The Money War - Sterre Weldring - Polar Klub - ModernFolkRevolution - Starlite Campbell Band

The Money War - Blood (E.P).

Rounding out a monumental 2021 with their distinctive graceful tenacity is WA indie pop/ rock duo The Money War with the highly-anticipated unveiling of their latest EP ‘Blood’ today November 5. Delivering elegant pop pureness that beats with the steely resolve of an indie-rock heart, Dylan and Carmen Ollivierre of The Money War approach their craft with unwavering sincerity, recounting intricate experiences through gorgeous melodies and elegant production.

Recorded at their studio where it was produced and mixed by Dylan, ‘Blood’ is about connection, exploring the binding ties of family, partners, even strangers, while showcasing the pair’s songwriting depth and refined sonic execution. The duo explain:

“The EP is a collection of songs that bookmark 2021 for us. We’re always writing, but these were the 5 songs that rose to the top and we felt that we needed to record.” Opening in a bittersweet flourish of nostalgic grace is title-track ‘Blood’, written about the complexity of family relationships and bloodlines, the contrast between the jovial strum of the guitar and the melancholic press of the keys a reminder of the reality of changing lives.

Next, ‘Miles Away’ begins its euphonious journey through golden saxophone solos and Carmen’s velvety vocals, the track’s transcendent melancholy spreading the disheartening feeling of being emotionally disconnected from somebody close to you. The EP’s centrepiece ‘Lost in the Rhythm’ arrives as a dreamy dance track, using gripping instrumental layerings and pulsing percussion to produce an addictive cadence as Dylan's warm, heartfelt vocals take the lead, delivering the track's introspective lyrical exploration of overcoming anxiety with a self-assured strength.

‘Zoom’ follows in a romantic cloud of longing, as gentle guitar, delicate vocals and a distance-crossing chorus weave a vulnerable tale of living through a long-distance relationship during a pandemic. Closing out the EP is ‘Man at the Station’ featuring warming indie-folk beats, cosy acoustic guitars, drifting violins and Dylan’s wholesome vocals to take us on a romantic late-night journey with a carriage full of strangers that become a little less so by the song’s end.

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Sterre Weldring - Turn Around / I'm Gone.

After the succesful singles 'Not With Me' and 'Remedy', Sterre Weldring will now release her debut EP 'Lost Lights'. Sterre Weldring’s debut EP is full of songs about lost but beautiful souls. People who haven’t really found their way in life yet but are trying to do better, hence the metaphor ‘Lost Lights’. Being lost can cause hurt to yourself or to others, but as these songs point out, can also teach you valuable lessons as there’s often a beauty, a rawness, hiding behind that kind of pain. Sterre reflects on this and on herself and concludes that after all the pain is relevant, as we can learn and grow from it, to evolve into a light that eventually isn’t lost.

At the age of 16, Sterre Weldring was still a bit young for the conservatory, but she made a very mature decision: she started studying songwriting at BIMM (Brighton Institute of Modern Music). In between studies, she completely immersed herself in Brighton's rich music scene. While jamming, and playing live, she quickly developed her own sound, which she describes as folk-pop. In concrete terms, this means that her songs have a pop structure, on which she puts a folk stamp on with her characteristic voice. Amy Macdonald is a common comparison.

After a successful 2019, including a place in the final of the 'Grote Prijs van Nederland' and a tour through the country during 'Popronde', the Amsterdam-based singer-songwriter is now releasing her new single. This song is part of her new EP, which will be released today November 5th.

 

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Polar Klub - I Feel It Too.

Singer and guitarist Lukas Heer plucks the best strings of self-irony: a musician who prefers to run away than to dance, writes music to which you have to stay. 

In rhythm, in motion, in mood.

With his project Polar Klub, he takes us on a journey through the 60s, 70s and 80s, drawing on the genres of psych-rock, post-punk and dream pop for his beats and riffs.

For the new track "I Feel It Too", the Glarus-based musician has again conjured a wonderfully cranky sound - completely in DIY feeling.

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ModernFolkRevolution - ModernFolkRevolution (Album).

You may not immediately recognize the name Lonnie James, but if you’re familiar at all with the Canadian indie rock scene of the 1990s, he was a ubiquitous presence, playing drums for a seemingly endless array of artists and significantly contributing to the most vibrant and influential period of Canadian rock and roll.

After a lengthy hiatus, and back home near Calgary, Lonnie James has now returned with a new project dubbed ModernFolkRevolution, whose self-titled debut album was released on Oct. 22. Its 10 tracks are, on one hand, a throwback to more innocent pre-Internet days, and on the other hand are a reminder that an organic approach to making music still packs an emotional punch. 

