Sunday, 16 June 2019

Thandii - Team Me - Julia Rakel - Grace Gillespie

Less than a month since we featured 'Honey' by Thandii they return with 'Tides' where the driving bass line and assortment of sounds blends beautifully with the gorgeous soaring vocals.

Team Me also return for a second time, back in April we shared 'The Future In Your Eyes' and now we have 'Does Anyone Know How To Get To The Heart Of This' a splendid enough song title and equally splendid indie piece the bands knack for creating rousing catchy tunes continues.

We featured Julia Rakel a couple of times back in March and now we have 'Summer Hit' another creative and melodic song where her fabulous vocals and wonderful musical arrangement work wonders.

Finally and pretty much a month to the day since we first featured her, Grace Gillespie has shared the new song 'My Love Surreal', a hook filled pop piece that is just a little off kilter making the track even more engaging.
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Thandii - Tides.

Margate based duo Thandii have released new single ‘Tides’. This will be the final single from upcoming EP ‘Serious Town’, slated for July 5th.

Having gained support for their signature blend of sultry female vocals and upbeat pulsating bass lines on previous singles ‘Company’ and ‘Honey’ Jess and Graham now return with ‘Tides’ where they explore the themes of guilt and how people deal with it. A growing cluster of rhythmic sounds and shuffles, and an ever-present increasing bass line invoke the feeling of being relentlessly chased by guilt. A tribute to Greta Thunberg, the song has a constant nod to her work in raising awareness toward climate change, and uses it as a metaphor for regret. “There’s another heatwave on….” and “I can’t ignore you,” Jess sings with her soaring vocals.

‘Serious Town’, out July 5th on the band's own label Bad Hacker, sees a departure in tonality as well as the way it was recorded from Thandii’s previous works. “For the EP we chose to spend some time in a proper studio, rather than recording at home as we have done before. One of our favourites is a place called ‘Echo Zoo’ down in Eastbourne - it’s an analogue recording haven more akin to the Southern States than the southern coast of the UK.” The duo wrote and produced the EP themselves and took inspiration from the darker side of the psyche. “Imagine if the voice in your head sang at a dystopian disco.” Featuring previous singles ‘Company’ and ‘Honey’ the EP also features 4 new tracks, including upcoming single ‘Tides’.

‘Suits’ is a delicate and floating melody over the stab of reverb bathed synths that laments the aftermath of a fight. It culminates in a distorted guitar solo that perfectly conjures the moment raw passion meets vulnerable emotion.

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Team Me - Does Anyone Know How To Get To The Heart Of This.

After their euphoric return earlier this year, Team Me present the memorable ‘Does Anyone Know How to Get to the Heart of This’, out now via Propeller Recordings (Highasakite, Dagny, Sløtface, Moddi), the third instalment of their upcoming EP.

Leading man, Marius Drogås Hagen of Team Me tells of the track, “‘DAKHTGTTHOT’ teleports us back into the post-apocalyptic world. A future where our cyborg heroes are fighting a losing battle. A battle for love, lost in a sea of flames”, continuing the harrowing and poignant narrative from it’s predecessor ‘The Future In Your Eyes’.

Capturing the anguish and romantic longing in the sonic soundscape, paired with Marius’ soft vocals, Team Me have taken a gentle and thoughtful approach on ‘Does Anyone Know How to Get to the Heart of This’. The single demonstrates the band’s capacity to create versatile sounds, showcasing their artistry while cementing Team Me’s reputation for manufacturing cinematic indie bangers in all forms.

When speaking of the band’s new chapter, Marius tells “as for the music, I really want to be more focused on documenting this time, rather than releasing an album and touring for three years on a campaign. I want the project to just be a way to let things out of my system.”

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Julia Rakel - Summer Hit.

Umeå-via-Malmö Swedish musician and producer Julia Rakel is the latest addition to Stockholm indie label Rama Lama Records' (Melby, Steve Buscemi's Dreamy Eyes, Chez Ali etc.) roster. Debut EP indie fEELz was just released in march and Julia is already back with a new single called Summer hit, out now on all platforms

Julia works at the well-known Malmö studio Tambourine and her credits include sound design and music for the award-winning short film Plankton. With her expertise as a producer she's refined her stripped-down sketches to a daydreaming beautiful soundscape that develops with every listen. This, put together with Julia's individual vocals and often ironic lyrics, create a intimate and memorable sound. A sound that has been described as “a laid-back, dreamy, DIY aesthetic provided with some wonderfully candid and vulnerable music”.

