P.E. - Jenny Berkel - Pillow Queens - Greenness

Photo - Vince McClelland

P.E. - Contradiction of Wants.

P.E.'s sophomore album, The Leather Lemon (Wharf Cat Records, out March 25, 2022), ushers in a new era for the New York band. A wild ride through chewy bubblegum pop, sweeping synthetic orchestrations, and mutant club beats, the album slides ever closer to the fully-realized pop sensibility only winked at with their debut album Person (2020) and subsequent releases.

Digging into mystery, romance, and sex appeal with The Leather Lemon, the group — composed of members of Pill (Mexican Summer/Dull Tools) and Eaters (Dull Tools/Driftless) — centers its sound within a Bermuda Triangle of dance music, electronic composition, and experimental rock. Members Jonathan Schenke, Bob Jones, and Jonny Campolo play within pop parameters, building upon free-form collaboration to create a fluorescent groove machine that harnesses the energy of their frenetic live shows. 

Singer Veronica Torres explores her softer side, expanding her vocal repertoire from spoken word and jagged growls to cherubic and sensuous psalms. Sax virtuoso Benjamin Jaffe’s chiseled experimental tone is heard in an extended solo of true romance in “Tears in the Rain,” a somber surrealist duet penned by Torres and Andrew Savage, singer/guitarist of Parquet Courts.

Recorded primarily at Schenke’s Studio Windows in Brooklyn, NY, The Leather Lemon was cultivated from a fertile creative period between spring 2020 and summer 2021, which also yielded 2021’s acclaimed The Reason For My Love E.P.

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Jenny Berkel - Kaleidoscope.

The internet with its rabbit holes, slipperiness, and propensity for mis- and disinformation inspired me to write "Kaleidoscope." 

I wanted parts of this song to evoke the same tense, frantic feeling that the internet can sometimes give, paired with a chorus that lifts its way out of that mood. The accompanying "Kaleidoscope" music video was filmed at Halifax's indoor theatre for Shakespeare 

By The Sea. Director Meg Hubley (they/she) of Phyllis Rising Productions came up with the idea of setting it in a steadily shrinking room. The strange and surreal figure in the video is played by Mads Higgins (they/them), a circus performer, who moves around the room in a series of graceful and eerie poses.

The lyrics of "Kaleidoscope" evolved extensively as time went on. Given that this song considers the importance of care and precision in language, I felt even more attentive to the lyrics than usual.

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Pillow Queens - No Good Woman.

Dublin's Pillow Queens are getting set to release their sophomore album Leave The Light On, their first release on Royal Mountain Records (Wild Pink, Alvvays, US Girls), which is due out on April 1st, and today the band are sharing the album's final pre-release single, a track called "No Good Woman."

Preceded by the singles "Hearts & Minds" and "Be By Your Side", which have seen praise from outlets like The Guardian, NPR, Stereogum, Consequence, BrooklynVegan, Uproxx, DIY and Clash who described "Hearts & Minds" as "Pillow Queens at their most out-going," the single arrives at an exciting moment for the band who are about to make their debut on American shores. Their first shows will take place at SXSW (full details can be found below), before they trace their way across the continent, with their New York debut at Mercury Lounge recently selling out over a month in advance.

This song is one which is very narrative based, though not in a linear way. It’s written more from the perspective of someone looking upon the scenarios of those around them," explains singer Pam Connolly. "It tries to convey a perpetual hopelessness of debt and striving for an ideal that can never be achieved. It’s pretty much a song about Sisyphus."

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Photo: Justyna Neryng & Tobias Slater-Hunt

Greenness - Destroy/Enjoy.

Brighton-based Anglo-French duo Greenness, (Cécile Frangi and Graham Pratt), announce the release of their debut album Sunrooms on 20th May 2022 via Frangi’s label One Fern Records, and share first single ‘Destroy/Enjoy’.

‘Destroy/Enjoy’ is a playful indie-pop song celebrating Earth’s re-birth, inspired by a dream Frangi had about the apocalypse. As Frangi expands:  “Earth was rebooting itself on a giant computer screen. It was a strange, but joyous occasion, as if humanity was being given a second chance. There was something very ominous about it, this electricity in the air, but it was also exhilarating.”

