East London based five-piece Roscoe Roscoe have released a dreamy new single “Secret Underwater Love,” out now on Slow Dance Records / Missing Piece Records. The track comes off the back of the success from the band’s first two singles, the “ferociously alive” (NME) “Brain Retrieve,” and the “brilliantly psychedelic summer romp,” (Under The Radar) “Jacob’s Ladder.”
“‘Secret Underwater Love’ is one of our oldest songs,” states frontman Charlie Read Clarke. “I wrote and recorded the first demo when I was about 15, long before I'd even met half of the band and since then I think there have been at least 3 different recorded studio versions until this one. It has a special, weird place in my heart that both floods me with equal parts nostalgia and cringe. Despite being the least mature of all our songs, it felt worth releasing after all these years, as our sound feels like it is forever changing. The track was recorded at Famous Times Studios in Hackney with my Dad.”
The band met at The Brit School (following in the footsteps of Black Midi, who also formed there) and came together through a shared love of 60s counterculture and psychedelia. Rather than sheerly revivalist, however, their music comes from being part of a generation who have been able to take non-specific and widely drawn sources via the infinite bank of the internet. Other influences the band have cited include avant-pop groups Stereolab and Broadcast, along with evident echoes of Wand, Tame Impala, and Crumb in their music as well.
In 2019, they played a BBC televised performance at Glastonbury despite having no released music. Their charged, inventive live performance was also invited to The Southbank Centre for Nile Rogers’ Meltdown Festival within just a few months of their formation and in 2021, they closed the Rising stage at Green Man Festival.
Sondew Lerche - Alone In The Night (feat. AURORA).
Sondre Lerche released Avatars of Love, his most ambitious work to date, via PLZ / InGrooves. The 14 song double album features contributions from AURORA, CHAI, Felicia Douglass (Dirty Projectors), Mary Lattimore, Rodrigo Alarcon, and Ana Müller. Also released today is the official video for the album’s closing single “Alone In The Night” (feat. AURORA).” On April 30, Lerche will embark on his first US tour in more than 5 years. The tour will make stops in Seattle Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and more.
Lerche explains: “‘Alone In The Night’ was the first recording I did for the Avatars of Love album. It put everything in motion, and surprised me greatly. I heard AURORA's voice singing it in my mind one day when I was out running in the sun. So I asked her if she'd sing it with me. It felt extra special, because I had just returned home to Bergen after 15 years of living in the US. And she was one of the first to greet me there. It's a song about what happens to our bodies and souls when we fall in love, and then again through the passage of time, when we age and die. It's ultimately about our memories and dementia. How frail we really are, and how heartless the process of aging can be to lovers."
This morning, the album was highlighted as one of the best albums of the week on NPR’s New Music Friday podcast, with NPR Music’s Cyrena Touros calling it, “A journey start to finish… I feel like I could spend six months just listening to this one album and I could find so much to mine and explore." In their four star review, American Songwriter said, “An impressive accomplishment, Avatars of Love probes the depths of desire to extraordinary effect." Recently, Lerche released the official video for the album’s 10+ minute long centerpiece “Avatars of Love,” which was praised by FLOOD Magazine and Stereogum, and was named one of the best songs of the week by BrooklynVegan and Under The Radar.
“This is without a doubt the biggest, boldest, most complex thing I’ve ever done,” explains Lerche about the new album. “At the same time, it was also the easiest, most natural, and most liberating. As an artist, it’s the kind of project you always dream about.”
Australian alt-indie duo Geowulf returns with a new song “Drown.” The song is the perfect track to kick back and reflect on good love, even if it’s not the right kind of love. The track also comes with an official video with stunning images of a late-night drive into the unknown.
Speaking about the song, Star explained “Drown was another song Toma and I finished in lockdown over Skype and as difficult as that was I think this song is pretty special because in a way this song is about love (or a form of it) and how when you can fall in love it can be magical but not always right. This song is about finding a new space to exist in love or friendship after the breakdown of a relationship.”
Of the video, Star added “This video was filmed at the first time Toma and I had seen each other in two years due to covid and lockdowns. We wanted to channel a pop noir “Natural Born Killers” vibe and had such a great director in Tim Heinrich and his sidekick Jordan Kaye. It’s moodier vibe for us and we’re all about it.”
