Flower Face - The Inflorescence

Flower Face - The Shark In Your Water (Album).

Montreal multi-hyphenate artist Ruby McKinnon aka Flower Face, shares her artfully crafted new album, The Shark In Your Water, via Nettwerk. The ten-song collection is a devastatingly beautiful exploration of when “love becomes an obsession.” McKinnon shares stories of heartbreaking intimacy, working through traumas of love, and the constant struggle of self-identity.

After finding a fanbase online through DIY releases Baby Teeth (2018) and Fever Dreams (2017), Flower Face has established herself as an artist to watch, receiving rave reviews from Alt-Press, American Songwriter, Ones to Watch, FLAUNT, Under the Radar, and more. In addition, she performed to captivated crowds on an east coast run supporting SYML as part of his Sacred Spaces Tour.

A multi-hyphenate artist, Ruby McKinnon creates melancholic folk music with a bedroom pop heart under the moniker Flower Face. Taking inspiration from her own vertiginous life experiences, alongside such varied sources as Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, Jesus Christ Superstar, the oeuvre of Mads Mikkelsen and her dog Ziggy, Flower Face’s musical testimonials recall the jagged emotion of Bright Eyes while conjuring the ethereal ecstasy of a fresh wound.

Classically trained in piano since the age of 5, McKinnon began writing her own music at 14. Encouraged by her music-obsessed parents, she formed Flower Face in true D.I.Y. style: recording her independent debut, Fever Dreams, almost exclusively on her dad’s GarageBand app. Teeming with acoustic heartbreak hymns, it didn’t take long for the album to find space on bedroom playlists alongside The National, Daughter, Big Thief, and Mazzy Star.

Flower Face · The Shark in Your Water

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The Inflorescence - Board Game.

Thank San Diego for giving us Iron Butterfly, Blink-182 & Stone Temple Pilots but it’s got another distinction now. In 2019, a group of wise-beyond-their-years SD teens, singer/guitarist Tuesday Denekas (they/them), drummer Milla Merlini (she/her) and bassist Sasha A’Hearn (she/her), rose like punk-pop phoenix’s from the ashes of their previous band to corral guitarist/singer Charlee Berlin (who owned but didn’t know how to play her instrument at first) to resurrect Denekas’ songs of heartbreak and determination, starting out as the Fluorescents with 2020’s noteworthy ‘self-titled’ EP.

Proudly christening themselves The Inflorescence, the band found the right home with Kill Rock Stars to unleash their debut LP Remember What I Look Like (due Summer of 2022). The group faces challenges like juggling high school and college classes, finding all-age venues in town to play and rejecting gender labels as they explain: “in a largely male-dominated industry, we see how undermined we are for being a no-man band, and we see how being on stage empowers alternative girls and non-binary people.”

The stunning debut LP Remember What I Look Like, out June 10 on Kill Rock Stars, was conceived during quarantine and draws on the band’s inspirations, including indie, punk, emo, grunge and alternative.  Tuesday Denekas’s songs of shattered, disappointed romance sound triumphant in these infectious songs that are propelled by Milla Merlini’s thunderous drums, Sasha A’Hearn’s steady, anchoring bass and Charlee Berlin’s stinging guitar leads.

The confident nine-song album has zero dull spots or wasted songs. Starting with the sinuous, fast-paced “Phantom Feelings” and the resilient, stomping “So Much of Nothing” to the start/stop drama of “Are You Sorry” and the deceptively sweet, bouncy “Last Week” and the hair-pin turns and resilient defiance of “The Truth” to the brief respite from the title track which launches into the epic, gripping “Tomorrow Night” and the desperate grunge power of “The Button,” finishing off with the roaring climax of “Board Game,” it’s a rollercoaster ride of thrills and anguish to strap in for.

