Night Swimming - The Orchids - Lilly Winwood - Girlpuppy
Bath-based dream pop five-piece Night Swimming are pleased to announce the release of their debut double single ‘Freight Train // A Wall’ today August 12th.
Formed in 2021, the band have spent the last year honing in on their sound at sold-out headline shows in their home city of Bath and supporting the likes of China Bears and Parlophone Records’ own Sad Night Dynamite. They were also scouted by the Close Encounters Club to be featured in Glastonbury Festival’s 2022 ‘Longlist’ - chosen to be one of their 90 top acts.
Night Swimming’s sound incorporates the ethereal, melodic elements of the early Wolf Alice EPs and Slowdive albums; combining them with the minimalism of local idols Portishead and Massive Attack.
Produced by Calum Wotherspoon at Joe’s Garage in Bristol, and mastered by Novatines’ Tom Cory, their debut release Freight Train // A Wall is instantly striking. Combining atmospheric guitars, ethereal vocals and airy synths with echoing percussion and hypnotic choruses; each individual element is equally as evocative, while perfectly blended with a sugary sweet delivery that you can’t help but get lost in.
Freight Train was written as an introductory piece to the second track ‘A Wall’. The use of trip-hop influenced rhythms and sustained atmospherics evoke a trance-like feel, conveying a strong sense.
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Sometimes it can take several years to realise what you’ve been missing. Sometimes it can even take decades.... (If you already know all about The Orchids, well, you’re going to like Dreaming Kind a lot.)
The Orchids were making sophisticated pop music right back in the early 1990s when Sarah Records first started. Their songs were as emotionally pure as anything else on that label, but they were always a step ahead of their peers in terms of song arrangements and musical ambition. With a casual, unpretentious air they made writing perfect pop songs seem easy, almost accidental, and several great releases followed. The Orchids gained a passionate following: people knew a good thing when they heard it and they hugged it close. But now it’s time for the rest of the world to be let in on the secret.
The songs themselves are a beautiful mix of strength and gentleness. They wrap you in a powerful embrace, making you feel comfortable and secure – and then whisper their insecurities and anxieties into your ear. They say: ‘it’s OK to admit weakness. It’s OK to be fragile. That’s where true strength comes from’. From Glasgow, and proudly Scottish, the band shares a musical lineage with other great groups from that city, from Aztec Camera to Orange Juice, Lloyd Cole to Teenage Fanclub. All bands that specialise in song-writing that that can tell big stories through small fragments, that can make the ordinary extraordinary.
Producer Ian Carmichael has helped the band create a perfectly-crafted masterpiece. He subtly accentuates the drama of the songs, with a sophisticated choreography and gloss that never overwhelms the tenderness of the music. In ‘This Boy Is A Mess’ (the first single from the album), the lyric confesses frailty while the music gets stronger and stronger. It is bittersweet and exhilarating at the same time. ‘I Want You, I Need You’ has harmonies as big as a house – but the yearning message remains intimate and close. ‘I Don’t Mean To Stare’ is a sophisticated new version of the track that first appeared on the Under The Bridge compilation earlier this year.
Album opener ‘Didn’t We Love You’ daringly opens up empty spaces where the reverb of the drums is the only thing you can hear... and then floods your ears with a harmonised chorus, sweet guitar melodies and sweeping effects. Even then, the lyrical lament, expressing the desire to live in a better place - a place unspoilt by the greedy phonies who’ve taken over – comes across as clearly as if Hackett were leaning over for a friendly chat in the snug bar of The Orchids’ favourite Glasgow pub.
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“They say musicians can’t always be music lovers but that, by far, is not the case for me,” says songwriter Lilly Winwood. “I think a lot of music has saved me in so many ways and this song recognizes that.” The song she’s speaking of is Winwood’s brand new single, “Keep It Spinning,” a breezy rocker that sits comfortably between a Tom Petty classic and a late 90s country radio hit. “Do you ever have one song that just really does it for you and puts a smile on your face?” Winwood quips. “And you play it over and over and over again?” She channeled that feeling, but with a spin, tying it in with relationships, her career, and even her newly found sobriety—the impetus for a number of songs from her upcoming album Talking Walls.
“I’ve been chasing that song that came right at the moment when I thought all I had was lost.”
Burned out after her last album cycle and in the midst of a pandemic, Winwood took a job to pay the bills—but she couldn’t stop writing. She knew she was on the cusp of something important. “I’d be working in a restaurant all day and then at night, come 3 a.m., I’d be pulling half-written songs out of my apron,” she recalls. “Then it all came together.”
Talking Walls captures that tumultuous period during the pandemic, with Winwood literally “talking to the walls” as she looked inward with new purpose. Penned over long sleepless nights, with clear eyes and a willingness to ask tough questions, each song takes a different tack into the introspective wind, backed by a minimalist-roots sound. The now East Nashville-based artist (and daughter of Grammy-winning British rocker Steve Winwood) simply wrote her story and brought it to her band at Nashville’s Trace Horse studio—no producer needed.
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Last month, girlpuppy (aka Becca Harvey) announced her debut LP When I'm Alone, which was produced with Slow Pulp member Henry Stoehr and Alex G guitarist Sam Acchione and will be out October 28th on Royal Mountain Records (Wild Pink, Pillow Queens).
The album arrives on the heels of her Swan EP, her 2021 debut on the label that she made with producer Marshall Vore who is known for his work with folk dynamo Phoebe Bridgers. The five song collection drew remarkable acclaim immediately, earning praise from outlets like NPR, FADER, Paste, Under The Radar, Coup De Main, Office Magazine, i-D, Line of Best Fit and NYLON who called her "one of indie folk's most promising newcomers."
This week, girlpuppy is sharing a second single from her forthcoming LP, a contemplative track built around a tumbling acoustic guitar shuffle entitled "I Want To Be There".
“I wrote 'I Want To Be There' about the pain I felt when my old landlord kicked me and three of my best friends out of our dream home, and all three of my roommates moved to New York," Harvey explains. "I was left all alone in Atlanta and it was a really bad time for me. I was jobless and I felt like I had no friends which made me wonder what was wrong with me, which kind of made me spiral into self-hatred. I like to call this one the “self hate anthem” of the album."
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