CLOVES - Paige Hill - Linebeck - Popincourt

CLOVES - Good Try.

Talented songwriter CLOVES returns with her subtle yet hard-hitting new track titled “Good Try.” The track comes complete with a visualiser that is the perfect companion for the song’s poignant lyrics.

Kaity Dunstan aka “CLOVES” born in Melbourne, Australia has to date generated over 300million-plus streams, attracted critical acclaim including Pigeons & Planes, i-D, Clash, NME, Vice & Consequence of Sound among many others, performed on U.S network show “Late night with Seth Myers”, toured the U.S opening for Grammy award winning artist Michael Kiwanuka,and her second album saw collaborations with Hudson Mohawke & Jake Portrait from Unknown Mortal Orchestra alongside multiple taste maker praise including her single “Nightmare” becoming BBC Radio 1’s “Hottest Record in the World ”the coveted spotalways seen as a high marker for quality artists.

For CLOVES, now is the time she feels most creatively free and mentally strong as  she steps out to release her first music  independently, marking the beginning of a new relationship with herself and her music, in the midst of the often discussed & debated major label system for artists these days, CLOVES knows this is the best way forward for her make the music she wants and to do it the way she needs to.

 

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Paige Hill - Good Woman (E.P).

Paige Hill is an independent singer and songwriter based in Dallas, Texas. She is an Austin native and "a bit west coast obsessed," living there for eight years prior to making Dallas her current location. Her music is about authentic connections to the best and most challenging parts of being a woman and a mother. Her recently released debut Americana five-song original EP, Good Woman, ranges from classic 70s country and soul to rock and blues.

Every track weaves a story of a real woman who wants to be "good." Her soulful melodies also hint at her Austin roots. "I feel a special draw to sing songs for women and mothers that portray real and complex women. I used to think I'd have it all figured out someday, but we're all just learning and figuring it out together. I feel like music connects us, and I want to share a common thread we may have with someone."

Good Woman was produced, engineered, and mixed by Guillermo Murillo and mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone of Sterling Sound. The EP was recorded at Acoustic Kitchen and The DuJour House in Dallas. The recording engineer was Nick Clem. Musicians on all tracks include Paige Hill (vocals), Guillermo Murillo (electric guitar), Robbie Saunders (pedal steel), Brandon Broussard (bass), Jay Brown (Wurlitzer, B3 organ, melodica), and Ethan Sedelmeier (drums.) "In the summer of 2022 I was asked to sing background vocals for a friend whose music career was taking off, then a duet.

My producer Guillermo heard I wrote the music; the rest is history. It took us less than five months to make my EP, Good Woman. I had just lost a pregnancy, and making this music was healing. I stumbled upon a group of musicians who encouraged me that my songs had stories and experiences worth sharing with others. Guillermo and I co-write a lot together now while our daughters play in the next room, and he played guitar on Good Woman and is on my next album. I love his ear for sound, his music knowledge, his mixes, and how we co-write and realize my songs into beautiful works of art that I am so proud of. Ethan is the drummer on all my projects, as well. I trust these two to help me realize my music and treat it with care so that my original message is conveyed even more powerfully than I originally wrote. And we have so much fun doing it all."

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Linebeck - Give Us A Try.

'Give Us A Try' is a gorgeous hook filled affair, with an uplifting melodic vibe hitting us right from the opening chords. The band tell us: Our new single is about being in love with your best friend and deciding to just go for it, even though you might get hurt. Heavily inspired by John Hughes' Pretty in Pink, as well as some "situationships" that our friends were caught in, "Give Us A Try" was written as a love letter from Duckie to Andie, and for anyone else who has ever been too afraid to risk it all.

Being in this in-between phase is an intense emotional roller-coaster. Honestly, I find the anticipation before a big jump to be one of the best parts of being human.

I knew soon after writing this song that if we ever released it, I would want to have a prom themed music video as a way to pay further homage to Pretty in Pink.

I personally think prom is so overrated. I went to two proms and it wasn't as fun as the movies always make it seem. We wanted to create a fun prom experience for all our friends. Many of the extras appreciated the opportunity to take their significant other to prom, and a few hadn't even had the chance to go to prom due to COVID. It was a very long shoot but so much fun.