‘Destroy/Enjoy’ accompanying video explores themes of escaping the 9-5 and enjoying life and nature whilst you can which is a theme that peppers their debut album. It’s an apt first taster for the album Sunrooms, a record in part a product of the environment in which it was created (in lockdown) and one inspired heavily by the duo’s lifelong love of nature. Greenness describes the title, Sunrooms, as:

 “A place that provides shelter from the elements while offering a clear view of surrounding landscapes, a space to reflect, breathe and feel, so that we can go back out with more strength to embrace the weather.”

Inspired by looking out at the world from their home studio in lockdown and the paradox of humanity in chaos whilst nature bloomed, the album also explores wanderlust versus the need to anchor oneself to a home, as French-born Cess Frangi explains: “Sunrooms (in part) follows our personal story travelling across France and the UK on a quest for a place to call home, trying to find the spark of everyday magic and hoping for human progress.”

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The Last Broadcast - Jenny Berkel - Anya Anastasia - Roni Bar Hadas - Pillow Queens - Single Girl, Married Girl

The Last Broadcast - Daisy.

Laying their foundations in Sheffield and Coventry, The Last Broadcast is a coming of age project made up of frontman Kyle McGurk and drummer Paolo Lombardo. TLB presented the pair with a vehicle to navigate and make sense of the confusing and complicated transitional period from youth to adulthood.

The project encompasses a range of emotions and life experiences. Melodic and fuzzy tracks bursting with sunny indie nostalgia and swoon pop are contrasted with deeply introspective lyrics that wrestle with the dark side of human condition. 90’s and 00’s influences are heard throughout the pair's arrangements, with nods to the likes of John Mayer and New Radicals as well as contemporaries such as Wolf Alice, Penelope Isles and Hatchie.

Debut single ‘Daisy’, produced by Ryan Pinson (The Assist, Riscas, Violet, SUGARTHIEF), features Birmingham vocalist and alt-pop band DAME’s frontwoman Shannon Farmer. The track's lush, piano arrangements and sunny melodies are contrasted with lyrics that wrestle with grief, trauma, love and validation.

“Daisy is a song about forgiveness, it is asking for forgiveness” says frontman McGurk. The track explores the aftermath of a traumatic event of a loved one that occurred at a young age. ’Daisy’ looks back to this period of time in hindsight, as the bystander to the individual. It navigates through the questions and emotions experienced from this situation, feelings of regret for not understanding the situation due to childish naivety, the need to have been there for them, and the acceptance of being wrong. Emphasising the lyrics “I’m sorry for naivety It’s our fault not yourself”, ‘Daisy’ strives for forgiveness but above all seeks for hope, happiness and closure.

The Last Broadcast · Daisy

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Jenny Berkel - You Think You're like the Rain.

“I wrote the album in a tiny apartment, at a time when everything felt big and overwhelming,” says poet and songwriter Jenny Berkel about her new album, These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving, out May 13 on Outside Music. She was living in a brownstone walk-up full of radiant light and the ever-present soundscape of a leaky bath faucet. It was a sudden move at the time—a spontaneous departure from touring, bustling city life, being many things to many people—that landed Jenny in a space of self-imposed stillness.

“The songs themselves are a study of proximity, bringing big fears into small spaces,” says Jenny, reflecting on the album. “They’re intimate examinations of a world that often overwhelms.” Each song is set in the micro-world of a keen feeling observer, trying to parse a mindful moment in a setting where it feels impossible to drop a truth anchor—a post-Trump, heavily gaslit world where perceptions of reality remain distorted. “Kaleidoscope,” the first single from the album, is a dissonant and poetic consideration of the importance of care and precision in language, both in the broader political landscape and in intimate emotional ways. From the heart-wrenching confusion of interpersonal manipulation, it extrapolates a collectively felt disorientation at the kaleidoscopic swirling of disinformation and misinformation. “Lavender City” is a more intimate look at lies. A breakup song with crescendoing strings, insistent percussion and hopeful harmonies, it’s about gaining the capacity to see clearly again – but with the painful entailment of anatomizing the lies that drew you in. Looking beneath them to see what’s inside.

