Spoils - Charlie Rogers - Tilia - The Resonant Rogues

Spoils - Nothing For a Man (E.P).

In the mid-90's when the giant wave of post-Nirvana A&R signings crested and broke, Cincinnati, OH experienced a blink-and-you-miss it moment in the sun birthing a sultry, greasy and noise-addled contribution to the Indie Rock lexicon with bands like Afghan Whigs, Ass Ponys, Wussy and compatriots Brainiac. But to say that Cincinnati possesses a "sound" that has any kind of throughline is a bit more difficult to place. Instead, the city like the music it produces, is a bit of a liminal zone - straddling the South and the Midwest, concentration of the world's most successful multi-national companies and a startling high poverty index. The music that makes it out feels unplaceable - how did a city of just over a million birth Why?, The National, Adrian Belew and John Bender?

While so many of the acts named feel like they are constantly in the act of becoming, Spoils, a band formed in 2021 right on the cusp of another wave of creativity in Cincinnati, feels completely the opposite. Their songs sound as if they were plucked from the slipstream as fully formed, fully realized and hooked into a lineage much bigger than themselves. Songs by Spoils, once played, immediately dig deep caverns into your brain with a pace that feels practically metabolic. On their latest EP - Nothing For a Man (their first for the Cincy based Happy Families label) expands on the tunefulness of their debut 2022 EP Find Later - while expanding their musical vocabulary. 

Violins appear on the intro and "Riverbed (Redux)" and Rhodes piano grace "David", giving these songs a bit more space to breathe while catalyzed by perfect hooks that songwriter, guitarist and violinist Nina Payiatis's is so well suited for. The tunefulness of that dog., the irresistible hooks of bands like Unrest and the scrappy economy of The Spinanes are good entry points while contemporary indie bands like Spirit of the Beehive and Horse Jumper of Love seem to be fellow travelers.

Within the span of two years Spoils has managed to retain the accelerants that made Find Later such a treasured find allowing the simmering verses to feel out their depth a bit more. About the creation of the EP Nina Payiatis states, "The EP itself was written in the past year or so when the atmosphere felt more fertile from pandemic tensions being released. It's made of threads that tie back to growing and living here– family, friends, fables, emerging into adulthood as the world opens back up."

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Charlie Rogers - When He Was Me (Acoustic Version).

Nashville's charming country artist, Charlie Rogers, is gearing up to release the acoustic version of his latest single, "When He Was Me." This song is a heart-wrenchingly vivid account of letting love slip through one's hands and overcoming a broken relationship, all told over a distinctly Western ballad. The song was notably co-written by Shay Mooney of the famed pop duo Dan + Shay and Benjy Davis (Jake Owen, Anderson East, Maddie & Tae).

Oregon-born and Kansas-raised, Charlie Rogers' writing and musical journey began at a very young age. His passion for musical pursuits was purposed to communicate equity and commonalities between the listener and the musician resulting in his genre-alchemizing country/singer-songwriter style.

Now residing in Nashville, his love for representing unheard voices helped push his career to open for artists like Russell Dickerson, Brothers Osborne, and Janelle Arthur. His prominent writing and compassionate voice accelerated his musical journey, allowing him to play CMA honors ceremonies for Charley Pride and Ricky Skaggs. Rogers’ music has been praised by The Boot, Country Fancast, and more.

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Tilia - Healing Voice.

Tilia is a songwriter from Zurich and explores themes of escape, uprooting, and the hope of finding happiness elsewhere in her latest single «Healing Voice».

The song tells about the search for meaning, setting out for unknown places, ending up in dead ends on detours and the confidence of always finding the right path.

After two albums and tours in Switzerland and Germany, she took a break for 4 years ago to pursue other artistic projects. However, the distance from music led to new music.

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The Resonant Rogues - Show Me.

The Resonant Rogues are Keith Josiah Smith and Sparrow. Keith (guitar, vocals) grew up in the punk scene, and started hopping trains at 18, riding the rails all over the country and busking for a living. Sparrow grew up performing everything from music and dance, to figure skating, was a circus performer, and holds down vocals, banjo and accordion duties for The Rogues.

They are announcing their amazing self-titled LP (out on November 10th) with its lead single "Show Me," featuring background vocals and harmonies from their pal, Sierra Ferrell. "Show Me" is a yearning track about how we all deserve to be be treated right, and it's out today August 18th.

The album was produced by the illustrious Andrija Tokic (Hurray For The Riff Raff, Alabama Shakes) at his analog paradise, The Bomb Shelter, here in Nashville. It's the first records for The Resonant Rogues since 2019. Naming this LP after themselves was a bold move for the band - they're staking their ground, laying down roots, and giving us the best of their career with this one. It's a delicious blend of traditional music, Appalachian old-time, classic country, and vintage soul, featuring friends like Sierra, Benjamin Tod, The Deslondes' John James Tourville, and more.

