Lilith Ai - Cameron DuBois - Vakili Band - Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin

Lilith Ai - IRL.

Mixing elements of bedroom pop and indie rock, Lilith Ai’s sound combines authentic lo-fi soundscapes and introspective lyrics. The artist is back with a stunning new offering ‘IRL’. Opening with a gentle guitar line and wistful vocals, the track eventually builds to an emotive climax with candid lyrics and vigorous chords. ‘IRL’ is a soft indie gem that hits you with feelings of nostalgia and melancholia.

“If you hold up a mirror to your life and realize how fucked things are, how you/me/we did this shit but at the same time we are products of this environment doing and trying our best. So in all the guilt we need empathy. this is it, we can’t restart the game, or reboot cos it's IRL. This is it.” Lilith Ai shares.

‘IRL’ follows on from two singles Lilith Ai released this year, ‘Black Cherry’ and ‘Bloodlines’ have gained huge support from acclaimed music publications such as Wonderland Magazine and Link Up TV.

Lilith Ai is a guitarist and singer-songwriter, who writes and performs poignant tales of modern life. Hailing from nowhere special, Lilith began releasing lo-fi bedroom recordings in 2016. Her first EP ‘Riot’ is full of underground anthems popular with Riot grrrls worldwide. Having honed her craft over the years, Lilith Ai has proved she is an artist only going from strength to strength.

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Photo - Alex Berger

Cameron DuBois - The Light.

Country and soul singer-songwriter Cameron DuBois’ unique artistry is solidified on a new single project called “The Light,” which the Alabamian songstress composed in two separate arrangements. On Friday, November 26 she’ll release the original up-tempo guitar version of the song across all digital platforms (linktr.ee/CameronDuBois), and teasing today with a new lyric video released on her YouTube. The new song came from some recording sessions DuBois had with hit-making producer Bill McDermott (Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, George Strait) at OmniSound Studios in Nashville.

The ambitious song project also demonstrates Cameron’s ability to reimagine her music in varying styles. On Friday, December 8 she’ll release a more orchestrally inspired arrangement of “The Light,” along with a beautiful video filmed at the historic Montgomery Performing Arts Center, in the singer-songwriter’s hometown. Cameron and her piano are eventually joined by a two piece string section of Cello and Violin, for an equally uplifting orchestral presentation of the song, and highlights Cameron’s proven ability to pull her audience in with her dynamic vocals.

“I wrote this song with Rick Hansen and Bill Hinds, and I think it has a very powerful message for anyone who is in the process of losing, or who has ever lost someone close to them,” said DuBois. “We tried to capture this emotion musically, in multiple versions, to show different types of emotions we experience when losing someone close to us.”

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Photo - Jacob Blickenstaff

Vakili Band - Dreamy Dreamer.

Fronted by powerhouse vocalist/songwriter/guitarist Lily Vakili, Vakili Band has unveiled the video for their newest single, “Dreamy Dreamer.” The video comes with the announcement of their sophomore album, Walking Sideways, scheduled for release on February 25, 2022.

Born in Honduras before living in the US, Bangkok, and Puerto Rico, Vakili worked in theatre and went on to carve out a successful career as a biotech lawyer while continuing to nurture all manner of dreams, including making music. Influenced by artists such as Patti Smith, Prince, Iggy Pop, and Rage Against the Machine, Vakili Band is unafraid to explore the sonic possibilities of Peace, Love, and Justice, as evidenced on the song of the same name on the band’s first album, Oh Alright.

“Dreamy Dreamer” was originally written in response to powerful social justice issues such as the Dreamers, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter. However, it evolved as Vakili watched her mother struggle with, and eventually pass away from, Alzheimer’s Disease. The new song, recorded and produced by David Amlen at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, NJ, and mastered by Grammy-award winning sound engineer Greg Calbi of Sterling Sound, is both a battle cry and a hymn for every individual who dreams of a better world.

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Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - Pinnipedia Pounce.

Enjoy the kaleidoscope of magical beauty of the landscape of art created by Steven Cerio and move like a porpoise down at the local bog with Petunia and friends at a curious party that is sure to dazzle and delight.

