TX at Marriott South (Solo Acoustic Second Play Stage Set)
March 16 Austin, TX at Voodoo Doughnut
March 17 Austin, TX at Cheer Up Charlies (Indoor Stage) Official WolfieVibes Publicity Showcase.
There is some warm roots feeling to 'Mustard Tears', a passionate and majestic song where the musicianship gently turns out layers of melody, making a perfect backdrop for the emotional and definitive vocals.
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Background - Two and a half years after Aphelion, the Athens-based drums-guitar duo of George Nikas (vocals, drums) and Stamos Bamparis (guitar) return more frenetic than ever with their third full-length studio work entitled Telepath. It's set to arrive on March 2nd via Inner Ear Records. Check out the first two singles and the entire album below.
Inspired by the theory of spiritualism and influenced by personal experiences, Telepath is an intoxicated concept album, with intensively sobering attention to detail in every single track, revealing a different side of the band's personality and crossing all the paths the duet from Greece has traveled so far, from heavy blues to psych garage to a fuzz vertigo.
With its swinging moods of bright to dark undertones, the album sounds sharper than ever, with more energy, intensity and tuneful sensibility, capturing the band's hundreds of live performances and touring thrust. With Alex Bolpasis' stamp on production and mixing, The Noise Figures develop the artistic freedom they have cultivated over the years, while keeping their primitive spirit of raw guitar and drum sound intact.
From the opening of Lethargy the track with the massive tribal drumbeat and the loyal-to-fuzz Anatolian guitar riffage, The Noise Figures welcome us to the dreamy delirium they intensively describe in their lyric sheet and sink us into a ritual vortex of hypnotism.
"Telepath" was the first song we composed and recorded during the demo sessions of our third album. Without even knowing where these demos would lead us, we actually had the whole concept of it before the birth of it, just trying out a groove ideal for the gigs and trippy, psychic lyrics. As we were jamming it we came across "Hypnotized", a slow-burning ritual of hypnotism, and it became one track split in two parts." FACEBOOK.
The Noise Figures present us with two tracks 'Lethargy' and 'Telepath/Hypnotized'. The bands psych, rock and blues styles are merged into some powerful music, where the atmosphere is intense and the rhythms are intoxicating as their material marches ever onwards, at times in a near trance like state.
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Leitvox - Black Feather ft. Emma Fox.
Background - Miami based producer Leitvox is back with his new single "Black Feather", an energetic and dreamy composition featuring a danceable beat and floating vocals. "Black Feather" switches up in between genres of synthwave, house and vocal electronic, all while being one cohesive track running through a musical realm. The single is the second release of Leitvox's upcoming EP Coded Matter.
On vocals is Emma Fox, an incredibly talented vocalist that has teamed up with him before on tracks such as "Two Tribes", off his previous full length Floating Promises. "I really can hear my strongest influences on this composition, from NIN to Jean-Michel Jarre. Emma does an amazing work with such elegant vocals, they take the track into a very surreal world." - Leitvox
Leitvox is a Mexican producer and composer based in Miami. He works out of his own studio in Wynwood, and has been working on his and other peoples music since arriving 2013. FACEBOOK.
It was back in November 2016 that we last featured Leitvox, coincidentally on a track that also featuring Emma Cox. 'Black Feather' is another notable song where the vocals drift above a swirl of synths and steady beats, indeed the music is cleverly arranged with layers building and ebbing away, this is addictive.
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Josh Rouse - Salton Sea
Background - "Salton Sea" is the third track off Rouse's new album Love in the Modern Age, out April 13, via Yep Roc Records. Similar to his work on his album 1972 where he captured the aesthetics of a specific moment in time, Josh’s new album Love in the Modern Age takes inspiration from the sound and production of early 1980's releases by The Blue Nile, The Style Council and Prefab Sprout.
Also serving as inspiration were Roxy Music’s Avalon, Leonard Cohen's Various Positions and I'm Your Man. Non-ironic touches like sax, handclaps, reverbed guitar, backing vocals and keyboards give the moody but infectious songs a New Romantic flair.
Josh Rouse has solidified his status as one of his generation's most acclaimed songwriters in both the US and Europe, where he's lived on and off since 2004. Spending the better part of a year touring behind his critically acclaimed eleventh album, The Embers of Time, Rouse was ready for a change.
