Gold Dime - Vera Bloom - Ora Cogan

Gold Dime - Denise.

Gold Dime has just released "Denise," the propulsive second single from their upcoming LP, No More Blue Skies. Headed by Andrya Ambro (Talk Normal), the art-rock project's full album will be out October 20th via Liars' Angus Andrew's new imprint No Gold.

Featuring Ian Douglas-Moore on bass and Jeff Tobias on alto-sax, the instrumentation on "Denise" is deeply intricate, sharp, and rigorous. Along with the single comes a video co-directed by Joe Wakeman and Ambro herself. As unflinching as the music itself, the video shows Ambro sprinting fearlessly towards the beach and into cold water.

Regarding the music, Andrya Ambro says – “Denise” the song is about perseverance. Approaching most of my music from a cinematic perspective, Denise, the character, is on the bottom of things. With a weakened gaze, she just keeps going. No More Blue Skies? You gotta believe. The ZZ Top inspired repetitive rhythm section keeps Denise buoyant through her journey while the wailing sax by Jeff Tobias acts as her spiritual guide. As for the motivating drum beat– this was definitely under the influence of a charged live performance by Irreversible Entanglements drummer Tcheser Holmes."

Regarding the video, directors Andrya Ambro and Joe Wakeman say – "From the onset, “Denise” feels like an endurance test with its always forward momentum. So I thought I’d run. Performing this song live can be demanding on me physically."

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Vera Bloom - Eyes On You.

Emerging rock artist Vera Bloom, who holds nothing back in her addictive hybrid of alternative, grunge, and punk, has released her new single “Eyes On You” and announced her sophomore EP, It’s Me, will be out Friday, September 29th. The new track storms out of the gate on a galloping drumbeat and as the momentum increases, Vera sinks her teeth into a hypnotic hook punctuated by a promise, “my eyes are always on you.”

“‘Eyes On You’ is my dance song!” shares Vera. “It started out as a love song, which is something I don’t really write often, but it leans into the possessiveness of love. It visits the loss of excitement in a relationship where things get a bit settled in and mundane. I’ve noticed that I am afraid of this stage in a relationship, so I used this song to process that. Over time, the lyrics have revealed new meanings as they always do and I can find the loss of childhood innocence where even the touch of skin is fascinating, and acknowledging the demons and darker feelings we find in adulthood.

And, lastly, as I grow as an artist, I can see my desire to be seen and heard. My admission of wanting eyes on me and owning up to that. I wanted the video to be interesting, colorful, and also shine some light on the real rock and roll happening in the music. It’s about energy and making vibes through sound with other humans. This song, as with all my songs, really comes to life in a live band setting. I hope you like it!”

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Ora Cogan - Feel Life.

Experimental singer-songwriter Ora Cogan will release her new album Formless this Friday, August 25, an LP that finds beauty, absurdity, humor, and unlikely joy in the bleakest of times. Ahead of the album release, Cogen shares one final gift in the urgent “Feel Life,” a track that dances through the derangement of everyday turmoil and epic, life-changing loss.

Cormac Mac Diarmada from LANKUM plays strings on “Feel Life”, which speaks to diverse kinds of grief – losing loved ones to overdose and suicide; losing love where a connection can’t be sustained; seeking out ways to better understand love –, slashing, shimmering guitar both a foil for and echo of Cogan’s imploring, trance-like timbre. The track dances through the derangement of everyday turmoil and epic, life-changing loss. “I want you to feel life - I want love.”

“Feel Life” is the final part of a trilogy of videos by K. Bray Jorstad created for Formless. It follows “Dyed”, which revolves around a singular character who carries water as a symbol for the human heart, and “Cowgirl”,  a haunted acid trip of intense sorrow, deep solitude, and dark nights of the soul.

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CLOVES - Paige Hill - Linebeck - Popincourt

CLOVES - Good Try.