Singer-songwriter Samantha Margret has released her spirited and carefree new single “The Party.” Mirroring old Hollywood glamour with a flirtatious demeanor, the track rings of seductive musicality. With subtle chirps of saxophone combined with hoppy lyrics, Margret delivers a playfully canny and sophisticated piece of music with a music video soon to follow. “The Party'' is now available to stream and download on digital music platforms worldwide.
“It’s so easy to get drawn into what everyone else thinks is cool or trendy, but that’s not really how we find joy,” says Samantha Margret. Finding affirmation on her own, “The Party” was written after Margret feared losing her voice and writing music for others instead of her own creative joy. Feeling a similar pressure, writer Juliette Reilly joined Margret in their first session, and “The Party” became a song about finding their own power and enjoying it even in the face of the judgement of others. “I don’t have to go to the party; I AM the party,” she states.
Produced by Samantha Margret and John Caviness, the song is all about doing your own thing in the face of expectation. The horns were recorded live to create a striking twist, and the song’s synth energy and gripping effects on the background vocals bring it to life. Originally jam-packed with tongue clicks and unusual percussion, Caviness took Reilly and Margret’s vision for a slow bridge and turned it into a unique, synth-horn lovechild. A product of her own vocal production, the arrangement and effects for “The Party” originated in Margret’s home studio. Once in production, the artistic touch of mixing engineer, Yang Tan, created the sparkle the single needed. The lead vocal overlaid with spoken words on each chorus makes for beautiful chaos where the spoken vocals overlap and split off from the descending melody. “Where the lyrics and sound collide, the vocals communicate a feeling and communicate power, joy, and fun,” says Margret.
Hailing from San Francisco, Samantha Margret is a songwriter, artist, and producer. Her music seeks creativity and originality while delivering authentic storytelling. Margret’s soulful ballads showcase the inspirational power of the female voice, with gripping lyrics about mental health, acceptance, and love. Her upbeat pop songs don’t shy away from a good time, and the diversity in singles shows her unique and captivating sound. Reminiscent of artists like Julia Michaels, Marian Hill, Sara Bareilles, and Andra Day, Samantha Margret blends unparalleled production with raw and intimate lyrics creating a fresh, fun, and original style.
‘Llygaid’ is an exhilarating change of pace for a band whose adrenaline fulled anthems have made them one of Wales’ most exciting acts. Here Osian (Singer / Guitarist) and the band take us down a more reflective, jangly and at times bucolic and beautifully melancholic road.....plus it has Tubular Bells on it, an EXTRA reason to love it unconditionally!!
Osian explains the background to ‘Llygaid’: “I wrote this song during my first year of Uni, and was definitely a change of pace for me writing wise. A lot of the songs I was writing at the time where very dancey and energetic so it felt good to do a song that was more inward looking, and the lyrics definitely reflect this and generally encapsulate those last few weeks of my first year in uni.
It’s really weird listening back to this one because we recorded the final bits and bobs literally a day before I went home for lock down, a little over a year ago, which makes it even more nostalgic to me. Hopefully I’ll get to make some more memories playing this song live very soon!”
Somebody help me ‘cos I wanna be a pop star! - With an unusual mix of satirical lyrics, pop-production and dark sound design on her new single Popstar, Jessiquoi examines the tribulations of all musicians willing to do whatever it takes to make it big in the music business.
"I wanted to slow down and remind myself not to take everything too seriously" says the artist. The result is a catchy and humorous take on fame-culture.
Jessiquoi is not exactly what you’d expect to emerge out of Switzerland’s underground. An Australian/Swiss producer, composer and performer, her live set looks and sounds like it belongs in futuristic Shanghai ca. 2048. Combining raw, physical energy and dance-driven beats colliding with audacious rap and resonant vocals, Jessiquoi won Demo of Year and Best Electronic at M4Music Festival, Zürich 2018. After well received performances at Gurten Festival and Zürich Openair, she progressed to international showcases in New York and mainland Europe and released her first album in October 2019, which included the award winning single The Sentry.
New Orleans-based sextet Sweet Crude have shared two songs as part of the second installment of the band’s Dualité series. The series features double A-side singles - one in English the other in Louisiana French - released as a pair. The second installment includes “Saint Patrick Park” and “Vertige.”
