After almost four years since Sad & Easy, Colyn is excited to be sharing a new album ‘Freehand’. While living in Vancouver, BC, the new material emerged within the paradoxical spaces of experimenting with dispersed and concentrated rhythms. He used the material to explore themes of technology, adventure, self-worth & love with mild nods to worldly trepidation.
The Album was again recorded mostly at home, with additional instrumentation from close collaborators Aiden Ayers and Josh Contant.
It has now been ten years since the release of Wake Owl’s first album. In the years since, Colyn has also composed original music for 2 feature films and numerous different independent projects, and formed new musical and broader artistic collaborations.
His enchanting new single “Stream” was inspired by algorithmic realities, such as near annual iPhone purchases and the screen time data Apple shares. The metaphor in the line “Well I've tried prototypes, but the fruit wasn’t ripe, I’ll pretend differently it’s a bad appetite” suggests that all tech progress is fruitful, but maybe isn’t always ready.
As we round the home stretch towards the release of Em Spel's debut album The Carillon Towers we celebrate the release of the third single "Golem" - a beautifully orchestrated track that meditates on the monkey's paw curse / wish of the Golem from Jewish Folklore.
Of the track Emma Hospelhorn states, "Have you ever loved the idea of someone rather than the real person? In this intimate, slow build of a song, the lush instrumentation is layered in gradually: An improvised noise layer swirls like the static of a person's thoughts over a gentle guitar line played by V.V. Lightbody. A singing violin line, played by Caitlin Edwards, starts out simply and then soars into shimmering counterpoint at the apex of the song, on the lyric "what if you said you'd become someone new?""
The Carillon Towers features luminaries from Chicago's thriving experimental and classical music scene including V.V. Lightbody, Katinka Kleijn, Eric Ridder and Matt Oliphant who work to bring these lushly orchestrated songs to life
A classically trained musician with a love for great songwriting, Roxi Copland’s innovative sound is forged at the crossroads of Americana, roots, and jazz. From her confessions that “the things I speak aloud might hurt the ones I love” to professing seductively “I prefer my arms with yours entwined,” the five songs that make up her I Come From Crazy EP reveal an artist unafraid to divulge her shortcomings, frustrations, and desires.
"It took a while for me to be self-confident enough to write a song without complex chords in it," she recalls, referencing her previous life as a singing pianist in jazz clubs. "I noticed that what I really loved as a kid were songs that told stories, and a lot of those were country and Americana … my songwriting started to have more of a tilt towards that direction." Throughout the EP, Copland’s sultry vocals are framed by country-tinged instrumentation from a stellar lineup of some of Austin’s finest—including Warren Hood on fiddle (Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, The Waybacks), Adam Nurre on drums (David Ramirez, Jeremy Pinnell) James Bookert on banjo (Whiskey Shivers, Wild Child), Devin North on bass (Arielle), and Justin Douglas, who also engineered and co-produced the album with Copland, on pedal steel and guitar. The resulting sound is akin to a rowdier, rootsier Madeleine Peyroux or Melody Gardot.
Lead single "Daddy Don't Do Politics," which earned an accolade from the International Songwriting Competition (2020 Semi-Finalist, Folk/Singer-Songwriter category), might be the most timely of all the tracks on the EP. In just over two minutes, it offers up a succinct summation of that moment when a father gets a lesson in privilege from his more progressive daughter. “He didn’t appreciate me pointing out that he had a huge head start in life, and I didn’t appreciate him willfully ignoring a massive amount of privilege. So I got a little passive-aggressive and wrote this song and admittedly had a lot of fun while doing it,” Copland recalls.
Looking for an escape of sorts during the pandemic, Copland says she steered her efforts towards simply having fun with music, centering the storytelling, and looking internally to family dynamics for inspiration. “I was focusing on telling a story, whether it was funny, sarcastic, or getting a political dig in, and trying to write to that story rather than coming up with a song and then writing a story to fit.”
Wy are a band strongest at their most vulnerable. The Malmö indie duo, Ebba and Michel Gustafsson Ågren, have showcased their musical skills across three albums, 2017’s Okay, 2019’s Softie and 2021’s Marriage which gained them recognition from KEXP, Line of Best Fit, NBHAP, Tonspion, CLASH and more as well as tours in Germany, Scandinavia and the UK. But what makes them stand out as a band is the raw, brutal emotion they capture in their music. A Wy song at their best sounds like opening it all up, and letting the feelings flow where they will, letting the pain, anger, fear, hope and love steer the song. Those emotions are spun into the band’s skyscaping, cinematic sound, and turned into music that has a force behind it, a power that hits you, even when it's at its softest. Teeth is the first song from new EP Something Amazing which is out on all platforms and a limited CD including a six page booklet (which also includes Marriage) on June 17th.
First single Teeth is about “standing helpless on the sideline when someone close to you is struggling. About feeling desperate to help when there’s nothing you can do but to be by their side and wait for it all to pass. It feels extra relevant now that we have become parents. Suddenly there’s an abundance of things we cannot control, and there’s going to be a lot more of that in the future. It’s a hard thing to accept, but you can’t protect the ones you love from everything, even if you want to.”
Something Amazing picks up where Marriage left off, exploring dramatic life changes, including the experience of knowing that there soon will be a third person in the family. It is the second release since signing to Rama Lama Records (Melby, Steve Buscemi's Dreamy Eyes, Chez Ali etc.) and continues the path from last years Marriage, leaving the more produced style of second album Softie behind, it turns to the simpler sound of their earlier work for music that’s rawer and sharper.
The duo describes it as being about “the light at the end of the tunnel. About narrowing your circle and focusing your gaze on what is important - the people close to you. About a door, opening wide into a completely new life, with entirely new challenges and overwhelming beauty. ”
After building a following of over 220,000 people on TikTok who are itching for new music, Southern punk-rocker King Lazy Eye (Dylan Wilson) releases his single, “Slow Burn,” via brand-new Nashville independent record label Sky Daddy. “Slow Burn” is the first single to be released from his debut EP due out in August 2022.
