The album opens with the song Supernatural, filled with heavy drum beats and a sound reminiscent of late 80’s/ early 90’s dance tracks. The song is a feel good take on love and it’s magic with lines such as ‘you and me we are supernatural’ and ‘there are miracles when I’m by your side’ showing the power of love and it’s effects on those experiencing it with everything feeling magical and almost other worldly with the glow of love surrounding you.
Born to a professional-guitarist father and a perfumier-pianist mother in 1929, Chesney Henry Baker would grow up to be one of the most critically acclaimed jazz musicians throughout the 1950s.
APRE, the up and coming indie pop duo, are celebrating the release of their debut mini album, Always In My Head - a fruition of the unintentional, downward spiral of thoughts that many of us have encountered during lockdown and recent months. Speaking from the very room where all their tracks are created ,(belonging to Charlie’s grandmother) we talked cutting the bullshit, the perks of writing music in your underwear, and the burden of social media.
C: Charlie
J: Jules
Now, it's pretty hard to have over-looked this one. Oasis released The Masterplan as a compilation album of B-sides. From this compilation album came 'Half the World Away'. 'Half the World Away' is definitely a stand-out track not only from The Masterplan but from Oasis it's rare that a b-side manages to reach a wider audience but 'Half the World Away' managed to do just that.
After setting the bar high back in July with new single ‘My Future’, which provided melancholy yet optimistic musings on isolation, self-acceptance and the hope for a better tomorrow, Eilish’s subsequent single had a lot to live up to.
Carney’s covers sound like ghosts of the original songs. The raspy quality of her voice doesn’t demean Yorke’s cries, but evoke the echoes of said cries, that hang around long after they are over. ‘Just’ is the primary example of this haunted quality that makes it a memory of the original.
It’s both grand and quiet, softer than its predecessor but more concentrated, more specific. Pared down to some of Punisher’s quieter hits (and ‘Kyoto’), album singles such as ‘Garden Song’ and ‘ICU’ are notably absent. Still, the EP is pretty glorious – and kind of pretentious – but as a spartan composition of only Bridgers’ vocals and accompanying strings, it needs to be. How else would it live up to Rob Moose’s insistence on it being ‘played at [Bridgers’] funeral’?
This new addition comes in the form of Basciville’s new single ‘Calvary’ released, ironically enough, on Friday the 13th in 2020. I can outright say there was nothing even remotely unlucky about this, these guys get better and better. For those of you who read my article on the resurgence of Irish folk music, you would’ve seen me mention the duo (consisting of brothers Lorcan and Cillian Byrne), in short referencing their uncanny ability to translate almost any emotion into music. Well lucky me, I get to devote an entire article to one song this time.
Meet Tiña. Pronounced teen-yah. South London’s pink psychedelic cowboys with their debut album Positive Mental Health Music . Brought to us by Speedy Wunderground- the idiosyncratic record label fronted by Dan Carey. However, this is not the five-piece band’s first musical venture. They share an eclectic line up of members of splinter bands: Joshua Loftin (vocals/guitar) from Bat-Bike, George Rhys Davies (drums) of Uncle Tesco, Oliver R Lester (guitar), Uncle Tesco (bass) and Calum Armstrong (keys).
As suggested by the name, this album is a journey through the mental health struggles of frontman Josh Loftin. Nonetheless, the beauty of this album is in the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The pink cowboy hat is the manifestation of Tiña’s infectious dark humour and painful honesty.
With three albums out, Slaves have a lot of music for you to stream and have you drumming along to (on any flat surface you can find). Some track recommendations from each album would be: “The Hunter” from Are You Satisfied? (2015), “Steer Clear” from Take Control (2016), and “Chokehold” from Acts of Fear And Love. (The duo’s debut album, Are You Satisfied? reached no.8 in its first week on the UK album charts, was nominated for the 2015 Mercury Music Prize, and was re-released as a deluxe album.)
Self-described as a “vegan bisexual Faroese punk band”, the Shitboys mix a live comedy act with punk purism and millennial themes ranging from homophobia to misogyny and Facebook. Clocking in at only ten minutes (in true punk rock fashion, none of the tracks hit the two minute mark) “The Reson For Hard Core Vibes” is a short burst of rage which manages to successfully merge modern social commentary with witty lyrics and heavy instrumentation.
Their self-titled debut arrived only in 2017, demonstrated their abilities after years of DJing and promoting obscure or forgotten disco and electronic tracks on their blog ‘Feel My Bicep’. Following up their debut, Bicep are set to release second LP ‘Isles’ in 2021, and have already dropped two singles from it, ‘Atlas’ and more recently ‘Apricots’.