Julia Rakel's own words about the single: "Man, I’ve had such a shitty 2019 so far. So frickin’ long and dark. But then April comes along and is really warm and sunny, and I thought. YES. It’s finally going my way. So I took a longer route to work, smelled a flower, all that jazz. The day after I wrote and recorded this little jam! The lyrics are super depressive, but the song is happy! My favorite combination."

Debut EP indie fEElz is six track creation that according to Julia is a try to deal with the very different kinds of relationships we have with each other and ourselves through "a lot of irony, drum machines and way too many choirs parts". The tracks treat universal topics such as forced acquaintances, love, desperate attempts to be understood, how we feel about our egos and sad celebrations of friendships.

“Summer hit” is out now on all platforms via Stockholm independent label Rama Lama Records. Julia Rakel made her live debut in October last year and have since supported Molly Nilsson amongst others, more live dates to be expected.

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Grace Gillespie - My Love Surreal.

Grace Gillespie follows the infectious 'I'm Your Man' with the off-kilter pop track ‘My Love Surreal’, from her debut EP ‘Pretending’.

It’s South London based Grace’s exploration into solo psych-pop material after touring as part of Pixx’s live line up, supporting names such as Nilüfer Yanya, Cosmo Pyke and Trudy and The Romance.

Diverging from her previous romantic ballad, ‘My Love Surreal’ reveals the playful element of Grace’s sound, with discordant synth patterns that feel like the “cool blue light refracted” she’s singing about. Layered upon an almost-sinister plucky guitar riff and doused in her ethereal, vintage sound, the track is the epitome Grace’s individual pop vision.

Summarising the push-pull feeling of the charm of the track with the unexpectedness of dissonant chords, she describes the track as a “summer dysphoria”. With references to “blue light” and “day-glo”, “everything is vivid, patterned and bright - and yet entirely out of reach.”

Grace wrote the track in the peak of the hot concrete London summer, feeling frustrated, as “the circular synth patterns reflect little repetitive, negative patterns of thought, born out of a sense of isolation, being stuck indoors, being stuck creatively.” Anyone who lives in a big city will understand the confusing feeling of loneliness matched with endless potential.

In the end, the track comes full circle to remind Grace that her “love is real”: “It’s easy to be critical and get stuck in these relentless little cycles of negativity - I suppose the song was me trying to win myself over.”

It's yet another demonstration of Grace Gillespie’s ability to craft captivating pop songs whilst keeping listeners on their toes, a reminder to “get out of your head - it’s beautiful out there!”

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Saturday, 15 June 2019

Dive Bell - The Goa Express - Honey Moon - Oh, Rose - Late TV

From Sydney, Australia we have Dive Bell and a video for the song 'Lupine', a rich and unique sounding track where somewhat ethereal vocals are joined by a disparate musical arrangement yet they work beautifully together.

The Goa Express have shared 'The Day' an energised indie rocker where the vocals are enthused and the band tight and feisty.

It's our third feature for Honey Moon as once again the London jangle pop outfit impress us, this time with 'Magic' a timeless pop piece that is rammed full of hooks.

Oh, Rose new album 'While My Father Sleep' opens with '25, Alive' accompanied with a video, the song is a loose rocker, Rose's vocals ebb and flow with charm and feeling, it's a fine teaser for what's to follow.

We have 'I Gotta Pay' from Late TV another band making their third appearance here, in fact we have two versions studio and live to checkout, both are really fine as the band take us in another direction that is nonetheless just as pleasing as their previous songs.
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Dive Bell - Lupine.

Sydney’s Dive Bell exhibit their mysterious, divergent sound with ‘Lupine’, their cut through first release of 2019.

Shaping a truly vast and cinematic soundscape with their blend of alt-rock, electronica and trip-hop, ‘Lupine’ sees haunting harmonies effervesce around brutal guitar tones and shimmering synth lines. Initially striking with its raw digital crunch, this dissolves effortlessly to reveal a lush final quarter full of bright optimistic tones. “I was inspired by a doco I watched which delved deep into the territorial nature of wolves. It raised themes around belonging and entrapment, freedom and repression - which I explore lyrically in the track,” singer/keyboardist Aleesha Dibbs explains.