Wilson delivers his crafty songwriting with southern Tennessee twang over upbeat acoustic guitar licks. Now that he’s set with a full band and label backing him, he’s ready to blaze his trail. Inspired by artists like Pinegrove, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, and The Pixies, Wilson has honed in on his talents and delivers them via a well-tuned, heartfelt vehicle for himself and like-minded fans.
With repeating lyrics of “I feel like I’m just a slow burn” in a catchy rhythm that makes it easy to sing along, the song is nothing short of an anthem. The single is about getting clean from methamphetamine and alcohol and subsequently going to jail, as well as how the road to sobriety for everyone is different--the usual motivators like religion or corporal punishment can fail us just like any other system we're indoctrinated into. "Slow Burn" is also weighted with the physical exhaustion that comes from recovering from a five-year narcotics binge.
‘In Another Desert’ by New Zealand post-punk / indie-guitar band Vietnam is the third video and promo single to be lifted from their latest album, This Quiet Room. Vietnam’s first new record since 1985’s self-titled debut, This Quiet Room was released in New Zealand and Australia in January 2022. Met with an immediate and overwhelmingly warm reception from radio, reviewers, and record collectors alike, vinyl and CD copies of This Quiet Room have now gained wider release across Europe and the UK, through Netherlands distribution label Clear Spot.
Primarily written by co-founding member Peter Dransfield, ‘In Another Desert’ ranges from tumultuous, tension-building rhythms through to breezier moments of melodic release: showcasing Vietnam’s moody early eighties post-punk influences (often compared at the time to Joy Division, The Cure, The Church, or The Sound), blended with New Zealand influences in the tradition of The Pin Group, The Verlaines, or The Chills. The song’s dynamic contrast between light and shade is offset by the new video, capturing an energetic performance from the band, in stark monochrome.
‘In Another Desert’ is both the new album’s opening track, and one of the earliest unreleased songs from the band’s original 1980s repertoire. The song kicks off This Quiet Room with a stick count from original drummer Leon Reedijk (R.I.P.), sampled from the band’s 2017 live reunion show in Wellington, New Zealand. Sadly, Leon died of a sudden heart attack just a few months after that show.
Dublin-based singer songwriter Ellen Arthur Blyth unveiled her long-awaited debut album ‘Nine’ in April. The collection of Ellen’s unique jazz-pop sound follows the release of the single ‘Young Ones’ and title track ‘Nine’ which earned Ellen support from acclaimed publications such as Notion, Hotpress and Nialler9.
The album is now followed by the release of a stunning new music video
for ‘God Knows’, which expresses the themes of pain in the song with
visuals of a captivating ballerina. “It's about the time in my life when I had to finally stop drinking. It felt like a relationship was ending, one I'd had from the age of 14. I thought I couldn't live without it and felt heartbroken.” - Ellen shares the meaning behind ‘God Knows’
Born in Dublin, the youngest of nine, in a house where the one who shouted loudest ate most, Ellen learned early how to sing for her supper. Dragged out of bed, dusted down, slung into a polyester frock, her early forays into musical performance consisted of pitch perfect renditions of Any Dream Will Do to family friends. But as success followed the clan, friends turned to ambassadors, heads of state, Hollywood actors and other visiting dignitaries passing through.
Aged 9, she woke her father and told him she was going to be a famous singer and would buy him a racehorse. He told her to go back to bed. At 16 she made the live finals of Ireland’s ‘You’re a Star’ but lost her voice. Her early adult life was spent serenading drunk punters in a city buried in snow, before finally, she fell through a drunken crevasse. After reaching bottom, she started to climb back out and rediscover her voice.
She Said is a song about being a woman. The song unfolds from two perspectives – one being young, carefree and full of hope, but also feeling insecure and scared to make the wrong decisions. The other perspective is delivered from an older narrator, that has lived life – singing to her younger self, wanting to give advice, but not wanting to interfere, because she knows that life has to be lived and experienced, good or bad, wild and mundane. The track is a celebration of all women and a reminder to believe in oneself. Philip’s catchy vocals are supported by gritty drums, dynamic beats and sparse guitar.
Josephine Philip lives and works in Copenhagen. She is inspired by a wealth of artistic expression; choral works, contemporary art and performance, jazz standards, experimental music, film, literature and classical music, and uses this inspiration to tell her engaging tales and stories.
Philip released her debut single as a solo artist, Call My Name in May 2021 and her second The Clue in October 2021. Both songs have been in heavy rotation on Danish radio station P6 Beat and have been very warmly received on both Danish and foreign music media. In February 2022 she released her 3rd single No. 7 and in March 2022 her 4th single Little Boy.
“It’s a fragile, nocturnal piece of cinematic beauty, a track about love and longing, surrounded in an impressive musical setting. The anchor of this delicate tune remains Philip‘s stunning vocal performance which is equally strong and fragile”
The new album - We Get Lost And Found - is written and produced in collaboration with Copenhagen based producer and musician Lasse Martinussen and will be released on 20th May 2022. Josephine Philip was one half of the now defunct dynamic duo JaConfetti, was a founder of and served time in the all-female Ska outfit Favelachic and the dance floor popular sound system Dullen & Dyken.
As the opening and title track of Ben Talmi's upcoming record, this song really sets the tone for the tunes that follow. An ode to growing up in Western Mass, Ben takes us on a nostalgic journey through some of the most formative moments in his life. With a humorous and often self depracating tone, he describes "the night some friends and I paid tribute to The Ramones by hanging a giant “Rock 'n' Roll High School” banner above our beloved Pittsfield High School. No one saw it and the banner was taken down first thing the following morning." Other memories include going to a Smiths singalong party and feeling shame at not knowing any of the lyrics.
Musically, "Berkshires" introduces us to Ben's talent as an arranger, with a string quartet floating on top of his fingerpicked acoustic. It's as if you crossed Nick Drake with the twee pop of Belle and Sebastian or one of their 90s contemporaries. I love how simple the arrangement is, and the quartet never threatens to overwhelm the delicate stories being told.
