Turkey The Bird - Golden Bear - Peter Cat - HMS Morris

Turkey The Bird were first featured here back in September and they return today with 'Art and Design' where their refreshing bright and stylish brand of indie pop impresses again. ===== Golden Bear have today released their new album 'Dear Texas'. The album mixes Texan country rock with Americana and both the musicianship and natural vocals ensure this is a great collection of songs. ===== Peter Cat has released the new album 'The Saccharine Underground' from which we have two tracks, namely 'SO STR8' and 'The Big House'. Musically the band cover considerable territory including post-punk, glam rock, baroque pop and synth-pop, so treat these two really fine songs as but a glimpse of the whole. ===== HMS Morris make their fourth appearance on Beehive Candy this year with today's single release 'Partypooper' and once again this versatile duo are on splendid and upbeat form.

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Turkey The Bird - Art and Design.

Turkey The Bird is New Zealand's answer to Simon & Garfunkel (if '&' was a musician too). Catchy folk songs with stunning rich melodies and effortless smooth lyrics. Songs that tell uplifting stories about love and life. You can hear them on their new single 'Art and Design'.

The bearded trio is spread around the globe, creating beautiful three part harmonies and toe tapping rhythms: Andre Manella from Switzerland is on guitar, bass and percussion. Adrian Whelan from Ireland is on guitar, bass and spoons, and Sol Bear Coulton, the token kiwi, on Banjo.

This tasty folk-pop-track called «Art and Design» blends a simple tapestry of lyrics with a very catchy melody, the message conveying  the concept of art and design to a shape and form. Looking through a camera lens while travelling through time, «there's a right way and a wrong way you can view a piece of art», the band says. The track reflects on the complexity and simplicity of art and design in the real world.

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Golden Bear - Dear Texas (Album).

Golden Bear is excited to announce the release of their new album, Dear Texas. As the title implies, the album is a love letter to the band’s home state. All of the songs were written and recorded during the quarantine, with band members contributing their parts from their homes.

Dear Texas takes listeners on a journey across Texas from the west Texas plains through the hill country, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The album’s songs convey a yearning to get on the road, remember past adventures, and to create new ones.

Chris Gregory on making Dear Texas: For years I thought there needed to be a song about Port Aransas, a city which so many Texans love. One day in March, I was sitting on the couch with my guitar, watching “Magnum PI”, and the riff came to me. I wrote the song in about 10 minutes. For fun, I recorded it and sent the song to my buddy Scott, who added some pedal steel and sent it back to me. I was blown away by his contribution, and decided we needed to do a whole album in this style, and inspired by this state.

Listeners (Texan or otherwise) are sure to enjoy the landscapes, characters, stories, and atmosphere found throughout Dear Texas.

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Peter Cat - SO STR8 / The Big House.

Recorded over a two-year period at Glasgow’s Green Door Studios, and mixed by production wunderkind Chris McCrory of Catholic Action, The Saccharine Underground showcases an audiophile's staunch commitment to the analogue form. All songs were recorded to tape, and no digital instrumentation whatsoever was used.

The album's title invokes the genre of baroque pop prevalent in the American pop music of late 1 960s and early 70s, otherwise described as ‘cowboy psychedelia’.

It sums up the contradiction that lies at the heart of the record, in which melodic and textural sweetness is yoked into the service of a wry, dry songwriting style,
narrating stories of awkwardness, failure and foolishness which are oddly life-affirming.

The Saccharine Underground is a sonically ambitious first album, tossing together post-punk, glam rock, baroque pop and synth-pop into a swirling forty-minute cabaret. Lead singer and songwriter Graham Neil Gillespie gives coherence to these diverse compositions with his arch, bass-baritone vocal style, reminiscent of Bowie and Bryan Ferry´s artier turns.

Peter Cat · The Big House

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HMS Morris - Partypooper.

Following the release of ‘Babanod’, ‘Poetry’ and ‘Myfyrwyr Rhyngwladol’ earlier in the year, HMS Morris are back with the fourth and final single in the series, ‘Partypooper’, will be released on November 6th.