Songs like “July” and “Just like a River” embody a similar dichotomy, but feel more like mellow meditations; they are recreations of moments where small, specific reveries gave way to more sprawling contemplation–but in an appreciably peaceful and illuminative way. “July started as a tiny chorus written for somebody I thought I could maybe love someday,” Jenny says with a smile, in a conversation about the seeds of the album’s singles. “It was a hot summer, one that reminded me of being a small child in the middle of July in southwestern Ontario. It’s a love song, but it’s also a nostalgic song that expresses how memory shifts and shapes you, and how the stories we tell become who we are.”

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Anya Anastasia - Losing Wild.

Adelaide singer-songwriter, Anya Anastasia, made her debut with her fusion of experimental folk and West-African inspired desert rock in the form of her single 'Losing Wild' on January 28. She is now letting her heart go wild with the stunning visuals in the accompanying music video.

Filmed, directed and edited by Aaron Austin-Glen, the clip is a surreal performance in the picturesque plains of Lake George in NSW, that has Anastasia reconnecting with the earth that she walks on. Taking years of experience in theatre and contemporary performances, Anastasia choreographed the piece with help from Elizabeth Cameron Dalman.

Like channelling a wild beast, her movements are with ferocity and untamed freedom. When artistically paired with the perspective from above with the help of the drone, we see her movements take a whole new shape in the form of her silhouette on the earth canvas.

Moving through wide-spanning shots of the ominous landscape to Anastasia's captivating performance, the music video innately feeds into the earthy arrangements and gravitating feeling of the track that questions the destructive path that society is on - laying waste to the natural world and our creative, playful minds.

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Roni Bar Hadas - Is It Love.

Roni Bar Hadas is a singer-songwriter based in Tel Aviv. After years of playing with various bands, she burst onto the scene with her debut album Calm the Beast last November, winning acclaim across the globe.

Roni Bar Hadas’ new piece “Fear,” explores themes of self-love and healing, blends pop, soul and alternative R&B music, and is produced by her partner Maor Alush.

Roni started her musical journey as a classical musician. Yet she felt the need to create her own original work and began to pursue the freedom and courage missing in her experience as a classical singer, in her writing. Over the last couple of years, Roni has been gaining listeners all over the world, touring with her band and playing in major festivals.

Roni Bar Hadas · Is It Love Mix3

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Pillow Queens - Hearts & Minds.

Last month Dublin's Pillow Queens announced their sophomore album Leave The Light On, their first release on Royal Mountain Records (Wild Pink, Alvvays, US Girls), which is due out on April 1st. The band have been quietly building momentum on their side of the Atlantic since the release of their 2017 debut EP Calm Girls, selling out shows in their native Ireland, supporting artists like IDLES, Pussy Riot and Future Islands, and earning enthusiastic support in the UK before they independently released their 2020 LP In Waiting. 

The album was a major breakthrough for the band, earning them praise from outlets like The Guardian, who called them "2020's most exciting indie rockers," NPR, NME, DIY, and The Line of Best Fit, a Band To Watch feature from Stereogum, an Irish Album of The Year nomination, and most remarkably of all a US national television appearance on the Late Late Show w/ James Corden.

Now the band are sharing the second single from the new record, a track called "Hearts & Minds" that singer/guitarist Pamela Connolly describes as capturing the reoccurrence of teenage insecurities occasioned by the band's rise to prominence and the imposter syndrome she experienced as a result.

"'Hearts & Minds' is about experiencing the feeling of being a teenager again," explains Connolly. "The insecurities about body image and ability when it comes to being a musician that’s seeing themselves recorded and pictured, as well as commented on. It deals with the idea of imposter syndrome when it comes to an industry that favours the male form and the insecurity of not being able to be effortless with your movements."

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Single Girl, Married Girl - Scared to Move.