"Board Game" is probably the most desperate song on the album. At this time in my life I felt very manipulated, like I wasn’t being myself anymore and that the people I surrounded myself with didn’t really care about me at all. I felt like I was just a piece of someone else's puzzle, not my own. Instrumentally and structurally I took a lot of inspiration from the song “Your Best American Girl” by Mitski because of how powerful the instruments sounded. The final line, “I don’t know why but I can’t recognize you anymore.” feels like the perfect way to end this album and ties with the album name, Remember What I Look Like.

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Rosanne Baker Thornley - Sarah Klang - The Minks - Bealby Point

Rosanne Baker Thornley - Because Of Me.

Based in Toronto, Rosanne Baker Thornley is an internationally recognized, award-winning singer/ songwriter who writes with an impressive and growing number of international emerging and established artists. RBT has been evolving and expanding her relationship with music (and writing) for quite some time. With her new album, Sorry I'm Late, to be released September 2022, she further delves into her craft, cultivating songs from an intensely personal space.

Like all the songs on Sorry I'm Late, new single "Because of Me," is inspired by personal experience. This song is about someone who always arrived tangled, who willingly succumbed to a vulnerable version of themselves, and who left less tangled. 

It's about changing that someone to their benefit and how those changes in them, while to the betterment of others in their life, challenges those same people. It's about the realization and the risk to the person who is the impetus to their changing – and to the realization they're working against themselves. That every heartfelt moment shared can't change the inevitable outcome.

Rosanne Baker Thornley (RBT) · BECAUSE OF ME

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Sarah Klang - Belly Shots.

Gothenburg-based artist Sarah Klang returns with a lush new single ‘Belly Shots’ and a full Scandinavian tour. The release follows Klang’s third album ‘Virgo’ (May 2021) which recently saw Klang win her second Swedish Grammy, this time in the ‘Best Alternative Pop’ category, and her UK tour earlier this year which included a sold-out Bush Hall, London show.

Klang’s vintage alt-pop is born out of a love of a good old-fashioned ballad, blended with classic ‘60s and ‘70s pop influences, Americana-tinged guitars, country music’s luxurious hues - most mesmerising in her distinctive whispery twang - and an indefinable helping of Scandi charm.

Pouring her life experiences into every line of her songs, from heartbreak to motherhood, Klang says of new single “Belly Shots is about leaving your 20’s behind. A very much overrated time in your life, it turned out.”

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The Minks - Take It Easy.

The Minks are set to release their newest single, Take It Easy, on May 27th, 2022. This new song was recorded live by John Meehan in a cabin in the woods during the fall of 2021. It was recorded in a mobile studio that John built called Sundial Sound. It will be on a compilation being released in the summer under that same name. 

It features many other Nashville artists such as Chrome Pony, Hans Condor, and Bee Taylor. 10% of the profits from the compilation will go to Nashville’s W.O. Smith school, which gives music instruction and instruments to children from low-income families. Take It Easy was written about finding some peace amongst the chaos. It’s a breath of fresh air that takes you on a psychedelic trip to better days. 

Accompanying the release is a music video that was directed, filmed, and edited by The Minks themselves. It’s a surrealistic, hazy moving picture of silly moments on a sunny day out in the woods of Ashland City.

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Bealby Point - Try My Best.

From the band - When someone tells you "I'll try my best," it rarely means they'll actually try their best.

Even if the intention is true, when does one really ever try their best?

What's the best someone can do?

"Try My Best" is inspired by empty promises. The phrase is seldom actualized, but rather used as a Get Out of Jail Free card or sarcastic remark.

Our song plays with the theme of unrealized potential and being true to one's self.

What can we achieve when we truly put our mind and heart into something?

Somehow what I say right now, will make it up to you somehow. I'll try my best.

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Why Bonnie - Bob Marston & the Credible Sources - Pet Deaths

Why Bonnie - 90 In November.