Songwriter Heledd Watkins explains Partypooper’s origins thus: ‘It’s a response to the mental highs and lows of being a musician – or any kind of human person really. A great deal of us struggle with a little internal partypooper, a malignant imp who likes to wait until we’re at our happiest before screwing up her mean little face and blowing mightily on her shit-horn of doubt and regret, leaving our ears ringing and our confidence in tatters as she skips gleefully away. She’s not above putting the boot in when you’re down either; during the downtime in between gigs, or as you’re reading a crap review of a record you spent the last year perfecting, or when you see a hype band flying past at 100 miles an hour to New Music Friday-land or some equally alluring destination. We all have one. We all deal with them in different ways. Here’s hoping that mine has a fear of high-tempo Latin numbers with horns and distorted wailing.’

Partypooper features guest appearances from the superb Owain Gruffudd and Gwyn Owen from Band Pres Llareggub (Owain also arranged the brass). Iestyn Jones is on drums. It was recorded at St Peter’s and Fitzhamon Studio in Cardiff, and Stiwdio Sain in Llandwrog.

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HMS Morris - Rue Snider - Spunsugar

HMS Morris return here for a third time this year with today's single release 'Myfyrwyr Rhyngwladol'. It's a richly layered electronic song with gorgeous vocal reprises between a solid rhythmic soundtrack. === As this is Rue Snider's eight appearance on Beehive Candy, I thinks it's only fair to say we like his music and today's new release 'David Bowie's Clothes' helps explain our fascination with Rue's ever evolving and refined material. === Spunsugar are another band who are making their third appearance here this year with their new single 'Belladonna' where they give Shoegaze some pop sensibilities with striking results.
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HMS Morris - Myfyrwyr Rhyngwladol.

Following the release of two pre-covid singles ‘Babanod’ and ‘Poetry’, HMS Morris are back with the third in the series, ‘Myfyrwyr Rhyngwladol', which translates as ‘International Students’. The single is released today September 16th.

HMS Morris HQ is nestled on the edge of one of the most multicultural streets in Cardiff, City Road. It’s a noisy, colourful cosmopolitan crush of restaurants, shisha bars and barbers, which have recently been invaded by posh student accommodation projects. But while this may have been the initial impetus behind ‘Myfyrwyr Rhyngwladol’, by the time it had solidified into a definite sound and feel it was no longer a rant about fancy student halls.

Rather it had become an assertion that the world be a better place if we were all International Students. In the context of this summer’s global race-relations reckoning, there is a general moral imperative for us all to become students of the international: to watch the news as if it’s our own story, to actually take it in, to learn and adapt our behaviour. We should be prepared to immerse ourselves in other cultures, just like the international students of City Rd do.

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Rue Snider - David Bowie's Clothes.

David Bowie’s Clothes is the first single from Rue Snider’s fourth full length album Puzzle Pieces, releasing winter 2020/21. It’s a song about the beginning of healing. Rather than pine for a lost love the lyric reflects on the disappointment of being unable to share in another person’s joy. The touring David Bowie exhibit that ended its run at the Brooklyn Museum in 2018 was a powerful, overwhelming, transformative exhibition that serves not only as the impetus for this track but as a metaphor for obstacles to detachment.

“I’ve written a lot about being sad and I’ve used songs to catalogue many of my emotions through the characters I sing about. This song is about a real person and a real situation. When this relationship ended I started going to therapy after a period of deep depression and I was able to address a lot of my unhealthy behavior. It took a while to realize how much my actions contributed to the dissolution of that coupling and this song is one of the many attempts to write about that and take responsibility.”

Before the pandemic Rue toured America extensively playing bars and coffee shops in thirty-seven states, and built a loyal fan base one show at a time. Almost all of those shows were solo and performed on an acoustic guitar played through a Fender Blues Jr.

Rue’s first three records as well as his five EPs, and multiple singles are primarily full band affairs capturing different permutations of indie rock. The forthcoming Puzzle Pieces is a piano based album influenced by artists like Joni Mitchell, Father John Misty and Lana Del Rey. Puzzle Pieces was made in Nashville with Jon Estes engineering and producing. It was mixed by Phil Joly and mastered by Philip Shaw Bova.

Rue Snider · David Bowie's Clothes

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Spunsugar - Belladonna.