As with the previous two singles "Ralph & Mary" and "Canoe Meadows," "Berkshires" epitomizes the kind of homespun nostalgia that jumped out at me upon first listen. Ben is singing about beloved memories from his past, and while we weren't there with him, we can feel the love and affection in his voice.
California-based trio Heavy Gus have announced their debut album Notions will release on August 5th through BMG Records. Led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Dorota Szuta, the band includes multi-instrumentalist Stelth Ulvang of The Lumineers and percussionist Ryan Dobrowski of Blind Pilot. The group also shared their new single “Weird Sad Symbol” along with the accompanying music video directed by maven Ben Fee. The video was shot in one take and shows Szuta singing through a montage of pesky hecklers as she revels in resilience and survival. Under the Radar premiered the video saying, “the track captures the trio’s propulsive energy with rollicking rhythms, infectious guitar parts, and impeccable melodic sensibilities一all of the foundations for great garage rock.”
“I wrote ‘Weird Sad Symbol’ as a joyous departure, while living in a damp garage in Santa Cruz, California,” Szuta told Under The Radar who debuted the video. “It's a song about living in chaos and just rolling with it. It's the second track off our debut album, Notions, which we're excited to announce will be released August 5th!”
Heavy Gus emerged last year with the psychedelic-tinged “Do We Have to Talk?”, a track about the intimacy in words unspoken and reaching out for the comfort of a physical connection. Earlier this year, they shared the long-distance-love-song “Dinner For Breakfast,” a droning, bittersweet, reverb-drenched reflection on longing and separation that ultimately finds a reason to hold on in even the darkest of moments.
The band took shape during the pandemic when songwriting couple Uvlang and Szuta (a marine scientist who also has a background in music playing with Laura Gibson and Gill Landry) took a socially distanced road trip to Nashville — picking up Dobrowski in Colorado along the way — to record at The Creative Workshop. The resulting collection of songs blur the lines between grungy garage band fare, hazy desert surf, and dreamy, sun-soaked indie rock. Their debut offering calls to mind everything from Meat Puppets and The Breeders to Yo La Tengo and Acetone in its artful balance of hope and fatalism, loneliness and desire, strength and vulnerability. And while all three bandmates came to Heavy Gus from very different worlds, they fit together like puzzle pieces here, bound by the kind of love and trust that can only grow from years of deep kinship. Notions was engineered and mixed by Parker Cason (Margo Price, All Them Witches, Coin) and mastered by Pete Lyman (Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile).
Bergen, Norway based artist Bo Milli shares the video for debut track "At The Wheel". The latest signing to MADE Management (Sigrid, AURORA), "At The Wheel" was co-produced by Odd Martin Skålnes (Sigrid, Sløtface, AURORA).
With a predisposition to self-criticise and a talent for turning that into art, Bo Milli is an essential new voice in music. Through her diaristic lyrics, the super smart environmentalist writes hook after hook as she navigates her inner conflict. And indeed, in putting her own life into words, she has unknowingly narrated our collective existential angst. “Writing music is an emotional outlet, but it’s also a puzzle,” she says, reflecting on her craft. “Sentences come to me and I try to make the pieces fit together. And if just for a moment my music is a good thing in someone’s life, then I will take any opportunity to play it.”
Debut track “At The Wheel” is a Soccer Mommy-adjacent song about becoming an adult and suddenly finding yourself responsible for not just your own destiny but the future of the planet. “It’s embarrassingly earnest,” she says of the track, in which she questions “who’s at the wheel these days?” from a bed of idiosyncratic lyrics and melodies. “It’s about how the small things feel big, and how you try to relate to the big things but the everyday stuff takes up so much real estate. There are these flashes of ‘oh fuck!’ but then you’re like… ‘wait, where’re my keys?’” The feeling of powerlessness though, is all-too relatable.
Commenting on the track's accompanying video, Bo Milli said: "The video reflects the everyday-feel of the lyrics, leaning into the literal: I sing I'm waiting for the bus having a cigarette, there I am at the bus-stop doing just that. We wanted to capture the theme of aimlessness. I’m waiting for a bus that never comes, sitting in the backseat of a car that never arrives anywhere, and who’s driving anyways?"
Violent Vickie returns with Division Remixes LP just out on May 6, featuring remixes by Kontravoid, Fragrance, Blood Handsome, in3briant, Dimension 23, Maduro, Ben Arp (C/A/T), Barium Network, Solem Youth, Niet!, Di Auger, Torturetekk, At0shima 3rror, 40 Octaves Below, 20 Watt Dream, and Ms. Mynx vs. OsO. The remixes are a wide range of dark electronic genres from darkwave, synthpop, EBM, dark electro, darkrave/witchwave, electronic, industrial, and post-punk.
Violent Vickie is a Los Angeles based Dark Synth-Riot artist consisting of Vickie and co-producer/recording guitarist E. Vickie has toured with Hanin Elias of Atari Teenage Riot and has shared the stage with Pastel Ghost, Trans X, The Missing Persons, Them Are Us Too, Aimon and Jessie Evans (The Vanishing). She has toured the US, Mexico, Canada & Europe and played Insted Fest, Solidarity Fest, Shoutback Fest & Gay Prides and Ladyfests. Vickie’s tracks have been released by Crunch Pod, Emerald & Doreen Recordings (Berlin), Riot Grrrl Berlin, & LoveCraft Bar (PDX). Her track "The Wolf“ was featured in a National Organization for Women film and she was interviewed for the documentary “GRRRL”, part of the museum exhibit “Alien She”. Her LP "Monster Alley” was voted best album by KALX and her tracks have been remixed by 25+ artists. Violent Vickie's Division LP was released in September 2020, followed by a remix album of "Under The Gun" in February 2021 and a cover of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire in July 2021.
Upcoming Violent Vickie shows:
5/22 LA Macabre Fest @ The Offbeat Bar (LA) 5/27 New Orleans, LA @ Carnaval Lounge 6/11 Inland Empire, CA @ Dr Strange Records 10/8 Absolution Fest @ Crowbar (Tampa, FL)
Critically acclaimed Tel Aviv songstress Kama Vardi returns with a gorgeous new song ‘Bread & Wine’, the first single to be taken from her forthcoming Somewhere East EP which will follow in September 2022.
