Mookie and The Bab all-acoustic indie-folk new single 'The Tide' has just been released on Kycker. Fuelled by long drives across desert landscapes taking inCalifornia, Nevada, and Texas, Bradford’s own Mookie + The Bab are an all-acoustic indie-folk group whose acoustic guitar, mandolin, fiddle, layered vocals, and occasional trumpet capture the sound of the American Southwest – yet remainstrue to British working class roots.
Moved by climate emergency, Floods, fires, desertification, and exploring organic sounds with rousing harmonies, multi-instrumentalists Abi Otway, Marc Otway and Conor Magi’s Americana-Yorkshire folk blend is steeped in nature, emerging from their unique bond after many years making music together and travels playing festivals internationally and across the UK.
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Currently based between Switzerland and the US, the trio comprises Dru Allen and Cindy Coulter of This Ascension, and Erick r. Scheid of The Palace of Tears. Their sound incorporates influences from shoegaze pop, ethereal darkwave, and unadorned acoustic beauty, while also drawing inspiration from ambient and modern electronica. Through the iconic Projekt label, Mercury’s Antennae released their debut album, A Waking Ghost Inside (2014); followed by The Guides EP (2015); and sophomore album, Beneath the Serene (2016).Their debut for Sett Records was 2018’s The Moon Viewing Garden EP, followed by appearances at prestigious festivals Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, Germany; and Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival in Whitby, England. ‘The Reflecting Skin’ is the lead single from their long-waited third album, Among the Black Trees, forthcoming from Sett Records in Spring 2025.
With its driving chorus bass, serpentine swirl 12-string guitar, spacious ambient electronics and Dru Allen’s siren voice, the single release of ‘The Reflecting Skin’ is graced with a remix by the goth “all father” William Faith. His remix showcases a haunting, driving, hypnotic and atmospheric interpretation of the song: a sonic alchemy that seems to emanate from another time, another place. William says:
“Getting to remix ‘The Reflecting Skin’ was very much like going home for me. Having worked closely with Dru and my sister Cindy in This Ascension beginning some 32 years ago, this was very comfortable and familiar territory, though Erick’s sensibilities brought something new and different to work with, making for a dynamic and exciting creative endeavor. Overall, I feel like I managed to bridge the time gap with an interesting take on the song that is at once nostalgic and classic in feel, while updating the sonic depth and breadth in a way that suits the moment. It was a blast for me -- love it!”
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Juanita Stein warms up for her imminent solo headline tour with the release of an Orlando-Cubitt-directed video for ‘Old World’, taken from her critically acclaimed fourth solo album ‘The Weightless Hour’ (out now, Agricultural Audio). Following recent UK tours with Evan Dando and Travis, the Howling Bells frontwoman will embark on her own UK solo headline dates, which include a performance at London's Lower Third on 25th March.
Stein says of ‘Old World’: “This was a song that was written in one long breath, in a room, in a house, in a village in the South of France. After having taken a long walk through the woods, the light streaming through the pine trees, I found myself reflecting on what it means for me, to have ended up living and travelling in Europe, like so many of my family before me.
This song recalls the first time I travelled to Europe, which was with my family when I was 16. Having lived a life in Australia, a country in its infancy by comparison, I was confronted with a rich and bloodied history whose roots ran centuries underground. The generational trauma that came with learning about my own family history there, was a reckoning. We brought along my grandmother, who hadn’t returned to Czechoslovakia since she was 14, when she was forced to flee the Nazis. We visited the crumbling house she grew up in. I stood in the streets of many Jewish ghettos and burnt out synagogues that were forced to become churches. I visited Holocaust Memorial museums, I learned of the slow rise of right-wing fascism reawakening in a new Europe, all of this coupled with the acknowledgement that I had relocated to Europe myself to start a family and the conflict that causes within the body. I learned what it felt like to be the “other”, to be hated for the religion you were born into, and simultaneously, to also be hated for being perceived as a Westerner, as when someone yelled at me, “bloody American” when they looked down at my ripped jeans, or when me and my brothers were hauled into a police station in Prague for potentially spying when using our disposable cameras outside a cemetery. This was not Australia. This was The Old World.”
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