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Roll up, roll up - the circus has come to town and invite you into their weird and wonderful world! Calista plays ringmistress to tell the story of our heroine, 'Benzo Belle' and the circus her life has become. Depreciated in a loveless marriage, a monotonous carousel existence, delusional and exhausted, self-medicating to numb the pain. Will she escape this Stepford Wife life prison and live out her fantasies to run away with the circus?...
The heartbreaking ‘Benzo Belle’ is being placed album frontrunner for its sophisticated, emotional songwriting and cinematic, evocative production. The record cherishes an eerie, tongue-in-cheek tenderness similar to The Dresden Doll’s cult classic ‘Coin Operated Boy’ and is quickly becoming a fan favourite.
“Powerful women throughout history are massively sexualised, even objectified. Is it because history is written by men? Or were these Empresses using their female prowess to rule the world?”
Calista’s highly anticipated debut album ‘Empress’ considers the stories of women in history to form this fearless, cinematic tribute to womanhood, self-love and empowerment. Co-produced by award-winning film composer Guy Dagul and recorded at London’s Rattle Studios, 'Empress’ finds Calista continuing to modify the norms of modern songwriting with a characteristic mix of sensuality and sense of humour. Each track tells a story about a different Empress, resulting in a stunning concept album that challenges complex themes while never losing its sense of fun: the song ‘Cake’, for instance, finds Marie Antoinette on Tinder!
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Tokyo Tea Room unveil new single ‘Designer’, a wistful paean to long-distance relationships, and announce the ‘Dream Room’ EP for 29th November, released via A Certain Kind Records. Replete with swirling synths, glimmering guitars, and Beth Plumb and Daniel Elliot’s airy vocals matching for an ethereal effect, it’s an imperious example of their trademark 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.
Expressing the simple, enduring message behind the track Daniel notes: ‘Designer is about missing someone you love, the lyrics embody the emotions of being in a relationship but separated by living in different cities.’
The release is part of the group’s 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, culminating in live slots with Wolf Alice and Super Furry Animals, acclaim on key tastemaker sites The Line of Best Fit 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.
Tokyo Tea Room are Daniel Elliot (Synths/Vocals), Ben Marshall (Bass), Beth Plumb (Vocals/Keys), Sam Teather (Drums), Ryan Debling (Guitar) and Graham Nunn (Guitar)
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Tuvaband, aka the enigmatic Norwegian-born, Berlin-based artist Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser, shares new single Ambiguous Flies today. It is the third and final track to be taken from her forthcoming album ‘I Entered The Void’ which follows on 27 November via Brilliance Records. Leaving behind the ethereal hues of previous single He Said Me Too, and the dark synth-wave of the album’s title track and first single I Entered The Void, Ambiguous Flies is instead a denser, weightier, and much more urgent beast.
Ambiguous Flies is a song exploring what Tuva describes as “the line between passion and insanity”, which is mirrored in the intensity of the track. Ambiguous Flies is both claustrophobic and cathartic, it is a stunning expression of pressure and release wrapped in a creeping 90’s alt guitar riff, building to a crescendo of drums and a frenzied backdrop of freestyle saxophone. It is the album track most indicative of Tuva’s plan to capture the heavier live sound of Tuvaband on the new record. As Tuva expands:
“I wanted a more distorted sound, and live, my band and I really tried to push the boundaries from my released music by moving from stripped down and vulnerable, to trying to sound like a punk/rock band”.
Tuvaband has previously released one album, the debut ‘Soft Drop’ (2018, AntiFragile/Brilliance Records). The debut garnered wide acclaim both in Tuva’s homeland of Norway and internationally, with Tuvaband being named ‘Ones to Watch’ not once but twice by The Guardian, with the band’s SXSW Austin showcase of the same year garnering a flurry of attention from tastemaker US media.
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Hailing from the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, 18-year-old multi-instrumentalist and DIY musician Mimi Bergman – aka mimi bay – is crafting a Gen Z spin on age-old love quandries. Self-taught, she began writing and recording at 14 in her bedroom studio before sharing her music online. It quickly resonated with YouTube frequenters as her channel Hi I’m Mimi subsequently grew to a quarter of a million subs (and counting), and garnered over 11 million streams on Spotify.
mimi’s organic evolution and deep connection with her fans goes right to the heart of the new triple-single, ‘daydreams’. Comprised of three completed songs voted for by her growing fanbase from SoundCloud demos, the fully realised tracks, ‘wyd’, ‘daydream’ and ‘2am apollo’ are lush and mature pop songs without losing any of the intimate and raw beauty of the seeds that they grew from. mimi says -
‘I’ve wanted to share these songs since they were first demos but they never really had context so to finally share them with whoever wants to listen makes me happy.’ With leading track ‘wyd’, mimi immediately invites us into her delicate inner world. Vulnerable and emotive pop vocals meet finger picked acoustic guitar, instantly bringing to mind the contemporary beabadoobee, as well as effectively citing the fragility of Bombay Bicycle Club’s ‘Flaws’.
