Friday, 22 April 2022

Art Moore - Martin Leary - Certain Animals - Fe Salomon

Art Moore - Snowy.

Art Moore, a new project from Taylor Vick (best known as the songwriter behind Boy Scouts) and Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and Trevor Brooks, are announcing their signing to ANTI- and the release of their debut single "Snowy."

Durkes, Brooks and Vick first set out to collaborate with the intended goal of pitching their music for film and television projects. Durkes, a member of Furman’s band, had just completed work on Furman’s soundtrack for the Netflix series Sex Education and knew Brooks through his own work with Furman. The pair were already familiar with Vick, who had established herself as a prolific cult solo artist with Boy Scouts, and asked if she would be interested in assisting for their gestational soundtrack project. The idea of Art Moore, as a band, or Art Moore was still a ways away.

“We all met up at the studio, and it was never even like, ‘Let’s be a band’, that was never a thing,” recalls Durkes. “It was more like, ‘Let’s write for movies and art projects’ — let’s think of a movie scene or a photograph or still image and see if we can write some shit around it to see if we can pitch it.”

Decamping to a studio in Oakland in January 2020, it quickly became clear that the three musicians worked well together. They fell into an easy rhythm: Brooks and Durkes would work on a track from the instrumental demos they had made together, while Vick sat outside, writing melodies and lyrics. When she was done, she would come inside, lay down what she had written, and the process would repeat. The trio’s remarkable efficiency gave them confidence that they could work on something with more depth than what had been the projects initial scope.

“Four songs in, I think, after the first recording session, we realized it was going well, and it was pretty efficient,” says Brooks. “Making music with both Sam and Taylor has always been so easy. I record other artists, and it’s pretty rare to be so quickly on the same page with people. We don't have to say much — we kind of get where each other is coming from. It happens way too easily.”



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Martin Leary - Waiting For.

Martin Leary is an indie rock and alternative artist based in Glasgow. Releasing debut EP “The Fear” in late 2019, Martin became a bit of a studio artist working in the HQ Glasgow, with producer and owner Gregor McPhie, through lockdown releasing “All in Good Time EP” and various singles such as “

Both official music videos for “Angel” and “Sleeps Alone” were shortlisted on the Weekender Music Video of the Year for 2021 and 2020 respectively. These can be streamed on Youtube channel.

After playing various semi acoustic gigs with Calum Doherty joining on lead guitar towards the gig of 2021. The pair are now joined with JP (bass) and Craig Lennon (drums) to complete a full band ready for gigging. Debut gig as a band will be in Glasgow - Audio - 4th of June.


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Certain Animals - Grief.

Grief begins as a piano ballad based on classical songwriters, where, as it turns out, the venom is in his tail. Echoes of Abbey Road and fragments of Electric Light Orchestra merge into an extremely warm track, about a romance that has gone cold.

Beatlesque choirs sing that sometimes love means letting go. With their hearts on their toes, and both feet firmly rooted in the old-fashioned concept of just making good songs, Certain Animals march on to a crescendo of harpsichord and glockenspiel to finally play the final chord on a piano that, like the song of love, has not withstood the times. 

With the release of their last two singles Midnight TV and Angels In Disguise, Certain Animals has now reached a larger audience in their home country of the Netherlands. The band has already been invited twice to play songs live on national TV. 

Hold On, Sun King and Younger Than Now, the first three singles have also been very well received by the media internationally. The singles were added to playlists on national radio stations. In Belgium single Younger Than Now was on the playlist of national radio VRT 2 and played on Studio Brussel the national pop station. 

In the US and the UK you still can hear all singles on Amazing Radio USA and Amazing Radio UK. Other countries where Certain Animals' music was played on radio are: the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Croatia, Canada, USA, Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Poland.

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Fe Salomon - All Or Nothing.

Continuing an arc of lyrically evocative and sonically adventurous single releases so far in 2022, Fe Salomon, returns with a brand new track: “All Or Nothing”. Released on 20th April, the new single finds the rising solo artist conjuring a cinematic alternative/pop masterclass from painterly reminiscence. Taking the listener back to a period strewn with precarious paths, toxic friendships and difficult choices, it’s a song that ultimately finds Salomon summoning strength from sour times. 

“‘All Or Nothing’ is a song about a shared journey coming to an end” affirms Fe. “It’s inspired by a group of friends. Friendships that were often toxic, yet comforting and familiar.  Set in the imagery of walking from the Holloway Road in London, to the east coast of England with the hope of turning over a new chapter.” 