Voyaging to the wolves' nomadic habitat, the music video adds to the wonder, catapulting viewers into a seemingly ethereal world. Far from civilisation and shot on location in the Snowy Mountains, the clip sees Aleesha running amongst the wild. ”It involved the most intense cold I’ve ever experienced, a substantial amount of time on the freeway and a real-life 'Man from Snowy River,'” she jokes.

Having shared the stage with the likes of as Jonti, VOWWS, Body Type, Party Dozen, Lucianblomkamp, VOWWS, 100, Exhibitionist and A Swayze & The Ghosts, four-piece DIVE BELL have captivated audiences from all across the musical spectrum. Cementing themselves in both the local and national scene, their previous singles have seen support from the likes of FBi Radio and Rage.


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The Goa Express - The Day.

The Goa Express release their urgent new single 'The Day' on Friday the  5th of July. Recorded at Champ Zone with Nathan Saoudi (Fat White Family), it rattles with an unstoppable new wave rhythm, shudders with abrasive guitars and with vocals that sneer with the spirit of seizing the day while everything is falling apart around you, their sound may rustle with the ghosts of acts like The Stooges,  Psychedelic Furs and contemporaries like Shame, but the Goa Express possesses youthful energy, northern spite and ever-evolving sound all of their own.  The band's frontman James Douglas Clarke says ‘The new tracks are about moving out to university and getting caught for doing shit whilst there and also about the fake, social media platform of our society, lick arses and how everybody wants to pretend that they’re friends.’

Teenagehood, brotherhood and a love for an array of alternative music, across the years, has closely united Burnley and Todmorden's, The Goa Express. Although the intensity of their friendship has resulted in the occasional bust-up, along the way, it is outweighed by their chemistry, which the band offers collectively both on stage and on record. Together, James Douglas Clarke (Guitar + Vocals), Joe Clarke (Keys), Joey Stein (Lead Guitar), Naham Muzaffar (Bass) and Sam Launder (Drums), each contribute to a fuzzy wall of diverse sounds that become hard to pin down with their ever-changing, experimental sound.

Since coming to Manchester, The Goa Express have enjoyed support slots with international bands like The Murlocs, Moon Duo and Mystic Braves as well as performing live with domestic indie champions such as Cabbage, YAK and The Orielles. Whilst at university, The Goa Express have played headline shows at both Manchester's Band On The Wall and The Castle Hotel, as well as slots at Liverpool Psych Festival and the Leeds based, Karma festival. Their live sets are raw, and with expressive, outspoken mindsets, the band transform the hyper- communication and speed of modern life through hard-hitting, relatable lyrics.

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Honey Moon - Magic.

London jangle-pop crooners Honey Moon reveal new single ‘Magic’ ­– perhaps their most ambitious cut to date. It’s straight from the classic songbook, replete with saturated Hollywood strings, swooning vocals and a spine tingling key change. Once again frontman Jack Slater Chandler’s vocals come to the fore, with the rest of the mooners’ model musicianship dealing a handful of expert flourishes to deliver the slow, hip-swinging ballroom bop.

To put the track out they’re once again teaming up with Manchester label Heist or Hit  (Her’s, Pizzagirl, Baywaves, Guest Singer), with whom they released last year’s acclaimed Four More From… EP, enchanting taste makers as well as BBC 6 Music and legendary crate digger Elton John.

Augmenting their trademark doo-wop sound with new textures, rhythms and instrumentation to give a more expansive sound, Honey Moon capture shadowy, wistful late-night moments. Plucked guitars, walking baselines and shuffling drums carry ‘Magic’ as it drifts through faded dreams. Slater Chandler explains the wider concept the band are aiming to express with this latest ode:

“We wanted to explore the illusionary theme, to try and make something expansive and cinematic-sounding. 'Magic' represents the soul-mate style love we see in film, literature, Honey Moon songs - everywhere! What can seem like the most mundane, everyday elements of companionship are often the most important and overlooked. This sort of souped-up version of having 'one true love' is, whilst a nice idea, pretty difficult to imagine as anything that's realistically achievable, but there's something very real in the sentiment, and that's the ‘spell’, that's the illusion.”

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Oh, Rose - 25, Alive.