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Jay Wood - Bekah Bossard - bdrmm - Sparkle*Jets U.K. - Tilia

Jay Wood - Oh Well.

West Australian alt-indie acoustic singer-songwriter, Jay Wood releases her highly anticipated single, ‘Oh Well’ today June 30th, 2023. This captivating single – A prelude to the 1st September release of EP, ‘Respire’ - serves as a testament to Jay's resilience and determination following a life-altering car accident that left her with a Catastrophic Traumatic Brain Injury, and embodies her unwavering spirit, inspiring listeners with its uplifting message. 

“[The song] began as a cute upbeat song professing heartfelt intentions toward her but morphed into more of an optimistic song with a lament of the love gone by, hence the weaving of the phrase “oh well” throughout.” – Jay Wood

Through her lyricism, reminiscent of the meaning injected through the songs of Phoebe Bridges and Missy Higgins, Jay expresses herself with raw honesty, quirkiness, and a "no holds barred" approach. Her songs fill listeners with unique and enlightened thoughts about love, life, and the human experience. By sharing her own challenges and triumphs, she creates a profound connection with her audience, encouraging them to find strength within themselves.

Jay Wood’s upcoming EP, 'Respire,' is the culmination of years of perseverance and resilience. Relearning the melodies and tunes from her lost memories was a painstaking process that required daily Functional Neuroscientific Therapy. Overcoming multiple health setbacks pertaining to her Brain Injury, Jay defied the odds to craft an EP that embodies her triumphant spirit. 'Respire' symbolises the power of choosing to embrace life, cherishing every breath and living with love and gratitude.

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Bekah Bossard - Venus.

Bekah Bossard shares “Venus,” a song that couldn’t get more personal to her, where she asks all the questions she wishes she could have asked her mother, who unfortunately lives with MS  (multiple sclerosis).  Bekah will be hosting an awareness night called “Venus” for the MS Society - the UK's largest charity for people affected by MS – on July 1st at The Old Library in New Cross where she’s invited several important guests.

Speaking about the song, Bekah said “I grew up hearing wild stories about her life in London in her 20s, falling in love with my dad and moving to LA with him, and their years traveling the world with the charities they worked for. As she deteriorated and became almost non-verbal, I relied on those stories to feel closer to her. The song came out of longing to be able to have those conversations with her. i hope anyone who hears this can sense how dynamic and loving she is. and that through this release, awareness is raised for the MS Society who offer support to those with MS & are researching an ultimate cure.”

Ed Tait, Executive Director of Engagement and Income Generation at the MS Society, says: “We’re so grateful to Bekah for using her talent to share such personal experiences and raise much-needed awareness about MS. Over 130,000 people live with MS in the UK. It’s relentless, painful and unpredictable, and can also have a huge impact on family and loved ones.

“Our vision is a world where no one has to worry about their MS getting worse. And money raised from events, like Bekah’s, help to bring us one step closer to achieving this. Bekah’s “Venus” event on July 1st will bring together an amazing line-up of talent who have all volunteered to come together to perform alongside artists and makers volunteering to sell their work on the night for a donation to the cause as well. Performing live alongside Bekah include poets Savannah Brown and Ella Monnerat plus fellow musicians Kitty Fitz and Amelia Lawn. Market stalls come from Doomsday Press, Ellie Redfern, Engelspark Bags, Hopeworld, Shut Up Shay and Knightsill.

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bdrmm - I Don't Know (Album).

While the world became socially distanced in 2020, Hull’s post-shoegaze, dream pop, heavy guitar effects quartet bdrmm made the kind of impact with their debut album any young band would dream about. Released on the small Sonic Cathedral label in July that year, Bedroom was hailed as “a heady, forward-thinking shoe gaze distillation” by Clash magazine. Mojo said that the band tread the “queasy tightrope of prime Cure, Ride etc. with real dexterity.” The Guardian proclaimed “one of the underground hits of lockdown,”, while NME awarded the album five solid stars and called Bedroom nothing less than “a modern day shoe gaze classic.”

The stunning debut was championed by the likes of Huw Stephens, Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq and John Kennedy, entered the Official UK chart three times, ended up in Rough Trade’s Top 10 albums of 2020 and turbo-boosted the band’s Spotify following, which now reaches just short of 300,000 listeners each month.