With her back against the wall and faced with the decision to go “All Or Nothing”; Fe’s gamble has evidently paid-off in dividends, with this resultant single making for a richly rewarding listen, laced with a resonant emotional gravity. 

Initially written in a hotel room, the track was fully finished in 2021 with the assistance of esteemed classical arranger: Johnny Parry, of whom Fe was once a member of the Johnny Parry Trio with. Featuring soaring classical strings and makeshift drum kits, the track’s stuttering percussives owe their origins to household kitchen curiosities including woks and pans; offering a delectably avant-garde counterpoint to the track’s lush orchestral stylings.



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Thursday, 21 April 2022

Bob Marston & the Credible Sources - Coltura - Sister Ray - Death Bells

Bob Marston & the Credible Sources - Real Magic, Good people.

Bob Marston & the Credible Sources, the pride of Birmingham, Alabama, released their new single "Real Magic, Good People," yesterday. The track is from their debut LP, So Long, out on June 3rd. Fun fact - Matt Slocum (Susan Tedeschi, Widespread Panic, Allman Brothers, Railroad Earth, and more) plays keys on the album!

Fronted by troubadour Bob Marston, this group is truly a whole greater than the sum of its wildly capable parts. The band makes music that sits comfortably at the intersections of folk and rock with a penchant for improvisation--intricately-woven guitar parts, tight and compelling bass and drum grooves, and pure, emotive vocals, a sound that garners comparisons to The Grateful Dead, Wilco, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and more. "Real Magic, Good People'' is a head-bobbing, reggae-tinged, all-around good time.

One day, Bob was walking his dog at a Birmingham nature preserve, processing a difficult breakup, and the groove for the song bubbled up through his soul. "The first half of each verse presents my attempt to balance my love of Birmingham with what I had, at the time, recently learned about her history of labor injustice, including convict-leasing and union-busting," Bob explains of the track. "The chorus is a rallying cry to believe in ourselves and our potential as a community, realizing that for all of our differences we share more in common." The inspiration came from his hometown's troubling history, but the overall themes are universal: the power of honest expression, understanding, complete forgiveness, and acceptance is what really connects and unifies our communities.

Bob's been on a journey of self-discovery, and with the help of therapy, meditation, and cannabis, his empathic creativity comes shining through the lyrics of every song on So Long. The album’s tracks explore love and devotion through the lens of managing challenging relationships and processing life-altering heartbreak to pondering life’s big questions and issues of social injustice. Ultimately, So Long is about striving to find humanity in ourselves, our communities, and in society as a whole.



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Coltura - R U Content.

In advance of the release of their debut album And Then I’ll Be Happy arriving this Friday, April 22, New York City trio Colatura have shared a new single and video, “R U Content,” a relevant comment on our current culture consumption.

Colatura headed down to Austin to make their SXSW debut, with five performances. Austin Town Hall said to file them under the “band I wish I had seen,” while calling their “Kids Like Us” single, "solid gold indie pop.” The band will celebrate this Friday, album release night, at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn, and have announced a summer tour taking them across the Eastern half of the U.S., culminating at DZ Fest outside Chicago on July 9.

Discussing the single, guitarist/vocalist Digo Best noted that, “‘R U Content’ is about the monetization of the individual as a brand. In order to be successful these days you have to sell an alternate version of yourself that usually has no basis in reality. Authenticity as a marketing ploy. Yet we all line up, pretending aesthetic photos will make up for the hole that we are creating inside of ourselves. The lyrics 'Are you content or are you content?’ play with the two different pronunciations of the word to ask an important question.

The backdrop of the music video is a combination of every previous music video we have made for this album, superimposed over each other to make a sort of super-content visualizer. Since the song is an examination of the role of content in our society and whether it is actually an indicator of our reality, authenticity, and happiness as humans or just a 'story with a market price', we thought it appropriate to have us be sort of halfway human and constantly fighting being swallowed by all the content we ourselves have made."

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Sister Ray - Good News.

Sister Ray, the project of Edmonton-born songwriter, Ella Coyes (they/she) is today sharing their new single, "Good News" which follows recent singles tipped at Paste Magazine, Exclaim and more. The new track comes as the final advance single to be lifted from Sister Ray's forthcoming debut album, Communion which is set for release on May 13 via Royal Mountain Records (Alvvays, Wild Pink, U.S. Girls). They will support Communion with a full tour – TBC – but for now, have confirmed US dates opening for The Rural Alberta Advantage, these come off the back of recent slots opening for Hurray for the Riff Raff and dates as part of SXSW. 

