DATE ARCHIVES : July 2017

Something for the Weekend: New Music Playlist #15

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A new regular addition to blog, a relatively short weekly Spotify playlist featuring some of the finest new music to prick my ears over the course of past 7 days.

Clocking in at just over an hour, it’s an easily digestible slice of new music, just in time for the weekend. There’s a nice mix of genres and styles too, allowing me to share even more top tunes for your ears. Well, without further ado, here’s #15 Something for the Weekend: New Music Playlist #12. Enjoy the tunes & enjoy the sun!

You can follow me on Spotify here.

Introducing: Joy Downer

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Joy Downer is husband/wife duo Joy Bishop and Jeff Downer, originally from San Diego but now based in Los Angeles who are cooking up all manner of gorgeous indie-pop.

Inspired by themes of duality; light and dark, man and woman, mind and matter which collide to set the backdrop of the sound. And on another matter of duality, the creative chemistry between the pair is such that, from the outside at least, ideas and songs seem to flow with an effortless ease. ‘Stranger Places’ has a decidedly easy and breezy feel, the gentle buoyancy of its bass grooves floating away to joyful hand claps and whirring synths are only anchored steady drums and groovy rhythms. Meanwhile, Bishop’s saccharine vocal would bring cheer to the most despondent among us, on the bluest day of all. It is a delicately balanced dynamic done with a hooky, shimmery, smile-inducing sounds. Latest single ‘Goddamnit’ is more impassioned and intimate with immaculate storytelling as a tale of broken hearts is recanted in a world that is slowly falling apart. The soft and aching vocals are imbued with a powerful sense of emotion while the instrumentation is superb; this pop song for the brokenhearted is buoyed by the flourishes of the horns. This pairs talent’s has served us with an irresistible and irrefutably infectious indie-pop – and long may that continue.

You can listen to ‘Goddamnit’ & ‘Stranger Places’ below, both of which are taken from Joy Downer’s latest EP Radio Dreamer – listen to it here.

The Orange Kyte Announce Debut Album; Share ‘Blue Ghosts’

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Vancouver’s The Orange Kyte spent the 12 months of 2016 delighting us with their superb single-a-month project throughout the year.

Centred around Vancouver-based, Dublin-raised Stevie Moonboots and a revolving cast of friends and collaborators, The Orange Kyte treated us to one sumptuous slice of psych-rock after another. Signalling their intentions for 2017, Moonboots and his merry band of cohorts have announced they will release their debut LP The Orange Kyte Says Yes!, this coming autumn. Ahead of the record’s release, The Orange Kyte have provided a taste of things to come with new single ‘Blue Ghosts’ – and its a doozy. A droning organ is front and centre alongside Moonboots’ recognisably sublime vocals. Backed a heady sonic brew of mildly fuzzed-up guitars, bass and fevered percussive assault. It danders nicely along until the just after the midway point, where by it slows, bobbing for a moment or two before exploding to another stratospheric level entirely. The addition of the sax to their arsenal of trippy psychedelic sounds is nothing short of mesmerising. Great to see one of finer musical discoveries of recent times kick on, and no doubt deliver the goods with an LP.

You can listen to ‘Blue Ghosts’ below. Keep an eye out for a definitive date for the album’s release.

In other news, the aforementioned 2016 single compilation Grow it Right is now available for pre-order from Little Cloud Records.

Glassmaps – ‘Summer Rain’

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Glassmaps, the solo project of Howling Bells’ guitarist Joel Stein, have released their debut single, ‘Summer Rain’.

Summer Rain not only marks Stein’s first solo foray, it is the first track lifted from Glassmaps’ upcoming Strangely Addicted LP, to be released via Lost In The Manor Records later this year – and on this evidence at least, we should be eagerly awaiting its release. ‘Summer Rain’ is quite the introduction (or reintroduction, if you prefer). It shifts along a steady blues-stomp, pitted with psychedelic slant on this classic sound, cinematic strokes and flair for an intoxicating Supergrass-esque. It grunts, it swaggers and it swoons with an all round aura of smoothness. Totally irresistible and cool – take a bow son.