Talented songwriter CLOVES returns with her subtle yet hard-hitting new track titled “Good Try.” The track comes complete with a visualiser that is the perfect companion for the song’s poignant lyrics.

Kaity Dunstan aka “CLOVES” born in Melbourne, Australia has to date generated over 300million-plus streams, attracted critical acclaim including Pigeons & Planes, i-D, Clash, NME, Vice & Consequence of Sound among many others, performed on U.S network show “Late night with Seth Myers”, toured the U.S opening for Grammy award winning artist Michael Kiwanuka,and her second album saw collaborations with Hudson Mohawke & Jake Portrait from Unknown Mortal Orchestra alongside multiple taste maker praise including her single “Nightmare” becoming BBC Radio 1’s “Hottest Record in the World ”the coveted spotalways seen as a high marker for quality artists.

For CLOVES, now is the time she feels most creatively free and mentally strong as  she steps out to release her first music  independently, marking the beginning of a new relationship with herself and her music, in the midst of the often discussed & debated major label system for artists these days, CLOVES knows this is the best way forward for her make the music she wants and to do it the way she needs to.

 

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Paige Hill - Good Woman (E.P).

Paige Hill is an independent singer and songwriter based in Dallas, Texas. She is an Austin native and "a bit west coast obsessed," living there for eight years prior to making Dallas her current location. Her music is about authentic connections to the best and most challenging parts of being a woman and a mother. Her recently released debut Americana five-song original EP, Good Woman, ranges from classic 70s country and soul to rock and blues.

Every track weaves a story of a real woman who wants to be "good." Her soulful melodies also hint at her Austin roots. "I feel a special draw to sing songs for women and mothers that portray real and complex women. I used to think I'd have it all figured out someday, but we're all just learning and figuring it out together. I feel like music connects us, and I want to share a common thread we may have with someone."

Good Woman was produced, engineered, and mixed by Guillermo Murillo and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone of Sterling Sound. The EP was recorded at Acoustic Kitchen and The DuJour House in Dallas. The recording engineer was Nick Clem. Musicians on all tracks include Paige Hill (vocals), Guillermo Murillo (electric guitar), Robbie Saunders (pedal steel), Brandon Broussard (bass), Jay Brown (Wurlitzer, B3 organ, melodica), and Ethan Sedelmeier (drums.) "In the summer of 2022 I was asked to sing background vocals for a friend whose music career was taking off, then a duet.

My producer Guillermo heard I wrote the music; the rest is history. It took us less than five months to make my EP, Good Woman. I had just lost a pregnancy, and making this music was healing. I stumbled upon a group of musicians who encouraged me that my songs had stories and experiences worth sharing with others. Guillermo and I co-write a lot together now while our daughters play in the next room, and he played guitar on Good Woman and is on my next album. I love his ear for sound, his music knowledge, his mixes, and how we co-write and realize my songs into beautiful works of art that I am so proud of. Ethan is the drummer on all my projects, as well. I trust these two to help me realize my music and treat it with care so that my original message is conveyed even more powerfully than I originally wrote. And we have so much fun doing it all."

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Linebeck - Give Us A Try.

'Give Us A Try' is a gorgeous hook filled affair, with an uplifting melodic vibe hitting us right from the opening chords. The band tell us: Our new single is about being in love with your best friend and deciding to just go for it, even though you might get hurt. Heavily inspired by John Hughes' Pretty in Pink, as well as some "situationships" that our friends were caught in, "Give Us A Try" was written as a love letter from Duckie to Andie, and for anyone else who has ever been too afraid to risk it all.

Being in this in-between phase is an intense emotional roller-coaster. Honestly, I find the anticipation before a big jump to be one of the best parts of being human.

I knew soon after writing this song that if we ever released it, I would want to have a prom themed music video as a way to pay further homage to Pretty in Pink.

I personally think prom is so overrated. I went to two proms and it wasn't as fun as the movies always make it seem. We wanted to create a fun prom experience for all our friends. Many of the extras appreciated the opportunity to take their significant other to prom, and a few hadn't even had the chance to go to prom due to COVID. It was a very long shoot but so much fun.

