Posts

A Million Machines - OxenFree - Year of October

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A Million Machines - Come Tonight. Background - LA-based synth pop outfit A Million Machines have announced they will release their first full-length self-titled record in November 2017, preceded by the single ‘Come Tonight’. Featuring 11 tracks, this album is a synth pop kaleidoscope, densely layered in clean, modular synthesizers and a heavy melodic aesthetic between light and darkness.  ‘Come Tonight’ is a pulsating electronic burner that echoes Depeche Mode in its technical attack of modular synths, coupled with passionate male vocals. "This song encourages an awakening to the state of the world. An awakening to prejudice, corruption and human rights. An awakening to a revolution," says vocalist Fate Fatal.  The entire debut album is, in essence, a blast of heart-thumping beats, stomping propulsion and intoxicating melodies. Fatal injects his gloomy obsessions with an ultra melodic harmony, abetted by MIG, a conscientious technician with an understanding of the inn

Pageants - Whitney Rose - Oddnesse

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Pageants - Chai (חַי‎). Background - Pageants' (members of Avi Buffalo, Cherry Glazzer & Best Coast) first single "Chai ( חַי)" has just been released. This teases their upcoming album 'Forever' which will be dropping November 3rd. Pageants was formed by Rebecca Coleman in the aftermath of leaving Avi Buffalo (Sub Pop) in 2010, a band in which she was a founding member at the age of sixteen. Frustrated with clashing personalities and differences in musical sensibility, she, along with two other Avi Buffalo defectors, set out to revive the simplicity and spirit of earlier days. Diaristic yet dreamy and abstract in nature, her songs merge pop levity with melancholic lyrical undercurrents.  Collaborating with boyfriend Devin O’Brien to flush out demos, their debut LP, ‘Forever’ was close to completion in 2015. When label interest around the album hit a wall, the band decided to hold off on finishing the record while pursuing other opportunities.  Coleman

Desert Mountain Tribe - Michael Malarkey

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Desert  Mountain Tribe - Interstellar. Background - London based alternative/indie rock trio Desert Mountain Tribe are releasing the song ‘Interstellar’ from their 2016 debut album ‘Either That Or The Moon’ as a new single. It coincides with the band’s appearance at Manchester Psych Fest 2017 on 2nd September.      Edited from its original nine minute duration to just under five, the BVB Version of this epic track also boasts a superb video directed by Daniel Turner of Sound & Colour. Turner explains the extraordinary camera method employed on the promo clip as follows : “It is effectively made to look like one single shot - going from wide to super close up, with the band rotating on a stage, speeding up and slowing down in a sort of ‘Matrix’ effect, with lights flashing and streaking in sync with the music. Together with my Director of Photography, I have developed a way to use multiple cameras to make a super-huge frame that we can zoom in and out of, and a way to time al

Giant Flying Turtles - The Mining Co. - Julia P. - Anna Coogan

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Giant Flying Turtles - Waltz To The World (4 song selection). Background - With a sound about as unique as their name, Giant Flying Turtles are carving a place for themselves in, and beyond, the thriving Brooklyn, New York indie music scene. Their genre bending music has no bounds, inspired by rock, folk, jazz, bluegrass, and blues this high energy jam trio will blow you away. They have the uncanny ability to capture audiences small and large, young and old. Johnny and Calvin met while playing in Kreisor on Teepee Records. They soon found they had a lot in common and started playing as a duo in bars around Brooklyn. It was then that this Maryland Jazz cat and Kansas born Dead Head came to be the musical force they are today. Soon they met drummer Jim Toscano and the chemistry between the three was obvious. In 2016, virtuoso guitarist TJ Jordan joined the group making the sound complete. Their song Raven Hair is featured in the festival favourite One Wall – Kings of Coney Island.

The Sweetheart Revue - SPC ECO - Talullah Ruff

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The Sweetheart Revue - Civilised. Background - The Sweetheart Revue came into being when lead singer Gerard Sampaio tried to impress a woman at a party by saying he was in a band (which he wasn’t) and inviting her to see them play. Gerard had plenty of songs scribbled in notebooks at this point, but had never actually sung a single one in public. Friends were called, favours were begged, a practise was scheduled and a few days later The Sweetheart Revue took to the stage. That was pretty much the last time The Sweetheart Revue did anything in a hurry. They’ve been working on this album, their debut, for years, too many to mention, recording songs here and there, getting distracted by day jobs, having kids, that sort of thing. Along the way, they’ve played at Celtic Connections, The Kelvingrove Bandstand and The Grand Ole Opry (the one in their hometown of Glasgow). They’ve ventured as far North as Elgin, as far south as Pollokshields, and had a song featured in a Hollywood movie.

