Bo Milli - Margo Cilker - Montao - The Breath

Bo Milli - Come After Me.

Bergen, Norway-based indie-rock starlet Bo Milli has announced her long awaited debut EP will be released this autumn and has released its latest taster, new single "Come After Me".

Tipped by many to be one of the next breakout Norwegian artists, Bo Milli's new single "Come After Me" follows recent track "Making Friends" and arrives ahead of a coveted slot at Øya Festival this Saturday.

Blending richly textured dream-pop with surging indie rock, Bo Milli's new single "Come After Me" is adorned with an irresistibly youthful edge. "I'm on my own / overthinking" Milli cries in the track's exhilarating chorus; punctuated by crushing guitar strums and propelled forward by a zestful rhythm section.

Co-produced by Odd Martin (Sigrid, Sløtface) and co-written with Henrik Michelsen (Maisie Peters, Little Mix), "Come After Me" is again emotionally fuelled by the cold Bergen night life - a recurring theme across her debut EP - with Bo Milli this time specifically overthinking on her journey home from a party...

Speaking more on "Come After Me", Bo Milli said: "I'm fantasising about a big romantic gesture from someone I'm worried might not be that interested. I'm walking home from a party they're still at, overthinking the whole night and feeling that if they come after me, that'll somehow prove we're on the same page. Although I haven't told them how I feel, I hope they'll know to leave the party and run after me like in the movies."

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Margo Cilker - With The Middle.

Margo Cilker is set to return with her highly anticipated second album Valley Of Heart’s Delight on September 15 via Loose. In anticipation of the release, she is sharing the record’s final single, “With the Middle,” a stirring ballad about the all-too-familiar struggle for self-care. Holler praises "'With The Middle' is everything we’ve come to expect from Margo Cilker, one of the most distinctive and self-assured voices to have stepped out of the world of American country-folk in the last few years". Of the track, Cilker offers:

"After hearing 'With the Middle' about 30 times on a video shoot, my friend Bart texted me, 'Regarding your middle song. Have you considered napping?' I guess this is a song for those of us who can’t nap. It takes me to a time when I felt incredibly fragile. I like the way Sera’s production bolsters the song; the track was almost unbearably lonely before the drums, bass, piano and steel."

Cilker initially announced Valley Of Heart’s Delight with opener “Lowland Trail,” which saw Rolling Stone exclaim, “The singer-songwriter is poised to have a breakout year.” They went on to name the track one of the "20 Best Country Songs of 2023 So Far" listing Cilker among standouts like Megan Moroney, Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Leon Bridges, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Ashley McBryde, Morgan Wade, Lainey Wilson, and more.

The forthcoming 11-track set was produced by Sub Pop alum Sera Cahoone (who also contributes drums) and recorded by John Morgan Askew (Neko Case, Laura Gibson) with studio players from The Decemberists, Band Of Horses, and Beirut. The title Valley Of Heart’s Delight refers to a place where Cilker can't return: California’s Santa Clara Valley, as it was known before the orchards were paved over and became more famous for Silicon than apricots. She is the fifth generation of her namesake born there, and in this new collection of songs, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting.

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Montao - Costa Del Mersey.

Oh this is really good and it's an opportunity for Beehive Candy to add some more genre traveling under our belt! For me it's a mixture of 'Old School Meets Today' and it's done with creativity and style, so enjoy, as we add the background story. As a homage to his home town of Liverpool, Montao has returned with a dreamy sun drenched track, lovingly named after the coastline along Merseyside. The track interweaves amidst a variety of nuances and musical suggestions, whilst slapping a massive smile on your face.

The head nodding laid back vibe transcends the picture being painted with simple instructions...to kick back, spin this over the summer months, and to simply have some fun! This hazy ray of trip hop brings Montao back onto the scene, and Costa Del Mersey is a welcome addition to his collection

After decades of experience as a multi instrumentalist, recording artist, music publicist, artist manager, and everything else in between, these aspects have fused together and spawned a new musical landscape in the world of Montao. Following the incredible success of his single releases to date, including a plethora of international radio support, multiple blog features, and playlist placements, Montao returns with string of releases dropping throughout the rest of 2023 under the umbrella of Def Pressé Records.

His up coming collaborations will include tracks featuring Slug (Atmosphere), Copywrite, Koncept, RoQy TyRaid, and Lane Shuler. His music transcends from the depths of quirky samples, sofa style beats, and paints a cinematic story based around all the elements of the stories he creates combining elements of Trip hop, Hip hop, and Lo-fi influences. Encapsulated amidst the terrain of a curious and sometimes confusing world, Montao is putting things right…one beat at a time.