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Popincourt - Love On the Barricades / The Worst Of Lullabies.

Popincourt's new album 'We were bound to meet' is due to be released on September 15th, 2023. We have to really fine tracks to share ahead of the release.

Love On the Barricades is a duo with Gabriela Giacoman, for a title inspired by both The Jam, Billy Bragg and the B'52s. The lyrics refer to the futility of angry political disputes when you are with well-meaning but essentially powerless people … especially while in complete safety around a good table (May as well enjoy yourself a bit while waiting for the revolution).

The Worst Of Lullabies is a syncopated and groovy rhythm reminiscent of certain 60's titles by Serge Gainsbourg with superb string arrangements evoking John Barry.

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Running Red Lights - And The Kids - Rina Mushonga - Money For Rope - Ivan & The Parazol - Popincourt

Still catching up on some bands and artists whose new tunes came our way a few days ago. Running Red Lights atmospheric and gentle song exudes emotion, And The Kids serve up a hook filled indie rocker with a message, whilst Rina Mushonga continues to consistently impress us with her distinctive and charismatic music. Melbourne's Money For Rope share some timeless psych rock with plenty of determined attitude, and Budapest's Ivan & The Parazol are rocking with style and class. Finally we have the first of four fine songs from Popincourt's new E.P, a refined and charming collection of material.

Running Red Lights - Calls of Prudence.

Nostalgia is an addictive comfort to snuggle up to when the present day seems intolerably bleak.

“Calls of Prudence” is a moodier, more sorrowful track in comparison to our previous, most recent releases. It was penned during a moment where I felt myself longing for the vibrancy of youth, the thrill of experiencing things for the first time. 

One day, I was feeling particularly nostalgic and found myself reflecting on the days when I was young and could get blissfully drunk without having anyone or anything to answer to, without regard for the time that I was wasting. I curled up on my sofa with my notebook, my grief and my imagination, and I did what made sense – I began to write.

I hope you can find some solace in “Calls of Prudence.” - Scarlett of Running Red Lights.


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And The Kids - No Way Sit Back.

And The Kids have shared a new song from their upcoming album When This Life Is Over out February 22 on Signature Sounds (Lake Street Dive, Josh Ritter, Dustbowl Revival). “No Way Sit Back” is a rollicking indie rock attack of the media and the toll it takes on minorities. While it's written from the queer perspective, the message isn't limited to one viewpoint. The joyful melody clashes against a stabbing line, "The world was never made for, Made for us." When This Life Is Over is the beloved Northampton group's third full-length and the most dynamic declaration of their distinctly rambunctious sound to date.

Since their earliest days as a band, And The Kids have embodied the wayward freedom that inspired their name. “When Rebecca and I were teenagers we just lived on the streets and played music, and people in town would always call us kids—not as in children, but as in punks,” says Mohan. On their third full-length When This Life Is Over, the Northampton, Massachusetts-based band embrace that untamable spirit more fully than ever before, dreaming up their most sublimely defiant album yet.


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Rina Mushonga - For A Fool.

Rina Mushonga released a new single For A Fool on January 16th through [PIAS] Recordings. The Dutch-Zimbabwean pop innovator unveils the latest track from her imminent second album In A Galaxy on February 15th. Listen to For A Fool here

Having played a handful of low-key London shows towards the end of 2018, Mushonga makes her first UK live foray of 2019 when she plays London’s Shacklewell Arms on March 19th. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday 16th January and are available to purchase here.

The track unraveling into shape at the end of the album sessions having existed in various guises over the years. Explaining the origins of the track, she says; “this is an old love song or rather heart-ache song. Old, in the sense that it was plucked into existence over a period of time- in parts fictional in others less so.” Mushonga adds further; “in a way it chronicles a betrayed lover tormented by the desire to trust again whilst acknowledging that everything has been tainted and can’t go back to how they were.”

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Money For Rope - Actually.

Melbourne psych-rockers Money For Rope will release new album ‘Picture Us’ on March 8, 2019, following international tours which have previously taken in shows across Primavera Sound, Glastonbury & SXSW, alongside support slots for Courtney Barnett (also an early champion of the band). Details of a 2019 UK headline tour from Money For Rope in support of the new album are soon to be announced. The band are trailing the album announcement with lead single, ‘Actually’.

