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London based band Night Flight today announce the release of a new EP, ‘White Noise’, due for release February 28th 2020 via CRC Records. The follow-up to their widely praised self-titled debut released in 2018, the songs on ‘White Noise’ individually explore the nuances in specific pockets of life; disillusionment, isolation and self-reflection in the midst of personal recovery.
Night Flight (aka Sam Holmes, Dan Webb, Harry Phillips and Oliver Halvorsen) are a band whose strength and appeal lies in their ability to construct affecting, relatable songs - pairing meditative, honest lyrics with high-reaching folk-rock instrumentals. New single ‘David’ is a fine example of that, with singer and guitarist Sam Holmes ruminating on a past relationship: “You’re doing better than I thought without me”.
Speaking on the release of new single ‘David’, Sam describes the track as “A mourning of love through second-hand news. The conversations shared with a forgotten friend in the strange aftermath of a relationship wherein perpetuity ends.”
‘David’ portrays a scenario where two people were once so cognitively intertwined, but they now share each other through news and rumour. “‘David’ is the coming to terms of the end” Sam goes on to say. “A realisation that what once was, will no longer be; that someone you’ve known for so long, will now only exist in memory.”
Written predominantly in Sam Holmes’ hometown of Rye on the British south-coast, the songs on ‘White Noise’ were penned during a period of transition both for the band and for Sam personally. There’s a backdrop of heartbreak, the panic of anxiety and subsequent feeling of catharsis.
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Tokyo Tea Room released the ‘Dream Room’ EP yesterday via A Certain Kind Records. Vibrant synths, glimmering guitars and addictive rhythm section grooves combine to provide a bed for Beth Plumb and Daniel Elliot’s airy, ethereal vocals across four quintessential examples of their hazy psych-pop sound. Occupying a similar space to the collegiate bedroom indie of MUNYA, Men I Trust or Far Caspian as well as taking cues from Tame Impala, DIIV, Air and Mazzy Star.
The release is the culmination of a process of ongoing evolution. Deciding on a fresh start at the beginning of 2019, and realising how much their sound had matured, the band removed all their previous output from digital services, choosing indeed to move forward in their new sonic direction.
This bold approach however hasn’t stopped Tokyo Tea Room achieving success on a wider level - live slots with Wolf Alice and Super Furry Animals, acclaim on key tastemaker sites The Line of Best Fit, GIGWISE and Clash and spins on audio indie bible BBC 6 Music, Radio 1 and Radio X. As well as this, they are rapidly building a cult following in the hazy corners of YouTube and Spotify, racing to over one hundred thousand plays on Spotify alone on this new, discerning set of releases.
A key tenet of the band’s approach is their focus on aesthetic, which is strong and consistent throughout - unique whilst holding a candle to the canon of psychedelic and shoegaze pioneers they take inspiration from. A further reflection of their ethos is their collaboration with established Brighton-based visual artist InnerStrings, a well-known figure in the Psych scene who has previously been involved in events such as This Is Psych Fest, and this year’s Bella Union’s Great Escape Festival showcase, and who will be bringing his kaleidoscopic backdrops to the forthcoming Tokyo Tea Room show at Quarterstone.
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The Broken Islands are a Vancouver, Canada based sextet who meld elements of ambient pop, shoegaze, post-rock, post-punk, trip-hop and dark wave to create their own distinct sound. With crashing guitars and delicate sounding keyboards weaving around swooning, siren-like vocals, the band’s songs can sound at times like an otherworldly sonic experience while still being packed with emotion and moments of tenderness.
The well-received debut album entitled ‘Wars’ was released in the autumn of 2017, with a follow up, ‘Masquerade’, due out in January 2020. An opening salvo from the new record was released in May 2019 in the form of the cinematic sounding ‘Solid State’, which was issued to coincide with five UK shows.
A second single ‘High Life’ was released in September 2019 in advance of a November UK tour including a three-night artist residency at the storied London Troubadour. Like its predecessor, ‘Masquerade’ has been produced and mixed by Dave ‘Rave’ Ogilvie, who is best known for his work with industrial music titans such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and Skinny Puppy and was the perfect choice to harness the many influences that constitute the sound of The Broken Islands. Band co-founder Stephen Cameron points out that:
“we are all multi-instrumentalists and one of the great things about being in a six-piece band is the ability to switch instruments and play different things on different songs to really makes things exciting. We love to add percussion to songs so a set of free hands usually gets a chance to pick something up and add a new sound to a track. We all have wildly varied musical references, which we believe is what makes The Broken Islands sound the way it does. It’s really great to gain insight into someone else’s perspective of a song that you might not have heard before.”
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Hartlepool (England) quartet PLAZA release their new EP ‘wernotplaza’ via CLUE Records (YOWL, Crushed Beaks, Van Houten), pulling together an evolved version of their trademark, icy, visceral self-coined post-indie sound. In keeping with a growing tendency towards music free of narrow genre constraints, influences across the 4-tracks range from Foals, DIIV or Wolf Alice to the experimental RnB of Frank Ocean.
The EP is the most open PLAZA have been to date. It’s easy for bands to write obliquely, wavering around heavy points reticent to tackle them head on – which is more than understandable, as so much artistic inspiration comes from a deeply personal well. This time around however they refuse to compromise in expressing their truth.
Whilst this sounds disconsolate in sentiment, in listening to the tracks you can hear the release and catharsis it offers, generating an emotive layer to the unique sound the band have carefully cultivated over the last few years. Spiky guitars and a sprinkling of electronics, driven forward by a skittish beat, provide the layer for Brad Lennard’s confessionary vocals.
An apt example of this being the hopeful themes behind EP closer ‘WHO’S WANTING ME’, as Brad says: “When you feel like there’s nothing else in the world that matters, you have got to remember that you matter to someone.”
The quartet have built up a cult live following across the UK, also drawing attention from Huw Stephens and Phil Taggart at BBC Radio 1, alongside John Kennedy at Radio X – with the likes of DIY, DORK, The Line of Best Fit, Clash and Wonderland singing their praises too.
Where they really shine though is on stage, chaotic headline shows across the country, as well as tour slots with JAWS, Gengahr and The Night Café, cementing their reputation as one of the most exciting upcoming bands in the UK.
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