On a first listen, ‘Shame Shame’ subverts the expectations of Foo Fighters fans with its subtlety and unusual sense of groove. The stripped back verses leave you waiting for a burst of colour, which the track thankfully provides with a chorus that offers hypnotic chord sequences and a richer texture. Nevertheless, the song builds up and up to the point where you might expect a wall of sound to hit at any moment, but it never comes. Instead, the music pulls all the way back, settling into its funkier ‘shame’ refrain once more.
Straight from the off with this song you get the 90’s/ 00’s indie rock, Brit pop vibes with the song opening with the indie style guitar sound we all know and love.
The song itself has all the familiar and iconic sounds listeners are used to but the song doesn’t feel like a copy or a cover of the past it’s got the ability to transport listeners back to a time when this genre was the soundtrack to people lives - whilst also defining the band as having their own identity and not trying to mimic the bands who influenced them.
For Fans of: The Strokes, Pretty Vicious, The Pigeon
Detectives
Whether you’ve heard ‘Men’s Needs’ booming at a party or
seen the band as a support slot for the likes of The Foo Fighters or Franz
Ferdinand, you’re sure to be familiar with their euphoria inducing, iconic
guitar riffs.
Despite this being their first new release for a couple of years, the boys were not soon forgotten. The news of a new addition to their work reignited the flame of excitement in fans, old and new alike. Despite no longer having rock n’ roll sensation Johnny Marr under their wing, Night Network, recorded at Foo Fighters’ Studio 606, demonstrates the Jarman boys unmatched ability to throw out hit tune after hit tune.
I first listened to the track on a gloomy afternoon in October; I was zoning out, shuffling through my discover weekly playlist when Lucy Lu’s vocals brought me back to the room. Something about this song reminded me of ‘I See You’ by The XX and immediately grabbed my attention with its fierce and melancholic character.
The indie rock band, Sea Girls, consists of Henry Camamile (vocals, guitar), Rory Young (lead guitar), Andrew Noswad (bass), and Oli Khan (drums) and their powerful anthems and energetic live shows have seen them build up a dedicated UK following over the last few years.
Back in August, the band released their debut album ‘Open Up Your Head’ which reached Number 3 in the UK Official Album Charts and Number 1 on the UK Official Record Store Chart. This is one of the highest chart positions of a debut album released in 2020 and an incredible achievement for a group that only began releasing music in 2017.
Now, only a few weeks on from the release of their highly successful debut album, Sea Girls are back already with their brilliant new track ‘Accident Waiting to Happen’. The song deals with regretting becoming involved with someone that you know is bad for you and the frustration of feeling unable to stop yourself from getting into this ‘accident’.
The track is an exciting combination of angsty guitar riffs, pulsing percussion and pop beats which makes for an epic song that will be perfect for big crowds. It demonstrates the crazy level of talent that this rising band possesses and their consistent releases are proof that they are showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
The track will feature exclusively on the soundtrack of the forthcoming worldwide release ofthe new XBox game ‘DIRT 5’ which is set for release at the end of the month. Sea Girls will feature alongside Stormzy and The Killers, Foals and The Mysterines, and Yungblud.
Fans will also be able to hear the track live very soon as the band have also announced a spring 2021 tour. The run includes a few rescheduled dates, with nights in Glasgow, Birmingham, London and Manchester which were originally planned for this year, but had to be delayed due to coronavirus.
- Eveline Vouillemin
Twitter: @U_P_C_O_M_I_N_G, Facebook: @UpandC0ming, Instagram: @up_comers
If you want a band that give you great tunes, electric performance and an attitude like no other, Confidence Man is the group for you. The pseudonymised Melbourne/Brisbane quartet consists of Janet Planet and Sugar Bones as the fabulous front pair, with Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild as the rock-steady back-line drum and keys combo. Forming in 2016 with the mix of a live experience like no other and catchy music, their mission to be the party band of the summer is comfortably and, dare I say it, confidently attained.
Realize was a strong opening to the album and certainly a good choice as it brings some sort of familiarity to the sound they have been creating and defining for nearly 50 years.
The slow screaming hey’s at the start bring about a sense of nostalgia, even to this new creation. They slowed down the vibe with Through The Mists Of Time, which took the album in an unexpected direction...
Rising Indie newcomer, Charli Adams poignantly covers The 1975’s apocalyptic track ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’. In the week leading up to one of the most powerful American Presidential Elections in modern history, her cover flags the current unrest, protest and political mood over the past four-years in the US, under Trump’s term. By posting this cover now, especially with the lyrical video, Adams joins many artists – from Lady Gaga to Stevie Nicks - in a collective call for Americans to vote.