Spawned from the same fertile Melbourne music scene which has fostered not only Barnett but also other friends including King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, The Goon Sax and Rolling Coastal Blackouts Fever, Money For Rope are releasing ‘Picture Us’ off the back of a dogged touring habit which has kept them on the road near constantly for the last four years. Entirely self-produced, mixed & mastered by the five piece - comprised of Jules McKenzie (guitars, vocals), Rick Parnaby (keyboards), Erik Scerba (drums), Chris Loftis (drums), Ted Dempsey (bass) - ‘Picture Us’ was recorded over the course of a single summer in Victoria, Australia on the coastline of the Southern Ocean.

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Ivan & The Parazol - Changin.

Following the release of the laid-back, West-Coast-influenced ‘Nr. 1003’, ‘Changin’’ showcases another dimension of Ivan & The Parazol’s creative prowess. Energetic from the start, the second single in the lead up to the band’s third full-length uses the saturated sing of distorted guitars and grooving basslines as an invigorating platform for frontman Iván Vitáris to deliver vocals bursting with character and colour. Rhythm-led verses let loose into a youthful, melodic chorus which is deserving of a place as the soaring opening of a coming-of-age indie film.

Ivan & The Parazol, a four-piece Budapestian band carrying the spirit of 70s glam-rock and incorporation of modern psych-rock instrumentation, making for an amalgam reminiscent of a Brian May-Kevin Parker compound, with their flamboyant guitar solos and overdriven octave-pedals on guitars. The upcoming album ‘Exotic Post-Traumatic’ was produced and recorded by Grammy Award-winning Wil Anspach (Muse, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Justin Timberlake, Frank Ocean) at the renowned EastWest studios in LA; hallowed grounds where Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Foo Fighters are just a few of the notable names to have recorded their material there.


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Popincourt - Blue Winter.

Following an album "A New Dimension To Modern Love" (2016) and a couple of singles (including one for a Jam Tribute), Popincourt is back with a new 4-track EP - featuring Susanne Shields on backing vocals and Olivier Bostvironnois on electronic arrangements. The EP contains four ballads, one for each season, exploring new sounds in the studio and mixing acoustic guitars, vintage keyboards and loungy electro vibes.

The ideal soundtrack for a picnic alongside of the Thames, the pure pop of Popincourt, an Illegitimate child of Paul Weller and Roddy Frame, makes it seem like you are traveling. His new EP looks like a postcard written during a blue winter. In the spring, we wander in the alleys of Hyde Park, serenaded by the clean guitars of "Green Spring". Then begins the red summer, conducive to romances that are come and go on a Brazilian beach. The final scene is a landscape of William Turner lit up by the fantasy colors of autumn. Crossing the Channel to the sound of this '4 colours 4 seasons', is the guarantee of a "voyage that will last a whole year", to paraphrase another lover of the London sound.» Pierre Mikaïloff.

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Double Delights: Cerise - Popincourt

Cerise - St. Nick.

Background promo - LA by way of Chicago songstress Cerise is set to release her debut album 'Smoke Screen Dreams,' on June 24. 

Although music has been integral to Cerise's life since as far back as she can remember, it was her teenage days spent listening to such dark and romantic luminaries as The Cure, Bauhaus and Siouxsie And The Banshees that had the most dramatic effect. "That was the first time music really spoke to me," she remembers. "The darkness and beauty of those bands seduced me into this other world and having a big interest in music. But it always seemed like it was the hardest thing in the world to actually do. To me, being a musician in a band seemed like being a ballerina- like you had to be trained for it from the age of six to become this amazing artist."

With Cerise's interests in modelling and photography initially taking a front seat, any thoughts of being a musician were put on the back burner until she met Peter Gabriel protégé Joseph Arthur in 2003. The Ohioan singer-songwriter taught Cerise the key idea that anyone could be a musician, and there's never a better time to be a musician than right now. "He's happy to try anything and write a song with anyone if the inspiration is there. So I would hang out with him a lot and just help with some vocals or whatever else he needed at the time. That got me interested in how music is created. Before that, it was a process that was hidden from me." It was a laissezfaire attitude to creativity that Cerise put into practise herself when she decided to buy a guitar as a present for herself. Within three weeks, she was writing her own songs under the continued encouragement and mentorship of Arthur. It was then that Cerise began to realise that even if you do put your favourite artists on a pedestal, trying to clamber up to that level yourself is the most challenging and exciting journey that anyone can ever undertake.