Communion is a raw, meticulously-crafted portrait of momentous, ordinary moments; experiences that define your past and instruct how you move through the world. It’s also a break-up album invested in exploring the motivations behind actions, rather than attempting moral judgment. It’s about “shitty shit” says Coyes. Backed by Ginla, the Brooklyn-based duo behind early Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker and Lorely Rodriguez (Empress Of), Communion is anchored by guitar melodies that bear an undercurrent of turmoil and echoes with the wisdom of hard-won lessons.

"Good News" thematically marks the darkest song on Communion despite being the lightest in sound. Speaking about the track, Coyes explains: "This song is about my frustration watching me, members of my family and the people around me experiencing issues that have affected us intergenerationally – and continue to do so – and see many suffer in silence. It’s written like a series of vignettes about a few moments that have really stood out in my memory. At first, it didn’t click with me that this song sounded so light because it felt heavy to me, but I feel now that a big part of this song is the freedom that I feel in the actual act of airing out those things that I would have willfully ignored or hidden from.”

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Death Bells - Lifespring.

Death Bells — the long-running musical collaboration between Will Canning and Remy Veselis — are thrilled to announce their third full-length album, Between Here & Everywhere. Set for release on July 29th via Dais Records, the LP captures the cross-section of Southern California’s shadowy hidden interzones, outside of the lights and luxury. 

The group teased this new full-length with the pre-release of “Intruder” and "Passerby" singles — now, they’ve unveiled another new track from the album, “Lifespring.”  Of the song, Canning comments, “We initially wrote ‘Lifespring’ at a friend’s studio, before the last record was even an idea. I thought I had lost the stems, but discovered them recently on a USB that had been sitting in my jacket pocket for the last few years, so we were able to finally finish the song.”  He continues, “The lyrical inspiration for 'Lifespring' came from reading about a fairly spurious organization of the same name that were around until the mid-90s. Musically, it feels very different from anything we’ve done before; sleazier, groovier.”

Adopting a collaborative approach for the recording of Between Here & Everywhere, the LP features nine new songs that represent Will Canning and Remy Veselis’ continual growth, as well as accompaniment by an experienced cast of contributors on keys, strings, piano, and operatic backup vocals. Recorded with Colin Knight at Paradise Studios, and mixed by Mike Kriebel at Golden Beat, Between Here & Everywhere bristles with immediacy and emotion, with every element tactile, balanced, and elevated. 

Between Here & Everywhere sets out to map the potent mess of Los Angeles. Canning cites the “vastness” of the band’s adopted home as a constant muse, and much like the city itself, the album ebbs gradually from harrowing to hopeful over its 35-minute runtime. The lyrics are categorized as “narrative, but not autobiographical,” born of intrigue, intimacy, and a sense of “looking outward.” 

Formed in 2015 in Sydney, Australia, Death Bells has proven to be a mainstay in the alternative underground musical landscape both in their homeland and overseas. Death Bells released their sophomore full-length and Dais Records debut New Signs of Life in September of 2020.  On this record, the group embraced their diverse tastes to deliver unforgettable hooks and more expansive sounds across its nine graceful songs.  Following, and in direct response to the pandemic, Death Bells secluded themselves at Bombay Beach to record and release 5 live recordings of songs from New Signs of Life in April of 2021 —  the gorgeous live performance and recording Live from Bombay.

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Tuesday, 19 April 2022

For Breakfast - Jo Schornikow - Christine Sweeney

For Breakfast - Orfordness Lighthouse.

London 7-piece For Breakfast today release new single "Orfordness Lighthouse", the second track to be lifted from new EP 'Trapped in the Big Room' out 20th May via Glasshouse Records. The new EP follows the band's debut EP ‘Songs in the Key of O’, released in June 2020 to fervent praise from The Quietus, Loud and Quiet, So Young Magazine amongst others.

Emerging in their current form in 2019 in North London after a string of line-up changes, For Breakfast pull together seven musicians from varying musical backgrounds, bolting together elements of dream pop, post-rock, jazz, noise rock and psychedelia together to form an aural experience like no other.

New single "Orfordness Lighthouse" along with forthcoming EP 'Trapped in the Big Room' were recorded on a decommissioned Cold War airbase in Suffolk in the Autumn of 2021. A crescendo of horns, flutes and trip-hop imbued post-rock, For Breakfast execute the marriage of influences with aplomb; "Portishead with a splash of Cocteau Twins and Mogwai to taste" – the band suggest.