Spunsugar, a gothgaze trio from Malmo, Sweden, have just dropped this new single ‘Belladonna’. Following on from the release of their breakthrough debut EP ‘Mouth Full Of You’ last year, a collection that cemented them as one of the finest emerging shoegaze outfits of the moment as well as garnering support from Steve Lamacq at BBC 6Music, Swedish trio Spunsugar now return to announce their highly-anticipated debut album ‘Drive-Through Chapel’, out on the 2nd October via Adrian Recordings.

Two out of three members of the trio Spunsugar, Cordelia Moreau and Elin Ramstedt, befriended one another in a small town outsider clique at age thirteen. Their individual music tastes, Cordelia’s twee-pop, jangle and grunge and Elin’s metal, hardcore and post-rock blended into a mutual love for shoegaze, noise rock and dream pop. At age fifteen they started a four piece band, Elin on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and Cordelia on drums. They discovered that they thrived when writing music together. But even when the band split up, they continued to write songs.

Fast forward to post upper secondary school. After months of hardly speaking to each other, they both ended up in Malmö. After not writing music together for five years they recorded two lo-fi songs in Cordelia’s student apartment and it was as if no time had passed. They looked for a rehearsal space and within weeks they recorded a demo. But they wanted a real live bass player. Cordelia had recently bonded with a university classmate over guitars and they decided to send him a copy of the demo and asked if he would like to come play with them. Felix Sjöström became an intrinsic part of the project immediately. With his influence, their sound became more distinguished, all of them bringing different inspirations to the songs. Now they all have prominent roles within the band but they are also, fundamentally, friends.

Spunsugar are works at a faster paced than a lot of their shoegaze peers and accompanied by electronic drums. They are more often compared to Curve, Swervedriver or Ringo Deathstarr rather than the likes of Cocteau Twins or Slowdive. Although heavy on effects, nothing is hidden within the music, including the lyrics. The lyrics are heavy with pop cultural references, stemming from Cordelia’s love for obscure genre films. Often driven by riffs rather than soundscapes, they focus equally on having a prominent bass as well as prominent guitars.

Adrian Recordings · Spunsugar - Belladonna

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HMS Morris - oh!no?ok.

HMS Morris return with 'Poetry' a couple of months after their very fine song 'Babanod'. The new piece builds in intensity, the vocals increasingly immersed in lush electro music are nonetheless wonderful. === oh!no?ok. return for a third time in a matter of months with 'Wheel Of Fortune' where the Salt Lake City band are in cracking form with this high octane rocker.
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HMS Morris - Poetry.

Hot on the heels of the well-received Babanod, released in early February, HMS Morris are now pleased to present Poetry. It’s the second in a series of singles due for release in 2020, and will be available from April 1st on Bubblewrap Records.

The song reflects the sliding scale of madness that results from unreciprocated obsessive love. Beginning with some light-hearted hypothetical quasi-stalking, singer Heledd Watkins then moves through self-criticism, recrimination, and finally a full-on banshee-wail of desperation.

Structurally the music is indebted to Ravel’s Bolero, a repeating ostinato rising steadily from very quiet to very loud – although in Poetry, HMS cover twice the volume in half the time, in acknowledgement of the limited attention span of the snapchat generation. Poetry will be available digitally from all the usual platforms.

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oh!no?ok. - Wheel Of Fortune.

Salt Lake City, Utah might be best known as the world headquarters for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That may change as a fertile counter-cultural underground music scene is slowly seeping into nationwide consciousness with artists such Neon Trees, Imagine Dragons, The Moth & the Flame, Sego, and Desert Noises. Up next, something weird and tuneful is poised to be Salt Lake City’s nice prime musical export. Self-described slacker rockers oh!no?ok. stake their claim to the mantle with the fearlessly catchy debut, randy warhole (or somethin).

oh!no?ok. is comprised of high school friends Ryan Osborn, Cole Miller, Jackson Ludlow, and local guitarist Nick Storey. The band is a year old, and has been working closely with locally-renowned producer Nate Pyfer (The Moth & the Flame, Kaskade, Sego). Lead vocalist Ryan and Nate laid the groundwork for the band’s music, though each member brings his unique flair, making the process a cohesive collaboration.