Written in a little shack in the rural part of north Israel during the harshest moments of the pandemic, ‘Bread & Wine’ is described by Vardi as “A sort of dialogue between two lovers, wanting to be together but disillusioned by the reality of their changing love.”
The imaginative and cinematic video tells the tale of an isolated woman who brings home a disembodied and abandoned suit from a laundromat, a suit that soon comes to life as the man of her dreams, before disappearing again into its old world. It conveys the subtle feelings of hope and loss present in the song, as Vardi expands “It’s like a rude awakening from a dream of perfect, evergreen love that never changes.”
‘Bread & Wine’ is indicative of Vardi’s dreamy and timeless sound where simple production and harmonies leave space for the songwriter’s lyrics to take centre-stage, often poignant life observations told through the lens of the curious characters brought to life in her songs and delivered in Vardi’s softly whispered vocal.
Kama Vardi has previously released a debut album Forgetmenot (2012), followed by the Satchel-Sof Ma’arav EP (2016), and most recently her 2020 long-player Moonticket. The latter was warmly received by the western media with coverage in Uncut, Financial Times and American Songwriter, whilst in her homelands of Israel the album’s singles had play from the biggest radio stations, including Glglz and 88fm, with the latter placing its first single ‘Whatever Will Be’ (2019) at no. 9 in their ‘Songs of the Year’ chart, with the track also featured on Shazam’s most searched for songs in Israel, and was included on both Apple Music’s ‘Israeli Essential Rock Song Of The 2010s’ and ‘100 Best Songs of 2019’ lists.
The Hamilton, Ontario-based trio, Ellevator have tjust released their Chris Walla-produced debut album, The Words You Spoke Still Move Me via Arts & Crafts. The record arrives alongside the video for the album track, "STAR" and comes following earlier tips from NPR, Consequence, The Needle Drop, Exclaim, FLOOD, The Line of Best Fit, Under the Radar, CBC and more. The band will support the release of the new record with Canadian dates this May with support coming from Pleasure Craft, Deanna Petcoff, Luvr, Emma Worley, Quinn Mills, Equal, Alicia Clara and Lastli across different dates – full run below.
The band, which is comprised of Nabi Sue Bersche, guitarist, Tyler Bersche and bassist/synth player, Elliott Gwynne, will deliver on the promise of their self-titled 2018 EP with their long-awaited debut album. The record was pieced together across numerous locations but primarily while living together at The Bathouse (a Kingston-area facility owned by Canadian alt-rock legends The Tragically Hip) and comes off the back of earlier dates with Amber Run, BANNERS, Cold War Kids, Arkells and Dear Rouge. Across 12 tracks, it inhabits an emotional landscape that is both breathtakingly intimate and impossibly vast, documenting various experiences to turn universal (existential longing, romantic power struggles, the neverending work of true self-discovery) and highly specific (e.g., frontwoman Nabi Sue Bersche’s journey in extracting herself from a cult) storytelling into a truly hypnotic body of work, giving rise to the kind of radiant open-heartedness that radically transforms our own perspective.
Ellevator poses a fantastic ability to sculpt these mammoth, melodramatic post-rock and indie-rock soundscapes, somewhat inspired by the late-aughts sounds of Spoon, Metric, Interpol and Arcade Fire, as well as the stadium-ready sounds of U2, Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel. "STAR" finds the band tapping into their knack for soaring guitar lines and driving percussion while commentating on the distorted image that social media can often present.
Speaking about the new single which arrives with a stunning visual directed by the band's frequent collaborator, Cam Veitch, Nabi says: "There are so many ways to disguise ourselves I don’t think we even notice we’re dressing up anymore. Good art has a human point of view, which is to say it’s nuanced, complicated. It often doesn’t have a clear agenda that’s easily distilled, packaged, and sold. Flattening that perspective into something that fits neatly between the clean lines of social media has been difficult for me. Learning how to do it has changed the way I see the world, brought out ugly instincts, and magnified my vanity and insecurity. The wildest part is that this sort of curation and performance is no longer reserved for people like me: artists who pay people lots of money to convince you to listen to our music. Any fourteen-year-old on TikTok has given at least as much careful attention to their brand as I have. But the neurochemical trick these platforms play is just the latest version of a very old phenomenon. We’ve always built our identities carefully: showing the world our good side is an intrinsic part of evolution, whether it’s holding our arms high to make the bear think we’re bigger than we are or an Instagram story of our eight-car-garage.
Steeped in unease and constructed in an unprecedented time, Keeper E.’s new collection of songs comprises a portrait of an anxious existence that’s as deeply worried as it is catchy against all odds.
thank u and please and don’t go is packed with a litany of one-line worries and shame spirals: “I’m always driving in somebody’s blind spot, thinking I’m going to crash”; “I never know expressions and I’m so embarrassing”; “Who will take care of me if I take care of you?” The stress reaches its apex on “What If We Lose Everything,” a mid-tempo climate-change lament scattered through with unsettling dissonant notes: “There’s no way to go back,” she concludes, with considerable disappointment.
Glittering with silvery vocals, playful synths and driving rhythms, Keeper E. invites us into a dreamlike world inside her mind, sharing pages of her journal combined with intriguing melodies. Her songs have a romanticized hopefulness, looking back on past loves, regrets, and fearfulness with gratitude and hope.
Speaking on the focus track, “My Favourite Song'', is about hoping that singing along to your favourite song will take away all the pain and suffering in the world. It’s kind of a joke, like obviously just listening to a song won’t solve anything, but also it’s been my experience that sometimes music is all that can help you out of a hard time. This song talks about personal hardships like not feeling satisfied and always expecting the worst, and it also talks about the unfair power balances in the world and how the life I have is built on these unfair societal structures. In the end, it feels like the anthem of the song convinces you in some way that singing along to your favourite song must in some way help to balance things out, and will always make you feel better.“
Keeper E. is proving herself one of the most exciting new pop acts from Atlantic Canada, with an official showcase at The Great Escape in Brighton and tour dates across Canada planned in support of the release of her sophomore EP, thank you and please and don’t go, which is set for release on May 6, 2022.