New-York-by-way-of-Texas transplants Why Bonnie announce their debut album 90 in November out August 19th via their new label Keeled Scales, and share the title track and an accompanying video. “90 in November” is a sunny guitar pop song about lead singer and songwriter Blair Howerton’s hometown of Houston, packed full of sparkling snapshots—”a technicolor sun” and “a cardboard cutout cowboy waving me goodbye.” “I wanted to capture the bittersweet feeling of saying goodbye to the landscape that shaped you while still dealing with the anxieties of what lies ahead,” says Howerton.  “Nostalgia always hits with a flash of disjointed memories - like speeding down the highway or sweating in the Texas heat.” The self-directed video captures this feeling.

Following their 2020 Voice Box EP, 90 in November crashes into existence with a squeal of feedback and a burst of distorted guitar. Inspired by fellow Texans Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, alt-rock like the Lemonheads and the Replacements, the eccentric pop of Sparklehorse, and Sheryl Crow, the album is a dynamic introduction to an evolutionized Why Bonnie. 90 in November is a meditation on the pains and pleasures of nostalgia and a lesson in learning how to look back at the people, places, and experiences that have shaped us, with room for both unvarnished honesty and rose-tinted melancholy.

The songs for 90 in November were mostly written in Brooklyn, where Howerton moved from Austin in 2019. Already in the midst of a major life change, her feeling of being between worlds was compounded when quarantine hit and she found herself, like so many others, stuck in her apartment—about as far away from the wide-open spaces of Texas as one can possibly get. It was in this environment that she began to write songs parsing out the complicated, mixed emotions associated with building a new home while attempting to make sense of the one she had left behind.

There’s a deep sense of place across 90 in November. The band—Howerton, keyboardist Kendall Powell, guitarist Sam Houdek, bassist Chance Williams, and drummer Josh Malett—considered making the record in New York or California, but ultimately decided that it had to be done in Texas. In early 2020, Why Bonnie headed down to the town of Silsbee (population: 6,634) to spend two weeks recording with Tommy Read (Lomelda) at Lazybones Audio. Howerton describes it as an idyllic period of time where days were spent walking around with cows and evenings drinking Lone Star beer and looking at the stars.

90 in November is a trip through Howerton’s inner world, but it’s also a road trip through Texas. Often it is both at once. The songs are full of poetic, cinematic lyrics that flash like colorful scenes glimpsed from the window of a car as it barrels along an interstate highway cutting through the Lone Star State, each one a road stop revealing a different facet of Howerton’s experience. The album is a dynamic introduction to a more raw-edged indie sound from a band who have matured from bedroom dream pop into a sophisticated rock act, their evolving sound a reflection of the journey undertaken by Howerton on this vividly rendered collection of songs.

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Bob Marston & the Credible Sources - Lyin' Eyes.

Birmingham, Alabama, Bob Marston & the Credible Sources, will released their new single, "Lyin' Eyes," yesterday. "Lyin' Eyes" is from the band's forthcoming debut LP So Long, set for release on June 3rd. The song features Matt Slocum (Allman Brothers, Susan Tedeschi, Widespread Panic) on keys, and St. Paul & The Broken Bones' horn section!

Bob wrote the song one summer when he was working a migrant farm job. His job? De-tasseling corn. For 12 hours a day.

After those long days working in the cornfields, the 40-person crew would party hard when nighttime came. Bob developed feelings for a crewmate, hoping to become her "corn boyfriend" (which consistently makes me laugh)--feelings that were not returned--and working with her for 12 hours a day every day definitely stung. As a songwriter does when his heart is broken, Bob developed a narrative with a vintage R&B vibe about a love interest who wasn't very sincere in her flirtations. "That’s the thing about unrequited love...it is so neat and tidy because it never actually existed," he says.

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Pet Deaths - Unhappy Ending (Album).

London based duo Pet Deaths today release their second album 'unhappy ending' via Silver Mind Records. The album follows two previously released singles "all the things you said you were (i don’t believe in ghosts)" and "swingtime", and is the follow up the band's acclaimed debut album To the Top of the Hill and Roll... - released in 2019.