While My Father Sleeps by the Olympia, Washington based band Oh, Rose tells the complex story of family, adversity, love, and friendship. In ten songs, the record bears the soul and shares the truths of the band’s front-person and creative driver, Olivia Rose, while also serving as a homage to Rose’s mother, who passed away in January of 2017. It is Rose’s life story, told under the banner of a story her mother was never able to finish.

“While My Father Sleeps is the title of the book my mother wrote throughout her life,” Rose says. “It involved her relationship with my grandfather, the way she could communicate with him through the poetry of Carl Sandburg and the writings of Truman Capote. Her storytelling always inspired me to tell my own through music. The album title and artwork serves as a bookend, the songs written between two moments. The front cover shows my mother reading to my brother and me outside the North Asheville library in the summer of 1995, the back is her headstone. Though I didn’t write these songs in a state of grief, I came to know this album while I was grieving. When my mother died, I learned a new language, the language of death. At the same time, I was continuing to build strength and love within my community; my story isn’t uncommon. I hope my music finds a home with those who speak these same languages.”

Soon after arriving in Olympia, Rose met the friends and musicians who would become her community and extended family. Formed in 2014, the band built its foundations by playing DIY house shows and contributing to Olympia’s long-standing punk and art scene. A play on Rose’s own name, Oh, Rose recorded and self-released their first EP, That Do Now See in 2014 followed by a mini album the following year titled Seven. Sticking with the tradition of their previous release, WMFS was recorded and mixed by band member Kevin Christopher in Olympia Today, the live lineup includes Rose on vocals and guitar, Liam Hindahl on drums, Sarah Redden on synthesizer, and Kevin Christopher on bass; the dynamic continues to be as supportive and collaborative as any group of people can be. Each member writes their own instrumental parts with Rose bringing the songwriting and melody. The trust the unit shares with one another is where the group’s power truly lies.

While My Father Sleeps begins with “25, Alive,” a dirge-y, distorted-guitar gem that is fueled by Rose’s lovely rise-and-fall vocals and its choppy-smooth rhythm. The album’s lone number written following her mother’s death, it is a self-appeal to release the anger Rose had been holding both during her mother’s life and after her passing. As the song opens with the lines “Am I strong enough to tell my truth/25 I am alive and I am angry,” the way is paved for the passionate soul-bearing that follows. “I was 25 when my mother died and I was angry and broken” Rose says. “This song is me saying I don’t want this anger because I know what it does to a person if they hold onto it.”


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Late TV - I Gotta Pay.

About ‘I Gotta Pay’ There’s a humbling eclecticism in Late TV’s sound when comparing ‘I Gotta Pay’ with previous singles like ‘Citizen’ and ‘Great Gulfs’. Just when you think you can pin them down, they throw a swerve ball from somewhere left-of-field. That their music still (lucidly) gets to the core of who they are with every release is a testament to their versatility as songwriters, their voraciousness as listeners, and their clarity of vision as a group.

Their latest release is a poised and effortless foray through the familiar avenues of jazz and funk, with Defunkt-style motifs of punk and new wave, (frontman Luke Novak name-checks the seminal ‘Make Them Dance’ as an influence), weaved in alongside the afrobeat-tinged rock of The Budos Band. Lyrically Novak has modern culture in his sights as he threads together a series of financial frustrations and western cultural ironies with rhyming couplets to make a dour and absurdist collage. Like all the music of Late TV, it’s a mutant assemblage of ideas that succeeds through the canniness of its juxtapositions, never setting out an ideal, but through the subtlety and force of their craft and energy alone, leaving us in no doubt as to what’s being communicated.

About Late TV Amidst the cultural detritus of television’s after hours rises a freaky new street beat played by London’s Late TV. Culling influences from jazz cats and art rockers, B-movies and trash television, via Lynch and Tarantino, Late TV are the moonlighting house band for a surreal all-night dream club where the intangible dance floor shifts and folds to become the set piece of a talk show beamed onto the farthest reaches of your channel selector. Helmed by Luke J Novak, who hails from the slabbed post-industrial backwater of Kidderminster, Late TV originates from a folk noir group formed by Luke and Richard ‘The Showman’ Bowman, a drummer whose restless search for groove quickly outgrew their genre.