Three years on, the band’s new album I Don’t Know takes the adventure somewhere else. It’s contemporary shoegaze in a way but much, much more. Again recorded at The Nave studio in Leeds with producer Alex Greaves (Working Men’s Club, Bo Ningen), the band’s trademark effects-laden guitars and motorik Neu! grooves have now been augmented by piano, strings, electronica, sampling and even occasional dance beats. Fragile ambient pieces line up against pulverising guitar chords, sometimes within the same song. There are ambient washes and delicate piano pieces, while influences or reference points veer from Radiohead to My Bloody Valentine to the Cure to Brian Eno - perhaps - the minimalist classical of the likes of Erik Satie. Whatever has produced it, it’s a bigger-sounding, more tuneful, really rather fantastic second statement by four young men who are rightly sure about what they’re doing and loving every minute of it.

“We’re still coming from the same place, but the influences have got much broader,” confirms singer-guitarist Ryan Smith. His younger brother Jordan (bass, now also keyboards) has been checking out Steve Reich and Boards Of Canada and says, “A lot of it is just us gaining confidence, and also not wanting to retread old ground. We’d made the guitar record. So we were thinking, ‘What else can we do?’”

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Sparkle*Jets U.K. - Best Of Friends (Album).

Sparkle*Jets U.K., beloved icons of the Turn-of-the-Century Southern California guitar pop scene, are most assuredly back. BIG STIR RECORDS is proud to announce not only the June 30 release of the band's first album in over 20 years, Best Of Friends, on 2-LP Vinyl and CD in record stores everywhere and streaming worldwide, but a veritable multimedia renaissance for the band throughout 2023. Bringing back not just the vibes of the scene that birthed them but the songs as well, SJUK's jaw-dropping new double album is both a love letter of a tribute to the artists with whom they shared stages, and a thrilling revelation of those lost sounds to those who missed them the first time around.

Already heralded by the lead single, a cover of THE Masticators' “He's Coming Out”, Best Of Friends boasts 21 sparkling, punchy, hook-filled tracks across its four sides of wax, all originally recorded by the band's sterling peers on the late '90s LA pop scene. Each track is lovingly served up in the inimitable SJUK style, and the full album is almost dizzying in its rush of pure power pop delight.

It's a full-circle return for the Long Beach-based trio, consisting now as then of vocalist-guitarist SUSAN WEST, bassist JAMIE KNIGHT, and singer/multi-instrumentalist MICHAEL SIMMONS who also takes most drumming duties for the current edition of Sparkle*Jets U.K. (with Joel Valder sitting in on three tracks). The band has hardly been dormant for the decades since releasing their two widely admired albums In, Through And Beyond in 1998 and 2001's Bamboo Lounge, nor have they ever gone their separate ways. In addition to Simmons' continuing output as a solo artist (the acclaimed 2018 album First Days Of Sumer) and with Popdudes, SJUK joined the Big Stir Records family in 2019 for a special 7” tribute to Big Star recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis with Jody Stephens on board. And all three 'jets have been a part of creating the extraordinary (and very much pop-rock oriented) music program at Huntington Beach High School. The band's 2023 renaissance, though, is something altogether bigger, and this new collection is just the start, with a full album of SJUK originals already completed for release next year.

But we're here to talk about Best Of Friends, whose mission is right there in the double meaning of its title: it consists of songs by the band's true friends from the late '90s and early 2000s LA pop scene, and it serves as a veritable “Best Of” collection for those unfamiliar with that era's delights. Destined to have a reach beyond its impact as a superb pop rock record, Best Of Friends is more of a multi-media event than a simple album release. Along with the singles and their inevitable companion music videos, the album's publicity campaign incorporates a weekly podcast (also entitled Best Of Friends) which captures Sparkle*Jets U.K. in candid conversation with the artists covered on the album, bridging the gap between the fondly remembered adventures and recordings of yesteryear and the fresh, bracing versions on the new LP.

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Tilia - Peaceful Warning.

Escape and uprooting, the hope to find the courage to become happy elsewhere. Tilia packs all this on her current single 'Peaceful Warning' to the ethereal appeal of Dream Pop, dissecting her emotional world in catchy melodies.

In the fall, the experienced songwriter from Zurich will release her new EP. 'Peaceful Warning' is already the second foretaste of it after 'Ever Ever'. 

After two albums and tours in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, Tilia took time off four years ago to devote herself to other artistic projects.

So long, until the distance to the music hurt and space for new music arose.

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Typical Light - Laura Marie - Tilia - TANDM

Typical Light - Imaginary Ride.

Boston MA USA: record label H1 Massive will release the first full length album from Typical Light. Hailing from Paris FRANCE, the duo creates dreamlike, cinematic synthpop. In 2020, Hélène (vocals, synthesizer) and Hakim (vocals, guitar, bass, drums, synthesizer) joined forces over their mutual love of indie pop, rock, and shoegaze.