Kelsey Kerrigan - Radio Wolf - The Blue Hour - Gestures & Sounds

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Kelsey Kerrigan - Good Times. Background - "When I was 9, I used to sit in my closet in the pitch black with headphones on, listening to these meditational CDs. The music was really moody, with lots of production. I would get lost imagining all the different sounds, all the counter melodies, recalls the LA-based artist. I always loved production. While in school, Kerrigan kept up a grueling schedule of nine to 10 hours a day of songwriting while earning her degree in in audio engineering and production at Los Angeles Recording School. She was enrolled in the two-year production program. Initially, her decision to pursue production was so that she could make better demo versions of her songs, but the art of production would become integral to her musicality. A producers job is to decorate time and space, she says.   Immersed in the craft of production, and the art of songwriting, Kerrigan began to discover and refine her aesthetic. She became inspired by the lush textural in

Frøkedal - INHEAVEN - Knifey - Cody & Danz

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Frøkedal - LTF / Cracks. Background - Oslo, Norway based artist Frøkedal has released a new double single — ‘LTF’ / ‘Cracks’. Two captivating pieces of music, ‘LTF’ and ‘Cracks’ are similar in the sense that they both describe how feelings of love are often accompanied by an almost-physical fear. Yet, the two songs differ in their urgency, instrumentation, and overall artistic delivery. ‘LTF’ is full of twists and turns, as Anne Lise Frøkedal navigates her way around bustling drum work and complex guitar passages, hinting at a state of emotional bedlam: “Everything we aimed to be / The image stirs so easily / Too fast to follow / I don’t know what you’re doing to me”. Speaking a little more on the tracks, Frøkedal explained: "‘LTF’ is set in an urban landscape, and inspired by the escalating chaos of daily life, whereas ‘Cracks’ gets back to basics – it’s more vulnerable, and mature in that way. ‘Cracks’ suggests that the problem lies in our nature – nothing is more scary th

Friendly Rich - NØMADS - Soft Fangs

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Friendly Rich  - The Melon Sun. Background from Friendly Rich -  My name is Rich but most people like to call me Friendly Rich. I wear various hats in the creative field ranging from composer, to publisher, and even soon to be Dr in Music Education.  My journey in the music industry started back in the 90s composing music for 3 seasons of The Tom Green Show on MTV. Flash forward to 2017 and I now have released 10 records, a book, and now soon to be a one-of-a-kind video for my new single!  When it came time to make the video for the single, I knew I had to reach out to the folks at Everything Is Terrible, as I’m a big fan. It’s been wonderful working with them, as they perfectly melt my song about a high profile Canadian divorce with North America’s forgotten past!  ‘The Melon Sun’ is from my new full length studio recording The Great Blue Heron, out on Sept 14th, featuring Kevin Breit & Hawksley Workman, Facebook  here . 'The Melon Sun' is a rowdy and riotous blast

Monogold - QTY - Keep Shelly in Athens - Cormac O Caoimh

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Monogold - Cinnamon. Background - Monogold’s new album Babyfood (their sixth album since 2011, out September 29th via Chill Mega Chill Records), includes the heartwarming video for the album’s first single “Cinnamon”.  The prolific NYC-based psych-pop trio recruited a group of young art students from The Good School, a mobile arts education school for young NYC students that specializes in stop-motion animation. Students at The Good School work out of schools all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, so Monogold went into a class to meet with a group of them and talked to them about food, candy and dreams, and the students created this absolutely adorable video that was as weird as the band hoped. All of the kids who worked on the video were between 6-7 years old and did all of the animation by hand, completely on their own. Pretty, pretty amazing! Monogold has been incubating since the release of Yolk in late 2016, with their style and lyrical content developing and slowly evolving into

Discolor Blind - The Rigs - Josh Taerk - WYO - Silk Village

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Discolor Blind - Poor Receipts. Background - Montreal's Discolor Blind has revealed 'Poor Receipts', the second single from their debut EP 'Long Vivid Dream', set for release at the beginning of September. This follows up their well-received single 'Black and Grey'. ‘Long Vivid Dream’ was recorded in Montreal between April 2013 and October 2015. It features vocalist Alexis Nadeau, who Malayeri met through a mutual friend in September 2013. The EP also involves Grammy and Oscar-winning music producer Jeff Bass, best known for his long-term work with Eminem and collaboration with George Clinton. This EP is laced with the melancholia and angst that crept in from the cold Canadian winters Ashkan now found himself acclimatising to, summing up the myriad textures found on the record. A mix of chilled and measured washes are used as platforms for more intricate sounds from raw guitars and plaintive pianos to pop beats and even sultry jazz grooves. Building