They play the kind of music you’d hear blasting forth from a suburban garage in the height of the alt-rock boom of the 1990s but they update this scruffy aesthetic with sleek but-not-too-polished production and a dose of raw skate punk. Their songs feature cleverly abstract lyrics, bold musical dynamics, experimental textures, adventurous arrangements, and sharp pop-rock hooks. This melding of tuneful and arty conjures an array of classic and current alt-rock innovators such as Weezer, Pavement, The Presidents of the United States, Butthole Surfers, and Spoon, FIDLAR, Car Seat Headrest, and PUP.

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Fassine - Les Flâneurs (Feat Hanna Turi) - HMS Morris

Fassine make their fourth appearance on Beehive Candy with the brand new song 'Bloom' ahead of the third album 'Forge' due in March, the track mixing a powerful chorus with more melodic and beautiful vocals. === Les Flâneurs has released 'Your Days' which features the impressive and delightful vocals of Hanna Turi, plus the fabulously arranged musicianship of Alex Marchetti. === HMS Morris new single is 'Babanod' (meaning Babies) the Welsh language song is passionate and expansive, the music growing in depth, the hooks building throughout.
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Fassine - Bloom.

Fassine’s third album FORGE (March 27), and first on Trapped Animal Records & Cargo Records, is a tribute to the unassuming heroes on the fringes of society.

New single ‘Bloom’, out today, is a response to the obsession of perceived beauty in perfection. Addressing this disconnect, the band asks if something is more beautiful when it is broken.

'Bloom' flips violently between states, from the tranquil verse, where Sarah Palmer’s sweet, manicured vocal is backed by just a propulsive bass, to the apocalyptic chorus of crashing drums and ear-bleeding synths.

Forthcoming record 'FORGE' is bolder than ever, elevating the London trio’s distinctive take on electronic music with heavier, more aggressive instrumentation. Fassine has garnered acclaim from The Guardian, The Independent, Clash and more with comparisons spanning Trent Reznor to Berlin-era Bowie.

Since their last release, Fassine’s XTC cover of “That Wave” appeared on the Sky Arts documentary on the seminal band, This Is Pop. Their track “Whatever It Takes To Help You Sleep” played as the backdrop to Netflix’s first feature film “Velvet Buzzsaw”, and ”Leaves” was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s Queen Sugar.

‘FORGE’ literally means to ‘create something strong and enduring’. And with this album, Fassine have embodied the grit and grime of their personal heroes to weld into existence an industrial and hard-hitting piece of craftsmanship.

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Les Flâneurs - Your Days (feat. Hanna Turi)

"Your Days" follows the trip-pop of “Dark Souls”, released in December, that got attention and airplay worldwide. “Your Days” was born out of the spontaneous collaboration with swedish singer Hanna Turi, whose emotional lyrics and top class songwriting, along with the well-received album “Tracks in the Water” (2015), have led to several performances at South by South West (SXSW) in Austin and gigs at legendary places in New York and worldwide.

Alex Marchetti, the man and producer behind Les Flâneurs' project, remembers his first meeting with Hanna, during her Italian tour: “I met Hanna during a house concert in the place where I produce music, a medieval farmstead hidden in the countryside. When she arrived with her band she seemed to be worried, like thinking: 'where the hell am I? My agent will have to know!' She didn't know I was doing concerts in that place since several years.

The audience sat in silence, mesmerised, during the whole performance, totally taken by the music and Hanna's impressive voice. At the end of the night she told me it was the best show of her tour, because of the respectful and loving attention she got. Then she gave me the most wonderful present: she turned the simple melody I was composing into “Your Days”, a dreamlike naive pop song.

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HMS Morris - Babanod.

Following a tour of Japan, a Welsh Music Prize nomination and a gig-filled 2019 HMS Morris are back with their new single 'Babanod' meaning 'Babies', will be released on February 7th (Dydd Miwsig Cymru – Welsh Music Day) on Bubblewrap Records. 'Babano d' is the first in a series of singles slated for release in 2020, during which the band will also be developing a theatre show ready for performance in 2021.

The impetus for writing 'Babanod' was the awkward moment in your friend’s wedding when someone feels compelled to reassure you that “you’ll be next”. In that situation, surrounded by married couples and young children, how do you assert your right to a slightly alternative lifestyle, something other than just moving directly from graduation to marriage to parenthood, without sounding like a total dick? Better to smile, bottle it up, and release it in a song when you get home.

'Babanod' will be available digitally from all the usual platforms.

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