‘Summer Rain’ is out now and available to enjoy below. It will be followed later in the year by debut LP; Strangely Addicted.

Something for the Weekend: New Music Playlist #14

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A new regular addition to blog, a relatively short weekly Spotify playlist featuring some of the finest new music to prick my ears over the course of past 7 days.

Clocking in at just over an hour, it’s an easily digestible slice of new music, just in time for the weekend. There’s a nice mix of genres and styles too, allowing me to share even more top tunes for your ears. Well, without further ado, here’s #14 Something for the Weekend: New Music Playlist #12. Enjoy the tunes & enjoy the sun!

You can follow me on Spotify here.

Mowukis – ‘Animals Used To Scare’

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Mowukis is a solo-project of Louis-Louise Kay, a french musician and songwriter based in Montpellier.

Mowukis has just recently released his debut album No Answers No; a collection of songs capturing a broad range of atmospheres, emotions and assumed collision between synthesizers, homemade drum beats and classical instruments.

Lifted from his debut LP is latest single ‘Animals Used To Scare’; as fine an introduction to Mowukis as you could ask for. It is a rich multi-faced sound with constantly shifting musical landscapes, brimming with colourful ideas and influences ranging from modern pop to electronica. The synthesizers, homemade drum beats, and classical instruments shifts the tonality constantly, it is a rare creature than can be all things at once and individual at the same time. It is in the juxtaposition of sound and feeling where Mowukis excels; ‘Animals Used To Scare’ is simultaneously moody, almost sullen, yet bright and hopefully at the same time.

Directed by Titouan Bordeau from studio Folimage, the animated video is a colourful, eccentric and dreamy piece tracing the journey of a mysterious man through ever-changing scenery.

Check ‘Animals Used To Scare’ and its fantastic animated video below:

Danny Starr – ‘Hello 2063’

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Danny Starr is an 18-year-old singer, songwriter and musician based in London.

Starr has been slowly but steadily get himself a rep for exquisite song-craft and his brand new single ‘Hello 2063’, will do little to dispel this notion. Recorded and produced in his bedroom, such is the decidedly heart-strung swooning balladry of this new single, it is easy to forget that he is only 18 years old.

Set in the future, it is a fantasy tale of what is to become of the human race by 2063. A beautiful song – musically and lyrically – ‘Hello 2063’ is powerful and emotive, with a melancholic and lamentable feel. It is as though we are privy to the the last days of a declining world, a world falling apart at the seams. Wistful and ponderous, we can take solace in his warm vocals, gentle strum and bouts of mild orchestral flourishes. Starr’s rounded brogue endeavours to raise his lyrics to pride of place – emblematic of the song’s stirring, sentimental, if slightly melancholic journey to our world’s future. Powerful and compelling, this is some damn fine work from an artist to look for in future.

You can listen to ‘Hello 2063’ below – if you like this, keep your eyes peeled as there is an EP rumoured to be around the corner.

Allen & Douglas – ‘All The Right Noises’

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Birmingham musical duo Allen and Douglas are back with another new track – aptly titled single – ‘All the Right Noises’.

The pair have been crafting songs together since their teens – strumming, singing and concocting songs in old railway stations and under canal bridges – and ‘All the Right Noises’ affords us an early taste of their forthcoming new, so far untitled album. The aptly titles new single continues their adventures in off-kilter/left-field indie, although with a real directness. Heavy, muscular riffs are met with powerful vocals, splashes of harmonies, and orchestral flourishes. Yet another magnificent and distinctive of what Allen & Douglas possess in their arsenal.

Nothing firm in way of details regards the forthcoming record – more on that when we have it – until then you can listen to ‘All The Right Noises’ below.