Favours - Susto - Seasurfer

Favours - Call Me.

Favours are made up of Jacq Andrade and Alex Zen. They released their first LP, Made to Wait, in 2020. It was recorded at Candle Recording Studios in Toronto. Their song “Stowaway” was featured on Netflix and CBC Gem. 

Recently, Favours joined forces with Jacq’s brother, Mark Andrade and built a home recording studio in a former halfway house in Mimico. Throughout the pandemic, Favours tracked a ton of music in their home studio. Their EP, Left Behind, will be released in 2021 and it features a fresh dreampop, new-wave sound inspired by their shared love of the DIY post-punk feel of Robert Rental. 

The band collaborated with a strong team for this upcoming EP. They enlisted the talents of Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning who plays bass on the EP, the engineering chops of Tallies’ Dylan Franklin who engineered the drums and bass, and the mixing prowess of Alexandre Bonenfont.

Favours · CALL ME

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Susto - Summertime.

Susto will return with Time in the Sun on October 29th via New West Records. The 11-song set was produced and engineered by Wolfgang Zimmerman (Band of Horses) in the band’s hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. Time in the Sun follows their critically acclaimed 2019 studio album Ever Since I Lost My Mind which Paste raved was “a resounding triumph.” 

The joy of birth, the closure of death, the warmth of true friendship, and the future rotate on the axis of the band’s New West Records debut. Frontman Justin Osborne distills this ebb and flow into songs underpinned by lyrical eloquence, unpredictable dynamics, and a thoroughly alive rock and roll spirit.

Prior to entering the studio, Osborne became a father and midway through recording, lost his own father to cancer. Osborne says, “Because I had begun writing when I found out I was going to be a dad, these events were the biggest inspirations for the record. It felt like I was in between the beginning and end of life. Up until my own father passed away, I felt like it was an album about new life and becoming a parent. His passing shifted the narrative towards the cyclical nature of life, death, and new births.”

 

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Seasurfer - Drifting.

Shortly after Seasurfer’s acclaimed third album “Zombies” has also been released on vinyl in addition to the earlier CD edition, the Hamburg-based dream pop duo comes up with a new version of the song “Drifting”. The track turned out to be one of the fan’s favourites on the record, so Dirk Knight and Apolonia decided to produce an alternate mix.   

However, the song still captivates due to the rich atmosphere and the dark elegance of the floating synth sounds which reveal a blissful 80s feeling. This applies all the more so for the “Extended Single Mix” – almost 12 minutes long and probably one of the most impressing reworks in the band’s history.

Dirk Knight explains: "For me “Drifting” is the song with the coolest bass of the whole album “Zombies”. For the first time I recorded all the basses by myself and learned to love playing this instrument. Basses are extremely important to us and determine the harmonies and melodies, similar to how Simon Gallup (The Cure), Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) and Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins) are doing it. For the single and the extended mix we let the drums run straight through to make the song even more mesmerizing.

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Helven - Áine Rose Daly - Juniper Stone - Sitrekin

Helven - u my homie.

Emerging Norwegian alt-pop artist Helven has announced that she will release her debut EP volume 1 via Jansen Records on Jan 14th 2022. Hailing from the Norwegian countryside, Helven, aka 21-year-old Jenny Bakke,  recently moved to Oslo to pursue her career in music. The up-and-coming musician has a talent for fusing together honest, true and contemporary lyrics with inspiration from pop music of the past, capturing the experience of life as a 21-year-old woman in the 2020’s.

Inspired by the many lessons her brother, who has autism and Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, has taught her, Helven is on a mission to wear her heart on her sleeve. Each of the five tracks that make up volume 1 focuses on a different emotion that she has struggled to express in the past: envy, care, love, sadness and frustration. Attaching a particular feeling to the autobiographical stories she tells in her music has helped her find a true sense of self. Her message to her generation is simple. “In order to survive in this increasingly chaotic world, we need to listen to our feelings more, and express them proudly.”

On lead single ‘u my homie’, Helven delivers her signature smoky vocals atop laidback trip-hop beats. The lyrics were pulled from text messages and notes Helven wrote whilst helping her childhood friend through a tough time. "It's about the journey we had together, what it is like to help a friend, the ups and downs, and the strength of the friendship in adversity" she explains. "I used texts from that period to write the lyrics. It's all the things we used to say to each other during the toughest times, without anyone else understanding what they meant. Instead of saying 'I love you, you'll get through this', we said 'I know you, u my homie'".

Jansen Records · Helven - u my homie (9AM Records

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Áine Rose Daly - Places.