Speaking on the release of the new track, vocalist Maya and bassist Sam commented:

Maya: "As with most of our songs, I didn’t write the lyrics to Orfordness Lighthouse with a specific meaning in mind. They came about in the same way as most of the music - on the spot in our rehearsal space. They’re there for the feeling and the sound of the words more than a narrative or anything, but looking back on them there’s a sense of holding and being held, tension and release that is a reaction to the music and the journey of the song."

Sam: "Orfordness Lighthouse went through a few iterations before becoming what it is now. It was built around a chord progression and piano melody that Maya brought in - around the time that we were going off to record the first EP we’d made it into a Portishead-esque drifty trip hop tune, but we felt it wasn’t quite there yet. We came back to it during one of the first lockdowns and beefed it up a bit - we made some melodic tweaks to the first half, wrote the climactic end section, and couldn’t resist closing with some cute gang vocals."


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Jo Schornikow - Plaster.

Australian songwriter Jo Schornikow (now based in Nashville) releases “Plaster,” the third single from her forthcoming album ALTAR out May 20th. Both of her wrists were broken and bandaged in plaster when she wrote the song, which is about the idea of magic in plain sight, and the dual giddiness and loneliness of moving to the other side of the world.

The song, which follows “Visions” and “Lose Yr Love” is accompanied by a video directed by Joshua Shoemaker and filmed at the East Nashville church wheSchornikow is the organist. The video culminates with Schornikow at a decorated altar with pieces from her life: a life that led her from jazz bars to church organs, performing on tour around the world with partner Matthew Houck and Phosphorescent, and home to their two children. It recalls her personal altar that gave title to the forthcoming album.

ALTAR was recorded between Nashville and Melbourne and is co-produced by Schornikow and Selwyn Cozens. The nine track album centers Jo’s songwriting, which Gorilla Vs Bear proclaimed “smouldering” and her piano playing, which Pitchfork has praised as “sensitive [and] impressionistic.” It follows 2019’s Secret Weapon, which Rolling Stone hailed as “excellent.”

ALTAR is a joyously vulnerable pronouncement of her protean spirit. The seeds of this album were tended to by Jo throughout loud, intense years of heavy touring, and quiet, intense years of early motherhood, growing through whatever cracks were found in those foundations.

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Photo - Shannyn KT
Christine Sweeney - Better Parts.

How did stop-you-in-your-tracks vocalist and songwriter Christine Sweeney go from singing along with R&B radio and tapes by Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Destiny’s Child as a kid; to choice slots at the Connecticut Folk Fest and Falcon Ridge Folk Fest, WFUV DJ John Platt’s tastemaker On Your Radar concert series, on bills with Graham Parker and Jill Sobule, and in a Paste Magazine 2021 session?

She sets the scene: “I had some cassettes and would also tape songs from the radio. I would play them over and over again, focusing in on singing to a small part of the song. Rewind, play, repeat.” To her, the R&B vocal influence isn’t unnatural in the folk setting. The result of this influence reminds her fans of Susan Tedeschi, Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, KT Tunstall, or Grace Potter with music that grooves and rocks but also tells her story.

“I was an alto voice part. I really appreciated the alto harmonies. They’re always complex and stanky. We’ve got the nasty dissonant harmony notes because they’re so nice in the middle,” Christine says. She would go on to refine her voice as well as study music theory and songwriting at SUNY New Paltz.

Her new album ‘Heart In a Hurry’ is a culmination of this pairing of folk and soul, with generous dashes of blues, pop, Americana, and yes, R&B, in sharp, open-hearted new songs, some drawn from life lessons learned the hard way and shared with her listeners. “I hope by hearing some of the more personal details or the more raw emotional descriptions in the songs like in ‘Anywhere Anyway’ and ‘Down to the River’ and ‘Denial,’ that the listener will be able to connect with their own experience. I feel like these songs talk a lot about states of feeling, either abandoned or confused or tired of trying. I hope that whoever might need that message, that they take it as a sign that other people feel like this, too. They’re not alone,” she says. The message has connected with her fans, who have told her they can relate with things going on in their own lives. She’s had fans approach her after concerts to tell her hearing her song helped with something they were experiencing. Even when telling a deeply personal story, Christine has the ability to tap into universal feelings. ‘Heart In a Hurry’ tells a tale of perseverance.


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Monday, 18 April 2022

Timo de Jong - Blue Violet - Allison Forbes

Timo de Jong - Dawdle. 

Timo de Jong has just released his track 'Dawdle'. This is the title track of his new EP, which is also where he collaborates for the first time with a producer, Thomas Olivier (Hackensaw Boys, among others). Before the corona pandemic, Timo played more than 100 shows a year, but in recent times he has been forced to focus on what he does very well; writing new songs.

