Back in April we featured 'Half-Light Boy' by Grizzly Coast and now she (Alannah Kavanagh) returns with 'High-Functioning'. It's an energised indie rocker loaded with some deep digging hooks.
Shadowlark return with 'Huntress' taken from their debut E.P. 'Bleed My Heart' of which we featured the title track just a month ago. Described as "ambient and atmospheric" this expansive, melodic and dreamy track is one of four songs on the new release.
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Irish art-folk virtuoso Maija Sofia (Trapped Animal Records) has released the first single from debut full-length 'Bath Time' (November 22).
'The Glitter' tells the story of Jean Rhys, a troubled novelist from the Caribbean who came to England aged 16 and struggled with feelings of displacement and a lack of belonging. Fragmented guitars and yearning violin fuse with her biting vocal to make something truly unique.
Speaking on the track, Maija said: ““The Glitter was inspired by my experience of reading the book 'Good Morning, Midnight' by Jean Rhys, a heavily depressing but brilliant novel about a lonely, self- destructive and impulsive woman living in 1930s Paris. The song came about with Jean Rhys in mind, and the influence her novels had on my past self.
“It's about having a tendency to romanticise and the desperate feeling of realising you've fallen out of love but are still trying to cling to something. It was recorded in a little studio in Dublin, with Christophe Capewell (who plays with cult Irish folk singer Lisa O'Neill) on violin and Niall Murphy on lap steel. Christophe ended up playing on the track after I was stranded at a festival in Leitrim and Lisa's band kindly offered me a midnight lift back to Dublin in their tour van.”
As well as drawing on women from the history books who were silenced and misrepresented - Bridget Cleary, Edie Sedgwick and Mary of Nazareth - Sofia also takes aim at the catholic church, an institution that normalises outdated views of women in Irish society.
Written between London, Galway and Dublin, ‘Bath Time’ features appearances from alternative folk singer Junior Brother and lap steel player Niall Murphy (Oh Boland). The former, Junior Brother, appears on ‘The Wife of Michael Clearly’, a bristling tribute to Bridget Cleary, who died at the hands of her husband Michael. The latter, Niall Murphy, starring on ‘Edie Sedgwick’, a track named after the muse of Andy Warhol.
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Grizzly Coast is the musical project of Toronto based indie-rock musician Alannah Kavanagh. Her interest in writing, mixed with her lifelong affinity for playing music led her to blend the two mediums on her stand-alone singles, "Half-Light Boy" and "Zuzu’s Petals".
She has spent 2019 touring throughout Ontario and Alberta with her band and preparing for her EP release in early 2020.
Her new single – "High-Functioning" – serves as a reminder that the surface-level doesn’t illustrate the whole picture. With a high-energy melody and bouncy riffs, the song evokes the feeling of chaos you experience when your anxious thoughts are starting to run you while you’re trying your best to keep up.
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Leeds threepiece Shadowlark have released their debut EP Bleed My Heart and lead single Huntress, which are both available to stream and buy now.
Following on from last year’s single Hunger, the band recently released the title track to their EP Bleed My Heart, alongside a powerful cinematic video. Produced and mixed by long-term collaborator Dan Austin (Massive Attack, Biffy Clyro, Doves), the Bleed My Heart EP expands on the band’s unique ethereal and poignant sound across four tracks, including lead track Huntress.
Huntress is a poignant ambient song about disloyalty, which profoundly pulls you in through the haunting and atmospheric vocals. Lead singer Ellen says;
“It’s about recovering from betrayal. I think it’s a beautiful song, I love it very much. It’s actually kind of developed a bit of a new context for us since I wrote it and we’re relating to it in new ways. But it’s always been about being a fighter, keeping your head up high, eyes on the prize and learning what you can use to make yourself better, to feel better, to be better.”
Influenced by artists such as Portishead, War on Drugs and Bat For Lashes, Shadowlark are proud of their Northern roots and wear their hearts on their sleeves through their introspective and emotive alt-pop sound, which is a portrayal of real-life experiences and genuine everyday reality. As the band say; “we write real songs about real things that happen, and we play them to real people who care and will connect with them because these things happen to them too.”
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