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Popincourt - Love On the Barricades / The Worst Of Lullabies.

Popincourt's new album 'We were bound to meet' is due to be released on September 15th, 2023. We have to really fine tracks to share ahead of the release.

Love On the Barricades is a duo with Gabriela Giacoman, for a title inspired by both The Jam, Billy Bragg and the B'52s. The lyrics refer to the futility of angry political disputes when you are with well-meaning but essentially powerless people … especially while in complete safety around a good table (May as well enjoy yourself a bit while waiting for the revolution).

The Worst Of Lullabies is a syncopated and groovy rhythm reminiscent of certain 60's titles by Serge Gainsbourg with superb string arrangements evoking John Barry.

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Tamar Berk - The Grahams - Stephen Wilson Jr - Jacob Weil

Photo - Brandon Mosquera

Tamar Berk - tiny injuries (Album).

Noted indie darling Tamar Berk is excited to unveil tiny injuries, her third solo album. The album itself follows singles “drop in the bucket” and “if u know, u know”. To celebrate the album’s release, Tamar Berk is also elated to share the music video for “cash out”, the album’s latest single. An array of emotions are explored throughout tiny injuries courtesy of songs that incorporate elements of indie pop, alternative rock, and singer-songwriter slow burns.

Lead single "drop in the bucket" shows the evolution of emotions over time in a relationship. Alternative rock and indie pop are cleverly blended to create a fun and energetic sound. With its engrossing guitar and assertive vocals, this song evokes Liz Phair and Snail Mail with its wistful synth and pulsing guitar. The second single "If you know, you know" uses Tamar Berk's passion to explore existential crisis caused by loss, reminiscent of Soccer Mommy and Aimee Mann. With latest single "cash out" Tamar Berk blends cinematic, guitar-driven alternative pop with indie folk flavor on a track that is captivating and soothing.

When discussing her new single, Tamar Berk writes: “In the middle of moving my mother from her house to an apartment, I wrote the two sentences for "cash out" on one of those small airplane napkins. It had been a year since my father died, so I knew this would happen, but I wasn't prepared for the emotional devastation I would undergo during those two weeks. After packing up the house and going through all of my dad's belongings, I was absolutely crushed. With each passing day, I became more and more depressed and numb. The shock was still fresh in my mother's mind, but she was mostly angry and scared, and I was dealing with my own private hell. My next stop was to get home, so I took the little napkin they give you with your drink and I wrote "I've got no promises left in me, I'm getting ready to cash out." When I got home, I sat down at the piano and wrote it. As I had written it that day, I pretty much kept it the same.

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The Grahams - A Good Man.

The Grahams have shared their new single “A Good Man,” which appears on the duo’s upcoming self-titled album, out September 8 via 3Sirens Music Group. Accompanied by a playful music video, “A Good Man” is a vulnerable reflection on the indelible impact of experiencing true love. The new single is one of ten reimaginings from The Grahams, which finds the duo revisiting fan favorites to reflect their artistic growth over the last decade.

“‘A Good Man’ was never a question for this project,” shares Alyssa Graham, who is one half of The Grahams with Doug Graham. “I think people love it because it’s so honest. The reimagining plays up that naked honesty with a fresh layer of tenderness and playfulness — and less of its old twang.”

“A Good Man” follows the anthemic “Glory Bound” and the serotonin-boosting “The Wild One,” which have been praised by Magnet Magazine, RIFF Magazine, The Alternate Root, Americana UK, Americana Music Association and more. The Grahams’ new self-titled album takes 10 songs from their catalog and pours them through a new filter – what they’ve learned, how they’ve changed, and perhaps most centrally, how they sound today. While these songs bear some resemblance to their Americana roots, they lean harder in a new direction, weaving threads of the duo’s other influences: the bands they grew up with, the input of collaborators, and the ever-evolving love affair that now includes their child. Track by track, the changes are transformative, stripping the songs down in some cases and dressing them up in others.