L.A.-based pop/folk/Americana outfit Single, Girl, Married Girl writes simultaneously beautiful and devastating songs with poetic, perceptive lyrics that astutely capture what it means to be human. Steeped in a folk songwriting tradition that harkens back to Pete Seeger and Joan Baez mixed with modern songwriting elements in the style of Jenny Lewis and Brandi Carlile, the band fearlessly tackles issues ranging from loss and drug addiction to insecurity and depression. Since its release in November 2021, the album, Three Generations of Leaving, which chronicles the trials and traumas of three generations of women from the same family, has been praised by fans and critics alike, including No Depression, American Songwriter, The Bluegrass Situation, and more.

Jon Pareles of The New York Times highlighted “Scared To Move,” which features harpist Mary Lattimore, in The Playlist, stating, “With patient arpeggios and soothing bass notes, [Lattimore] builds a grandly meditative edifice behind Chelsey Coy, the songwriter and singer at the core of Single Girl, Married Girl… Coy’s multitracked harmonies promise, ‘In a strange new half-light, I will be your guide’ as Lattimore’s harp patterns construct a glimmering path forward.”

The band worked with the artist Ryan D. Anderson to create a striking visual accompaniment for the song. PopMatters exclusively premiered the video, and said “Anderson’s rich, ethereal coloring makes his atmospheres pop—his cinematic shots providing a fitting backdrop to this dreamy, meditative song.”

The collaboration came about after Coy discovered Anderson’s work and reached out to him via Instagram. “We felt his style and sensibilities were a perfect match for our song, which is on the lush and atmospheric side,” she says. “The piece he created is everything we hoped for: visually arresting, transportive, meditative, hypnotic. It’s gorgeous. The different scenarios depicted are both quirky and alluring, almost lonesome. We could not have envisioned a better backdrop to this heavy emotional journey and physical connection we’re attempting to convey in the song’s lyrics.”

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Amelie Tobien - Ben Sures - Flamango Bay - Pillow Queens - Mear

Amelie Tobien - Ocean Girl 

Untie the knot, set sail, run away - that's her plan. If it weren't for that hand that keeps pulling the rope back ... In her indie pop anthem ‘Ocean Girl’, gently kissed by melancholy, the modern Trobairitz Amelie Tobien sings about life jackets that are too tight and lifts anchors to the surface, entangled in seaweed. Ropes get cut like umbilical cords and the compass needle is poled to freedom, the longing for emancipation breaks through Amelie's lines like cold rays of sunshine between clouds. 

‘You can't come with me,’ she says, and yet she pulls us into a sensitive river full of interpersonal flotsam. A gentle ‘... this time’ adorns the horizon as a ray of hope without sinking into false promises. With ‘Ocean Girl’ Amelie Tobien presents a gentle ballad about letting go. 

The singer-songwriter Amelie Tobien, born and raised in the mountains of Salzburg, developed her artistic work in the wine regions of Bordeaux and perfected her inimitable voice after work in Dublin's whiskey-soaked bars. After her debut album ‘We Aimed for the Stars’, Amelie Tobien is now targeting the seven seas with her single ‘Ocean Girl’, which will be released on January 21st.

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Ben Sures - Cry Like A Flood.

is a storyteller. On his poignant, natural-sounding acoustic tenth album, The Story That Lived Here, the Edmonton-based songwriter, guitarist, and author sings stories told to him by friends and fans. Songs about library ladies, yard sales and dive bars, accidents and grieving; and – because we’re living through a pandemic still – at least one song about the end of the world.

Sures’ 25-year-deep catalogue is eclectic, spanning folk, country, jazz and rock’n’roll, and borrowing from blues, Sinti swing and West African guitar. But The Story That Lived Here, recorded mostly live in Victoria, BC, with old friends Richard Moody (viola, violin, mandolin and vocals) and Scott White (upright bass), and with Rebecca Campbell adding backup vocals and percussion remotely from Toronto, is a satisfyingly cohesive and tender North Americana-tinged album with a steady heartbeat. It’s the perfect accompaniment for Sures’ funny, honest, quirkily wise and wistful tunes.

“In case it’s the end of the world, I’m gonna have a cinnamon bun…” Sures quips to kick the record off, addressing a universal desire for comfort going hand in hand with a newfound vulnerability. In “Before We Had Sarah” a couple with grown kids try to romantically reconnect (though they live in the same house); while “Boring People” is perhaps the most sparse, evocative performance of Sures’ career to date. Nearly every song on The Story That Lived Here has a strong, tender, sing-along-able chorus, including “Cry Like A Flood,” which is Kat Goldman’s story of a music career interrupted; and “No One Will Remember You,” which conjures cover bar culture.