 A notable artist, filmmaker, and author, Steven Cerio created his own loving and sarcastic expressions of joy for over three decades. His unique style helped set the stage for the neo-psychedelic revival in New York City. Started in 80's zines and soon after called upon by galleries and diverse clients including Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Warner Brothers, Fantagraphics books, Entertainment Weekly and Penguin books. He created art for music acts The Residents, Monster Magnet, Les Claypool, Renaldo and the Loaf, Moe, Widespread Panic, Negativland, and more.

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin is an escaped ghost from an old coloring book that was left out in the rain at some point in the 20th Century. Pinnipedia Pounce is the 13th video taken from her second album (I Left My Heart in Uncanny Valley). She also recently curated a remix album entitled All My Friends Live In Uncanny Valley, featuring the likes of Renaldo & The Loaf and Toxic Chicken gleefully rearranging her songs into strange new forms.

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Alice Hubble - Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - Dude Safari - Royal Wood

Alice Hubble - My Dear Friend.

Alice Hubble has announced her new album Hexentanzplatz will be released on September 10th, 2021 via London-based electronic-pop label Happy Robots. Described as the work of ‘one lady at home with her enormous collection of synthesisers’, Alice Hubble mixes melancholic pop, layered vintage synths and elegant vocals, reminiscent of Ladytron, Jane Weaver and Goldfrapp. Her debut album Polarlichter was released in September 2019 to much critical acclaim.

Lead single ‘My Dear Friend’ was inspired by the discovery of a collection of love letters written by Hubble’s mother to her father around the time that they first met. “My mother passed away when I was in my teens and these letters gave me a real insight into who she was as a person, her ‘newly in love’ giddiness jumping off the page,” she says.

Her new album Hexentanzplatz, named after the German mountain steeped in magic and legend, translates literally to mean Witches’ Dance Floor. An apt title for an album that dances its way through themes of illusion, love, feminism and protest whilst maintaining glistening, 80’s synth-pop sensibilities. Whilst Hubble was driving around the Harz Mountains last summer, the song ‘Beautiful Madness’ by Michael Patrick Kelly was on regular radio rotation. She repeatedly misheard the lyrics, thinking Kelly was singing “Oh what a beautiful mountain”, a sentiment which had much more resonance given their surroundings. The misheard line made Hubble smile and became the basis of her new record’s title track. “Being an eternal optimist I felt the need to write something in 2020 that was full of hope and positivity,” she says.

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Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - Waltzing With Charley.

Take a wistful railway journey with Petunia as she tells you about a man who used to be, and come waltzing down the dusty tracks of the forgotten American dream.

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin is an escaped ghost from an old coloring book that was left out in the rain at some point in the 20th Century. Waltzing With Charley is the 11th video taken from her second album (I Left My Heart in Uncanny Valley).

She also recently curated a remix album entitled All My Friends Live In Uncanny Valley, featuring the likes of Renaldo & The Loaf and Toxic Chicken gleefully rearranging her songs into strange new forms.

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Dude Safari - Maybe It's A UFO.

As the dust settles on the recent single ‘Big Worse’, Dude Safari have shared another self confessed Grunge-Pop number in the form of new track ‘Maybe It’s A UFO’.

Previous single ‘Big Worse’ featured heavily on BBC Introducing, Amazing Radio & Total Rock shows, and made it onto Spotify & Deezer Editorial playlists. All with no management, label or paid PR.

‘Maybe It’s A UFO’ is made up of the very fibres of what Dude Safari wanted to extrude. Big & heavy powerhouse instrumentals with a poppy vein running straight down the centre. Reigning in on the influences, Weezer inspired bubblegum vocals with a heavy grunge backbone that channels the likes of Dinosaur Pile-Up & Nirvana.

Due for release on July 2nd 2021, ‘Maybe It’s A UFO’ is Dude Safari’s fourth single. It follows their debut ‘Bug Hunter’, ‘Lead Balloon’ & more recently ‘Big Worse’ which came out last month. For a band that started in the embers of 2020, a single a month in 2021 is the kind of routine firepower the band plan to extend for the coming months...and beyond.