The Grahams credit much of their newfound ease to the record’s team who are seasoned all-stars in their own right. Recorded at their own Nashville label and studio 3Sirens, the new album was engineered by their longtime friend and producer Dex Green, and produced by Dan Molad (Lucius, Coco) who they first worked with alongside the late Richard Swift on Kids Like Us. In addition, these recording sessions feature Ray Jacildo (The Black Keys) on keys, Jack Lawrence (Jack White) on bass, and Lucius, who lend mesmerizing backing vocals to several tracks and feature on “Lay Me Down.”

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Stephen Wilson Jr - patches.

Southern Indiana-born, Nashville-based artist Stephen Wilson Jr. has released new single “patches” from his upcoming debut double album søn of dad, out September 15 via Big Loud Records. With its deceptively breezy melody and easygoing chorus underscored by melancholic slide guitars, the song touches upon the importance of learning to live with the scars, scratches and holes in our lives. Today, Wilson also announced that he will join The Lone Bellow on tour for another string of dates this winter.

Of the song, Wilson shares: “My scars got scars. Graffiti on graffiti on graffiti. ‘patches’ is a playful song with a serious message. A life lived not avoided. øne packaged with consequences and fibrosis. A built-in collagen-based repair system showing the world the road map to where we’ve been. Wearing scars we’ve earned like we’ve earned ‘em.”

Informed by Wilson’s wildly diverse background as a boxer, a scientist (he has a degree in microbiology and chemistry from Middle Tennessee State University) and a songwriter, søn of dad is a 22-song tribute to his late father, to be released exactly five years to the day of his death. Album centerpiece “Father’s Son” and its stirring music video received praise from CMT, Whiskey Riff and Rolling Stone who named it one of the “Best Country Songs of 2023 So Far.”

“Writing and making this album has been very therapeutic for me to learn who I am and what my existence looks like after my father. Because life has to go on,” Wilson says. “I'm living my own life, but it's like his death bookended what life he should have had onto mine and I'm carrying it around like a train car.”

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Jacob Weil - Lived In (Album).

After years of crisscrossing North America, Europe, and the U.K., playing in bands such as Sam Weber and Luca Fogale, Jacob Weil found himself with a collection of his own songs that he was ready to share. The indie-folk debut record, Lived In, was produced by Sam Weber. The album’s production is fast, innovative, and intelligent, and the songs are filled with strength, grit, tenderness, courage, and nostalgia. And, like a string of images, Weil leads us through observations and experiences that have led him to where he is now.

Co-written with Luca Fogale, the focus track “9999” is about multiple realities – more specifically it represents the nine-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine ways out of ten thousand that your life could have gone, had you made one specific decision, as opposed to another. It’s a reflection on a life, a relationship, whatever, where you made a decision, and things ended up one way instead of another.

In this situation, the song is about a relationship that felt so right, where everything was so perfect, and yet it didn’t work out. It’s about imagining a multitude of realities, in which, if you lived the same life 10,000 times, you just happened to be living in the one where things didn’t work out.

“The album started off as a collection of songs from different periods of my life – periods of significant growth and change,” explains Weil. “I didn’t begin with a set throughline between them, but it became apparent later on as I was looking back at them that they all shared a commonality - a reflection on what it feels like to be part way through one’s life and have a mind, body, spirit and even home that feel ‘lived in.’”

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Viv & Riley - Paging Doctor Moon - Meagre Martin - Dictator Ship

Viv & Riley - Imaginary People.

The new single from Durham indie roots duo Viv & Riley (formerly Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno) is a wistful look at our many selves, at the refractions of our identities as we navigate the world. "‘Imaginary People’ is about evaluating and juggling all of the different versions of myself," Leva (the songwriter) says. "Was I adventurous and a little reckless? Or was I grounded and measured? Am I kind to myself or too judgemental?"

