Hourglvss - Calling
North Wales alt-pop quartet Hourglvss, made up of best friends Katie Benbow (vocals / keyboard), Sophie May Williams (vocals / keyboard), Rosie Hamilton (guitar) and Lauren James (drums) are the newest infectious girl gang you will want to be a part of. This week they share their infectious new single 'Calling'. Operating out of Benbow’s ‘Vintage Hearts’ clothing warehouse; complete with pink floors, a giant lipstick, alien mannequins, and heaps of vintage garments, these four women have created a safe space for their own unique Hourglvss universe.
Hourglvss was first formed back when Sophie became a customer of Katie’s vintage clothing website. The pair instantly hit it off and found they had almost everything in common. After attending a Tame Impala gig, the pair began playing music together, covering songs at Katie’s house. It was there that they discovered they had something special.
Soon after, Rosie and Lauren joined the band, and the sisterhood was locked in. “It’s a girl gang, people come up to us after our gigs and want to be our friends, we are building a community for everyone.”
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Nashville singer-songwriter Jill Andrews just released a brand new single called "High Fives" along with an official music video. Co-written with her Hush Kids bandmate and frequent collaborator Peter Groenwald, "High Fives" is a nostalgic song inspired by childhood friends and finding immense joy in the simplest of things. The video was directed and edited by Joshua Britt and Neilson Hubbard.
“I’ve always been a big fan of elaborate handshakes,” stated Andrews. “I once created a routine with a friend of mine that lasted upwards of five minutes and involved a whole lot of synchronized dancing. Near the four and a half minute mark, we would find ourselves in a crab-walking position preparing for our final move. It was a grand high five followed by a nonchalantly spoken ‘see ya’ as we crab-walked out of each other’s view. This move proved to be tricky for us bipeds so we kept missing contact on the high five. In my opinion, there is nothing more unsettling than this. So we had to start the whole routine over again until we finally got it right. This could take all day.
But when you’re young, what else do you have to do? My favorite kinds of friends know how to dive deep into the fun-loving sides of themselves. They may have learned and performed all of Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ dance routine with me at one point or another. They may have helped me develop a couple’s inline skating routine in a freshly paved parking lot somewhere in East Tennessee. It seems like these types of friends are harder to find as an adult. Everyone gets so tangled up in bills, kids, and home repairs. I’m lucky to still have a treasured few in my life. And for those who really know me, I hope they still see that silly girl, whose favorite thing to do is laugh so hard that she loses control of her limbs.”
"High Fives" follows the release of "Dark Days," Andrews first new studio release in over two years. A sprawling reflection on the complexities of simultaneously looking back and moving forward, "Dark Days" was featured by The Bluegrass Situation and Ghettoblaster among others.
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Tom Emlyn released his new single 'Broken Mirror' a few days back. The follow-up to 'Like a Cigarette' it's the second of three singles leading up to the album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ released on the 5th of May 2023. Mastered by Charlie Francis (R.E.M., Pixies) 'Broken Mirror' is a semi-fictional ballad of lost love set against the backdrop of the Welsh landscape with a heavy dose of irony and imagism.
"And beauty is a curse/ But ugliness is worse/And loneliness is always" Sighs Emlyn bittersweetly on this wistful poetic song rich with detail, as spindly guitars, waltzing fiddles and harps, orbit around his tender vocals. Beguiling and anthemic, introspective yet universal 'Broken Mirror' speaks to the human experience of lost love.
Emlyn says: "This was a song I wrote after I came back from traveling in about 2015. It was a bit of a prototype for some of my other songs like Empire or Under the Weather, which try to use the Welsh landscape as a metaphor for a breakup. It's not really as biographical as it sounds, there's a lot of fiction in there too. It also deals with the choices you make in life and realising that there are many ways to look at a situation. It's quite conversational and imagistic."
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Folk femme fatale singer and theatre actress Sarah Segal-Lazar has been making music since before she could talk. Folks say she took her first steps in ¾ time.
She wrote “Even Miami Is Cold” after a trip to spend time with her long-distance boyfriend, but within two days she realised it was like a romcom gone wrong.
The line that started it all – “Baby when I’m with you even Miami is cold” – feels like something Katharine Hepburn would fire back at Cary Grant. It’s a good reminder that even the most specific and personal stories can still live in poetry.
“I was so stressed that I spent a good chunk of the trip shivering, even though it was 30 degrees out,” Sarah explains. “Needless to say, by the last night, we had called it quits. I flew back to Montreal, half heartbroken and half bewildered.”
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