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Shifting between epic moments of joyful indie pop, interspersed with emotional and engaging songwriting, Leeds sextet Talkboy demonstrate their glittering potential in debut EP Over & Under, set for release 1st November via Come Play With Me / LAB Records.
Emerging in late 2018 with euphoric debut cut Mother, the fledgling six-piece have since become one of Yorkshire’s hottest indie prospects, releasing a series of irresistible anthems including the addictive Someone Else For You and melodic Wasting Time, both of which feature on the band’s upcoming EP.
With the influences of contemporaries Alvvays and The Big Moon nestled deep within their blissful sound and earning vast praise throughout the online community, the group announce the arrival of Over & Under with their rawest piece of songwriting to date in the form of latest single Hollow Spheres.
Detailing the track, they explained: “Hollow Spheres means an awful lot to us. Basically, it’s the idea that, although it really does feel very bad now, you have to try to understand it won’t be like this forever. It’s inevitable that something will change and one day you will feel something different. Admittedly, it is way easier said than done. Just as a little footnote, if you’re struggling to picture a Hollow Sphere though, imagine a Kinder Surprise without the surprise and I think you’re on the right track”.
With a full summer of festival appearances (The Great Escape, Live At Leeds, Y Not) under their belts, including a raucous slot on the BBC Introducing stage at Reading & Leeds Festivals, Talkboy continue to impress on the live circuit and will heading out on the road throughout November supporting the likes of Honeyblood, Declan Welsh and The Howl & The Hum.
Talkboy’s debut EP Over & Under dropped 1st November via Come Play With Me* / LAB Records and will be available on all digital platforms, with a physical release (featuring bonus acoustic tracks) to follow 29th November.
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Matthew Paul Butler’s Hymns For The Dying have found refuge with Epifo Music, who will release the album on Friday, November 15th, 2019.
Navigating the realm of neo-folk / indie-soul, Butler’s songs are driven by a diesel-fume bar band on overdrive and a voice that wavers somewhere between a hug and a left hook. Hymns For The Dying is the culmination of years of displacement, rebuilding, and multiple attempts to settle down.
Butler grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) -- his parents were Christian missionaries. Matthew found himself often in church meetings, in houses of other missionaries, and in the woods with other children. His family was forced to leave Zaire when the military revolted. The family attempted to return six months later, but another uprising forced them out of the country.
To Matthew, Hymns For The Dying are not documentations but interpretations of life events, and through these interpretations a place where people can be together in strength or vulnerability. Matthew’s Hymns are fierce-yet-graceful, with a looming tension that at any moment, a fragile artifact will be knocked over, like life itself, irreparably.
Hymns For The Dying was recorded by sound engineer Daniel Hodges in various homes around Charlotte, North Carolina. Not unlike Townes Van Zandt’s recording history, several attempts had been made to record Hymns For The Dying over the years, with master tapes having been lost or destroyed, and new bands needing to be pieced together.
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Sunset Sons’ new album ‘Blood Rush Déjà Vu’, produced by Catherine Marks (Foals, Wolf Alice) and featuring Zane Lowe ‘World First’ single, ‘Heroes’ arrives now ahead of a UK & European headline tour including London’s Electric Brixton on November 28, 2019. To celebrate the release of ‘Blood Rush Déjà Vu’, Sunset Sons are also airing the new lyric video for latest single ‘Superman’.
Sunset Sons made a huge impact with their 2016 debut album ‘Very Rarely Say Die’. Tipped in the BBC’s Sound Poll, the British/Australian band progressed to score airplay from Radio 1, Radio X and Absolute Radio. Meanwhile, live shows included a sold-out headline date at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire as well as huge tours as guests to Imagine Dragons and Nothing But Thieves.
Now, Sunset Sons are poised to return in style with the release of their second album ‘Blood Rush Déjà Vu’. It’s a record which captures the magnetic energy of the band’s raucous live shows while evolving their sound. It’s a streamlined modern rock record which amplifies their power, full of strident anthems which are built to resonate as they echo out at festivals the world over.