A bittersweet nostalgia lies at the heart of Imaginary People, the new album from Viv & Riley, coming September 15, 2023 on Free Dirt Records. Over ten tracks, the pair applies an indie roots sheen to newly composed pop gems.

Rooted originally in the folk tradition, the pair reframe the production into experimental territory, crafting songs that speak to finding a path forward into adulthood in an uncertain world. Gifted songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno’s first album under the name Viv & Riley is a subtle masterpiece of thought and reflection.

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Paging Doctor Moon - Dirty Alcoholic.

Pittsburgh-based indie band Paging Doctor Moon has released their newest single, Dirty Alcoholic, available for streaming from August 18th.

“This is our Spaghetti Western (Appalachian) exploration of addiction and self harm.  Sonically, it feels like cowboys dreaming on a pirate ship,” says Kirsten Heibert, songwriter and founder of Paging Doctor Moon.  The guitars rock us gently back and forth as the drums roll the ship through the waves; Heibert’s dreamy vocals blow wind into the sails.  The band recorded the song at Audible Images in Pittsburgh, and at their producer Julian Giaimo’s studio in upstate NY.

Paging Doctor Moon started as Heibert’s solo project in Brooklyn.  With an album and EP under her belt, she relocated to her hometown in 2021.  This is the first single featuring the new band members.

Dirty Alcoholic is the first of three singles with accompanying music videos to be released this year.  It will be followed by “Scars” and “Middle Management.”  The music videos are scripted by Heibert and filmed/directed by Danielle Powell with creative consulting by Giuliana Fox. The content may be dark, but this group is dedicated to finding the joy in everything they create.  Heibert hopes that the music makes you feel deeply…even if she is afraid to herself.

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Meagre Martin - Please Clap.

Berlin-based trio Meagre Martin has their shared new single 'Please Clap'. The single comes alongside the exciting news that on November 10th, the band will release their debut album Gut Punch via Mansions & Millions, as well as heading back to their native USA for a slew of live dates supporting Alt-J.

The project was founded in the summer of 2021 by the African-American musician and songwriter Sarah Martin (guitar), who was quickly joined by Federico ‘Freddy’ Corazzini (drums) and Max Hirtz-Wolf (bass).

On Gut Punch, Meagre Martin create a sound inspired by shoegaze, 90’s indie, or 'faux country,' as the band calls it, and juxtaposes these beautifully light soundscapes with lyrics that belie the sweetness of the sound with their vulnerability and depth. Sonically evoking images of California deserts and Berlin basements, of long thoughtful conversations in the twilight, days turning into nights in the park and nights turning into day again at a studio, Meagre Martin have created eleven tracks that beautifully flow into each other.

New single, 'Please Clap', is a satirical take on the feeling of inadequacy. "The original inspiration for the song came from using performance as a means of connection and a way to feel seen," explains Sarah. "As the song was forming, a lyric I was writing reminded me of a viral video from the 2016 US Presidential race of Jeb Bush giving a 'rousing' speech, then having to ask his audience to 'please clap'." Despite being against everything the Bush family stands for, Sarah felt pity for the eldest son, since he has always been overlooked throughout his career. Being the unseen second choice is something she could relate to.

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Dictator Ship - City Girl.

Dictator Ship is back, ready to launch their second studio album ”Electric Jihad” in September 2023. Blending energetic and raw rock’n'roll with exquisite multi-layered vocal harmonies and melodies inspired by 60’s soul and doo-wop, the band has carved out their very own niche in the rock landscape, perfectly displayed on the new album.

The second single leading up to ”Electric Jihad” is called ”City Girl” and is released on the 18th of August on The Sign Records.

The band comments on ”City Girl”: It’s a song about romance. About meeting a fantastic someone that you really want to sleep with and hang out with but you know you won’t ever get the chance. What can you do? You just get yourself a drink and move on.

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