Joined by Indiana’s jazz fusion obsessed Ryan Szanyi on bass, Parisian keyboard maestro Martin Coxall, tenor sax player Evesham Nicholas, and Matthew Halsall (whose bionic heart valve’s separate mic-detectable rhythms occasionally cause problems in the studio), their new outfit Late TV harks back to a time when music was all fearless fusion and intractable improvisation. 2018 saw them take major steps forward. Kickstarted with the release of their brilliant ‘Citizen’ single, the group then appeared at Standon Calling Festival that summer alongside Goldfrapp and spiritual forefather Bryan Ferry. They followed it up early this year with the wind-swept soft rock of ‘Great Gulfs’ - its louche romanticism showcasing their immense songwriting versatility. In the postmodern wastelands of pop they’re the high-brow/low-brow mutant junk dwellers, collecting the shards of our fragmented culture and building something both irresistibly dangerous and dangerously irresistible.

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Friday, 14 June 2019

Erin Durant - Catacomb Saints - Michael Paul Lawson - Keøma - Glass Mountain - Chapell

Erin Durant has just shared her fourth and final single from the forthcoming album 'Islands'. Her appealing and gentle vocals glide above a restrained yet detailed musical canvas, 'Islands' should be good.

'Bankquilizer' from Catacomb Saints is atmospheric and simmers with restrained power, the mixture of post punk and sonic exploration both musically and vocally gives this song some rotatable edge.

Michael Paul Lawson has released the song 'Memories And Throttle' a refined singer songwriter piece his vocals are perfect for folk orientated music as they convey emotion and earnest feeling.

We first featured Keøma in April this year and they return with 'Young' accompanied by a video, their fresh and extremely catchy music once again proving hard to resist.

'Autumn Jam' by Glass Mountain is a hook laden indie rocker, the bands natural delivery and level of distinct overall sound, helps them stand out in what is a crowded music genre.

The overall production and resulting sound on Chapell's latest song 'Ride' is a deliciously rich, the musical arrangement and backing vocals are superb and allow enough room for Alan Chapell's palpable voice to own the piece.

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Erin Durant - Rising Sun.

The fourth and final single from Erin Durant’s forthcoming ‘Islands,’ ‘Rising Sun’ is its raison d’etre, the grand statement that leads you by the hand into her sprawling, sun-dappled archipelago. Over a gently strolling guitar and muted toms, Durant sings ‘I’m going far, I’m going wide’, signalling her intention to embed you within her travelling time machine. A lesson in sophistication, ‘Rising Sun’ fuses strung-out trumpets with Durant’s balm-like voice. ‘Rising Sun’ is like the lavender you spread on your pillow to induce sleep. Lie with it, doze off and dream of magical lands.

Rarely does an artist appear, as if out of thin air, with a full body of work where lyrically lush songs carry you into other worlds as if they were your own. Erin Durant's second album, Islands is an odyssey of sorts, with songs that blur the line between reality and fiction. Produced by TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone, the eight songs deliver clarity within mystery and adventure in their uncluttered vignettes.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Durant has been based in New York for over a decade, all the while keeping track of the intricacies of life surrounding her and diligently developing her craft as a songwriter and performer. Lyrically, she composes most songs on piano, songs that tend to unfold structurally like a memory or a scene from a movie. As a performer, Durant usually transports a 232-pound ¾ size piano to venues without one. To hear her play the instrument makes plain her case for the extra effort. Her music is rooted in an ongoing dialogue between the physicality of her playing and the high, clear tone of her voice. Enmeshed with one another, it’s a display of an artist in full possession of herself and vision.

Islands sprawls out in front of you, weaving disparate stories into an overarching narrative. The songs touch on the ability to find meaning in minutiae. On “Take A Load Off” Durant tells a story of a weary traveler disoriented but pulled into revelry in an attempt to assuage their loss. The titular track “Islands” takes a similar tact, focusing on the conflicting process of attempting to find joy when joy seems lost. Islands is a continuously shifting landscape, with a knowing nod to the inevitability of these shifts.

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Catacomb Saints - Bankquilizer.

Catacomb Saints share their new atmospheric post-punk meets folk single "Bankquilizer". Regarding the song, the band stated ""Bankquilizer" is a hypnotizing post-punk ballad of greed and violence, sung in a visceral style inspired by Nick Cave and the falsetto of Klaus Nomi. This song is a call to arms to rise up and not be tranquilized by banks and good ol’ boys. We recorded this long distance between LA and Edmonton, but that distance pales in comparison with the distance between the oppressor and the oppressed."

