Genre Wander: A Treehouse Wait - Searls - Basement Revolver - Chelan
A Treehouse Wait - Faith.Background promo - Jenny Wahlström from A Treehouse Wait grew up with one foot at a country farm in the south of Sweden. She had her other foot in Asia, where her parents worked for several periods of time during her childhood. She has mainly worked as a songwriter in the EDM-stage, co-writing and performing with acts like Martin Garrix (Virus), Shermanology (Stranger) and Ferry Corsten (Many ways).
Realising that it wasn’t just songs that made sense to herself, but the fact that people actually listened when she started singing re-inspired her. After spending a month in the USA, being the opening act for a Swedish folksinger, singer and songwriter Jenny Wahlström plucked up the courage to put the songs down on paper and record the songs she didn’t think she’d ever share with the rest of the world. A Treehouse Wait was born.
The music is mostly inspired by the things one is so familiar with, but mostly would not talk about. Like empty city streets during the summer. Or when anxiety leaves. Giving up your love or the fear of leaving home. It’s not all beautiful, but it’s all life. And sharing that experience, the music suddenly creates a place for you to be, and you know that someone else has been there, too.
Tour:
8-07-2016 Gullbranna Festivalen, Eldsberga, Sweden
07-08-2016 Rörstrands Café, Stockholm, Sweden
13-08-2016 The Brave Festival, Amsterdam, Holland.
Jenny Wahlström delivers a heartfelt song in the form of 'Faith'. Musically it just builds into something quite powerful before a wonderful refrain calms thing's down. It's hard to pigeon hole this song genre wise, which I so often feel is actually the sign of imaginative song writing.
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Searls - Follow (Prod. LJ Looper).
Background promo - The 'Follow' EP is a collaboration between singer/ songwriter Searls and electronic producer LJ Looper.Searls, originally from Ireland, is a musician who takes older influences from the likes of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and blends contemporary acts such as James Blake, Jessie Ware, Shura and mixes it all up to create his own sound. Learning his craft as a backing singer, he decided to turn his attentions to songwriting. Last year he released his first single Doing Time and remixes of the track received great attention from the dance community. This summer will see him release his debut-EP.
All of the EP was produced by LJ Looper, a London based Electronic Music Producer & DJ. Looper is mostly known for producing an ‘Electronic Urban’ sound; his future Bass remix of Doing Time was play-listed on Reprezent Radio. In April 2016, Looper was supported by the MOBO Awards for his track ‘Let Me Know’, featuring Keith Sweats’ protege, Jason Little. Regarding his latest collaboration, he says: “Searls’ vocal range was incredible to work with, allowing us to record an intimate lead performance, backed by rich, haunting choral layers. The distinctiveness and heartfelt emotion in his voice is what drew me to working with him in the first place.”
The EP consists of 3 tracks: Demons, Hurricane and Follow. Songs that are heavily infused with haunting Celtic choral backing vocals to Searls’ soulful lead. The songs explore themes such as addiction, sexuality, love and oppression through an electro-ambient RnB lens. Follow will be released on all platforms.
'Follow'gives you a really good feel for the new EP. It's a collection of lush, highly crafted songs and the collaboration has in my opinion really paid off. Here you have three imaginative pieces produced to achieve optimum audio and artistic quality.
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Basement Revolver - Words.Background from the band - Last week we shared our second single 'Words' off our upcoming EP.
“Words” was written when I was in my last semester of university. I lived downtown and school was up on the mountain and somewhat inaccessible by bus. I was writing my honours psych thesis at the time, as well as many other papers, when it all began to feel meaningless.
No matter what I said, in the end, words are just words, they can be stringed together to form something powerful but without context they become as mundane and uncontrollable as one’s commute to and from school. Similarly, a paper is just a paper, a degree is just a degree, and there is so much more to life than the plans and the empires that we build for ourselves.
Second time around on Beehive Candy for Basement Revolver, this time with the a new song 'Words'. I was mightily impressed with the first song 'Johnny' which I'm pleased to say will also be one of the four songs on the forthcoming EP. This band exude wonderful melodies, well written songs, and they put them together with so much heart and feeling. I'm way to old to be a gushing fan of any artists, however this band are testing me on that.
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Background promo - Its been a busy couple of years for Chelan (sh-lan). The american synth/indie pop band (based out of Joshua Tree CA) immediately started the planning process for their newest album "Vultures" after the early 2015 release of their 4th full length album "Equal Under Pressure." Chelan, who formed in California in 2007, is historically the duo of classical music teacher Jennifer Grady and film/tv music composer Justin Hosford. However, in early 2015 they added a third permanent member, Chad Austinson, to play drums. After a series of live performances and writing sessions, the group spent a year meeting for long periods of time at Hosford's studio in Joshua Tree and producer Matt Drenik's studio in Portland, Oregon. In addition to bringing on Drenik to co-produce the album with Hosford, they linked up with Doug Boehm (Guided by Voices, Girls) to mix a handful of tracks.
Vultures is Chelan's most ambitious studio effort to date but they were also careful to ensure they can replicate the album during live performances. When asked about the writing process for Vultures Hosford says "Its been a fun challenge morphing from the mostly electronic, subdued indie aesthetic of our last couple albums to the wall of sound, big production synth pop thing we went for on this record." The album surrounds layered vocals with lush analog synths, guitar, drums, cello and piano. Chelan is currently planning a tour in the spring of 2017. Vultures was mastered by Jared Hirshland of Elysian Mastering. Album Artwork by Kime Buzzelli.
'Beams' is the first of nine songs on the new album 'Vultures'. The analog synths add a richness to the beautifully constructed and quite melodic music, and the vocals add even more colour. This is a clear and positive step forward from the previous album suggesting a band that are confident in their musical direction.
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