Showing posts with label Bernice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bernice. Show all posts

Ida Mae Feat. Marcus King - Oracle Sisters - Bernice

Photo - Joe Hottinger
Ida Mae - Click Click Domino Feat. Marcus King.

Today, the Nashville-via-London duo Ida Mae announced their new sophomore album Click Click Domino, which follows their critically-acclaimed EP Raining For You and breakout debut Chasing Lights. The husband-wife duo Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean has also shared the title track from the record, which features a blistering guitar performance from Marcus King. Click Click Domino will be released on July 16th, through Thirty Tigers.

Filled with thunderous production, killer riffs, and an insatiable rhythm throughout, "Click Click Domino" is among their most raucous tracks to date. Ida Mae writes, "This was written kind of as a knee jerk song. The unfiltered noise of social media, concerns surrounding social engineering, the lack of emotional connection and physical disconnection gets to all of us. We all know how easy it is to falsify an image, be it in fashion / politics / or any aspect of your everyday and in a lot of people's lives it has become a necessity to play into it. I wanted to write the lyrics to ‘Click Click Domino’ almost as Twitter statements, counting characters, making a short sharp stream of consciousness commentary."

"The riff was originally inspired by the playing of one of our favourite guitar players Pop Staples and it slowly morphed into something that in my mind almost echoed moments of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. It kicked up a gear when Marcus King came over and we stood side by side, soloing call and response guitar lines over the outro. The attitude of his playing was perfect."

Adding to this Marcus King says, "A warm summer Nashville evening, enjoying a whiskey beverage with my lady and two of our best friends in town, Chris & Steph of Ida Mae. I listened through the track ‘Click Click Domino’ and was immediately floored by the raw nature of the recording, the intensity and the undeniable, delightfully British rock sound I had grown up being captured. I’m honoured to have played on this track. What a powerhouse album and what a powerhouse band."

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Oracle Sisters - I Don't Wanna Move.

Parisian trio Oracle Sisters have today shared ‘I Don’t Wanna Move’. With this, they also announce the release date for their next EP, ‘Paris II’, due April 7th 2021 via New York independent label 22TWENTY (Madge, Fat Trout Trailer Park).

Talking on the track, the band add “I Don’t Wanna Move is a duet between Chris & Lewis  about desire, the song plays out like a town crier’s rhapsody with all the ancient laments, hopes and dreams of a wayward rake, or a seaworthy mariner rolled into a blanket of harmony.”

Over the past twelve months, Oracle Sisters have built up a loyal and global following, blurring the lines between music and visual arts. Now, Oracle Sisters turn their attention to its sequel, their next EP ‘Paris II’ , due for arrival on April 7th. Building upon their first EPs thematic premise of music lifted from a utopian vision of the French capital (where the band are currently located) the upcoming body of work shows the duel side “of that world...coming back down to earth to explore the darker sides of the psyche while probing some allies of hope” add the band.

With members hailing from across Europe and the UK , the band are uninhibited in their influences, finding inspiration within the art, cinema, philosophy, and music of the world over; resulting in a sound that is both sonically sophisticated and warmly familiar. Lyrically, they explore timeless narratives of love, mysticism and spirituality, scattered with intriguing insights into their own personal lives and experiences resulting in songs that are cryptic yet inviting.

Oracle Sisters have been working hard in Greece currently finishing off their debut album. Along the road, they’ve also played impromptu shows on the island of Hydra with friends from Fontaines D.C & The Murder Capital   – capturing the troubadour spirit of the band.

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Bernice - Lone Swan.

Today, ahead of the release the band are sharing the album's final single "Lone Swan."

"When we think of swans, we think of them coupled, distant, on water - beautiful, peaceful, sailing," says Bernice leader Robin Dann. "We know them as aggressive, hissing, dominating, at odds with our world. Lone swan feels conflict, curiosity, and longing. On a deserted road, city street, snowy mountain, suburban pool, forest, nightclub, airplane, crop circle, cloud - she absorbs as much as she releases. She doesn’t quite fit in anywhere she lands, wonders what is real, and her longing for connection carry her forward one webbed foot at a time."

Eau de Bonjourno is the Bernice's first collaboration with producer Shahzad Ismaily, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists as varied as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. While their genre reconstruction remains distinctly Bernice, Dann’s lyrics bring a newfound focus to storytelling in the present moment, compassionately meeting ourselves where we are, and finding joy in spaces that are familiar but ever changing.

Eau de Bonjourno, according to Dann, “openly plays with the shape of a pop song,” drawing on the band members’ backgrounds in jazz, subverting rhythmic formulas, and resting in grooves that sit just outside of predictable. Instead of letting instruments take extended solos, the tone is set on opener “Groove Elation” with brief blurts of synthesized sax, patient passages of space, or clusters of beats, tenderly held together by Dann and Williams’ intimate vocals. The album’s sound is experimental in its truest definition, chopped up like musique concrète and then delicately placed back together with the loving touch of a scrapbook collagist.

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Mo Kenney - Bernice - Katy Kirby

Mo Kenney - Hard On You.

