Surprise Baby - Pen Pin - Von Wildenhaus

photo - India Coombs

Surprise Baby - Motorcycle.

Surprise Baby is the Los Angeles based project of musician and songwriter Sarsten Noice and producer Claire Morison. Described as rock and roll cowboy meets indie pop, the two, who are originally from Northwest Montana, use their long-standing relationship as friends and creative partners to craft a sound which is both authentic and captivating.

Their upcoming EP is a result of Surprise Baby refusing to be pigeon-holed and see’s the two exploring a realm of different genres and sounds. Following the release of their debut single “Poison the Well,” “Motorcycle” is the second track from the EP and details a commentary on the feeling of escapism. It is a mostly fictional narrative on the desire to escape a relationship, specifically on a motorcycle heading to New York. Noice shares, “Call it a quarter life crisis, call it fear of commitment, the feeling is that of running away. There is also a sentiment of not wanting your partner to worry over you, and making the unrealistic promise that you won't die on the road. The fact that the narrator believes so deeply they won't die while simultaneously desiring to be as close to danger as possible is the irony of the song itself.”

“Motorcycle” shimmers with muted, jangly guitars, mellow melodies and celestial harmonies, creating an iridescent soundscape that you can truly lose yourself within. Not afraid to speak her truth, Noice shares how she uses songwriting as a way to process her internal world and give intense emotions a way out of her body. She shares, “I try to create imagery that accurately captures a specific feeling and then allow myself to build lyrics in an abstract way, opposed to straightforward storytelling. This I hope leaves the songs open to the listeners’ interpretation.”

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Pen Pin - Fringe.

Pen Pin is the new sun-soaked indie pop project from songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Jeni Magana and Emily Moore. Both established musicians in their own right, they met while touring with Mitski and started writing and recording their debut album whenever they weren't on the road. The result of their "pen pinspiration" has become a chill, vintage pop album that sounds and feels like lounging by a Palm Desert pool when the afternoon becomes the dusk.

The whole process of self-producing these songs has captured a moment of inspiration and a joyous collaboration between friends. The LP entitled Pony Up is about these feelings: the spark of inspiration, holding onto happiness, and friendship.

Pen Pin's single "Fringe" details capturing a moment in a relationship that is pure joy and recalling that feeling when times get tough. The breezy track features golden-hued vocals, dreamy melodies and nostalgic piano, creating a warm and cathartic musical moment. Designed to bring you company on your evening walks through the park, Pony Up is set to be released Spring, 2024.

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Von Wildenhaus - Ketamine.

Apocalyptic avant-pop artist Von Wildenhaus has shared new single “Ketamine”, ahead of a UK tour across September. In lieu of a traditional album release the artist is issuing an extended series of singles across the coming months, culminating in a new compilation ‘Von Universe’, which will be available exclusively at the UK shows.

A spacious, sublime offering that sees Von Wildenhaus fuse alchemistic rhythms and airy instrumentals with celestial vocal delivery and a cavernously clean approach to production, “Ketamine” is the sixth track to be taken from the artist’s forthcoming compilation.

Evoking a feeling that is as fragile as it faraway, Ben von Wildenhaus explains of the new track: ”Ketamine” embodies the feeling of dissociation that overwhelms when you separate from someone you love. We often play this as spacey folk, but here we really wanted to take it into the realm of ethereal ‘80s pop — that crisp digital world full of inorganic heartbreak.”

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Surprise Baby - Enjoyable Listens - Simesky+Fritch - The Grahams

Surprise Baby - Poison the Well.

Surprise Baby is the Los Angeles based project of musician and songwriter Sarsten Noice and producer Claire Morison. Described as rock and roll cowboy meets indie pop, the two, who are originally from Northwest Montana, use their long-standing relationship as friends and creative partners to craft a sound which is both authentic and captivating.

The upcoming EP is a result of Surprise Baby refusing to be pigeon-holed and see’s the two exploring a realm of different genres and sounds. The first single to be released from the EP is “Poison the Well.” The track narrates facing the consequences of your own actions and the desire to change the reality of a situation but ultimately having the resignation that you can’t. Noice confides, “At the time, I was involved with someone who was in another relationship and we were both a part of a tight knit community (“the well”). At a certain point, it appeared to me that the toxicity of the relationship had permeated our ability to operate in our social scene without causing disruption to our lives and those around us.  I was faced with confronting the morality of my own actions as well as some heartbreak because I knew I was never going to be able to fully be with this person.”

