London-based indie pop artist Natalie Shay is truly making her mark across the pond, having won multiple awards for her musical ambitions, and having sold out crowds at some of the city’s most well-known venues. Her signature blend is one of upbeat intensity, the vocals hitting points of twang every so often. This, in itself, adds a layer to the sound, setting her apart from other mainstream pop artists of the day. “This Feeling” is a definitive hip-shaker, brilliantly created to energize and excite its audience.
Check out this impossibly positive new track below, and perhaps make it your anthem of 2018 and new beginnings!
Earlier this month, indie pop newcomer Bülow released a visual to go with her mellow, “set him straight” single “Lines”. The video itself is mesmerizing, as it is essentially a repeating gif of the singer, blowing smoke out of her mouth and looking at vinyl on her bed. Comprised of several camera angles, the video traces her profile in dim light, as we make out a simplistic decor behind her, a big map spread out behind her headboard. The video seems to be a good little look behind the scenes into the life of the young musician, as she mellifluously sets boundaries to a steady beat.
Los Angeles-based duo Swimsuit Issue – comprised of Miles Garber and David Gagliardi – may have based their name from the fact that Garber’s initial introduction into the entertainment industry was as a relatively prominent model in the fashion world, but that’s not the initial takeaway from their art. In fact, as good looking as both guys are, their career has the ability to stand on its own based purely on their talent. It’s obvious to see why if you just listen to their debut single, a mid-tempo indie pop/rock track whose guitars give it edge while the vocals reside in more of a Kurt Cobain-meets-Sting ethereal sphere, replete with reverb.
The song itself is about addiction, the lyrics melancholic and sensitive, as one would expect. And though the duo has admitted to having a more somber tone to their music, we’re thrilled to hear what’s to come from their upcoming record.
Just last month, Massachusetts-based indie pop/punk rock four piece Kindling released a particularly impressive and instrumentally heavy 10-track album titled Hush. Though the intro to a lot of the tracks starts in a different soundscape, eventually the meat of most of the songs hits with multiple guitars that create an almost cacophonous ambiance around the chorus of vocals. It’s quite the experience, and while we certainly suggest showing off your dance moves while enjoying the album, we also kind of hope you have access to a starry night sky, dope lawn chairs, and string lights to enjoy “Rain”.
We got the chance to catch up with vocalists/guitarists Stephen Pierce and Gretchen Williams shortly after the release of Hush.
What was the first album or song you remember ever listening to, and who introduced it to you?
Stephen Pierce: I don’t know exactly the record, but my parents were always listening to a lot of British Invasion stuff — Yardbirds, The Animals, The Kinks.. My dad liked the Stones and my mom liked The Beatles. There’s in particular this one tape my dad had of The Yardbirds’ BBC sessions that is seared into my consciousness, right down to the hammy BBC announcer’s voice.
Gretchen Williams: When I was about seven or so, I had a camp counselor that had my troop perform the Shangri-Las‘ “Leader of the Pack” in a talent show. Naturally, I was assigned to be part of the motorcycle gang and made a construction paper leather jacket to wear. I really loved the sound and doomed-love-story subject matter as a kid, and played my cassette of the recording a lot at home.
What is the Kindling origin story?
Gretchen: In the winter of 2014, Stephen and I formed Kindling after he asked me to contribute to a few songs he’d written. Initially, we didn’t really have a sense of where we might be headed; we just wanted to write a bunch of catchy songs quickly. Our demo was just the two of us, and we subsequently self-recorded a 7″ before recruiting others to the band.
How would you say you’ve developed your sound and your relationship with each other since your first EP?
Stephen: I think Hush is definitely bigger and more ambitious than the previous stuff, which was probably bigger than the stuff that preceded that… Each recording we’re one step closer to being a fucking prog band or something. But seriously, the more ya work at anything, I guess the more comfortable it’ll feel, and I feel pretty comfortable these days with the band, from our process to our songs to how I communicate with my bandmates – communication hasn’t always been an easy thing for me. But, like: You figure out what works best for everyone, and try to do things that way.
Gretchen: Despite a lot of the lyrical content of Hush focusing on uncertainty, I think we’ve found a little more confidence on this record. We reached for a bigger, more complex sound and integrated some new instruments (mellotron and sitar appear on a few tracks throughout the album).
What is your writing process like? Do you start with a melody, start with concept, brain dump lyrics? Take us inside it all!
Stephen: I usually sit with a guitar on the couch and just, like, watch tv and if something good appears, I’ll hit mute on the tv and record it on my phone, then revisit it at the practice space, or sometimes maybe just, like, loop it and vibe it out. Lyrics come afterwards, usually I’ll demo the instrumental stuff with Andy, our drummer, and spend a lot of time listening to the instrumentals while, like, riding my bike or something. Then Gretchen and I will work on vocal phrasing and words. Or we’ll have ideas and throw them back and forth between each other, usually what we come up with is pretty similar.
How do you imagine people listening to this album?
Gretchen: Late at night when you can’t sleep; or on a long bus trip; or walking through the woods; or just trying to get through the day — basically any time you might feel a little bit wistful and restless.
Stephen: I like the thought of Hush playing annoyingly loud while quitting yer shitty job, or something. Tell off the boss in a giant spectacle with the assistance of Hush.
Who is your favorite superhero? Substantiate your claim.
Gretchen: The only comic I ever read growing up was Archie, so I guess my favorite superhero is Jughead? He always seemed pretty impervious to the stresses of modern life in Riverdale–a trait I admire.