"Coming off such a heavy record, I wanted to try something different," he explains. "I wanted to explore new sounds and write with a fresh backdrop." Trading in his trusty acoustic guitar for a synthesizer, Love in the Modern Age still bears Rouse's distinct fingerprints even as it pushes his limits and forges a bold new chapter more than twenty years into his celebrated career. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Back in January we shared 'Businessman' from Josh Rouse and now we have 'Salton Sea' also taken from his forthcoming 'Love in the Modern Age' album. It's another refined and catchy song, the vocals are classy and the music has hints of the eighties albeit with a flourish of more modern production techniques that just add so much more.
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Steph Fischer-Ivancsy - Warning Signs.
Background - Steph Fischer-Ivancsy’s unique brand of blues is a throbbing, stomping, wailing blast cut through with a voice that will bring you to your knees. After beginning her solo career in 2015 this young singer-songwriter has secured numerous residencies, toured alongside Melbourne blues legend Shaun Kirk, and brought her powerful energy to festivals and pubs throughout Victoria and New South Wales. Warning Signs is the latest single from Steph.
Warning Signs features heavy and gritty guitars, chillingly unique vocals with booming drums and a powerful blues-rock element topped off with harmonica. Warning Signs has a few messages behind it; being cautious of getting to know people but not to listen to all the lies about a person; not dwelling on the hard times and realising mistakes are okay.
“There’s a whole bunch of things in this song. It’s all about realising it’s okay to stuff up every once in a while, but we just need to keep going and to not always believe the lies people tell. Also to be cautious because we never really know someone.” - Steph Fischer-Ivancsy
Warning Signs was recorded at Kelsonic Studios Melbourne, Australia and produced, engineered and mastered by Mark Kelson.
To hear Steph play is to listen to hard times and heartache engage with the raw energy of a young woman full of fire. She backs her incredible voice with an arsenal of guitars, played with finger-slide, and the driving beat of stomp-box and tambourine. By combining the timelessness of swampy slide-guitar with a burning youthful force Steph has carved out a sound all her own. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Upcoming Shows:
12th April – Hume Blues Club, Coburg
28th April – Jamieson Autumn Festival, Jamieson (Supporting Shaun Kirk)
12th May – Baby Black Café, Bacchus Marsh (Supporting Shaun Kirk).
Some gorgeous bluesy vocals make 'Warning Signs' attention grabbing from the beginning and the music has power and plenty of natural rock & roll vibes to it, this is potent and very catchy.
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Guts Club - Mustard Tears.
Background - RIP Records has released a brand new Guts Club track, "Mustard Tears" as part of their RIP Introduces Series. This new single is the first to be heard from Guts Club's upcoming third album, which is due out sometime this summer.
Musician and visual artist Lindsey Baker self-released her solo debut album, The Arm Wrestling Tournament, in February 2015 and it caught a lot of ears. In a review from Tiny Mix Tapes they said “Baker carries a guitar the way Robert Frost carried a hatchet: as a tool through which tension and rage can be released,” and Paste said “The Brooklyn singer and songwriter behind Guts Club sings with piercing emotional intensity.”
She’s since moved from Brooklyn to New Orleans, where she recorded her second album Shit Bug, released on Moderate Fidelity Records on July 1, 2016. Baker brought along a band for Sht Bug and has since preformed with a rotating cast of musicians and friends.
While The Arm Wrestling Tournament dealt mostly with dark, obsessive love, the themes of Sht Bug further define Baker’s ongoing narrative about coming to terms with otherness and alienation via with her own brand of cosmic gloom. A third and fully electric album is just being wrapped up with a release date sometime in the spring or summer of 2018. WEBSITE, FACEBOOK.
Upcoming Shows:
March 7 New Orleans, LA at Hi-Ho Lounge
March 13 Austin, TX at Marriott South (Solo Acoustic Second Play Stage Set)
March 16 Austin, TX at Voodoo Doughnut
March 17 Austin, TX at Cheer Up Charlies (Indoor Stage) Official WolfieVibes Publicity Showcase.
There is some warm roots feeling to 'Mustard Tears', a passionate and majestic song where the musicianship gently turns out layers of melody, making a perfect backdrop for the emotional and definitive vocals.
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