“Hard On You”, the third release from the upcoming Covers record, is one of the sparser offerings in Mo Kenney’s series of cover songs, and for good reason. A staple of and standout in the wildly prolific Daniel Romano’s songwriting quiver, the tune conjures a frustrated snarl, giving hell to someone who’s overstayed their welcome. 

Kenney’s lonesome, unadorned version captures the psychic exhaustion of dealing with human fallibility and protecting loved ones, using nothing but earthy acoustic fingerpicking and her weary, raspy voice.

“Hard On You” follows “Game of Pricks” (“a fittingly stripped-back and haunting number for these times” says Indie88) and Mo’s lonesome Patsy Cline classic “You Belong To Me”. Says Kenney of “Hard On Your”, “I’ve been a big Daniel Romano fan since I first heard this song. It was so nice to hear a modern country song that was reminiscent of the old stuff. The songwriting is so good, I was excited to strip it down so the lyrics really shine. Recorded in front of one mic at the New Scotland Yard.” Mo continues to perform when and where possible.

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Bernice - It's Me, Robin.

In December, Toronto's Bernice announced their forthcoming LP Eau de Bonjourno, the follow up to their celebrated 2018 LP Puff: In the air without a shape. Now the band are sharing the album's second single "It's Me, Robin".

"This song for me, lyrically, was an exercise in trying to be as blunt and transparent as possible with myself," Bernice's leader Robin Dann explains to NPR's Bob Boilen. "It starts out in a non-poetic way: "it's me, Robin. you don't really know me. I thought if I just expressed this you might let me be me" - which I think is a universal desire. We all just kind of want to feel permission to exist, unconditionally, not based on any career milestones or whatever personal successes or failures. We want every life to inherently have value. This song, in a really playful way, (referencing ducks and potatoes) addresses the not-so-straightforward feelings that we have in life, but ultimately asks the big question, who are you? We’re all just in this beautiful, endless search for joy."

Eau de Bonjourno is the Bernice's first collaboration with producer Shahzad Ismaily, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists as varied as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. While their genre reconstruction remains distinctly Bernice, Dann’s lyrics bring a newfound focus to storytelling in the present moment, compassionately meeting ourselves where we are, and finding joy in spaces that are familiar but ever changing.

Eau de Bonjourno, according to Dann, “openly plays with the shape of a pop song,” drawing on the band members’ backgrounds in jazz, subverting rhythmic formulas, and resting in grooves that sit just outside of predictable. Instead of letting instruments take extended solos, the tone is set on opener “Groove Elation” with brief blurts of synthesized sax, patient passages of space, or clusters of beats, tenderly held together by Dann and Williams’ intimate vocals. The album’s sound is experimental in its truest definition, chopped up like musique concrète and then delicately placed back together with the loving touch of a scrapbook collagist.

“We have an impulse to open doors that you might not expect, and that translates from groove to melody to lyric,” says Dann. “Phil and Thom have this strong aversion to building a beat that sits there in front of you and does exactly what you expect it to do. We come out of so many musical traditions and are trying to make something that’s not a direct descendent of any of them. We’re trying to make the music that feels like us right now.”


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Katy Kirby - Juniper.

Katy Kirby has released the third single from her highly anticipated debut album Cool Dry Place out February 19 on Keeled Scales (via Secretly Distribution), the critically acclaimed indie label home to the likes of Tenci, Buck Meek, Sun June, Twain and more.

Kirby’s ability to blend wit with heart over inventive, affecting melodies has positioned her on shortlists for the most anticipated albums in 2021 by Vulture, Vice, Stereogum, The Line of Best Fit, and Paste Magazine. Today’s release follows ”Traffic!,” a buoyant rumination on privilege, as well as ”Cool Dry Place,” a clever flip of the Tylenol package advisory into a plea for human compassion and acceptance. Bob Boilen of NPR All Songs Considered has praised Katy for ”putting her own twist on pop” and tastemakers at Consequence of Sound, Under The Radar, Earmilk, Austin Town Hall and more have echoed enthusiasm.

Says Katy: This is a song about motherhood, mostly. It sometimes seems like there’s far more material written on how dads can be terrifying and awful, or everyone is just less surprised about it. I’m uncommonly open and close with my mom, (and she’s asked several times if it’s about her — if you’re reading this Lisa, I swear, it’s not!!), but I was trying to work out how many distinct ways that sort of dynamic can uniquely harm. I wound up thinking a lot about vacancy, sort of how abandonment can happen even if someone technically sticks around. I heard Greta Gerwig say in an interview about Ladybird that “nobody doesn’t have a complicated relationship with their mother.” That feels pretty reasonable to me as far as super-broad statements go, and is maybe (probably) part of what scares me to death about raising a kid.

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Bumper Catch Up featuring: Rubblebucket - Mollie Elizabeth - Lilly Hiatt - The Kearns Family - WILDES and St Francis Hotel - Lucette - Caroline Strickland - Mon Rayon - Lala Salama

Keeping the comments a little shorter so we can cram a few more songs in than usual, this is our first bumper catch up of some really fine r...