Here, mimi opens up about the inevitability of change and the apprehension that naturally accompanies it, exposing her hopes and fears. As she explains - ‘wyd is about what I was feeling fall of 2018. A lot of things were changing, I was thinking too much and met some people who thought me a lot. This song to me, feels like that period of time, a bittersweet mixture of longing to get somewhere but also wanting to pause time and stay right where I was.’
Second track ‘Daydream’, greets like a fuzzy embrace. Thrumming low-end meets glimmering synths as mimi croons us into a trance. The music flows with mellow, jazzy chord changes, drifting afloat on a fantasy, as she sings the tender refrain ‘You were just another Daydream.’
Third and final track, ‘2am apollo’ emerges last, all dripping keys and underwater throbs. mimi’s soulful vocal take is front-and-centre here, harmonising with herself as the music swirls around her, in this short but emotionally effective song. With a keen eye for aesthetics, mimi’s input was intrinsic to the cover’s design process, realising the initial concept for the artwork and assuring a strong and cohesive narrative throughout her work. ‘daydreams’ is her first music to be released on 7-inch Vinyl, something she is naturally excited about -
‘Getting these songs out on vinyl is really cool. It’s hard to believe that I’ll be able to physically hold these three songs that have been with me for a while now. These are songs that carry my mind from different versions of me.’ As mimi takes the next big step on her astonishing musical journey, whichever version of herself presents itself, she can rest assured that her adoring fans are right there with her, willing her on every step of the way.
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Back to the Wall: I woke up one day and really wanted to write an upbeat song. I tend to write moodier songs. They're more in my DNA. Back to the wall is the song that came out of that intention. The funny thing is that the lyrics are pretty serious for what to me is an easy going song. It's about Aaron's and I's relationship. About the intensity of living, working and spending almost all your time with your partner. Things reach a tipping point and we have these almost scripted reactions. We play out the same patterns. The song is me trying to release some of my emotions. Obviously there are highs and lows in every relationship and I've written a lot of love songs to Aaron but this is more of a relationship song.
We’re all just spinning in circles of time and space. Retro-pop band Frederick the Younger lasso various transitory states and tensions of the heart on their upcoming new EP "Fever." Across six songs, the Louisville-based songwriters -- Jenni Cochran and Aaron Craker -- seek for something real and dissects such issues as regret, love and letting go.
In 2018 they found creative kinship in drummer Meg Samples and bassist Shelley Anderson and started working on the followup to 2017's Human Child. Producer Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne) couples the vivid, visceral lyrics and equally-emotive arrangements with a slick, yet dreamy, quality. And it’s never at the expense of the innately imposing stories. Lead single “Back to the Wall” untangles the push and pull of a relationship that’s undergoing an inner struggle. “You could say you love me / But you leave me with my back to the wall,” Cochran casts off her frustrations as a snake shedding its skin.
Their willingness to be so vulnerable serves as the EP’s foundation. “Erased,” featuring Craker’s magnetic, raw vocal, and “Deepest Blue” are other sterling highlights, the latter witnessing Cochran hitting an emotional rock bottom and writing a song about it. “I hate regretting things I’ve done, and I know when I’m in that space that I shouldn’t be doing it. I waste time, and I get carried away. This song is me trying to sing myself out of that funk,” she says of the song.
Cochran and Craker are not only the creative core of the band, but they complete each other on a deeply personal level. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Cochran grew up writing songs, yet never played them out. She initially had ambitions to go to school for anthropology but after working overseas, teaching in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, she returned to the states with a newfound drive to pursue music. She relocated to Louisville, and a two-month stay turned into a permanent move when she met Craker through an improv group.
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Cincinnati indie pop act Multimagic have released their long-awaited EP, Move On, ahead of their debut album early next year. "It’s a synth lover’s dream," GroundSounds' Jake Craney exclaimed last month on the new material. "Slick, impactful, and something you’ll be singing and replaying all day."
Move On arrives after a several year hiatus following a misdiagnosed illness that temporarily put frontman/songwriter Coran Stetter out of commission from music. Stetter returned to Multimagic with a new lineup and material, starting with "Dreams" back in January and "Sunshine" last month.
Multimagic is an Ohio-based indie pop band founded in 2014 by singer-songwriter Coran Stetter. The band caught an early break when a demo of their song "Let Go" gained traction in May 2014, garnering a devoted fanbase in their hometown of Cincinnati and appearances at music festivals SXSW, CMJ, MPMF and Bunbury.
By 2016, Multimagic had a backing band in tow, a full length album recorded, and a release date set for the following summer. However, that February, Stetter suffered from a misdiagnosis and was overprescribed prednisone and codeine, which led to a period that the young singer/songwriter describes as a "manic daze" that changed the course of his life.
During his recovery, many of Stetter's friends and former bandmates had left him to fend for himself, so he spent the next year rebuilding relationships and fostering new ones. Multimagic now comprises guitarist James Ruehlman, drummer Evan Brown, keyboardist Meg Kecskes and bassist Anthony Maley.
Reconnecting with music was an important part of Stetter's recovery and his bout with mental illness and search for redemption became themes of both November’s Move On EP and the band’s upcoming full-length early next year.
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