When asked about this new project, Timo says: “This EP means a lot to me, because it is the first time that I have really been able to let go of things during the process. Working with Thomas has not changed my sound, but improved and refined it. I believe that I have experienced great growth.”

Over the past year, Timo de Jong and producer Thomas Olivier have worked on the music together, from the demo to the entire end product. A certain sound has been deliberately chosen with an appreciation for a warm and natural sounding production. For example, all vocals were recorded live and with a microphone from the 1950s.

Timo de Jong is an authentic musician who lives for live performances, of which he has already performed more than 600. That includes three successful tours through England, and performances in Germany and Belgium. Whether it's an intimate living room concert or a band performance in a pop hall, Timo does his thing, and that thing is: making good music. In 2021 he participated in the 'Hit The North' program, a talent development program in collaboration with Eurosonic, among others.

He makes his music to arise, to tell and to heal. In doing so, he takes experiences of himself and those around him, in order to write a universal and appealing text about them. Behind the scenes, Timo de Jong has been refining, improving and crystallizing his music for a number of years. He moved from folk to rock 'n' roll, eventually arriving at Americana.

 


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Blue Violet - Halo.

Offering one final glimpse into their debut album ‘Late Night Calls’ — set for release on 29 April 2022 — “Halo” is a climactic new cut that builds to a colossal conclusion. Dealing with the anxiety of leaving your comfort zone and surrendering to something new, “Halo” stirs to life as a delicate and dynamic ballad before building into a theatrical and thumping expanse that blends tender vocal harmonies with wall-of-sound instrumentals.

Touching on a range of influences plucked from literature including the fabled river Styx from Greek mythology and Murakami’s surrealist novel ‘Hard Boiled Wonderland’ and even nods to the far-out fantasy of Jim Henson’s ‘Labyrinth’, “Halo” deftly blends the real with the surreal and boasts Sam and Sarah Gotley’s breadth as writers as much as instrumentalists.

Speaking of the track’s creation, the husband and wife duo explain: “Like ‘Labyrinth’, in the song it feels like there’s a woman lost in another place and a man who rules over it. In most of our writing there is a narrative that runs throughout and provides a metaphorical theme. In this case we really did have this surreal vision of an underworld in our heads when we wrote it, and we tried to make the music match by adding in things like key changes and a bridge that was completely different sonically to the rest of the song. But it is also figurative for how it feels to willingly surrender yourself to something new; something dark that takes you out of your comfort zone. People tend to shy away from moments like that in life, although they often provide us with extremely profound experiences.”



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Allison Forbes - Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Two years ago Tamworth-bred country artist Allison Forbes had the world at her feet. Her debut album Bonedigger - produced by Oz country legend Shane Nicholson - had come out in early-2020 to near universal acclaim, debuting at #1 on the ARIA Australian Country charts.

It was the second highest-selling independent record across all genres in that heady first week, with Forbes’ distinctive take on outlaw Americana near omnipresent on country radio, topping numerous radio charts in the process.

It’s hard to imagine things going better for the mould-breaking singer-songwriter - Forbes and Bonedigger would go on to score four prestigious Golden Guitar nominations at the 2021 Tamworth Country Music Festival, and be voted Most Popular Female Artist at the 2020 Independent Country Music Awards - but then… the COVID pandemic struck.

Instead of Forbes being able to hit the road and consolidate the hard-fought traction she’d achieved withBonedigger - connecting with her existing audience and winning over new fans with her captivating live show - the country plunged into lockdown and the hard-fought momentum began slowly ebbing away.

Such immeasurably poor timing would have justifiably broken many artists, but instead Forbes doubled down and poured her heart and soul into what would become her brilliant second album, Dead Men Tell No Tales. It’s a collection which hones and magnifies Forbes’ indubitable talent to create an album conceived in and forged by adversity, yet which transcends its tough-times genesis courtesy the stunning empathy and compassion which floods through these beautifully-rendered tales of loss and grief.

“It was really an album that I didn’t know that I needed to make until I wrote the songs, and even now looking back on it I didn’t realise how relevant it was going to be,” Forbes admits. “Everyone was experiencing a lot of loss, including myself. I lost one of my best friends fairly early during the pandemic - I’ve also dedicated the album to him - and I think that loss tied in with a lot of other confusion, and a bit of angst as well. There’s a muse that’s a common thread through the songs.


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Violent Vickie - The Paper Kites - Will Romeo / The 1984 Draft - Mick Clarke - Steel People

Violent Vickie - Open the Door . It's a massive welcome back to Beehive Candy for Violent Vickie who we have had the pleasure of featu...