As a band, ModernFolkRevolution presents James’s songs in all their rough-hewn glory, recalling the lo-fi majesty of The Vaselines and Guided By Voices, coupled with Byrds and Kinks-style paisley-tinged flourishes.However the album might be classified, ModernFolkRevolution is a pure reflection of Lonnie James’s life—and life in music—after more than three decades. More importantly, it’s the sound of an artist finding a previously untapped well of creativity and using it to sow the seeds of future endeavours. Indeed, the ModernFolkRevolution’s time has come.

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Starlite Campbell Band - The Language of Curiosity (Album).

Renowned for their distinctive songwriting, unique sound with beautifully produced recordings, onstage chemistry and electrifying live shows, European and British blues award nominees the Starlite Campbell Band are Suzy Starlite and Simon Campbell who fell in love on stage and married following a whirlwind musical romance. Musically it's he classic sound of British blues and rock from the 60s and 70s, with some trips down sidestreets and byways - that they promise. Do they deliver on their album The Language of Curiosity?

Here's what "Blues Enthused" has to say about it: "Simon Campbell seems like a walking encyclopaedia of classic British axe heroes.  But overall his guitar sound is his own, and it’s remarkable that he eschews effects pedals in search of it.  Just as importantly though, The Language Of Curiosity is about well-constructed songs, about infectious melodies and worthwhile words, and the couple’s co-writing fulfils those ambitions with a bit of flair.  The Starlite Campbell Band’s bonkers devotion to their musical muse has produced another crop of goodies."

And Hugh Fielder at "Classic Rock" thinks that  “The Starlite Campbell Band have a fresh take on 60s and 70s British R&B, a clean sound and an enthusiastic approach that gives their second album “The Language of Curiosity an immediate appeal!”

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Vera Ellen - The Ragged Roses - The Ninth Wave - Arctic Plateau

Vera Ellen - Joy.

Vera Ellen has proven she is unstoppable! She has today released yet another video, this time for album closer and tear-jerker 'Joy'.

“I wrote ‘Joy’ for my nephews and nieces, who forgave me over and over for leaving them to pursue music, and who love me unconditionally. Children are magic.”

The video was filmed by Al Kalyk at the artist's 'It's Your Birthday' listening party in Los Angeles. It was filmed on an iPhone in a single shot and features Vera's backyard and a handful of kind friends. In the footage taken by Vera's mum in the 90’s seen at the end of the video, you can see Vera's sister holding her as a baby and her grandparents and family singing a polish lullaby.

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The Ragged Roses - Falling Out Of Love.

Now, take 2 gallons of Wanda Jackson,2 Gallons of Etta James, a spoonful Howlin' Wolf, a shot of Dick Dale, Add some Cramps and a pint of Nick Curran, mix that all up, shake it, stir it, and light it on fire. The result you get : The Ragged Roses

The Ragged Roses combine the rock & roll spirit of the 1950's with the attitude of modern roots gunslingers. It's a new band, female fronted by Katrien, the embodiment of wild performing art, combining stunning vocals with stunning looks, being backboned by - you can call them although their relative young age and wild raging hearts - veterans of the Belgian roots scene. 

Watch out for that slapping, walking, gypsy swinging upright bass and lightning blot guitars, surfing on a wave of groovy drums.

The Ragged Roses are now releasing their Debut album "Do Me Right", containing all self-written original songs and one cover of the great Del Shannon.

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The Ninth Wave - What Makes You a Man.

Glasgow's The Ninth Wave today announce their second album Heavy Like A Headache will be released on 11th March 2022 via Distiller Records. Alongside the album announcement, the band are releasing their new single "What Makes You A Man" with a stirring black and white accompanying video; the final installment of a trilogy of videos directed by Rianne White.

The new single and album announcement arrives off the back of a sold-out UK tour and a Scottish Album Of The Year nomination for their Faris Badwan (The Horrors)-produced EP ‘Happy Days!’. Heavy Like A Headache is the band's second full length album following their 2019 debut Infancy which garnered widespread critical acclaim and nominations for the AIM Award Album Of The Year and Scottish Album of the Year.

Produced by the band themselves and mixed by Max Heyes (Massive Attack, Doves, Primal Scream), Heavy Like A Headache explores feelings of grief, anxiety, anger and loneliness, and represents the 4-piece's most triumphant and diverse body of work to date.

New single "What Makes You A Man" tackles issues of consent, airing Millie Kidd’s deeply personal lyrics ["I will feel the shame that you don't feel / And I won't feel the same now this is real"] with a heavy, lurching instrumental that seethes with defiance.