An album to be both explored and sat with; in an age of dull disconnection and constant refreshing, unhappy ending, Pet Deaths' second full-length effort was deliberately and acutely considered to be a journey of its own; nine new songs but one whole immersive piece for the listener to climb inside, in the quiet of reflection, in the sobering commute to and from.

Following on from the sparkling celestial folk of the band's 2019 debut To the Top of the Hill, unhappy ending is the next step in Pet Deaths’ somewhat remarkable journey. The pair met accidentally when Liam Karima was sitting on his doorstep feeling deflated late one night, before he noticed a “heavy Geordie accent strutting down the grove, smoking and whistling the guitar lick from Sultans Of Swing”. Graeme Martin and appeared from the shadows and the pair quickly realised that they’d known each other years earlier when they’d both played on the pub circuit. They caught up on each other’s lives, sharing stories from the old days, and by the time the birds started singing they were making drone noises and poetry together – and Pet Deaths was born.

Setting out to make their new album, the band had one question in the forefront of their collective mind: Is life an unhappy ending, or do we become part of a bigger movement to more positive things? Across the album’s nine tracks, this conundrum is explored in many and meaningful ways, their subtle take on melancholic folk-pop conjuring a bewitching atmosphere that hangs over every inch of the album. “We were powering through the entire back catalog of Twin Peaks at the time of recording,” Liam says of that side of the album’s sound. “I think that played a big influence in the surreal parts of the record.”

unhappy ending became a labour of love for Pet Deaths, many of the songs initially written during the same sessions that sparked their debut album. Initially, the band’s original concept for the record was to have a wild string arrangement running throughout, like a Disney film with a touch of Scott Walker, but as time went by it evolved into the free-jazz-rock art piece that we hear today.

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Lawn - Keep Shelly in Athens - Brooke Annibale - Dubmatix Meets Future Dub Orchestra

Lawn - Night Life.

Last month Lawn announced Bigger Sprout, their new record which is due out July 15th on Born Yesterday, the up and coming Chicago label that is home to bands like Moontype, Cafe Racer and Caution. Written, rehearsed, and recorded under a month-long period, Bigger Sprout explores a feeling of urgency as a theme and a catalyst: urgency to get out of uncomfortable situations, urgency to take relationships more seriously, urgency to work on themselves, urgency to play shows again, urgency to record, urgency to start a family, urgency to make plans and leave old settings behind, urgency to grow up and become more in tune to your surroundings, urgency to quit old habits and pick up new ones. The EP, co-written with former drummer Hunter Keene, is a document that embodies the anxieties of change, for better or worse. Now the band are sharing a second single from the record, a track called "Night Life".

Lawn's Mac Folger and Rui DeMagalhaes share lead vocal duties in the band, and while the jangly and melancholic first single "Down" was sung by Folger, DeMagalhaes takes center stage for "Night Life", a more wirey, punky track (with drums performed by Hunter Keene) that was based on an encounter with a former Todd Rundgren crew member in a DC bar.

"I was at a bar in DC shortly before the pandemic started when I met this washed up dude who said he had been a live tech for Todd Rundgren," DeMagalhaes explains. "A few drinks in, he went on a tirade against what he perceived as “weak manners” among millennials and Gen Z musicians, saying that we’ve gotten lazy and soft. He offered to show me around his favorite dives, saying that he was in aa constant search of the night life. The song is written from the perspective of a character loosely based on him, a Don Quixote-like figured who has overstayed his welcome but is oblivious to this.

"On an added note, he complained that Rundgren fired him for being a booze hound and an overall liability. He still seemed pretty resentful about losing the gig, but also played in a Rundgren cover band around the area. To be honest, I don’t know how truthful this man was, but I suppose it does not matter."

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Keep Shelly in Athens - White Rose.

Keep Shelly In Athens pays tribute to groups that fought against the Nazis during WWII on a pair of new songs. "White Rose" is the first of these and will be released on May 27.