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The Breath - Don't Rush It.

The Breath announce details of their new album, ‘Land Of My Other' and share new track "Don't Rush It". Ten original tracks of raw, gorgeous, acoustic-minded music. Songs that tell stories in ways that soothe, stir, exalt, and touch emotional chords that will bring tears of lamenting joy, to your eyes. ‘Land of My Other’ is set for release on vinyl, CD and digital via Real World Records on 13th October 2023.

"If it all falls tomorrow, be glad of today" …sings Ríoghnach Connolly, on "Don’t Rush It", the first song to feature from the album. It might be about the toll we pay for leaving home, the mistakes we make by hurrying grief or something else… it’s the opening track of an album where Connolly’s emotions run the gamut: righteous, sorrowful, joyous. Authenticity is at a premium. Shame is cast aside.
‘Land of My Other’ is written and performed by the sublime partnership of Ríoghnach [Ree-uh-na] Connolly and guitarist Stuart McCallum.  For the widely acclaimed duo, this is the third album under their moniker The Breath.

"We work like two halves of a single songwriter," says McCallum, the Manchester-based composer and producer. "Imagine a guitarist and a singer who are not separate but are separate people. We just have this really special connection that lets us listen, adapt and evolve a piece of music together."

Connolly nods her agreement. "Stuart is the yin to my yang," says the BBC Folk Singer of the Year, her north of Ireland accent un-tempered by two decades of Manchester living. "He has one face. I have many. He's very measured. I'm not. I like mayhem. He doesn't. I know where I am with him."

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Loupe - Sara Lew - Bo Milli

Loupe - Do You Ever Wonder What Comes Next? (Album).

Amsterdam indie rock quartet Loupe share their hotly anticipated debut album Do You Ever Wonder What Comes Next? - released June 16th via Excelsior Records. The band are also set to tour the UK later this year with indie-rock breakouts Lovejoy.

Recorded with producer Arne van Petegem (Moss, Styrofoam) and mixed by Beau Sorenson (Death Cab For Cutie, Sparklehorse), the album showcases the bands rich and intricate soundscapes as well as their effortlessly gliding lead vocals, catchy melodies and captivating, story telling lyricism. Atmospheric yet punchy - packing musical depth and beauty, the 13-track release showcases the band's ability to create truly spellbinding music.

The band’s singer and lyricist Julia (vocalist) explores themes of young adulthood, life in the big city and human relationships over a weave of rousing harmonies, free-flowing rhythms and expressive vocals. Besides Julia, the band consists of Jasmine guitar, Lana bass and Annemarie van der Born drums.

Do You Ever Wonder What Comes Next? is an exploration of growing up in the modern age, both within the songwriting and through collaborations with artists from other disciplines. The vibrant collage-like album artwork created by Ukrainian graphic designer Karaska shows the band standing on top of a building, as colors and images spread around them.

According to Julia, much of the material revolves around finding something to hold on to amidst the heat of the hustle and bustle, and adjusting to a new busy environment full of impulses. “For me it was all a kind of transition, with 'on the one hand 'the new life and all the cool things that come with it. And on the other hand, the uncertainty of being alone in the big city and the adult world.”

Loupe · Do You Ever Wonder What Comes Next?

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Sara Lew - Shady Light.

Sara Lew’s new single ‘Shady Light’ is set to shine on the earth’s surface with its release on June 16th, 2023, as a precursor to her upcoming album ‘LOUD’, which she is getting ready to release in autumn 2023. ‘Shady Light’ is the second single to come from the new album, following 'Out of Nowhere', which picked up a lot of playlist additions around the world, as well as and airplay on Amazing Radio and Louder Than War Radio and a video premiere with Vents Magazine.

‘Shady Light’ is a real indie ballad. It's about standing together in a relationship, constantly learning from each other, and sharing with each other and continuing to do so even though life is rushing by with different goals and ambitions.

On the song, Sara explains, “It’s about standing together in a relationship even in a heavy storm when everything else is falling apart around you. It’s about daring to experiment and be vulnerable and stand on new land together. And though there still must be food on the table and the family must endure, to have the ability to seek refuge together in the very close moments, in love, in moments and special spaces of timeless being, where everything else is suspended.”

“I wrote the song after a long summer holiday where there was finally some peace, after a long and intense period.", She adds.

Sara Lew's upcoming album “LOUD” is all based around the development of life. It’s about when young people become adults and experience personal confrontations with the past, in which family stories of shame and taboo culture arise from the subconscious. It explores how to rein in anger and grief, to keep your head above water and be a role model for your own children when life all falls apart and how to protect love and togetherness when everyday life rolls on. Essentially, it’s an album about living in the present moment with love for life's stories, memories, moments of happiness but also life’s unforeseen, manifold trip wires.