Speaking on the release, Millie said: "What Makes You A Man is as claustrophobic as it is cathartic. It’s a journey of self deprecation, and how one event can be such a throwaway meaningless action for one half but be life changing for the other. I don’t want to blame myself for the degrading actions of others anymore - I want to stand up to this shame I hold with me, and recognize that it is not mine, I’m just the one carrying it.

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Arctic Plateau - Saturn Girl.

Emerging from an eight-year hiatus, songwriter Gianluca Divirgilio brings his darkest and most introspective thoughts to light with Arctic Plateau’s Songs of Shame. Thought by some to have seen its final days, Arctic Plateau instead became a vehicle for Divirgilio to battle his demons; to chronicle struggle, self-doubt, pain, disillusion, and guilt, and ultimately to allow his scars to take form as Songs of Shame. In doing so he has returned with an album of intimate and powerful performances that serve as the first steps toward a healing that has been decades in the making.

A series of impressions drawn from Divirgilio’s own experiences in the time since the band’s last release The Enemy Inside, this record is a compendium of lost love, missed opportunity, crestfallen remorse, and lasting trauma, self-inflicted and otherwise. It is a deeply personal record that often points its finger at the mirror and winces as it’s reflected back. But in its complex self-exploration it also gains life as a living document affording the artist an opportunity to turn the page, and by accord provides its audience safe space to look to the darkness within, feel the emotion freely, and eventually discover a path through.

The compositions on Songs of Shame mirror the duality of its themes, utilizing the disarmingly upbeat aesthetics of post-punk to balance the often-grim themes contained within the lyrics. They draw from the stark self-reproach of proto-goth, the bare honesty of singer-songwriter music, and the enigmatic sparkle of post-punk to create a strikingly memorable sonic landscape for the listener. Focusing these laments through the lens of something far brighter and more buoyant sows the seeds of healing in a manner that would be far less affecting were they represented in a parallel, dirge-like manner.

While the themes center around the many ghosts that haunt us, it is the music that makes them corporeal and affords the opportunity to create tangible separation, and that is ultimately an act of joy that befits the spirited expression witnessed in the songwriting itself. Songs of Shame is an album that channels sadness and exhibits a tortured soul lay bare, but there is a formidable maturity in its honesty and triumph in its catharsis, giving it the dual quality of lifting the listener up while acknowledging the daunting weight of carrying sorrows through the years.

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Kings Elliot - Syd Carter West - Buster Baer - Jackson Dyer

Kings Elliot - Call Me A Dreamer.

Rising London-based artist Kings Elliot unveils a new single “Call Me a Dreamer.”

An advocate for mental health, who has long struggled with her own, she explains, “after two months of thinking that I was better and that I didn’t need any support with my mental health. I ended up feeling worse than ever. Writing it helped me process my emotional instability. The roller coaster I am constantly on that I don’t know how to get off.”

The track is from her forthcoming EP, Chaos in my Court, set for release December 1 via Verve Forecast.

“Chaos has been ever present in my life. I’ve never known how to function differently,” Elliot explains. “The songs on this EP make up a world I’ve always dreamed of creating for my own escape, and now anyone who needs it can join me there too.”

London-via-Switzerland singer-songwriter Kings Elliot has accumulated millions of global streams around her first three songs—“I’m Getting Tired Of Me,” “Dancing Alone” and “Bitter Tonic”—all featured on the highly anticipated forthcoming EP. Elliot has been diagnosed with borderline personality and anxiety disorders. She explores this and speaks openly about her battle through her music, even releasing accidentally filmed footage of herself having a panic attack for her music video “I’m Getting Tired Of Me.”

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Syd Carter West - The Ugly Truth

From hushed intimacy to audacious authority: Syd Carter West possesses an extraordinary voice. Her artistry maps a fertile musical crossroads where Southern roadhouse blues and rustic country/Americana ignite with the bravado of Seventies arena rock. Finely tuned narratives and expansive melodies match the fierce and soulful vocals of the Vancouver, British Columbia based singer-songwriter.

By age 12, Syd was following a musical path as an opera student with vocal training and music theory studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Conveying words that audiences may not understand in multiple languages taught her to translate drama through eye contact and body language, techniques that she now employs on stage and in videos.

A provocateur, a magnificently expressive vocalist and a deeply evocative songwriter, Syd Carter West arrives as a new artist with commanding courage and disarming authenticity. “I’m still discovering myself,” she concludes “Genuine, and a little quirky -- I am an open book.”