"The White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany. Their activities started in Munich on June 27, 1942. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi regime. The core members of the group who carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced show trials by the Nazi People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) and were executed by guillotine four days after their arrest, on February 22, 1943."

The ethereal and swirling sounds of Greece’s Keep Shelly in Athens capture the transient feelings of city life and the inevitable passing of time. With lush melodic beats and dreamy vocals Keep Shelly’s production is an accessible and lighthearted entry into the world of down-tempo electronica.
With previous releases on labels including Forest Family Records, Transparent Records, Planet Mu, Cascine and Friends of Friends, the duo have already transported their whimsical arrangements and soothing productions across the globe, including performances at Coachella Festival, Parklife Festival, Brighton’s The Great Escape Festival, etc. In addition to their own releases they have also done official remixes for Tycho (Ghostly International), Blood Diamonds (4AD), Steve Mason (Domino) and many more…

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Brooke Annibale - 5 AM.

Indie singer/songwriter Brooke Annibale announces a new single called “5 AM.” The latest peek at her forthcoming album, “5 AM” is a slow-burning, ethereal song inspired by long conversations that stretch into the early morning hours and the first blush of new love. "5 AM" is available everywhere this Friday, May 27.

“It’s completely about falling in love with my wife,” stated Brooke. “It's when we realized, ‘I think that we might like each other a little bit, that we would stay up this late talking. It's the journey of falling in love. The first verse was basically me envisioning, what would our wedding day be like? And what do I want on that day? I was like, I wanna dance. I wanna cry. I wanna laugh. It sounds kind of corny, but those are all things that ended up being very true on our wedding day.”

“5 AM” follows the release of “What If You,” the first single off her upcoming album debut with Nettwerk Music Group. A lush and dreamy track, “What If You” serves as the perfect introduction to her evolving sound as she digs into the mixed emotions and gentle balance of maintaining her music career while acknowledging the complicated nature of new love. FLOOD called it “immediately catchy” while Brooklyn Vegan described it as “a dreamy, folky song that kinda feels like the middle ground between Weyes Blood and Beach House.”

Brooke's expressive and beautifully thoughtful songwriting creates a dreamy and enticing sonic landscape. She has been a favorite among music supervisors and featured in such media as Stereogum, Wall Street Journal, Billboard, NPR/World Café, Consequence, Paste, Under The Radar, American Songwriter and more. She has also shared the stage with artists like Mt. Joy, Iron & Wine, Lucius, and Rufus Wainwright. She joins Nettwerk’s expanding label roster, which also includes artists like Old Sea Brigade, Bre Kennedy, SYML, Luke Sital-Singh, Aisha Badru, Wild Rivers and more.

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Dubmatix Meets Future Dub Orchestra - Heavy Stepper.

The sound of Future Dub Orchestra meets Dubmatix is a hybrid of “Cinematic Electronica” and “Leftfield Chill" deeply rooted in Dub, merging into lush vibes, low-end love, and atmospheric layers.

Initiated by J.T. Clarke of FDO (Future Dub Orchestra) when he approached Dubmatix about doing a collaboration of two songs turned into an E.P. with accompanying dub versions. Dub On Dub

The “Innerblues” of Bristol (Future Dub Orchestra) meets the “frontline dub” of Toronto (Dubmatix) in a very exciting and upgraded sound experience.

A delectable showcase full of versions, vibrations and vocal mutations, madness and method, drum and bass, roots and future II.

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Pale Blue Eyes - Lucigenic

Pale Blue Eyes - Globe.

Pale Blue Eyes’ excelsior modernist pop music is rooted in Devon and Sheffield. The group’s debut album, Souvenirs – out September 2 – brims with the influence of both the Steel City – home of British electronic music – and the psychedelic Southwestern greenery that surrounds the band at their South Devon HQ. The album will be released by the Full Time Hobby label.