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Bo Milli - Making Friends.

Bergen, Norway-based indie-rock rising star Bo Milli has returned with her new single "Making Friends" ahead of a busy schedule of festivals this summer. The new single follows a string of standalone tracks released across the past 12 months which has seen her tipped as one the next breakout musicians to come out of Norway.

Re-creating the chaos and indiscipline of nights out in Bergen, "Making Friends" tracks the expectations, contradictions and drama of nocturnal social interactions through a haze of tumultuous indie-rock.

Co-produced by Odd Martin (Sigrid, Sløtface) and Magnus Skylstad (AURORA), "Making Friends" opens with a rumbling bass line, with Bo Milli recalling precise moments of discourse amidst the cold Bergen night life: "I've been wondering when it will get under my skin / I bet you're waiting for it to kick in".

Speaking more on the inspiration behind "Making Friends", Bo Milli said: "The song is about a yearning to connect with people and have some sort of meaningful experience motivating a night out. It's about a shallow but euphoric feeling after a certain amount of drinks that every stranger in the room is my friend, all the while I've lost track of the friends I actually wanted to get to know better."

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Heavy Gus - Bo Milli

Photo - Lauren Jacobson

Heavy Gus - Weird Sad Symbol.

California-based trio Heavy Gus have announced their debut album Notions will release on August 5th through BMG Records. Led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Dorota Szuta, the band includes multi-instrumentalist Stelth Ulvang of The Lumineers and percussionist Ryan Dobrowski of Blind Pilot. The group also shared their new single “Weird Sad Symbol” along with the accompanying music video directed by maven Ben Fee. The video was shot in one take and shows Szuta singing through a montage of pesky hecklers as she revels in resilience and survival. Under the Radar premiered the video saying, “the track captures the trio’s propulsive energy with rollicking rhythms, infectious guitar parts, and impeccable melodic sensibilities一all of the foundations for great garage rock.”

“I wrote ‘Weird Sad Symbol’ as a joyous departure, while living in a damp garage in Santa Cruz, California,” Szuta told Under The Radar who debuted the video. “It's a song about living in chaos and just rolling with it. It's the second track off our debut album, Notions, which we're excited to announce will be released August 5th!”

Heavy Gus emerged last year with the psychedelic-tinged “Do We Have to Talk?”, a track about the intimacy in words unspoken and reaching out for the comfort of a physical connection. Earlier this year, they shared the long-distance-love-song “Dinner For Breakfast,” a droning, bittersweet, reverb-drenched reflection on longing and separation that ultimately finds a reason to hold on in even the darkest of moments.

The band took shape during the pandemic when songwriting couple Uvlang and Szuta (a marine scientist who also has a background in music playing with Laura Gibson and Gill Landry) took a socially distanced road trip to Nashville — picking up Dobrowski in Colorado along the way — to record at The Creative Workshop. The resulting collection of songs blur the lines between grungy garage band fare, hazy desert surf, and dreamy, sun-soaked indie rock. Their debut offering calls to mind everything from Meat Puppets and The Breeders to Yo La Tengo and Acetone in its artful balance of hope and fatalism, loneliness and desire, strength and vulnerability. And while all three bandmates came to Heavy Gus from very different worlds, they fit together like puzzle pieces here, bound by the kind of love and trust that can only grow from years of deep kinship. Notions was engineered and mixed by Parker Cason (Margo Price, All Them Witches, Coin) and mastered by Pete Lyman (Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile).

 
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Bo Milli - At The Wheel.

Bergen, Norway based artist Bo Milli shares the video for 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.

Commenting on the track's accompanying video, Bo Milli said: "The video reflects the everyday-feel of the lyrics, leaning into the literal: I sing I'm waiting for the bus having a cigarette, there I am at the bus-stop doing just that. We wanted to capture the theme of aimlessness. I’m waiting for a bus that never comes, sitting in the backseat of a car that never arrives anywhere, and who’s driving anyways?"

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Bo Milli - Betty Reed - Kate Klim - Sam Bambery - Sooner - Many Voices Speak

Bo Milli - At The Wheel.

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.

Bo Milli · At The Wheel

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Photo - Taylor Dill

Betty Reed - Let It Out (Acoustic Version).

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.

Betty Reed · Let It Out (Acoustic Version)

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Kate Klim - Lines.

“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 - Songs About Sailors.

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.

Sam Bambery · Songs About Sailors

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Sooner - Pretend.

"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 - Within Reach.

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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