Having already made her mark in the acting world of late, earning a regular part in the hit Amazon Prime series Hanna, emerging singer and songwriter Áine Rose Daly is now staking her claim on the music world as she delivers the wonderfully bright and uplifting new single ‘Places’.

Channelling a rich and dynamic alt-pop aesthetic throughout, ‘Places’ sees the artist deliver a bold and shimmering new offering, layered in rich and euphoric textures. With a light and atmospheric production embedded around her sweet and soaring voice, her new offering showcases her as a strong and powerful artist, brimming with stellar potential.

Speaking about the new release, she said, “I wrote this song a long time ago about my struggles with my mental health and how, at the time, I felt like it was holding me back from doing what I wanted to do with my life.”

Áine Daly is a London-based actor/singer/songwriter. Born and raised in Jersey, Channel Islands to Irish parents and coming from a long lineage of musicians and creatives, Áine has always been surrounded by music and arts.

The last few years have seen Áine’s acting career flourish, having been cast in multiple feature length films and most notably playing a series regular in Amazon Prime's “HANNA”. Outside of her acting career however, Aine has always maintained her love for songwriting and considers it a major creative outlet for herself.

Áine Rose Daly · Places

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Juniper Stone - Patterns.

Juniper Stone is the solo musical project of Brisbane based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Damien Vincent. His musical style has been described as a blend of Lo-Fi Indie Pop and Neo Soul.

After collaborating with many acts in the Brisbane music scene and graduating from Musical Industry College, Damien is now focusing his efforts into his own project with his upcoming debut singles “Patterns” and “Moonchild.”

With plans to release a follow-up EP and play live in 2021, Juniper Stone is set to be an exciting journey.

 

 

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Sitrekin - Open Chest.

Danish artist Kirstine Stubbe Teglbjærg is off to an historic start as she launches a new project under artist name Sitrekin. She is the voice behind US Grammy nominated Twilight Saga soundtrack hit song ‘Eyes on Fire’, which has racked up close to 100m streams, and now releases her debut solo track in English since her departure from the award-winning Danish group Blue Foundation. The track is entitled ‘Open Chest’ and is a spellbinding, infectious love song. Earlier this year, the track was chosen to be the perfect sonic launchpad for Apple Music’s new lossless format available on iTunes using Dolby Atmos.

‘Open Chest’ was released exclusively for Apple Music on July 1st in their new revolutionary Spatial Audio/Dolby Atmos format and now gets a full release via all other major digital platforms. The track was mixed by Dyre Gormsen in the legendary West London Eastcote Studios – one of the most important and influential of music studios in the world, where artists such as Massive Attack, Depeche Mode, Adele and Arctic Monkeys created some of their greatest works.

Dyre explains, “Open Chest is mixed by myself and was the first track I put into Dolby Atmos as an experiment to begin with, but it became clear that it was a perfect media for Kirstine’s music and what we were looking for all the time, as a way to demonstrate how you are able to move objects around as the music is very element based. We used the mix to play for Dolby who were instantly very excited by what they heard and gave approval for this to be the launch track for this new groundbreaking format.”

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The Ninth Wave - The Catenary Wires - Adna - Yes

The Ninth Wave - Piece and Pound Coins.

Glasgow's The Ninth Wave release new single "Piece and Pound Coins", a new taster of their next full length body of work, due 2022.

A compelling piece, "Piece and Pound Coins" was produced by the band themselves and mixed by Max Heyes (Massive Attack, Doves, Lucia & The Best Boys, Primal Scream). Amidst a distinctly chilling atmosphere, rolling piano lines weave their way through chugging percussion with the track standing as a stark examination of grief and loss.

Speaking on the release of "Piece and Pound Coins", singer Haydn Park-Patterson said: "I wrote this song about a friend who passed away a number of years ago. I’ve never really felt like I wanted to/could write about him for a number of reasons, but I guess the main one was because that for a long time, I wouldn’t have known what to write. Writing about death is a world away from writing about heartache/love/friendships because there’s nobody to listen to the song and wonder “is that about me?”. It’s a strange feeling, to write a song about someone that you know can’t ever hear it. 

The song also touches on the thought of wondering what he’d be up to now, 5 years on in his life, and how weird a thought it is that we’ve all continued on with our lives but his had a start and end point, and that’s it. No more memories to be made. The song also lets out a bit of confused anger that I felt not long after he passed, as I watched how a few people reacted to his death and the way in which they talked about it. That’s the meaning behind the line 'death makes some people sad and some people ugly / and some people took your name for their own sake'. I like to think that he’d like the song, as he was one of the most supportive and positive-minded people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing."