But for all the personal anxieties explored in these songs, Elwood’s music is at its most confident, deeply thoughtful and wise beyond its lived experience. Born in Nova Scotia, Elwood began playing the violin at three years old, moved onto piano by four, and found her own musical voice while in university studying classical piano. Though she claims to be a technological Luddite, her production skills rival any hitmaker, and she crafts the indie-pop base of Keeper E. in solitude, with little outside influence.
Nigerian-Irish artist Caleb Kunle has released the new single "All In Your Head". Out now via Hackney label Pony Recordings (Tempesst, Sunglasses For Jaws), Caleb also today announces a new London headline show at Bermondsey Social Club on 8th June. "All In Your Head" follows his 2021 single "Could Be Good" and teases the release of a new EP due for release later this year.
Produced by London production duo Sunglasses For Jaws (known for their work with Sinead O'Brien, Miles Kane, Nick Waterhouse, Yak + more) and mixed by Elliot Heinrich (Little Simz, POND, Metronomy), "All In Your Head" unites folk-inflected soul with psych-tinged production flourishes, bringing forth a swell of sky-reaching horns and swirling strings as Caleb examines the pursuit of authenticity in his art.
Speaking on the release of "All In Your Head", Caleb said, "It's an anthem about facing doubt. I wrote this song during a time when my doubts felt hard to overcome. Our pursuit of authentic expression can bring us to a vulnerable place and in that place we can lose sight of our inner voice, our motivator, reminding us how deep our passion can flow and how much strength is in our hearts when we believe. As the saying goes, self doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will."
Born in Lagos Nigeria, then migrating to Laois in rural Ireland, the journey of early childhood in the busiest city in West Africa to the peaceful solitude of the Irish countryside inspires a consistent inquiry into dual subjects and contrast. Caleb Kunle's music comes from a deep love of folk, soul, hip-hop and storytelling. An eclectic expressionist, his songwriting explores deep themes of harmony and equilibrium, self-love, and the complexity of romance in the modern world.
Michael Kiwanuka, The Beatles and Nina Simone were all key points of influence when it came to recording this new material – with the help of drummer Oscar Robertson and bassist David Bardon (who make up production duo Sunglasses For Jaws), violinist Clementine Brown (Penguin Cafe Orchestra) and flautist João de Macedo Mello (Tankus the Henge).
II / ∞ (Second of Infinity) is the long-awaited debut album from Berlin-based electronic artist Stefanie de Beurs, aka O-SHiN. Written over a period of five years, II / ∞ is a technicolour collage of electronica, experimental pop and field recordings. Following on from her debut EP, I / ∞, which was released back in 2018, the album’s name refers to the nature of Stefanie’s infinite relationship with making music and how she will never stop exploring it as well, as being symbolic of how short life is (a mere second) in relation to the eternity of the Earth.
Stefanie describes herself as being at a very different place personally from when she began writing her debut album. In 2016, she was travelling from Rome to Amsterdam when she found herself on board an aeroplane with a terrorist. The harrowing experience had a profound effect on the artist. “For the first time in my life, I experienced the fierce feeling of death being really close, not knowing I would survive or if those would be my last seconds on earth,” she says. “It was an intense experience and this album helped me cope with the emotions I was feeling at the time.”
Despite this, the songs that make up II / ∞ are largely filled with positivity, covering themes of growth, transformation and love. The album itself is almost unrecognisable compared to its first incarnation. “Everytime I met a new musician or producer that I liked, we reformatted the songs, re-recording and adding parts like a collage,” she explains. The lyrics themselves have been rewritten countless times, with new experiences informing and shaping the narrative with each pass.
This evolutionary songwriting process could easily have resulted in an album that sounds transitory, but Stefanie’s skilful use of field recordings anchors the songs in particular moments in time. “I think my work as a photographer has had an impact on the way I write music,” she explains. “I like to collect field recordings like audio snapshots of the everyday and use them in my songs.”
The album opens with an iPhone recording of a jam session with Stephanie’s old band which develops into the main hook of new single ‘Losing My Nature’, a song about growing older whilst maintaining one's sense of self. Of her new single, Stefanie says: "The older you is a different person, with different interests and even different looks. 'Keep me where the light is' is the call to the universe to shine a light on that path of transformation so we can see where we’re going."
A fresh and new force to be reckoned with, multi-faceted singer-songwriter Izzy S.O captivates listeners with her anthemic tone and lyrical originality. The London-based artist is quickly building a reputation on the live circuit for her signature poetic lyricism, as she fearlessly touches down in the indie music space. Her debut single ‘Flirting With Strangers’ is set for release on the 6th of May 2022 via Silent Kid Records.
Exploring an alternative blend of pop-tinged rock, soft punk, and indie, Flirting with Strangers is a lyrically intimate track that grows into a grunge-fuelled cathartic cacophony, taking on the aesthetics of the 90’s alternative scene and paying homage to the likes of Mazzy Star, Bush and Alanis Morissette. Izzy’s unique songwriting displays the careful touch of a skilled articulator, showcasing a mature capacity for storytelling that transports listeners out of their surroundings and into her own emotional experience. With a voice loaded in emotion and power, Izzy S.O plays on heavy guitar rhythms and soft melodies that will reverberate through your body for days.
The up and coming artist casts a light on mental health issues and the complex emotions attached to growing up while moving listeners through heartfelt tunes that give off a comforting sense of familiarity and warmth. For Izzy, Flirting with Strangers is about 'growing up in quite an idealistic way and then being abruptly shocked into adulthood and given a very different truth, its about the chaos that comes with being confused about your past and being concerned about your future. It was a time where I was being reckless and living fast trying to outrun the sadness of leaving my younger self behind, whilst also believing the messiness was needed as I'd lived a lot of my life trying to be perfect. 'There's no place like here' is realising that you have to find weight and safety in the present otherwise you live your whole life feeling scattered'
Raised in a household buzzing with musical expression and creativity, Izzy turned to poetry as an artistic outlet to process her emotions and experiences. This later transcended into her songwriting, and she began bringing her words to life through working with producer Dustin Dooley and writing with fellow creative Tadhg Daly at Strongroom Studios in Shoreditch.