Catacomb Saints is Neil Holyoak (Holy Oak) and synth artist Devon Beggs. They recorded their first song in a cave in Banff, Alberta. Neil was burnt out on folk music and could only sing one line over and over again. They traveled through the Canadian Rockies in mid-winter to seek inspiration in a dank dark cave.

Immersed in the unusual environment and through sonic experimentation, they began a new composition. Playing the entire cave like a giant instrument, they used the natural reverberation to create a sonic landscape. Neil began making records in Montreal under the band name Holy Oak in 2007. Inspired by poets such as Thich Nhat Hahn, Rabindranath Tagore and Tomas Tranströmer, Neil’s fascination lies with the dark undercurrent of the subconscious.

Devon’s background is visual art, but his work in performance and video led him to experiment with synthesizers and homemade instruments. He uses a process based approach to synthesis and composition, in the spirit of Brian Eno or John Cage. Catacomb Saints release their EP, Cruel as the Grave, on June 14th, 2019. They’re currently working on their first full length album, which they’re recording at their studio on a small island in the Pacific Northwest.

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Michael Paul Lawson - Memories And Throttle.

Michael Paul Lawson was born into a deeply musical family, with generations of band leaders, classically trained academics, and brass band legends before him. While his early inclinations were to follow in their footsteps, his contentious relationship with his father and the urgings of his family to pursue more lucrative career paths, dampened his musical ambitions. Trading in the rust of northern New York for the luster of Long Island’s gold coast, Lawson set his artistry to the side in pursuit of corporate life. Eight years later, saddled with student loan debt and weary from the relentless New York City grind, Lawson moved, on a whim, to Norfolk, VA.

In Norfolk Lawson found space and clarity. He could watch the sunrise over the Atlantic and the sunset across the Blue Ridge Mountains in the same day. In Virginia the music started to flow. Plain-spoken ballads with deceptively straight-forward lyrics. A mix of beautiful prose and raw realities, conjuring up the early work of Jason Isbell and the slow burning, sobering lyrics of John Prine. Lawson was soon singing these songs in breweries and bars across Virginia, working it out, making up for lost time.

A disciplined artist with a punch-clock work ethic, Lawson began building a reputation as one of the most prolific writers and performers in the area, and he quickly began securing notable slots at the Norfolk Folk Festival and providing opening support for The Steel Wheels, and Sons of Bill. Eventually, his songs reached producer Daniel Mendez (Noah Gundersen, The Native Sibling) who offered Michael a development deal and an invite to track a debut EP in Austin.

Returning to Austin, where Lawson spent childhood summers visiting his father, was cathartic. It had been 16 years since Lawson was last in hill country, and 16 years since he last saw his father’s silhouette in the back of a squad car, when the constant drinking and violence came to a head in the Texas night, ultimately leading to their estrangement. It was an odd place to return now that he was carving out a new life path, but it also felt strangely in step with the material he had written for his debut EP, Some Fights You’ll Never Win. He was reconciling his relationship with his father, there in the flesh, and in the studio, as he committed his highly personal songs to tape. It was a healing experience, coming full circle, continuing the lineage of musical craftsmanship that had run in his family for generations.

“It’s taken a long time for me to get to where I should have been going from the start,” Lawson reflects. But taking the ‘back roads’ gave him the clear understanding, as the songs on Some Fights You’ll Never Win attest, that the most important battles to dive into are internal.

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Keøma - Young.

KEØMA, the collaborative project between Sydney-born, Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist/producer Kat Frankie and Cologne-based singer-songwriter Chris Klopfer, have released their new album "Saudade" alongside a video for "Young".

"Young" is a summery jangle-pop number with a lo-fi video celebrating the carefree feeling of youth as the duo take a trip down memory lane. Clips of sandy beaches, ice-blue swimming pools and palm trees are composed together like flickering memories of a postcard from an unforgettable holiday.

Kat Frankie is a well-known character in the German music landscape via her soulful indie pop, dynamic live shows and collaborations with top-tier German acts (Clueso, Olli Schulz, Casper & Materia). Chris Klopfer hails from the indie rock world, writing in both English and German and duetting with some of Germany’s finest singer-songwriters (Gisbert zu Knyphausen, Moritz Krämer).

This fateful and organically evolving project came together after Klopfer caught a performance from Frankie and suggested they write a song together. The name originates from a Castellari Spaghetti-Western movie about a gunfighter who returns to his hometown only to find out that it’s been ravaged by plague and menaced by outlaws.

