Bo Milli - Betty Reed - Kate Klim - Sam Bambery - Sooner - Many Voices Speak
Bergen, Norway based artist Bo Milli shares her 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.
Bo Milli (a deconstruction of her birth name, Emilie Østebø) grew up in the suburbs of Karmøy, an island off the west coast of Norway, before relocating to Oslo. It was there that she collaborated with her friend Lokoy (bassist of Sløtface) on “a mistake” - which saw widespread praise from NME, DIY, The Line Of Best Fit + more.
Now based in Bergen, today's release of "At The Wheel" teases more new music to come in 2022 from Bo Milli. Nodding at times to Phoebe Bridgers, others to nostalgic mid-00s teen anthems – the music sees her lament procrastination, admit to being on the verge of tears for days at a time and recount thinking she might die on the 10-hour bus ride home. Far from bleak, she makes complicated subjects sound like the soundtrack of your next favourite coming-of-age movie.
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| Photo - Taylor Dill |
This is the brand new single from Betty Read's superb forthcoming acoustic version of her debut E.P. It may be stripped down but the whole collection of new versions are simply beautiful. Betty Reed tells us about the acoustic version of her debut E.P.
After releasing my debut EP Mistakes Made, Lessons Learned, I wanted to create a stripped down version of these songs. By changing up the tempo and key, and using only an acoustic guitar and percussionist, the songs were re-architected and re-imagined to be more intimate and revealing.
The songs on Mistakes Made, Lessons Learned (Acoustic Version) address the overarching theme (to varying degrees) of learning from past mistakes (or at least coming to terms with them) and finding the strength and desire to move forward.
"Misunderstood" is about not being afraid to assert your boundaries and make clear that no means no. "Karma" is about getting that good life you deserve after breaking free from a toxic relationship. The chorus of "Happy" is the affirmation to myself that even on dark days, I know that there will be happier days ahead.
I chose “Let It Out” as the single because, out of all the songs on the EP, this one is the most personal. I cope with depression, as did my grandmother, and she believed a good cry was cathartic. “Let It Out” was born out of a collaboration with Nashville songwriter, Evan Knutila. Evan lent another perspective to my personal story, essentially that men who cry are deemed less manly, which carries the extra burden of being both ostracized and suffering the consequences of keeping their feelings bottled up.
I collaborated with Nashville producer, Evan Redwine, who brought on acoustic guitarist, Nate Dugger and percussionist, Josh Hunt, to give these stripped-down songs a multi-layered, rich sound.
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“It never goes… the way you thought.” This lyric – which circles around twice in the final song of Kate Klim’s new album, Something Green – pretty accurately summarizes the album as whole.
When the project began, Kate imagined it would be an album about a return to self, navigating new terrain, and the real life messiness of two human beings trying to travel that road together. Over the recording process in the months that followed, the arc of the album grew to include the end of her marriage. This is not an album about loss, though. It's an album about hope, love, change, and new growth.
In so many ways, the album did not go as planned. Not just the content of the songs and their roots in her personal life, but the actual recording process. The song “Lines” was written between studio sessions and added to the album last minute. The second verse of that song was born from Kate discovering that a catastrophic tornado had just torn through her neighborhood of East Nashville while she was out of town recording (her home and family were fine). She flew back from the initial recording session in Dallas on March 5th, 2020 – and within a week the first wave of Covid shutdowns began and it was clear that she would not be traveling again nor heading back into a studio anytime soon.
Over the course of the next year, she chipped away at her vocal and piano parts from home while she and her then-husband navigated divorce proceedings under the same roof. “I was working on creating one thing and letting go of another all from the same house. I think you can hear it in the music,” she says. “If nothing else, it surely helped me.” The release date for the album is meaningful, too – exactly two years after recording wrapped in Dallas.
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Sam Bambery is incredibly excited to announce the release of his third single ‘Songs About Sailors’. Sam puts his alt-country style on display with an innate sense of hook-worthy melody. The song is the title track off his upcoming nine-track album, which explores both the heartbroken and hopeful sides of Bambery’s psyche.