Sonically, “Poison the Well” enters with a throbbing beat, echoing harmonies and a minimalist, eerie atmosphere. Steadily building in intensity, we hear the addition of layered textures and instruments, as Noice sings about the misguided actions that led her down the wrong path. She questions, “If I had never said goodnight, if I had been older when this had started,” as she ponders about what could have been.

Not afraid to speak her truth, Noice shares how she uses songwriting as a way to process her internal world and give intense emotions a way out of her body. She shares, “I try to create imagery that accurately captures a specific feeling and then allow myself to build lyrics in an abstract way, opposed to straightforward storytelling. This I hope leaves the songs open to the listeners’ interpretation.”

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Enjoyable Listens - Summer Hit.

Enjoyable Listens is a man, a machine and an enigma wrapped in a ball of mysterious dark wool. Having built an indie-rock-solid foundation using only melody, mayhem and an admirable ability to croon a series of pop smashes whilst teetering on a bar stool, new single “Summer Hit” sees the infallible actor continuing to warm to the task.

Funnelling inebriated ‘80s theatricality through luxurious layers of molten melodies and sun-dappled dreamhouse-ery, Enjoyable Listens aka Luke Duffett explains: “The original “Summer Hit” demo was the first thing I ever self-recorded. I wrote it during lockdown, and its name comes from a to-do list I had in April 2020.

While his attempts at gymnastics, baking and gaming may not have been quite so fruitful, “Summer Hit” certainly ticks the box. Re-recorded with Joseph Futák and Elanor Moss on backing vocals, the new track features a heady amalgam of mellotron, seagull noises and an aromatic indie-swooning that feels just as mellow as it does melodramatic.

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Simesky+Fritch - Back and Down Again.

Following on from ‘Colour Running Away’, the last release from Simesky+Fritch that graced indie charts, national and international airwaves across UK and Belgium, Australia, US, across the EU and South Africa, this is the new single ‘Back and Down Again’.

‘Colour Running Away’ changed everything for the duo. Its high shine pop and neon gloss took on a life of its own and blasted the track to success. But right here and right now they get darker.

With their cool 80’s retro wrapped in original new wave, they produce something gut-felt and lush. The Cure, Roxy Music, M83, they all leave their imprints like always. And as New Order and Berlin era Bowie atmospherics infect, each decade’s nuance of synthpop collides.

Back this up with the extended family of Thomas Wagner (creator of the perfect Back and Down Again video, Andy Wright (mastering; The Fall, Rag’n’Bone Man) and support from CJC Promotions… Simesky+Fritch become something unstoppable.

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The Grahams - The Wild One.

The Grahams have announced their new album The Grahams, due out September 8 via 3Sirens Music Group. The upcoming self-titled album finds the singer-songwriter duo – made up of Alyssa and Doug Graham – reimagining 10 hand-picked songs from their extensive catalog to reflect their sonic and artistic growth over the last decade. Along with the announcement, The Grahams have shared a revamped rendition of their 2015 staple “The Wild One,” a serotonin-boosting reworking that now features shimmering backing vocals from acclaimed indie pop group Lucius.

“‘The Wild One’ is part biographical, part fiction and part mantra,” shares Alyssa Graham. “The original version served its purpose and was often our opening song at concerts to remind ourselves of what we’ve lived and what’s important. When reimagining this song, we wanted to focus on the lessons in a more light-hearted and fun sonic arrangement and steer clear of the overdramatized story. After all, it’s just music and if we’ve learned anything over the past three decades together it’s to never let our hearts grow old and never let our love grow cold.”

On The Grahams, the duo pays homage to a fulfilled commitment they made a decade ago: three concept albums over 10 years, which found them exploring America and its rich tapestry of music. This trilogy began with their swampy 2013 debut Riverman’s Daughter, followed by 2015’s railroad-inspired Glory Bound and concluding in 2020 with the genre-defying Kids Like Us. The new self-titled album takes ten songs from The Grahams’ catalog and pours them through a new filter – what they’ve learned, how they’ve changed, and perhaps most centrally, how they sound today. While these songs bear some resemblance to their Americana roots, they lean harder in a new direction, weaving threads of the duo’s other influences: the bands they grew up with, the input of collaborators, and the ever-evolving love affair that now includes their child. Track by track, the changes are transformative, stripping the songs down in some cases and dressing them up in others.

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