Hakim began his musical journey, playing the piano and guitar at 10 years old. “My parents exposed me to a lot of music when I was young, and I wanted to be like the artists they listened to.” Hélène states, “Music has always been a passion for me. I worked as a cultural journalist for several years and putting out this album fulfills a long time dream.” Their first EP SWEET was noticed immediately by French magazine KR Home Studio, because of their catchy melodies and the way Hakim and Hélène weave their silky vocals together.

Typical Light have picked up the baton from French synth pop compatriots M83, and taken it in their own direction. Imaginary Ride is one of those albums where love and disenchantment intertwine, while lyrical imagery and instrumentation playfully interact. Between immersion and introspection, the songs lead us on a wistful guided tour of romance and longing.

“We created Imaginary Ride as a timeless journey, the soundtrack of a slice of life, where joy, sadness and nostalgia mix together. Simultaneously raw and sensual, organic and synthetic sounds interlace to offer multiple dimensions and directions. Images and sounds respond to each other in a dreamlike way.” says Hélène and Hakim.

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Laura Marie - Too Sweet: Songs For Setting Boundaries.

Laura Marie's latest project, Too Sweet: Songs for Setting Boundaries, is a chronicle of pivotal points in one trauma survivor's lifelong struggle to navigate life, love, and relationships. Each song is an intimate conversation in singer-songwriter style that follows Laura Marie's path from self-betrayal to self-empowerment through fierce acts of self-love. This five song EP, accompanied by a book of the same name, is a deeper dive into the "one lesson learned on repeat" referenced in her earlier work ("Honest" Stars Apart , 2016) that further explores the frontiers of self-awareness. From the playful sensuality of the title track to the heart wrenching depiction of loss from drug addiction in "Painkiller" to the joyfully combative "Shadows," Too Sweet is a genuine, wholehearted, and unrestrained confessional that lays bare the inner workings of a sexual assault and suicide attempt survivor through relationships.

The idea of a project centered around creating healthy boundaries came to Laura Marie after several years of working to extract herself from several unhealthy relationships that temporarily derailed her career as a songwriter and just a few months before the pandemic that made healthy boundaries a survival necessity. The instrumentation was recorded remotely at SuperLegal Studios in Brooklyn by Laura Marie's longtime friend and collaborator, producer/arranger Jake Owen for DO Sounds. Owen then flew to San Antonio to record Laura Marie's vocals in a homemade PVC and acoustic blanket vocal booth built by the artist and her husband for her home studio. The EP features Owen (Augustana, BoDeans, Goldspot) on guitar/keyboard/programming, Mauro Refosco (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Atoms for Peace, David Byrne) on drums, and a string quartet arranged and conducted by Owen for the song "Why."

Too Sweet: Songs for Setting Boundaries is set for release in May 2023 as a standalone EP, followed by a book and EP set. The book is a memoir and account of events that inspired the songs on the EP. Laura Marie maintains that her songwriting has always been an effort to heal and an essential element for her survival. She wrote the book in the same spirit and to empower survivors in and out of the music industry to overcome the often debilitating consequences of trauma and sexual abuse.

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Tilia - Ever Ever.

Dream Pop artist Tilia returns with the new single Ever Ever. With her first two albums Focus (2014) and Patterns (2017), the Zurich-based artist received numerous airplays in Switzerland, Germany and Austria and is still present in some playlists.

After two tours in Germany and Switzerland, she took some time off and now returns with a suitcase full of new songs that hold some influences from jangle pop as well as dream pop. A first new EP will be released in the fall.

With her new songs Tilia builds on her proven strengths, but knows even more how to pack timeless melodies into catchy songs and sound independent at the same time. Ever Ever is a wonderful example of this. The song was created together with the Basel producer Philippe Laffer.

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TANDM - The Man in the Sea.

Toronto duo TANDM's songs seem to transcend time, place, and even stylistic categorization. The core duo of vocalist/guitarist Maxine Beck-Sinderby and drummer Thomas Franklin first met in their mid-teens and quickly united over a unique creative chemistry. Their influences are as subtle as they are diverse, weaving tinges of genre-bending modern innovators from Alvvays to Regina Spector to even Vampire Weekend into their work.

New track, "The Man in the Sea," was originally written by Maxine as a poem for an assignment in high school. The poem was inspired by a story told to her as a child by her grandmother; the tale was whimsical about how a giant man in the sea would stir a giant spoon and make the waves. "My inspiration was to convey the sensation of a childhood belief/fantasy, that then shattered from discovering the realities of the world."

The video made by continuing collaborators with TANDM, Akash Jones & Bronte Brazier, uses dreamlike stop motion visuals to accompany the haunting tune. The single is a highlight off the group's dynamic upcoming EP Sirens.

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