The indie-pop duo Alas The Sun from Zürich and Basel just released their second album 'Wild Honey Inn' via Taxi Gauche Records and have been awarded Best Talent in the month of May by Swiss National radio SRF3. The ten songs on the new long player enchant with their lightness and offer the perfect soundtrack for the next road trip - or just to indulge in daydreaming again.
When Alas The Sun released their debut album, “You And Your Love”, in autumn 2019, all seemed right with the world. The melodies were sweet and the acoustic guitar was always at hand. First single "Absence Of Time" promptly made it into the daily rotation of SRF3, Couleur3, Rete Tre and Radio Rumantsch. Positive reviews from RCKSTR and Artnoir followed, and an inclusion on the list "The 10 best CH albums of 2019" by SRF Virus was the icing on the cake. Two turbulent years later, after many ups and downs, a new chapter has opened with singer Nuria Thie having joined the group. The line-up change brought not only a different voice but also gave the duo the chance to develop their sound, to search for something fresh, something fun, something deeper.
The title "Wild Honey Inn" stems from a hotel sign that captured Raschle's attention during a journey through Ireland a couple of years ago. ‘The large, brownish letters above the entrance caught my eye immediately. "Wild Honey Inn" became a home to ten songs each starring different characters. In my mind, each individual song depicts a scene that takes place in different rooms of the hotel. I was writing mostly about relationships, mixing autobiography with fiction. Taking the view of an observer while writing, I absorbed what was happening in my close environment at that time, be it heartbreak or love blossoming. I tried to write from the point of view of my friends and added my own thoughts and experiences to their stories. There was something very liberating about this mixture of fiction and reality paired with the view through other people’s eyes,’ explains Raschle.
The new record has its roots in 15 demos that Raschle composed in his bedroom during the turmoil of the previous lockdown-plagued year. Back in the studio, the main focus lay on realising the right sound for each individual instrument. With a lot of patience and eagerness to experiment, the duo devoted themselves to effect pedals, bulky synthesizers, old Rhodes pianos and snare drum patterns. What results is an original, vital sound, much more versatile and dynamic than the one before. The duo has moved away from traditional singer-songwriter songs and other styles have been incorporated. On "Wild Honey Inn", Thie and Raschle combine dreamy indie tunes (Long-Haul Flights, Landline), loungey moments with a bossa nova touch (Distant Drone, Slower Motions) and synth-focused pop songs (Feels Honey-Laced, Days On End).
The Storm Petrels are a four piece indie band who came together in 2020 to bring some joy to those dark days. They herald from both sides of the Atlantic and play unashamedly upbeat indie pop. The band have just released their latest EP - Fabuloso!
It opens with a catchy pop song, Fairy Tale, before diving into the strange melancholy world of The Birds. The next song is a beautiful reimagining of the old school classic, Wayfaring Stranger. The EP finishes with Your Time, a driving anthem to freedom and joy.
There’s a touch of 80s new wave to their sound, a hint of folk, and the occasional memory of Belly and Abba - but their music is timeless and very much their own.
GA-based psychedelic folk band Elf Power released the official video for the title track to their forthcoming album Artificial Countrysides that will be released on July 15 via Yep Roc Records. The video was directed and filmed by Dickie Cox. The band will kick off their summer tour on July 13 in Milwaukee, WI and will make stops in Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and more. Find a full list of tour dates below or at elfpower.com.
“The title track lyrically addresses the songwriting process, and the creation of miniature worlds within songs, propelled by a frantically fingerpicked acoustic guitar line that imagines what acoustic guitar virtuoso John Fahey might sound like if he played with a rock band,” explains singer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Rieger.
The new song followers the release of the official video for “Undigested Parts” and “The Gas Inside The Tank,” which was covered by Stereogum, Under The Radar and BrooklynVegan, who said “It finds their unique psychedelic pop/indie rock fusion sounding as great as ever.”
Rieger and his Elf Power bandmates — drummer Peter Alvanos and guitarist Dave Wrathgabar, with contributions from keyboard player Laura Carter — have created some of the band’s most expansive musical terrain yet. Along with a blend of fuzz-tone electric and layered acoustic guitars, Moog keyboards and lively drums, the group experimented with the sounds of marimba, Mellotron, harpsichord, synth bass and distorted drum machine loops, taking a try-it-and-see approach to recording in the studio.
Artificial Countrysides is Elf Power’s 14th album across their almost 30 year career. The collection centers around the gray zones where the natural world collides with the creeping encroachment of the digital realm, where the balance between real and simulated can shift from one minute to the next. “That title also describes the songwriting process, of world-building or creating an artificial landscape within a song,” explains Rieger.
Haley Johnsen is a Portland, Oregon-born musician with a knack for genre-bending and a hard-earned career path that is uniquely her own. Raised listening to powerhouse singers such as Brandi Carlile, Grace Potter, Eva Cassidy, and Bonnie Raitt, her greatest inspirations become apparent in her soaring vocals, introspective lyricism, and cross-pollinated style of indie-pop, and bluesy folk rock music. Whether her songs muse on the aches of self-doubt, the joy that can accompany nostalgia, or simply trying to stay afloat in tough times, her bona fide songwriting combined with her performance ability is bound to evoke an emotional response. “I want my music to encourage people to push through their challenges and continue to have hope and belief in themselves and their authenticity,” she says.
Growing up as a competitive gymnast, Haley quickly learned how to be a daredevil and step outside her comfort zone. This influenced her musical journey by prompting the prolific songwriter to take inventive and unexpected risks sonically at an early age. In the span of about three years, Haley wrote around 200 songs in her parents back shed, with the most memorable songs being added to her debut EP, Through the Blue, which was released in 2015. She followed up with her second EP, When You Lit The Sky, in 2017, along with a handful of singles and national tours. It was through her critically acclaimed 12-track debut album, Golden Days, where she gained much deserved recognition and ignited the interest of Allen Stone who appeared on the album. Later that year, Haley began touring with the power-trio sister-band Joseph and with EDM/Indie pop artist Big Wild, who she currently works with as a bassist and back-up vocalist. During her first Europe tour in January of 2019, Haley was further granted the opportunity to record an acoustic album entitled London Sessions at the Legendary Abbey Road.