‘Songs About Sailors’ stretches across the canon of New Zealand-based independent music, incorporating sounds from alternative rock, country and folk. Bambery distills this all down to an elegant and thoughtful track with guitar and piano melodies complimenting his powerful vocal delivery. Bambery’s influences are made plain here, with various inspirations from Wilco and Sharon Van Etten.
Sam Bambery is a Christchurch-based musician that has built a steady reputation in the Garden City’s alternative music and art scenes whilst also having a deep interest in folk music and creative songwriting as a whole. Having recorded his debut album with De Stevens (Marlin’s Dreaming, Asta Rangu), Bambery is embarking on a 3-date New Zealand tour with Emily Fairlight to celebrate the album. He also recently released two singles, ‘Here I Am’ and ‘The Other’, the latter of which is accompanied by a Flying Nun-style music video. The full album will be released on Thursday 24th March.
Bambery takes great inspiration from various indie artists like Wilco and Elliot Smith, Aldous Harding and Cut Worms. His music is deeply rooted in Christchurch's local country/folk scene, taking cues from local artists such as Marlon Williams, Adam Hattaway and Delaney Davidson. His music pushes this envelope further into his own contemporary style. His band consists of an ensemble of local musicians that enjoy approaching his folksy songs with a modern artistic sensibility.
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"Pretend" the latest single from Sooner's debut album, Days and Nights.
On the track, the band shares "Despite it being one of our catchier hooks, the lyrics operate in dark contrast of the feeling – they’re about a sexual assault."
Formed in 2016, Sooner blends alternative rock, dream pop, and shoegaze in a style that is both lush and energetic – with Federica Tassano’s ethereal yet powerful vocals haunting every song.
After fits and starts and pandemic delays, Sooner are now finally able to bring their grand, whirring dream-pop to the fore. Meditations on a deep longing for an impossible love, dreams of being inextricably connected and nurtured by nature and heavier subjects in depression and addiction come together to rise up beyond the darkness and celebrate the depths of emotions.
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| Photo - Julia Mard |
Many Voices Speak will release her second album 'Gestures' on 29th April via Strangers Candy. After sharing the record's first single 'Seat for Sadness', described by Stereogum as a 'subtle stunner', she has now released new track 'Within Reach'. She explains: “It is one of the songs on the album that started out from an issue and ended up as a reminder on how to cope with it. As the song was finished, I had figured out something new about myself that could actually help me in real life. That’s something that unites the songs on the album, that I'm trying to find new ways of thinking as a strategy for myself so that I can live with certain things that can’t be changed.”
Many Voices Speak, the project of Swedish musician Matilda Mård, has always found its power in its ability to capture an eternity in an expression. Mård’s elegant, yearning dream-pop makes the world seem to slow down around it, where time stretches out, and you can get lost in the deep pools of memory and emotion. After the success of her 2018 debut 'Tank Town,' her new album 'Gestures' showcases her growth as a songwriter, one more comfortable in her own skin.
Working with longtime producer Petter Nygårdh, the writing process, and how Mård thinks about it, grew into something new on 'Gestures'. She wrote the early versions of the songs on piano, as she always has. But before, she thought as a singer-songwriter, determined to make the songs stand up on their own, in their stripped-back version. Here, she wrote them merely as beginnings, aware of the possibility to evolve them into something more. “I want to capture these things that I can’t really put my finger on”, says Mård. “The lyrics have become more important for me. I’ve put a lot of trust in the text this time. I could explore this darker and more cinematic sound, I didn’t just think about writing a pop song”. That step made for an album that presents a more mature, developed vision of Many Voices Speak.
As well as an artist, the album has seen Mård grow as a person through writing it. Each song represents an issue she has struggled with - they tell a story of unspectacular, but deeply meaningful, transformation. Mård says “What unites the songs is a need for inner change, to handle the things in life that can’t be changed. I’m creating strategies for myself - new ways of thinking, so I can live with certain things. The title comes from that. I’ve figured out that gestures are important because they’re proof of love, and that’s the only power we have against death and separation”. It’s a theme that’s very personal to Mård, but one that resonates with a lot of people – something that could be said about Many Voices Speak itself. The stargazing mood of Gestures makes for an album that’s powerfully moving, one that creates a space apart from the noise of the world around it – a little retreat for Mård, and her listeners, to call their own.
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