Recorded & written from each member’s abode, Dude Safari ran a tight ship & even future proofed the way the band recorded...even after Covid. The drum tracks for all singles were recorded remotely in Audio Beach Studios in Brighton & the tracks were Mixed & Mastered by Jake Day at North Acre Studio in Cambridgeshire.

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Royal Wood - Say You Will.

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Royal Wood has established himself as a true musical talent. Since being proclaimed Songwriter of the Year by iTunes, Royal Wood has continued to evolve and hone his musical craft – maintaining an unmistakable identity while uncovering and reinventing his sound.

Royal Wood has three albums that have debuted in the Top 30, multiple JUNO nominations, multiple Canadian Folk Music Award nominations and a #1 added song at Hot AC Radio. His songs have been heard on high profile sync placements like Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. He has headlined all over the world including iconic venues like Massey Hall in Toronto and has performed his music with major symphonies and opened national tours for legendary artists like Bonnie Raitt and David Gray.

Now with this new single “Say You Will,” Royal Wood once again goes at the heart of the matter with love front and centre.

I’ve always been drawn to writing and singing love songs. And honestly I’m not embarrassed to admit it either. Love songs make the world go round.

“Say You Will” is about choosing to invest in the relationships that mean the most to you and hoping the love you give comes back in equal measure. Sometimes cynicism abounds, and right now we are either sheltered at home with those closest to us or, like many, we are far removed from the ones we hold dear and miss them like crazy. As a result I felt like we needed to celebrate and remember the most important reason we live now more than ever – to love and to be loved. That’s really what inspired the song.

Royal Wood · Say You Will

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Another Sky - Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - Charlie Nieland - Whizz Bomb

Another Sky return for a third time this year with another gorgeous song entitled 'Sun Seeker'. The band have garnered plenty of attention and the latest song demonstrates why, it's beauty lies in the subtle and intricately arranged musical backdrop that grows with intensity and the fabulous vocals that add breathtaking emotion. ===== Is there a finer artists name than Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin possibly, but that's not really the point when you take the delicious song and video for 'The Marionettes' into account. It's the ninth video from her second album so lovers of creative and "out there" music have plenty of catching up to do, well I have anyway!  ===== Charlie Nieland has appeared on Beehive Candy a few times as one half of Lusterlit and it's a real pleasure to share the title track for his forthcoming album 'Divisions' which is one hundred percent impressive. ===== Whizz Bomb (Paul Wishart) has released 'All I Want Is You'. From the outset his vocals are just so rich and wonderful as they add intensity and genuine feeling to the song, the musical arrangement adds even more, this is one rather special song.

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Another Sky - Sun Seeker.

On the first day of 2021, Another Sky will release their latest body of work, an EP entitled Music For Winter Vol. I. Today, the band released the second single “Sun Seeker.” “Lyrically, ‘Sun Seeker’ is about being the only one who can say who you are,” vocalist and lyricist Catrin Vincent says. “It’s also about letting things self-destruct and then rebuilding. Someone once said they’d tell me when to quit music. This is me saying, I say who I am and I say when I’m done.”

Having confidently stepped into the spotlight with their performance of ”Chillers” on ‘Later… with Jools Holland,' Another Sky has earned praise from Paste, Under the Radar, The FADER, and NPR Music, who invited them in for a Tiny Desk Concert earlier this year. Front woman Catrin wryly credits some of their early success to the fact her distinctive, haunting vocals are frequently mistaken for those of a male singer. “People say I sound like a man - maybe that means they’ll listen.”

On how Music For Winter Vol. I came together, Vincent explains, "some songs are old, some are new, all are entirely collaborative. After being kept apart because of the lockdown and writing a bunch of our second album separately, we just wanted to get back into our studio and record." The entire EP was recorded, produced and mixed by the band themselves at their South London studio, The Lighthouse, in October 2020.

"Where do we find our portable paradises?" - Catrin found herself staring at this very poem by Roger Robinson on the London Underground in March 2020.

For the first time in six years, the band couldn't see each other, and the band's bassist Naomi was able to sit still long enough to confront her intense fear of going to hell for being in a same-sex relationship, due to a Christian upbringing.