The alt-rock band consists of singer Conor Mason, guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown, guitarist Dominic Craik, bassist Philip Blake, and drummer James Price. Over the past five years, they have really made a name for themselves following the critical and commercial success of their self-titled debut album in 2015 which featured their breakthrough hit ‘Trip Switch’.
Their second album, Broken Machine was released in September 2017, receiving nearly 60 million streams for songs like ‘Sorry’ and ‘Amsterdam’ and rising to number 2 in the UK album charts.
‘Constantine’ is a song filled with electro and techno sounds that come together to produce an upbeat feel good song that enters your mind and stays there, it’s a song that could so easily be a soundtrack to summer with its ability to conjure feelings of being somewhere far from home, basking in the heat of the summer sun with the breeze on your skin or running through your hair.
The song feels incredibly fitting for the current climate with lyrics such as ‘let’s go, let’s get away’ the lyric can be both literal and metaphorical because there is the literal urge for so many to get away and with the songs upbeat summer vibes there is the desire it brings out in listeners to just want to get away and escape to somewhere far away with white sandy beaches and beautiful blue waters with the chance to just back in the warmth of the sun.
Given a five-star review and titled ‘a modern shoegaze classic’ by the NME, bdrmm’s debut
They followed this success with a performance for Radio X’s isolation sessions soon after, as well holding a listening party with The Charlatans’s Tim Burgess in his ongoing Twitter trend. Bdrmm recently revealed via their Instagram that the aptly named 'RecordStore.co.uk' listed ‘Bedroom’ as the second-best album released in 2020, and independent record store group Rough Trade placed the album at number eight in their ‘albums of the year’ lineup. But the five-piece did not stop at that.
“I know we’ve come a long way, we’re changing day to day… but tell me where do the children play?”
This central question opens the Tea For The Tillerman album (the title itself evoking childlike innocence), an album suffused in the times that it was made.
By 1970 the ideals of Flower power were beginning to wash away and the burgeoning confessional singer songwriter began to look inward and face the conflict that ensues when adulthood meets those youthful ideals...
We open with a jaunty rift of piano and guitar, almost 1920s, the kind of thing you’d hear in the closing credits of Boardwalk Empire. The story of the song however is more reflective and wise than the bootleggers of the Boardwalk, who preferred to shoot and ask later.
Hey Clockface reflects the ultimate truth that everyone must live by: life will go on, clocks will go on ticking, the earth will go on spinning. When you fall in love it is as if time stops – or you wish it would – but time waits for none of us, and seems especially cruel to those with broken hearts. As Costello ponders: “you said you’d be a friend to me/But time is just my enemy”.
Introducing, Miles Kane. The razor-sharply dressed Scouse buzzrocker, a man who is comfortable in the uncomfortable. The neo-veteran of the indie rock scene is known for oozing charismatic charm through his 60s and 70s inspired rock ‘n roll sound.
As an eighteen year old guitarist he joined Little Flames which caught the ears of NME and after a couple of members left Kane stepped up to frontman the band as lead singer of freshly renamed The Rascals. They released their debut album Rascalize in 2008 which was generally well received by critics but fell short of commercial success, Kane left the band the following year. While supporting the Arctic Monkeys he struck up a famous friendship and ultimate bromance with Alex Turner who described their two-band gang as ‘a sachet of delight!’. They had joked about making records together a while and when questioned why he didn’t join The Arctic Monkeys to replace bassist Andy Nicholson, Kane answered, ‘I really wanted to be a frontman at the time. I hadn’t been a frontman. I had a hard-on for that’. Eventually they formed baroque pop band, The Last Shadow Puppets.
The song introduced many to the band's grand, almost orchestral approach to the dark themes and emotions reflected in Isaac Wood’s paranoid vocals, and wry lyrics.
'Science Fair’ is an explosively chaotic track, but contains the tight instrumentation and storytelling BC, NR have mastered over the last couple of years playing together. Wood begins to recount a tale of attending a science fair, meeting a girl, and quickly descending into madness as self doubt and regret creep in.
The music video is very fitting for the feel of the song and is an artistic look into Chiminyo’s visualisation for both his music and this particular single. The video is a compilation of clips set to the songs electro techno chilled instrumental backdrop.
The video opens with a clip of a traffic light set on stop before cutting to Chiminyo in a house garage. We then cut to a clip of people on mopeds in the cityscape setting before returning to the artist in his garage setting up and drum kit and selecting the drumsticks he’s going to use for his session.
What inspired you to be a band in the beginning?