Saudade is the duo’s latest release; an album whose title suggests a longing for brighter seasons. Gone is the dusty melancholy of their previous offering - instead, a more blissful pop-focused chapter has opened up. The album was written and recorded in Berlin and though the artists are certainly in a happier space, Klopfer admits many of the lyrics reflect his homesickness for his hometown of Köln.

“Those songs are about yearning for a home or vacation, which came from feeling isolated in cold, big Berlin as a small town boy. Our Saudade is the strong desire for a place you can call home, with the people you love.” Saudade puts Klopfer’s honest lyricism and heartfelt vocals into focus, while honing in on Frankie producing. Their collaboration with Markus Ganter (Casper, Drangsal) brought their sound radiating more into the pop world, exactly how they wanted it to be.


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Glass Mountain - Autumn Jam.

Bradford based four-piece Glass Mountain have released their new single ‘Autumn Jam’.

The single follows their EP ‘Wow & Flutter’ and lead single ‘Gin Flows Through My Veins’ and is a song about the joy and fear of love which is eerily beautiful in both its poetic lyrics and cinematic sound.

The band are currently touring the UK with Radidas and label mates LELO.

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Chapell - Ride.

Alan Chapell is a unique character – even by the quirky standards of the West Village, NYC. The product of years of traveling the world, honing his craft and moving seamlessly through musical genres, Chapell’s lush sonic pallet falls somewhere between the progressive pop rock of Bryan Ferry and the jangle rock nuance of 10,000 Maniacs.

Growing up on the “mean streets” of Stamford, Connecticut, Alan was something of a musical wunderkind - playing piano and trumpet before the age of six. He recorded with the legendary producer Jimmy Ienner at age 15, and more recently with Talking Head Jerry Harrison. He’s played to jam-packed houses around the world from Managua to Mumbai. It took Chapell a while to get to this point, but audiences across the U.S. are starting to take notice in a big way.

One of the more interesting things about Chapell is that, in addition to his musical successes, he’s carved out a niche advising tech companies on privacy issues. When the producers of HBO’s Silicon Valley consider creating a character to lampoon your role as chief privacy guru for dozens of tech companies, you know you’ve made it. Chapell has started drawing comparisons to Roger McNamee’s Moonalice as each has a foot firmly planted in both the tech and music worlds - and each are vocal critics of the privacy practices of Facebook.

Chapell’s newest LP, Penultimate, is the closest he’s come to bridging his innate musicality with the perspective gained wading neck deep through the rise of the Internet age. Chapell’s music evokes the naïve optimism of the early days of “new media” and juxtaposes that with the current state of constant surveillance. “Ride,” the first song on Penultimate, somehow manages to be both optimistic and dark. Similarly, in “I am Zuck,” he parodies the never-gonna-happen confession of Mark Zuckerberg; at times using Zuck’s own words to take him down. And if you’ve paid any attention at all to what’s currently taking place in the tiny Central American country of Nicaragua, you’ll find “Sandinista” to be nothing short of chilling.

On making music in 2019 Chapell now says, “I feel like I’m discovering myself as an artist in a way I never could have earlier in my life. For too long, I bought into the notion that I couldn’t become a successful artist after age 30 – and it was liberating to recognize how foolish that was. The most invigorating thing is that I don’t feel I’ve written my best song yet.”


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Wednesday, 12 June 2019

Dana Crowe - Eckhardt And The House feat. Bella Hay - NKOS

Dana Crowe's new single 'Not Broken' mixes genres (a little country, a little rock etc) yet has a distinct and very pleasing vibe, where her resplendent vocals are backed by a skilled and well arranged band.

Eckhardt And The House feat. Bella Hay serve up some bright rhythmic indie music with 'Lonely' one of those songs that will make those who cannot dance (like me) at least enjoy tapping their feet.

'Little Miss Numb' by NKOS is their debut single on Beatbuzz Records, it's a lush synth driven piece with some dreamy vocals vying with a somewhat darker musical feel and it works splendidly. 
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Dana Crowe - Not Broken.

Dana Crowe is ready to deliver her latest single Not Broken. A striking song of confidence and durability, it’s driving classicism is set to carry you to the highway interchange of hope and hardiness.

