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Glowing with catchy pop hooks, Rachel Beck distinctive piano melodies and emotive vocals are captivating audiences across Canada. Her upcoming release, Stronger Than You Know, is a celebration of strength and resilience. Its a gentle call to action -- a call to stand up, to speak out, to be present, to love fiercely. The record shimmers with layered synths and lush strings, balanced by dynamic percussion and bass. But the focal point, the unifying force throughout, is Beck's stunning voice.
Based on the success of her multi award-winning debut album, one might presume otherwise, but this Prince Edward Island songwriters journey to a career in music was anything but conventional. After completing degrees in psychology and education, teaching high school for ten years, and giving birth to three beautiful children, Beck found herself seeking a creative outlet. That outlet quickly transformed into passion and a wave of momentum following the release of her first single, Reckless Heart, which topped the CBC Music Top 20, ranked #4 in the CBC Music Fan Favourites of 2018, and earned a SOCAN #1 Award.
Mere months after releasing her self-titled debut, Rachel Beck took her own advice and leapt, leaving the security of her full-time teaching position to hit the road. Tour highlights include performing for Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, appearing twice at the legendary Stan Rogers Folk Festival, opening the 2019 ECMA Gala Awards Show, and playing beautiful festivals and venues from the Rogue Folk Club in Vancouver, BC to the Imperial Theatre in Saint John, NB.
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Bay area shoegaze / dreampop 4-piece Seablite debut title track "High-Rise Mannequins" off their upcoming 10" EP. (Emotional Response Records).
2019 finished with critical acclaim across the board for SEABLITE’s lives shows and their excellent debut album topping many Year End “Best-Of” lists. There was even a surprise and welcome placing at #36 in Good Morning America’s top 50 albums of the year, rubbing shoulders with some industry giants!
The new year sees the band off to a flying start, with a brand new 4 song 10inch EP, that builds on their growing stature as songwriters and performers. Recorded by Alicia Vanden Heuvel (The Aislers Set, Poundsign etc), in San Francisco, the new recordings capture the band at an exciting moment in time, as they take their place amongst the growing list of Bay Area fuzz-pop indie-greats.
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After 3 albums Antwerp’s noisiest outfit The Hickey Underworld evaporated. They never announced a break up, they just ceased to be… but the genie’s back out of the bottle. Well sorta… Frontman and main songwriter Younes Faltakh is the sole survivor and teamed up with ex Das Pop member Niek Meul. The pair set up camp in Niek’s studio in Oslo and recorded 10 eccentric, mysterious and groovy tracks. Guitars do a lapdance wrapping their tormented strings around a worked up rhythm section while Younes’ hoarse growl sounds as familiar as it does threatening.
Birthed in post-punk, heavily infused by Eastern psychedelica, and described by their record label [PIAS] as alternative world music, most refer to Arabnormal as ‘a manically zonked-out flying carpet ride’.
Read the above and listen to Arabnormal’s new single ‘Digital Veil’ and you’ll know that doesn’t make any sense at all… ‘Digital Veil’ is a sweet, sophisticated and too cute to cuddle soft rock gem. To honour the late Hickey Underworld tradition of psycho-facemelting video’s, Arabnormal’s visual companion for their latest single is quite something. Does your mouth get wet thinking of a make-up sandwich? Well, here’s the recipe.
When performing live, Younes Faltakh is joined by The Hickey Underworld member Jonas Govaerts, Mich Beniest (ex-Deadsets) and Millionaire members Damien Vanderhasselt & Sjoerd Bruil.
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CAN, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Ventures and The Breeders are all here in ‘Lan Y Môr’, but ultimately what you hear in Adwaith’s new single is the fearless songwriting of Hollie, Heledd, and Gwenllian, following their creative instincts.
‘Lan y Môr’ is another musical highlight in a growing catalogue of emphatically individual and emotionally rich songs from the 2019 Welsh Music Prize winners. The single is built from the surf guitar and bass interlocking riffs of Hollie and Gwenllian that dance over Heledd’s driving motorik beats.
Hollie Singer, the band’s guitarist and vocalist explains how they adopted the traditional Welsh folk song ‘Ar Lan y Môr’ to be theirs.
“The original inspiration for this song was the surf rock riff I came up with. We chose to use the lyrics to ‘Ar Lan y Môr’ as they fitted well with the vibe of the track. I’ve wanted to have a cover in the set for a little while now and this was so much fun to make completely our own.” ‘Lan y Môr’ is released especially for Welsh Music Day 07.02.2020.
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Vundabar share a new track, 'Petty Crime' and an accompanying video from their upcoming album, Either Light, out 13th March 2020 on Gawk Records.
It’s clear the 'Petty Crime' video was inspired by The Sopranos. "Tony Soprano was an inspiration while we wrote this album. He's this simultaneously despicable yet endearing character who's searching for meaning, desperately wants to change but is plainly doomed, so to channel a little Ton' felt right.
We wanted to create a sense of transition and anticipation, so we chose to use cars, motels, treadmills, pools and parking lots. They're all liminal-in-betweens or places where movement doesn't necessarily bring you anywhere.”
'Petty Crime' follows the album’s lead single 'Burned Off', which won praise from Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, NYLON, Under the Radar and more.
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Cornwall-raised and London-based artist Ted Jasper is today announcing his new ‘Equinox’ EP with the first single ‘Stone Cold Kisses’, alongside news of a headline show at London’s The Waiting Room on April 21st. Doubling up as a house DJ/producer as well as a fully-fledged songwriter carving out jazzy, hip-hop-infused downtempo, Jasper has quickly becoming a fast-rising name on the London scene since his 2018 ‘One Day’ EP on Jamz Supernova’s Future Bounce imprint. Arriving off the back of the follow-up ‘Back For More’ EP (2019) and support from 6 Music, Complex, Mixmag, Boiler Room, Radio 1 and 1Xtra, Jasper’s five-track ‘Equinox’ EP is due for release March 6th via Au Contraire. You can stream the opening track, ‘Stone Cold Kisses’, alongside some accompanying visuals here: hyperurl.co/6iwfjo
Pairing his smooth, intoxicating vocals with a breezy head-bopping beat, crisp guitar loops and textural piano chords, ‘Stone Cold Kisses’ is a perfect example of the symmetry Jasper has been able to find between his club-oriented DJ sets and production, and his work as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist (surprisingly, though, 2019’s ‘Back For More’ EP was the first time he stepped in front of the microphone.) He says of the track:
“At least once a month I’ll go through all my unfinished projects and see if there’s anything that jumps out at me. I had this cute garage beat that felt really open so I started building it up and I ended up creating an arrangement that I was really excited to sing on. A lot of the time I’ll upload the instrumental to Soundcloud and then listen to it through headphones and go on big walks around London or Cornwall. I’ll just keep walking until I get it, no matter how long it takes. I love putting little references to things I’m reading or thinking about in my songs – Icarus flying too close to the sun, Caliban being kept prisoner by Sycorax in The Tempest, those are all there in ‘Stone Cold Kisses’ – and that comes a lot easier when I’m on the move."
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