A: To be honest it was being mates from school and it wasn’t intended to be a band, it actually happened really naturally, when we first started off we could hardly play instruments! The usual plan was to meet after work, have a few tins and make noise just as a few mates having good time together, eventually we put a couple songs on soundcloud and did a few gigs, we just went from there really.
It is the kind of electrifying, yet soothing sound that you lay awake staring at the ceiling to in the early hours, being whisked into another dimension. There is something so calming about the flow of the song and the soft vocals, intertwined with the continuous slow beat, that gives the song such a comforting tone, yet it also feels so fun and optimistic. The excited yet laidback thrill from the song echoes well-loved 1980’s synthpop through the rhythm of the bass and the layers of synthesised melody, but this song gives off a progressive vibe, a fresh sound that almost submerges you when Brain Tan begins the chorus each time.
Orton is the alias of Nottingham based multi-instrumentalist Will Crumpton whose song-writing floats somewhere between warm, catchy lyricism, shoegaze reminiscent instrumentation and production inspired by the likes of King Krule and Thee Oh Sees. Born in Cambridgeshire and moving to Nottingham to study, Crumpton worked in venues such as Jam Café and The Bodega where he helped run countless shows as well as running some of his own in the DIY scene at JT Soar.
Having spent years working in grassroot music venues and playing with groups under RCA and Phlexx Records, his entrance into the scene as a solo artist was long overdue.
The concept of the song - and the video - proves to be a lasting one, not defined by any era specifically.
Savvy with the filmmaking matters, he has directed and produced a number of videos to date - some of them together with his close friend and collaborator Matthew Dillion Cohen. Cohen has directed Dapperton’s “Prune”, “You Talk Funny” amongst other videos. His name, like a glitch, appears five times at the top of Cohen’s portfolio’s landing page. Their most notable video to date has been”World Class Cinema”.
The record kicks off with ‘Bad Boys’, which sets a light-hearted and happy tone to the album. This is the kind of song which would be played at full volume in a film as the main character drives around at dark with the windows down. As the song goes on, it stays just as enjoyable to listen to and as said in the lyrics the “serotonin keeps on giving”. It is sure to be a crowd pleaser.
Field Medic is a modern folk artist hailing from San Francisco California. Most of his songs are self released, with lyrical content spanning from flowery romance to pits of depression, but with a strong commonality: truth. “Any song that’s true is a good song in my mind” he said to Run For Cover Records, with which he debuted his latest full-length release titled Fade Into The Dawn. This comes following his compilation album Songs From The Sunroom, a self-recorded collection of songs from up to five years back.
This dash of paprika comes in the form of Song Machine: Season One (Strange Timez), the 7th studio album of the virtual brain child of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. The album does not seem to have a theme or emotion running through it as seen on their previous works (Plastic Beach, Demon Days we’re talking about you) but instead acts as a unique insight into Albarn’s Spotify Wrapped.
Carney, like many others, reflects on the effects that the pandemic has had on her mental health, something that forced her to uproot from London and travel back to her parent’s house in Ireland to seek out recovery:
The inspiration for this song lies in bittersweet nostalgia over past romances; that sudden reach into an old coat pocket, finding a picture long forgotten and being transported back to that sweet but now unattainable moment in time.
Southern has a real talent for building the mood and tone of the song from the ground up.
Handsley’s talent on the instrument and her ability to make the harp ‘modern’ are demonstrated in her new single ‘Rivers of Mind’ with its variation of musical genres demonstrated throughout including electro, jazz and a soft rock vibe.
The song opens with an acoustic guitar which sets the tone of the song and shows it will be a stripped back song audio wise, as the song progresses there is the introduction of an electronic style guitar solo before returning to the acoustic sound of the rest of the song. The solo almost feeling like a culmination or an outburst which seems fitting for the songs lyrical content and meaning.
Styles explained Fine Line was "all about having sex and feeling sad." while talking to Rolling Stone.
Fine Line was released on 13th December 2019 to great reviews. NME stated it was "packed with personality and charm (and saucy lyrics)" Fine line sold over 470,000 copies in its first week and has since gone platinum in both the UK and US.
'Golden' is the first track on this album, an upbeat and groovy song to start with. The catchy chorus hooks get stuck in your head pretty instantly.
This song is the perfect indie-pop song and a great choice to open the album and a real underrated song from this album in my opinion.
After releasing a stellar debut album in 2018, they’ve quickly become a staple in the UK indie scene, travelling the world, releasing a Top 40 album, supporting Queens of the Stoneage, the list goes on.
‘I Like the Way You Die’ is a 3 minute hard-core attack on alpha-male egotism and honestly just that in and of itself makes me love it.
The entire song is steeped in female empowerment. It’s the poster-child for pure, unfiltered female power.