“This song is named after the greenspace and baseball field in Mid-City, New Orleans,” says singer Sam Craft on “Saint Patrick Park,” “which has served as an outdoor escape from confinement for so many in the neighborhood over the last year and change. With a nod to 60's and 70's orchestral pop, Saint Patrick Park deals with the so-close-but-so-far-ness of COVID and is entirely in English. Alexis leads you in with ‘Is it just me or is there a wall where a window should be?’ and takes you on a bittersweet journey from there.”
“Vertige is French for 'vertigo' or 'dizziness', as in what happens to you when you are blindsided by crimes of passion,” explains Craft. “ In the chorus, I sing: ‘C'est pas ma faute, c'est bien la vot' si je vous garroche dans le bayou’ which is a little bit of local vernacular French for ‘It's not my fault, it's yours, if I toss you in the bayou.’ Vertige is a gritty, minor-key rhapsody and has a home in a Bond film based in Louisiana.”
“Tours? Nope. Money? Broke. Launch a blitz of bilingual bangers in 2021 because we can? Putain ouais (hell yeah, and pardon our Louisiana French),” says Craft on the origins of the Dualité series. “Through confinement and a lack of gigs, we’ve steadily built up a loyal Patreon following with whom we’ve been streaming and chatting on a regular basis. They’ve been inspiring us to keep going and to write like crazy. We show them brand new ideas, they give us feedback, and we are now self-producing and self-recording a whole new body of work for approximately zero dollars. Dualité is the result, or really the start, of this new frontier. We remain dedicated as ever to creating new avenues to celebrate our Louisiana roots.”
A bit about the track / video from the band: "Face on the Rail Line" is set in a world where virtual connection is increasingly replacing physical connection. But where, all too often, the signal is unreliable.
It’s a love song at heart. The ‘face on the rail line’ is one of those icons on location apps – in this case an app tracking someone you desperately want to see. The icon inches its way along the line on the screen, but then disappears as phone reception is lost.
When we first played the song to the rest of the band, everyone started singing harmonies. It was impulsive, and very moving. We’ve tried to capture that feeling in the recording.
The video was made by Rob and Amelia. It’s a kind of collage: quite abstract and mostly about shapes and textures. But there are phones and rail lines, and if you look closely, you can see Birling Gap in the background!
Indie pop comes of age. The Catenary Wires feature Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey, once of Heavenly and Talulah Gosh. These early bands, once denigrated for being ‘fey’ or ’twee’: the wrong kind of female, have been re-evaluated in recent years. Their songs, apparently sweet and fizzy, were always smarter and darker than they seemed, while the band were radically independent, and an influential part of the movement that became riot grrrl.
With their explosive debut single, “Brain Retrieve” released during the height of 2020’s pandemic-tarnished summer, East London based five-piece Roscoe Roscoe return with their dreamy new single “Jacob’s Ladder,” out on Slow Dance / Missing Piece Records. MXDWN said the song “astutely mixes synth-driven modern indie pop with classic psychedelia.”
Psychedelic music has existed in many iterations, and Roscoe Roscoe are the latest to emerge from the prolific UK capital, initially noticed by many for their BBC televised performance at Glastonbury in 2019 despite having no released music. Guitarist Jacob Muna wrote the music for “Jacob’s Ladder,” “in a matter of minutes while I was playing around on the guitar watching TV. It almost wrote itself.” The simplicity and natural flow of the track is a merging of influences - the melody recalls The Beatles, updated with hazy dream pop and glimmering shoegaze. When frontman Charlie Read Clarke added lyrics and verses to the arrangement, it became apparent that there was something special there.
“The process between the very first idea and final form was a lot quicker than normal,” and the track is somewhere between a lullaby and an anthem, as celestial as the title implies. It was the obvious choice for following their debut, showcasing the band’s spectrum of sonic capabilities and serving almost as a counterpart to the heavy burst of “Brain Retrieve.” With warm, floating synths, feather-soft vocals and glowing guitars, Jacob’s Ladder reaches out like a caress, pulling us from lockdown and into a summer of love. It connects immediately.
The band met at The Brit School (following in the footsteps of Black Midi, who also formed there) and came together through a shared love of 60s counterculture and psychedelia. Rather than sheerly revivalist, however, their music comes from being part of a generation who have been able to take non-specific and widely drawn sources via the infinite bank of the internet. Other influences the band have cited include avant-pop groups Stereolab and Broadcast and there are evident echoes of Wand, Tame Impala, and Crumb in their music too.