Catrin explains, "After lockdown eased, myself and Naomi revisited the opening track ‘Pieces,’ an old track originally sung by Naomi. We wrote lyrics together from an imagined conversation with a loved one telling Naomi she was going to hell."

Naomi’s journey became the lyrical foundation for each of these six songs as Catrin drew universal comparisons with others' lives; "a struggle with identity, walking past churches you are no longer part of and the person you become when you are in pain. If there is no end in sight of struggle, where are our white sands, green hills and fresh fish? If we can't ever truly escape, which is what we were exploring in our debut album I Slept On The Floor, can we carry paradise in ourselves?"

Naomi adds about her experience, "It’s so easy to push things to the back of your mind. You never really know the impact this has on you until it becomes overbearing, and you're forced to address it. I found it incredibly cathartic to tackle these issues head-on by visualising certain situations and being able to say whatever I needed to say, both in therapy and in writing music.”

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Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin - The Marionettes.

It’s a curio to see… It’s a curio indeed! Join Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin as she tells a special holiday tail about her encounters with the magical marionettes. Follow them through their adventures, trials and tribulations. 

With childlike wonder catch a glance behind the curtain of the grandscale show that we all belong to.

Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin is an escaped ghost from an old coloring book that was left out in the rain at some point in the 20th Century. The Marionettes is the ninth video taken from her second album (I Left My Heart in Uncanny Valley). 

She also recently curated a remix album entitled All My Friends Live In Uncanny Valley, featuring the likes of Renaldo & The Loaf and Toxic Chicken gleefully rearranging her songs into strange new forms.

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Charlie Nieland - Divisions.

My heart is full and I made a solo album, Divisions. It will be out early in the new year. The title song was Inspired by The Hidden Life Of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and Charlie is joined on the song as follows.

Charlie Nieland: Lap Steel, Electric Guitars,  Electric Piano, Korg MS20 Synth, Piano, Virtual Mellotron,  Synths, Percussion, Vocals, Brian Geltner: Drums

Musician/producer Charlie Nieland creates a variety of cinematic music. Engaging the boundless creativity within his musical community, including the duo Lusterlit and the Bushwick Book Club, he reaches for an ever widening range of songcraft and textured sound. less

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Whizz Bomb - All I Want Is You.

Growing up in rural Kent, also known as the Garden of England, Paul Wishart (aka Whizz Bomb) learnt classical piano and church organ. In this traditional English environment that viewed any music more modern than Beethoven with extreme distrust, Paul started writing his own music on the piano and organ to amuse himself, and offend others.

At the age of 13, Paul managed to persuade his parents to buy him a Roland SH101 analogue synthesizer as a reward for passing exams, thus starting a love affair with strange noises, nobs, sliders, sequencers, and generally avoiding school studies.

Originally influenced by the early electronic music of Wendy Carlos, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Vangelis, Paul embraced 80’s synth pop when his contemporaries were listening to prog rock, then 90’s shoegaze guitar bands when his friends were twisting their melons.

The dance / rock cross-over acts of the 90’s such as Jesus Jones started to bring an interest in darker and louder electronic music, with Depeche Mode’s move to introducing guitars with synths and Nine Inch Nails ability to use synths and samplers to create alternative music that jumped from loud and discordant noise to quiet and often melodic piano music or even dance-influenced beats, led Paul to believe that much more was achievable with electronic music now. These predominately electronic music influences, though of considerably variation, have influenced Paul and his vision for Whizz Bomb. Paul’s lower-range and slightly raspy voice is a “character” voice for rock music that is “lived in”, and has been favourably compared to those of the late Lou Reed and Nick Cave.

A plan emerged, and all that was required were the financial resources to build a rig that could actually allow reasonable multi-instrument performance,       sequencing, and recording. Paul has had to endure years working, with only brief interludes entertaining friends and family on the piano, to put together all his musical equipment and now release material to an unsuspecting public. His first single, an electronica cover of U2’s All I Want is You, is now released on iTunes and other major online stores and streaming services. There are numerous other works in the pipeline, and will be ready for release from early 2021 onwards. In December 2020 All I Want is You introduces Paul, and his characterful voice to the world.

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