The track is released alongside a stunning video directed by Rianne White. She commented: "I feel completely in awe of this song and Haydn’s ability to frame such an immense feeling. Embraced by the catharsis of nature, the heights of grief and identity are expressed through a journey of Haydn’s internal growth accompanied by a symbolically poignant lone wolf. I like to think of Hayden and the wolf as one, both finding their way back to their truest states of being with wild untamed hearts of companionship and eternal loyalty. "

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The Catenary Wires - Always On My Mind.

Taken from their acclaimed album Birling Gap, The Catenary Wires’ new single is accompanied by a brand-new video. The Catenary Wires combine Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey (both ex-Heavenly, Talulah Gosh) with Fay Hallam (Makin’ Time) Andy Lewis (The Paul Weller Group, Pimlico) and Ian Button (Death in Vegas, Papernut Cambridge).

'Always On My Mind' is a track for late summer.   It’s a love song full of warmth and emotion.  An old photograph taken on a late summer holiday transports us back to a perfect moment when a relationship first started.  But there’s bittersweet regret in there too.   In the photograph, the sun’s rays were still warm, but they were getting longer; the colder Autumn evenings weren’t far away.  Did the relationship survive the winter?  And now, is it that person in the photo the one we are still in love with, or are they long gone – leaving us with just a memory embedded in a faded old picture?

The song and the video are celebrations of the fact that The Catenary Wires have evolved from a duo into a five-piece band, where everyone contributes to the rich instrumentation and the blissful vocal harmonies.  The video was filmed by all five members of the band, taking it in turns in the practice room – the first time they’d all been together since the start of lockdown.

 

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Adna - Darkness Born in Youth.

Following on from the release of her stunning 2017 full-length ‘Closure’, an album which was lauded across numerous outlets, Swedish-born but Berlin-based singer songwriter Adna has now unveiled the details behind her next LP ‘Black Water’ with the release of her latest single ‘Darkness Born In Youth’.

Much like her work to date, ‘Black Water’ sees her channel a rich and ambient direction, filled with warm and textured aesthetics. With her smooth and seductive voice layered over a heady mix of bright and enticing production, her latest collection looks set to become one of her most praised to date.

Adna’s latest offering follows on from the unfiltered emotion of ‘Don’t Know’, giving us a clear insight into the understated balladry that we can expect on this forthcoming full-length. Conjuring up more of the raw and poignant direction she is known for, ‘Darkness Born In Youth’ spotlights her soulful presence. Recorded in one-take, the track is accented by softly plucked guitar and her trademark soaring vocal.

Speaking about the new release, she says, “It’s hard not to sound pretentious about it, but this is really just a very honest improvisation that I recorded for my own memory in case I would forget about it. The title refers to the sensitivity I often find myself thinking of as a burden… I guess most people have had to end relationships, wishing it could have been with someone else instead.”

To date, Adna has made three beautifully woeful albums; 2014’s ‘Night’, 2015’s’ Run, Lucifer’ and the album ‘Closure’ in 2017. Supporting ‘Closure’, Adna played a packed Eurosonic showcase in 2017 and toured throughout Germany, UK, France and Scandinavia in the months since its release. Adna’s music has had more than 50 million streams on the large DSPs, and has had her melancholic, lo-fi work compared to the likes of Bon Iver and Daughter.

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Yes - Dare To Know.

Yes, who are Steve Howe, Alan White, Geoff Downes, Jon Davison and Billy Sherwood, recently announced they will release their new studio album The Quest on InsideOutMusic/Sony Music on 1st October 2021. 

The album was produced by Steve Howe. "Much of the music was written in late 2019 with the rest in 2020. We commissioned several orchestrations to augment and enhance the overall sound of these fresh new recordings, hoping that our emphasis on melody, coupled with some expansive instrumental solo breaks, keeps up the momentum for our listeners,” said Steve.

Steve Howe comments: “Dare To Know presents a guitar theme played within many different arrangements, with different chord structures and altered textures. The 'idea' mentioned in the first verse gets described later as an awakening to the subtle goings on within our bodies and mind, all geared to nature's scheme of things, all fluctuating and rearranging according to the principles of life, as we know it. The centrepiece leaves the orchestra alone to elaborate and develop the way the theme is heard, then augments the closing minutes of the song as it rests, with an acoustic guitar cadenza.”

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Catbells - Piper Butcher - Lisa Richards

Catbells - It's Not Hard.

Dreamy melancholic shoegaze meets alt-pop singer/songwriter Catbells engages her listeners with soft hypnotic vocals, lush soundscapes, and moody melodies that capture her deep, heartfelt emotions in the most intimate of ways. Gifted with a voice like an angel, Catbells gently immerses her listeners into a world of sweet nostalgia and velvety sentiments.

The singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was introduced to the piano at age five, and by the 7th grade she was playing the guitar and writing songs about her middle school heartbreaks. After performing in several bands throughout her early music career, Catbells recently decided to focus on her own solo project.

Catbells is a somewhat enigmatic, shy wallflower type, with her name itself being an alter-ego. Named after the popular hiking spot recited in the famous children's book The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle by Beatrix Potter, Catbells' cinematic music is influenced by the vast natural wild. Raised in New England, Catbells often revisits the times of her childhood in her music, where she reflects on fond memories of the seasons changing, swimming in the eastern lakes, canoeing down the river, and working on the family farm.

Her deeply personal and introspective single "Fade - Rainy Day Demo" is an intimate and open-hearted reflection of lost love. “The song really wrote itself and the music needed to match the feeling of how the words felt. There are few people who are lucky enough to escape the feeling of a completely broken heart, and feeling like the person you loved so much just moved on like it was nothing, leaving you left there with a hole where your heart once was” confides Catbells. This emotionally raw and poignant narrative and accompanying music video features innovative illustrations of a sad cat saying farewell in a starry evening background.  While on the single "Wilderness" Catbells’ soft-powered honeyed vocals float above stripped down melodies and dreamy lush acoustic soundscapes. The track was mixed by acclaimed producer Ali Chant (Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius, Soccer Mommy).

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Piper Butcher - September (E.P).

Australian singer-songwriter, Piper Butcher, follows on from the success of her smash hit singles with her shiny new EP, “September”. The debut offering is a five-track release, showcasing the talented young artist from the New South Wales steel city of Newcastle.

Leading the EP is “Haunting Your Thoughts” which has already generated close to 40,000 streams on Spotify. It’s a rocky anthem thriving on Piper’s passionate vocals and one that takes you through the story of when a trouble maker doesn’t clean up their own mess. “Long Road” is co-written with fellow roots act, Cassi Marie, and covers the long road of heartbreak. The lyrics provoke feelings of sorrow and frustration, but Piper ensures in song that leaving unhealthy people behind is a difficult but prosperous journey.

Hitting the middle of the EP is the current single, “Before The Thunder”. It has immediately struck a chord with fans and the industry alike, emanating from the storyline where someone tries to cross the line to get what they want. The song builds with emotion, entrancing you with whimsical guitars and strong melodies.

The very first song that Piper ever wrote is included in the form of “Not Yet”. It stems from pure feelings of staying in the moment which listeners correlate with on a personal level. It’s honest and calm, yet it has a depth in meaning owed to its simplicity. Closing out “September” is a steamy swarm of blues rock that immediately draws the listener in. “Soul Into Sand” sees Piper truly soaring - her voice driving the song with immense intensity and soul.

“September” is further proof that we are witnessing the launch of one of Australia’s most exciting new roots artists. It is testament not only to her talent, but also Piper Butcher’s hard work and passion for her music. Piper Butcher - “September” - is released Wed 1st September 2021.

Piper Butcher · september

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Lisa Richards - Dominoes.

Dominoes is the second single from the upcoming sixth album “I Got A Story” from Australian singer and songwriter Lisa Richards, the latest from the acclaimed singer and songwriter since she moved back to Australia from Austin, Texas. Last year Lisa returned to the USA to record in New York City to record with Tim Bright.

As Lisa explains: “Tim and I first worked together on my debut release, ‘Not Quite So Low’, then three albums later we did ‘Mad Mad Love’ and co-wrote half that album together.  We completed recording this new one on November 18th 2019 which seems like an eternity ago, given all that has transpired since then.  I lived in the USA for so long that it seemed logical to me to work with people I know and trust and have history with. So I combined tour dates in the USA with recording this new album in New York, which was, in retrospect, crazy. This recording was completed with partial support from ArtsACT for which I am very grateful.”

Lisa says that Dominoes is, "A song about being young and out of control. This song was written on piano, which is different for me as I don’t really play piano. Growing up in Townsville North QLD was wild. I don’t make a secret of the fact that I began drinking at 7 and that I was dosed on anti psychotic medication from when I was 4 or 5 years old. The sexual abuse started somewhere in there and continued until I hit puberty. Alcohol and drugs were my close friends and it’s no wonder I was all over the place!  I was super confused about men, women, sex and relationships. I remember having this desperate need to be loved and desired and the suicidal spiral that would come over me when I was rejected. Which happened a lot.  I hung out with a gang of equally confused people and we were like dominoes!

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