The story of the creation of ‘Blood Rush Déjà Vu’ started with the end of the band’s own first chapter. Guitarist Robin Windram left to spend time with his young family, which forced a change in Sunset Sons’ dynamic. So instead of jamming new song ideas in a rehearsal space, the band - completed by Rory Williams (vocals/keys) and Pete Harper (bass) - started writing in Rory’s home studio, with each of them contributing guitar parts. After six months, jokes Laidlaw, they had “forty songs which sounded like forty different bands.” But they identified the direction they wanted to take when they penned ‘The River’, the title-track from last year’s EP. Their musical interests are diverse, but they shared a love of some essential traits: songs which are direct, rich with melody and that express a distinct meaning.
The band began recording near Hossegor, working again with producer Catherine Marks (Wolf Alice, Foals, The Amazons), and sessions complemented by wall-of-guitars provided by new touring member Henry Eastham, and long-term collaborator Robin Howl. As for that album title? It’s a lyric which features in the track ‘Take Control’ and expresses a sense of familiarity that simultaneously carries a spark of excitement. It’s something that Laidlaw feels when he steps into his local beach bar, Coolin à la Plage: the site of many memorable nights out as well as the first ever Sunset Sons show, a little over five years ago.
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‘The induction party comes to an end with transfixed crowds splintering through desire paths re-emerging to the cold familiar pavement. Fresh from re-orientation, discarded all routines, a third-dimension flow state, go forth and send the ladder down, peel back the tunnel, dimensionally challenged 2D suckers. This is the next step! ‘3D Routine’’
‘3D Routine’ has arrived. Following on from their ‘Induction Party E.P’, Leeds based Mush are circulating their own sonic mythology, blurring the lines between abstract surrealism, existentialism and social commentary. Like its predecessor ‘3D Routine’ is a sensory overload of clattering, hooky, guitar work. However, this time space emerges between the onslaughts and in this respite, room is found for new emotional depth. More expansive than ever before, ‘3D Routine’ manages to maintain the rawness of a classic debut but it’s experimentation and variety portray a band unlikely to rest on their ‘guitar
band’ chops.
First single, ‘Eat the Etiquette,’ described by Hyndman as a “a bit of a stream of consciousness type rant”, takes aim at the use of ‘common sense’ as societal weapon; the “sick laughing track of malicious intent” making a mockery of progressive ideas, while “manufactured sense” helps maintain the underlying and iniquitous structures of wealth and power. It’s out now in all the usual places.
Songwriter Dan Hyndman explains the genesis of the band as being “fairly boiler plate” a combination of friends old and new converging in Leeds post-uni to form a band predominantly united in their mutual affection for the Pavement back catalogue. Finally settling on a lineup of Nick Grant (bass), Tyson (guitar) and Phil Porter (drums) the band’s progression has taken them far beyond this original vision.
Having garnered local attention in the early days for their unhinged and often calamitous live shows in Leeds, it was the unlikely radio hit ‘Alternative Facts’, (clocking in at an uncompromising ten minutes) that brought the Mush to the attention of a wider audience. The song, one of the last releases for the legendary Too Pure Singles Club saw early support from Marc Riley and others on BBC 6 Music with them playing multiple sessions, and the follow up single, ‘Gig Economy’ hopping onto the 6 Music playlist. Roaming further afield from their hometown, Mush spent the first half of 2019 heading out around the UK, earning a reputation for their intense live performances, supporting the likes of Girl Band, The Lovely Eggs, Yak, Shame and Stereolab, as well as releasing the ‘Induction Party’ EP to great acclaim. At the tail end of summer of 2019 Mush headed to Leeds’ Green Mount Studio and with Andy Savours (Dream Wife, Our Girl, My Bloody Valentine) manning the mixing desk, their debut LP, ‘3D Routine’ was born.
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