Two of the songs on The Story That Lived Here are inspired by Sures’ relationship with his father, ceramic artist Jack Sures, who passed away in 2018 and who the album is dedicated to (along with Mitch Pololak, Michael Laderoute, and Thérèse Duffy). “We put so much stock into people at the end of their life,” Sures says about the title track. “What was the last thing they said? The person is often on the wickedest cocktail of their life and they don’t know where they are. The meaningful time is the life.” In “Father’s Shoes” Sures paints a portrait of his relationship with his father and finds an apt metaphor for grieving that could apply equally as well to his music: “They’re a funny combination of neon green and blues,” he sings. The shoe fits.

Ben Sures · Cry Like A Flood

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Flamango Bay - LA.

Flamango Bay have today announced details of their debut EP 'The Fool', set to be released on 13th May via 0800-MOSHI-MOSHI. To celebrate, they share new single 'LA', which was written shortly before moving to the eponymous city.

"Because of life circumstances and the pandemic, we really romanticized moving to LA," say the band, who are originally from the Bay Area of San Francisco. "We put a lot of expectations on the city to fix our internal problems. However, when we actually moved there, we were still the same people with the same problems."

"Musically, the song is inspired by pop artists like Harry Styles, Lady Gaga and indie acts like Surf Curse, and probably anything off the Spotify Surf Rock Sunshine playlist."

Speaking about the 'LA' video, the band said: "we came up with a storyline loosely based around this drive from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, a journey we've been doing a lot recently."

"Ligaya Chinn (the protagonist) is moving to LA, and along the way gets a mysterious invitation to a party. Once she gets to LA, she meets up with us (Flamango Bay) and, after taking in some iconic Los Angeles sights, she goes to the party. At first it's fun, but when she goes to get water, she realises everything is not what it seems. The video ends with an ominous yet silly tone, representative of our feelings towards living in LA."

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Pillow Queens - Be By Your Side.

Dublin's Pillow Queens had been quietly building momentum on their side of the Atlantic since the release of their 2017 debut EP Calm Girls. Selling out shows in their native Ireland, supporting artists like IDLES, Pussy Riot and Future Islands, and earning enthusiastic support in the UK before they independently released their 2020 LP In Waiting. 

The album was a major breakthrough for the band, earning them praise from outlets like The Guardian, who called them "2020's most exciting indie rockers," NPR, NME, DIY, and The Line of Best Fit, a Band To Watch feature from Stereogum, an Irish Album of The Year nomination, and most remarkably of all a US national television appearance on the Late Late Show w/ James Corden.

The band are returning to announce their sophomore LP Leave The Light On, which is due out April 1st on Royal Mountain Records, and sharing the first single from the new album, a track called "Be By Your Side".

"This song is about the mechanisms that are used to hide your vulnerabilities and carry on," explains singer/bassist Pamela Connolly. "But also, the feeling of being about to burst and how cathartic it could be to allow yourself to let your emotions out and feel the world around you. This was one of the first songs we finished on the album as it was the quickest to become fully realized by all of us."

The album announcement coincides with the announcement of the band's first North American tour, which will include a stop at SXSW before the band return to the UK in May and their native Ireland in October. Full details can be found below.

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Photo - Jen Squires

Mear - The Order.

From Frances Grace Miller of Mear: In 2014, I lost the ability to do a lot of things I'd previously taken for granted. 

I wrote "The Order" during my early experiences living with a post-viral chronic illness, at a time when I was grieving the loss of my health.

I found I couldn't read for more than a few minutes a day and a short walk around the block could leave me bedridden. "The Order" was an attempt to voice some of the pain and loneliness of that; of not understanding what was happening to me. This single is from our upcoming full-length album, which will be released on April 22nd.

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness is often a long and painful journey full of misdiagnosis and gaslighting, "when nothing's right and nothing's wrong." The song's title is a reference to the loss of control that comes with no longer being able to count on your body.

Mear · The Order

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