Her 2021 single “Goner” was written in a bathtub in a vintage trailer in the midst of having an existential crisis. The songwriter confides, “it came to be about the romanization of nostalgia; the longing for what once was our youth and also the fear of death. It's about my own internal struggle trying to stay present and at peace with who I am now, where I am now, and realize that my childlike self is still very much alive in me. It's a reminder that I don't need to be afraid or insecure with where I am in my life.” Featuring honey-dipped vocals, breezy guitars, and sweeping 70s inspired folk rock soundscapes, “Goner” is a sun-drenched melancholic daydream.
With her release "Higher" Haley Johnsen explores "not giving up on yourself. It's that feeling of knowing that no matter what, you're going to continue growing, continue dreaming, and that in itself is the greatest high. Knowing that you've built that trust within yourself to keep going even when life has worn you down," she confides. Featuring a stirring melodic hook, orchestral percussion and dreamy slide guitar, "Higher" is the perfect anthem of self love.
What a great feelgood-tune! Especially in these turbulent times: 'Without You', the new single by Lucerne-based The BB House Band, is a rousing short pop-ska-smasher. Kamila's voice is electrifying. Her attitude: somewhere between The Pretenders and No Doubt.
The BB House Band – the name says it all: «BB» stands for the legendary Lucerne music bar The Bruch Brothers. The 4-piece is their house band – and all those years of live experience can be heard in the sound.
The BB House Band was founded by Patrick Archer, a rock musician from San Francisco, who's been organizing the Bruch Brother`s jam sessions for the last twelve years.
Pixie Moonshine - Far From The Wilderness (Album).
It’s been more than seven years since Pixie Moonshine last released a collection of her moody alt-rock musings. The former leader of Toronto’s gender-bending progressive grunge group, Tripping Hazard, relocated across the ocean to Scotland following the group’s dissolution, promptly met a friendly giant, and replicated herself, twice. While doing all of that living, songs continued to percolate and coalesce, as they tend to with those permanently tethered to the muse.
With a bit of breathing room afforded by older replicants, and overseas support from former Tripping Hazard drum beast, Scott Gray (your humble narrator, aka The World Next Door), Jennifer Once-Hall-Now-McDonald began the task of committing her rapidly growing collection of songs to record. The results of this dual continent collaboration are what we’re thrilled to share with you now. And this is only the beginning, with pre-production started on multiple albums full of backlogged material.
In Jen’s own words, Far From the Wilderness is about “Settling into a new place once the shine of adventure has worn off and homesickness has truly kicked in; throwing yourself into a new life and realizing you’ve lost yourself somewhere along the way. Also, quite a bit about missing sunshine.”
ME REX have shared another cut from their forthcoming EP, new single Toilet of Venus is out today via Big Scary Monsters. Hot on the heels of this year’s Pterodactyl EP, ME REX recently announced their brand-new record – Plesiosaur – out 17th June on Big Scary Monsters, alongside a UK tour with Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties.
Across the four tracks of Plesiosaur, ME REX wrap sharp wordplay around vibrant fuzzed out guitars and keys. Toilet of Venus is an extension of another track on the EP, Lager Door. While the former looks at present struggles, the latter is inherently nostalgic.
“Toilet of Venus looks at present struggles and what they will reveal. The Toilet of Venus is a scene often depicted in classical paintings, by people who could not have foreseen the way that language would change the meaning of the word ’toilet’. This kind of shift in perspective is what made me want to use it for the title of this song” songwriter Myles McCabe explains.
The band have worked hard over the last couple of years to refine the unique characteristics that make them so addictive to listen to - rhythmically charged narrations and a musical stream of consciousness. Themes of friendship, forgiveness, loss, and joy wrapped in fast paced poetic vignettes; ME REX challenge the listener’s preconception of how a song can be structured.
Beginning life in 2018 in the home of McCabe, experimenting with shouty, electronic bedroom pop, ME REX formed when he was joined by long-time friends Kathryn Woods (guitar/vocals), Phoebe Cross (drums/vocals) and Rich Mandell (bass/keys/vocals).
"Conversation" tenderly takes one back to the initial feelings of falling in love. It perfectly describes that moment when someone has admitted to themselves (and are one conversation away from admitting to their significant other) that they could sit and talk to that person forever. ”Time goes so slowly whenever you’re gone and time it glides whenever you’re near. All that I want is to sit here with you, with no alarm clocks ringing in my ear.”
Sweetly relatable, its message is circled by Courtney’s notable vocals and piano and an array of twirling strings, along with guitar and percussion. It will have people longing to fall in love, or thinking back to when they first fell in love and the power of that one conversation that changed everything.
Courtney Cotter King artistry drives her blue-eyed soul, singer-songwriter genre. Courtney is a mom of 3 children with a 4th on the way. She hopes to inspire moms that creativity doesn’t have to stop when kids are created. She humorously balances gigging with nursing and finger painting with songwriting. “Marriage and motherhood has opened me to songs I could have never written without these sweet souls in my life.”
The Toronto-based project, Blunt Chunks, helmed by Caitlin Woelfle-O'Brien (Jaunt) has just shared "Part of Me" (which features Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene), the latest to be lifted from the forthcoming debut EP, Blunt Chunks which is set for release this Friday, May 6 via Telephone Explosion Records. Featuring Scott Hardware and members of The Weather Station, Luna Li, Hooded Fang and more, the new EP, which has found tips so far from Paste, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, KCRW, Exclaim, CBC Radio and more, grapples with the many functions of heartache, using music as a mechanism to memorialize the past and the first step to breaking a cycle of self-neglect.