‘The song has a resilience to it. Life is a struggle and not everything is as it should be or seems but we do what we can and carry on. We’re strong but also vulnerable. We aren’t broken but you can see some cracks. It has a Bruce Springsteen Human Touch kind of feeling. I wanted to get the basics right and have the kind of bones of the song make you feel it and move to with relatable lyrics that have heart.’ - Dana Crowe

In 2017, Dana released her debut Ep Everything, which climbed the AMRAP radio charts for a month as well as the song Darlin Darlin receiving radio airplay Australia wide. Developing her writing style and voice through 2018’s release Peace Of Mind, host on national broadcaster Triple J, Nkechi Anele, described Crowe as ‘full of sass’.

Recorded in Melbourne with producer Alessandro Stellano and mastered in Nashville by Sage studios, Not Broken communicates a well-honed sound of her own, it has a distinctive swagger and incorporates a balanced mix of roots, country twang and rock ’n’ roll while still keeping a pop sensibility. Dana Crowe is on the troubadour’s road, sincere, open and transmissive. She’s currently recording a follow up Ep to be released later in 2019.


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Eckhardt And The House feat. Bella Hay - Lonely.

Eckhardt And The House is uptempo and danceable indie music with elements from pop to avant-garde to disco-funk, all twisted up into a signature sound with wild experimentation and disregard for the norm.

For new single Lonely Eckhardt And The House found inspiration looking at the people working in their huge office buildings in the 'Financial Mile', the rapidly developing business district in the city of Amsterdam. While projecting a kind of metropolitan feeling of loneliness on those office types (including the tremendous individuality and all those burnouts in their twenties), Lonely is not a gloomy track. It is a sort of acquiescence to the theme, all singing "lonely on the 3rd floor" in the chorus. The fate of young ambitious people in the big city.

With thirteen singles and an album under their belt, the band scored iTunes chart positions in ten European countries plus Turkey, Brazil, South Africa and Japan, Spotify charts in The Netherlands, France, Italy and Turkey plus airplay in six European countries and the US. Press rolled in from worldwide. Lonely is released 14 June 2019 on BERT music (a division of TCBYML)

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NKOS - Little Miss Numb.

About ‘Little Miss Numb’ “Our main inspiration has always been Eighties and Nineties new wave and English trip-hop,” say NKOS. “Our sound is a development of that stuff with modern electronics. NKOS is multifaceted because it easily goes from dark to light and it does so without fear.”

‘Little Miss Numb’, the band’s debut single on Beatbuzz Records, is indeed dark – dark, powerful and irresistible, sounding like a post-punk Ladytron or a gritty Sneaker Pimps from hell. The bass kicks in like the rotors of a helicopter fleet, joined by a bruising electronic beat and ethereal vocals that are both sweet and swathed in danger. This breathtaking single – mixed and mastered by “Icio” Maurizio Baggio (The Soft Moon; Boy Harsher), with additional production by Jagz Kooner (Massive Attack, Primal Scream) – is how London-based Beatbuzz Records will introduce NKOS to the world.

Initially a pan-national studio-based project, NKOS has evolved into a full band, one set to thrill on stages around the world. Brought together by friendship, the internet and sometimes sheer luck, NKOS comprise four artists from very different backgrounds – and locations – who share a love of deep, edgy electronica.

Singer/songwriter Nancy Natali was born in Australia but grew up in Geneva and Rome, her beautiful vocals honed in bands of indie/alternative leanings. Producer Flavio Manieri perfected his electronic house and pop sonics, filtered through a love for the Cocteau Twins and Portishead, between Poland and Italy, and it was in Rimini that he met renowned producer and DJ Chris Shape, whose studio skills have enhanced many dance-music anthems as well as the acid techno of Franz and Shape. Stoner-psych-rock guitarist Marcus Billeri, meanwhile, lives in Paris.

These diverse upbringings and influences only play to NKOS’ strengths, resulting in a powerful, harmonic mix of synth-based techno, industrial and electro. Their dense, innovative sound piqued the interest of producer Jagz Kooner (Massive Attack, Primal Scream, Manic Street Preachers, Rammstein), who is behind the desk on three of the tracks on NKOS’ debut album.


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Anna Smyrk - ZOCO - Howling Bells - TCBYML

Photo - Michelle Grace Hunder Anna Smyrk - This is a Drill . Naarm/Melbourne based singer-songwriter Anna Smyrk shares a poignant moment o...