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Buster Baer - Get Deeper.

Retro-sounding indie-pop artist, Buster Baer, is releasing his new single, “Get Deeper” (today) from his upcoming EP Mock Twang. "Get Deeper" redefines the stereotypical slow, sad break-up song. The upbeat track is about two people who still love each other, but need to take time to focus on loving themselves first.

The eloquent lyrics reveal the saddening truth Baer faces when he realizes that to move forward, he must take a break. “I think I love you enough to leave you for your own sake” is a bittersweet line in the song that perfectly summarizes the essence of this story.

Jovial yet intense, Buster Baer represents the nexus between many paradoxes. His demeanor, performance antics, and musical style balance on the tensions between opposites, often collapsing into clownlike comedy amidst deep grooves.

Born into a show business family that named him after Buster Keaton, the childhood Los Angeles influences of beach punk and low-rider doo-wop settle into eclectic blends, equal parts Beatles and Bob Dylan; Parliament-Funkadelic and Tom Waits; Black Flag and Otis Redding.

The songwriter’s upcoming EP release Mock Twang, is a collection of four tracks all performed and recorded himself in a warehouse surrounded by three junkyards in Downtown LA. The songs are smooth yet raw, tender and flippant, easy and also deep.

 

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Jackson Dyer - At Ease.

Sydney-born, Berlin-based indie singer-songwriter Jackson Dyer follows up his recent "Losing Light" single with the release of the visuals for the new dreamy indie pop single, "At Ease". The single is taken from Dyer's upcoming EP.

""At Ease" is a song about mornings at home, when the coffee is freshly brewed and the sun is filtering through the curtains. It’s about those moments of absolute contentment when you wake up with someone special besides you and the day is pure and untouched by the stress and obligations of the outside world. ‘At Ease’ was a calming song for me to produce, almost meditating on the warm optimism of mornings and love." - Jackson Dyer

Since arriving in Berlin, Dyer has shared the stage with Hozier, Hiatus Kaiyote and Alice Phoebe Lou, as well as playing a host of festivals and touring Europe extensively in support of acts like Mighty Oaks and Dennis Lloyd. His laid-back songs are often influenced by nature and he brings a mix of soul, folk and indie to his spacious production and evocative lyricism. Dyer is set to release a new EP this year, featuring a mix of collaborations with fellow Berlin artists, further developing his distinct style.

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Tunnel Vision - Carson Hoy

Tunnel Vision - My Way Out.

Steadily earning a reputation as Southern California’s preeminent emerging surf/reggae/ska band, San Clemente-based Tunnel Vision grew up in a beach-town with instruments in their hands and surfboards under their feet, emulating the surfer legends of reggae rock who came before them.

So when they were invited to join Ballyhoo and The Expendables (as the two iconic bands hit the road performing each other’s songs on this year’s ExpendaHoo tour), the supporting act decided to get into the spirit of things with a tour-influenced cover of their own. Tunnel Vision gives a nod of respect to their musical lineage as they reimagine their favorite surf-inspired Expendables tune with their new single “My Way Out” (out now on LAW Records).

“We really love the concept behind the tour, with The Expendables doing Ballyhoo songs and vice versa, so we are feeding off of that synergy with this single,” says Tunnel Vision lead singer and guitarist Hayden Hanson. “‘My Way Out’ is a cover of one of our favorite Expendables songs. We grew up listening and relating to this song since we were kids ...and we started learning to play it as soon as we picked up our instruments. We're just so stoked to be part of the tour; to get a chance to play with these bands every night and to release our own version of this song that means so much to us is surreal.”

“My Way Out” is a song that conjures romantic imagery of what it’s like growing up in an idyllic little beach town, where surfing is both the daily agenda and the day’s escape. But it is an imagery that carries the familiarity of home for the members of Tunnel Vision.

LAW Records · Tunnel Vision "My Way Out"

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Carson Hoy - Night Drive.

Self-produced recording artist, Carson Hoy, sweetens his confrontational lyrics with dreamy synth pop. 

Engaging repressed emotions with lyrics like, “My dream was to be a stuntman,” from his first single, “Night Drive,” Carson tells how the joy of life is removed after one’s dreams have been abandoned and the curative remedy is to free yourself by taking a “Night Drive.”

Verse One:

"The best thing I did was walk out on you
I was so damn stressed out I knew
I would be so left out lampooned
There would be no pleasure for you
I would way more rather do the things I like
Then we could stop all the lies and we'd be alright
We could wave goodbye to this cartoon life
And by the look in your eyes this'll be the night."

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