Some of the songs on Cerise's upcoming album have been crafted over a period of several years but her decision to work long and hard before unveiling her music publicly is already paying off. Helped by the mixing talents of Matt Boynton (Bat For Lashes/MGMT), layers of sound and texture gives her music a cryptic, dreamlike allure while Cerise's voice also helps enhance the ethereal feel by managing to inhabit a starkly beautiful place somewhere between Nico and Hope Sandoval. That otherworldly feel is something that Cerise is determined to bring to her live performance too. "I'm trying to create an atmosphere when I'm on stage," she concludes. "I like it when a live show has a feeling that envelops you and takes you to another place entirely. That's the thing I loved about the bands I heard growing up- the way they could transport you without you even realising."

The song 'St. Nick' is one of two songs I have heard from the forthcoming nine track album, and both bode well for the release. With the featured song there is a darker brooding feel within the music that makes for an excellent backdrop to Cerise's vocals. My impression across the two songs is that of dream pop with some deeper vibes, all good so far.

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Popincourt - I Found Out.

Background promo - Some try all their lives to record the new “Village Green” (The Kinks) or the new “Never mind the bollocks”‘ (The Sex Pistols). Popincourt would prefer a follow up to “Café bleu” (The Style Council). The project might seem less ambitious but it is certainly more original, probably more realistic and no less genuine for someone who has always been influenced by Paul Weller. A man not only attached to the heritage of Small Faces, The Herd, and The Jam, but one who also lives in the 21st century – without dismissing the 80s, or at least what remains worth listening in 2016, such as The Style Council therefore, Elvis Costello, XTC or Aztec Camera (the aerial guitars of ‘The Risk of losing you’ or ‘I found out’); the 90s and the touch of British jazz that the trumpets bring to ‘A new dimension to modern love’, acid jazz maybe, he would rather call it ‘Blue eyed soul’; the 2000s and a Burgalat production, full of vintage keyboards (wurlitzer, philicorda…) and sophisticated cords like on ‘The First flower of spring’.

Popincourt was created over several years. From the first bands in Rouen, Nantes, Bordeaux and Paris, before a formative exile to London, where he founded ‘les Hommes Responsables’ with Phil King, ex bass player of Lush and Jesus & Mary Chain, followed a return to France where he will collaborate with Perio and play the organ in concert with French Boutik. During all these years, the man himself had time to appreciate what makes a difference: an entire devotion to the verse/chorus/transition above and beyond technical virtuosity; the overall importance of melodies; the groove in the service of the songs, not the other way round. The repertoire is built over a decade. An unreleased EP to taste the water in 2013, before moving to the next level. A small team is formed with people met at concerts. Hervé Bouétard, the drummer of Bertrand Burgalat, is behind the drums . Ken Stringfellow on the bass following his time with the Posies, Big Star and R.E.M. Gabriela Giacoman, the singer of French Boutik, is doing the backing vocals. Sébastien Souchois, the composer of the soundtracks for ‘Candidat’ and ‘Mes amis, mes amours’, arranged the brass and supervises the production. Finally it is at the studios of Nicolas Dufournet, ex-business partner of Michel Gondry and Etienne Charry at the heart of Oui Oui, that the Popincourt’s album is recorded.

To sing about love stories is not always easy, but here is someone who has lived more than 25 years without succumbing to the model that so often makes French rock ridiculous. In fact he sings in English claiming “It is easier and more natural in terms of what I listen to”. A French album for the British maybe, but certainly not a revival album!

The above comment in the final paragraph "A French album for the British maybe" brought an instant smile to my face. OK so we Brits and our neighbours have a little bit of history, but why not? The song 'I Found Out' certainly has the influences of some fine British bands, and stands on it's own right, as one very catchy melodic pop/rock song. I shall return the complement and play some fine Françoise Hardy or possibly even Serge Gainsbourg songs later today...

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