Produced by David Plowman (The OBGMs, Islands) and Nathan Burley (Young Clancy), the EP harnesses a weightless style of guitar-driven pop where Woelfle-O’Brien blends spacious psychedelic country with the unignorable churn of 90s alternative rock. The result is a record deeply uncomfortable with secrets. Woelfle-O’Brien opts to honor — with a Dolly Parton-esque devotion to clarity — her motivations for past entanglements, both devastating and exalting. And yet, the EP rings with quiet optimism, steadfast in its search for the kind of love that’s attentive, honest, and transformative.
"Part of Me", which arrives with a stunning visual, directed by Woefle-O'Brien and Emma Cosgrove and features Canning of Broken Social Scene on piano and back vocals, arrives as the final advance installment of the forthcoming Blunt Chunks EP. It returns to some Woefle-O'Brien's more intimate, soothing sounds, reckoning with the idea that as you grow older, the people you once love are inherently a part of you despite you occasionally wishing they would leave you.
"I wrote this not long after being in Berlin about realizing how the people you love are inherently a part of you and how sometimes you want them to just get out of you," explains Caitlin, "but also that you desperately want them to love you right and give you all the things you need... but then you realize you have to do the self-improvement on your own. I also think this song is kind of a narcissistic anthem... “me me me, I want this, blah blah blah”. It’s very self-involved and just a pleading cry to the heavens to be a better person and have a better life and be loved. It’s got a real element of fantasy and desperation. I recorded a demo of it in the studio one night kind of free-form (I hadn’t figured out a structure yet so it was essentially improvised) and we just built the whole song on that recording! David had a wild idea near the end of the recording process to add a “choir”. We reached out to some amazing singers/musicians and they agreed to record at home and send it in! I’m seriously honored."
"Didn't Come Here to Count 'em" is an adrenaline shot from the first note to the last. Multi-instrumentalist Todd Pruner kicks the song off with a string-bending Telecaster lead that is sure to knock over some tables as people jump to their feet. Pruner also plays the bass, acoustic guitar and microKorg synth on the track.
Multi-instrumentalist Jon Merz drives home the chorus with this trumpet and trombone horn section, raising the energy to the roof. All the while, singer and songwriter, Camron Rushin tells the tale of a light-hearted sot on a bender who is secretly burdened by being the "victim of the ages." At each stage of his journey, our hero is interrogated about how many he's had to drink — with the song's refrain serving as his response to each inquiry. The song reaches a climactic ending as the band heads into jazzed-out, wall-of-sound territory.
Rushin discovered the key line in the song years ago while out with his family when his aunt asked his uncle how many beers he had had to drink. "I didn't come here to count 'em. I came here to drink 'em," he replied. While laughing at the sarcastic retort, everyone in the groups' ears piqued as they almost all said in unison, "that'd be a great line for a country song."
The Best Around formed at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. To conform to social distancing measures, they didn't meet to practice and write, but instead recorded each of their parts in their own respective home studios, tool sheds, and closets. Very little instructions were given as tracks were passed back and forth, leading to a sense of freedom in collaboration that can be heard across the recordings.
Fransis are a four-piece, London based alt/indie band made up of front woman and singer-songwriter Emma Withers, along with guitarists Alex Scott, Stefan Kotlarz and bassist Craig Rattray. Formerly known as Emma & the Idles, the band have been hailed as 'Jessie J meets Joan Jett', making a name for their balls to the wall approach to their sound and sharp songwriting style.
Reminiscent of Wolf Alice and Florence + The Machine, Fransis make music that smacks you in the face in a slightly different way, and whilst they float between genres of rock, indie, pop, soul and blues; they show an unrelenting penchant for dramatic, powerful and meaningful music. After busking on the streets of London and making a name for herself as a unique and energetic performer, powerhouse singer Withers decided to form a band to accelerate the sound she so desperately wanted, and boy did she get it. Fransis was born.
“Honeymoon” is the first single to be released off of their upcoming EP, which narrates a journey of womanhood. The story starts with “Honeymoon”, taking a fond look back on the sweetness of childhood rebellion and the sense of freedom and indestructibility you feel as a teen. Withers lyrically recounts stories from her formative years as her now adult self, sharing “It’s nice to have an uplifting sense of appreciation for my own personal experiences which have moulded me even if they didn't seem so poignant or great at the time, how we know not what we have until it’s gone. With that being said there is nothing melancholy about this narrative, I have such a tenderness and affection for my teen self, an enjoyment to revisit her and a continuation of personal growth and one day looking back at myself now with a similar fondness.” Singing, “It was a honeymoon, a cocoon, feeling like someone new”, the music is driving yet ethereal with pop elements that will have you singing the hook all day long.
Giving us a taste of what to expect from the EP, “Honeymoon” is just a hint of the outpour of emotion that they are forecasting. To celebrate their EP release, Fransis will be hosting their very own launch party at The Water Rats in London on 1st July 2022.
In February, Cola, the new project from former Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy and US Girls/The Weather Station drummer Evan Cartwright, announced their debut LP Deep In View (out May 20th on Fire Talk Records). With the early singles "Blank Curtain," "So Excited" and "Water Table" immediately earning praise from outlets like Pitchfork, NPR, FADER, Stereogum, Uproxx, Paste, BrooklynVegan, Consequence, Clash, NME and Rolling Stone who named the band an Artist You Need To Know and called their debut "one of the year’s most thrilling rock statements," the album has rapidly become one of the most anticipated releases of a busy spring.
"The character in 'Degree' is cycling in and out of these dreamscape states (movie theater, meditation, etc) and then trying to catch up to something in their day to day life," says Darcy. "I picture what it feels like running to catch the bus when you're in a daze and suddenly have to sprint."
"'Degree' is based on a 2-step kinda track I produced while trying to do the fabled and well-trodden path of using guitars in electronic music," explains Stidworthy. "I came up with this psych-drenched outro that I really enjoyed so I decided to base a song around that chord progression."
"I wanted the beat to feel like the opening and closing of a mechanical valve," Cartwright adds. "The guitar riff supplies this relentless propulsion and I thought that the drums should act as a stiff regulator: aggressively blocking, then releasing the heavy flow that comes pouring out of the guitar."