Souvenirs was recorded in PBE’s own Penquit Mill studio, just south of Dartmoor, the studio having been funded by a bank loan and endless part-time jobs. PBE are the couple Lucy and Matt Board, crucially aided by Motown-mad bassist Aubrey Simpson. Matt (vocals/guitar) and Lucy (drums/electronics) met at Dartington Art College in South Devon, a storied establishment that’s been enlivened over the years by people including Igor Stravinksy, Yul Brynner and John Cage. Lucy’s dissertation was titled “An Investigation into Sheffield's Alternative Music Scene Between 1973 and 1978, with Particular Reference to Cabaret Voltaire.” The PBE album was mixed and mastered by Dean Honer (Eccentronic Research Council, Moonlandingz). Dean has been an integral part of Sheffield's electronic scene and has mixed artists including Róisín Murphy, The Human League and Add N To (X).

PBE’s 2021 self-released debut single Motionless/Chelsea was given much praise. MOJO: “A shimmering Kraut-rail trip to Asgard.” Louder Than War: “Astonishing… conducting Neu! on a ride to the far pop pavilions.” Follow-up single TV Flicker was playlisted at BBC 6 Music. Now, new single Globe continues the PBE singles trajectory, with a track named after a shared student house, in Totnes in Devon. Globe Cottage had previously been a pub, called The Globe.

“The single,” says Matt, “takes its name from this shared house me and Lucy lived in. The track is about a blissful time of parties, of not having a care in the world, all the characters than came and went over the years. The rent was so cheap, it all seemed so easy. The world has changed in the meantime… Rents have rocketed. Life for many people is now harder.”

The PBE album brims with a kind of elective positivity, as made clear when Matt lists the album’s themes: “Embracing good times, losing yourself in a moment of bliss when the world around you is going to shit… Processing and understanding loss and grief and using music as a vehicle to move on… Fighting against the mundane and not giving up on dreams… The pure joy of a good night out or a moment of being moved by a band or a piece of artwork or a great film… Making the most of the time you have.”

 
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Lucigenic - Joy.

With flecks of Patti Smith, Blondie and Belly, Mancunian post-punk group Lucigenic have shared their jubilant and driving new track “Joy”. Combining Lucy Davies compelling vocal delivery with dynamic and jangling alt-rock melodies and capacious choruses, “Joy” finds a hypnotic middle-ground between the gritty, overcast punk of earlier single “Still Breathing” and the chiffony dreamscapes on its predecessor “Hope”.

Inspired by the simple pleasures in life away from the desire for fame and veneration, “Joy” is the third of three tracks recorded by the alt-rock outfit in a session at Far Heath Studio. With production by esteemed producer Mike Bennett (The Fall, Fat White Family, Ian Brown) and Angus Wallace on engineering duties, the single is a scintillating slice of grunge-tinged bliss and is the title track from Lucigenic’s limited edition 10 inch vinyl EP set for release later this year.

Adding more sparks of electricity to an already glistening track, Lucigenic are joined by Mark Refoy (Spiritualized, Spacemen 3) on guitar and drumming legend Dave Barbarossa (Bow Wow Wow, Republica) whose unique style and drum beats lend perfect synergy to a punk-tinged track.  Building up to a dynamic climax that nods to classic alt-rock whilst simultaneously carving out its own path, “Joy” is an adroit and exuberant cut from a band swiftly becoming masters of their craft.  

Coming as a follow-up to the band’s debut EP ‘1’, released in 2020 and featuring tracks with Spencer Birtwistle (Intastella, The Fall) and original drummer Stewart Burnett (The Cheaters), “Joy” has gained early praise from Neil March (6 Music Introducing panel) who wrote on his blog Trust The Doc: “Nice reverberant production suits the guitar-driven style and big melody that fills the chorus. This is agreeably loud, melodic and bristling with energy and attitude. The Title is definitely appropriate”.  With their next live show lined up for Liverpool’s Resistance Street Pro-Creative All-Dayer event on 1st May, Lucigenic also have new material and future collaborations in the pipeline, with more news to come…

Lucigenic · Joy

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