Stephen: Spider-Man, because he was such a loser and I find that highly relatable.
What is your favorite word?
Gretchen: Probably a toss up between “somnambulance” and “goblin.”
Stephen: Mine is “Goblinambulance”
Perfection. Anything else you’d like to add?
Stephen: Thanks so much!
___
Hush is available now. Keep up with Kindling here.
Nordic indie pop artist Majken may now be based in Los Angeles, but she’s carried her whimsical, infectious musicianship over and lit up the soundscape with her debut album Dancing Mountains. Her quirky monotone is lightweight, and almost enhanced in the reverb that the album is bathed in. From first track “Dreaming of Franco” – which starts us off with summery, carefree instrumentals that house lyrics that meander from times of love to times of distrust in a past relationship – through moody, 80s trance track “Here And Now”, all the way until the end of “Dear You” – which brilliantly features Maxime Sokolinski – softness is magnified into this surreal musical journey.
While the album was conceptualized on a journey – and we can find elements of her surroundings of Paris, the Nordic Fjord, and Los Angeles in each song, really – the same unamused, delicate sound we have come to know and love of Majken’s voice ties all twelve tracks into this concise, wistful collection of fun. The good news for Majken newbies is that we can get a sense of how far she’s come with her music with just this first full-length, as a couple of the tracks featured – including “Where It All Begins” and “Dreaming Of Franco” – were originally included on her Deronda Hotel EP. With songs like “A Little More Time”, Majken’s sound takes on almost a She & Him vibe, while ultimately we find notes of inspiration from acts The Velvet Underground and The Kinks most endearing. “I Have A Dream” is a mixed bag of tricks, and quite possibly our favorite track off the album. So, if you’re looking to start on a positive note on this weeknight, that’s where it’s at.
Dancing Mountains is out now. Keep up with Majken here.
Polish alternative band Trupa Trupa – comprised of Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, Tomek Pawluczuk, Wojtek Juchniewicz, and Rafał Wojczal – released an eleven track collection titled Jolly New Songs at the end of October. Packed with intense attitude and reverb for miles, the album’s sound will keep you captivated as it trudges through first track “Against Breaking Heart of a Breaking Heart Beauty” until the last fourth, when it enters into an even darker soundscape and really thrashes into “Coffin”, which enters into the light, indie pop realm with its sound. By the end of it, you spiral into a feeling of falling, which is perfect because the third track is a frantic attention-getter that swirls into a dreamlike state-inducing trance track titled “Falling”. And while “Mist” is darker, led by percussion, the title track keeps a pleasant sound to the vocals, as though it’s staying on the polite end of the soundscape almost because of its title. That’s all well and good, until the song takes on an almost Tim Burton flare and spirals into a heavy instrumental cacophony that feels dangerous and inviting.
“Leave It All” is as melancholic in sound as the title would suggest, though the song itself leans more toward an off-kilter lounge band sound, though the theatrical nature of “Love Supreme” draws us into a Wizard Of Oz-meets-death march realm where Tim Burton’s antics feel slight and far away. “Never Forget” pulls us out of the darkness and plunges us into a dark alleyway, where we’re almost marching forward, decked out in combat boots and a leather jacket. “None of Us” reminds us of a dark and murky lullaby – perhaps for Satan’s children more so than anyone else – with guitar riffs that could swallow your ears whole. The tumultuous instrumentals in “Only Good Weather” remind us of the so-called reliability of the National Weather Service (ha!), replete with waning guitars and a swirling, psych rock bed of sound. And – if you ask us – Trupa Trupa did us a service making the crashing sounds of “To Me” the last track, as it, too, splinters into an uproar of crashing cymbals and intense rock vibes before leveling out and inducing a feeling of calm with its listeners.
Every emotion is palpable with Jolly New Songs. You just have to let it envelope you.
Jolly New Songs is out now. Keep up with Trupa Trupa here.
On December 1st, the debut full-length from Sunset Neon – the nostalgia pop music project from multi-genre musician and producer Bret Autrey – will be released. His intention with this project was to hone in on 80’s inspired pop sound, a far cry from his work as Blue Stahli. In honor of the release of his new lyric video for “You Are The Sun” – which makes us wish it were about to be summer instead of winter – we spent a few minutes with the artist to get the low down on his process and the eighties.
What is the first song or album you ever remember hearing, and who introduced it to you?
There’s two that stick out. Once was the small window of time that my mom had a record player and would put the soundtrack to Top Gun on. I’d get so amped up on stuff like Dangerzone, I’d just bounce around the entire living room. The other was visiting family on a farm in Oregon and I was running around in a Max Headroom mask. My cousin had just started driving, so she would drive me into town and play Front 242 extremely loud. I’ve been in love with drum machines, synths and samplers ever since.
Was there a moment that it struck you and you realized you were going to pursue music, or did it kind of slowly evolve?
This is really the only thing I know how to do. I’m just lucky enough that I can make a living doing it. The first recording I ever made was when I got ahold of a tape player and blank tape and recorded myself humming the theme to the A-Team. We had a piano in the house that was saved from being taken to the dump by some church. I would plink around and work out melodies on that beat up old thing. Later on I discovered programming music and sequencing chopped up one-shot samples in DOS in the glorious mono 8bit of Scream Tracker. After getting better sound quality in Impulse Tracker I started sampling that old piano, and loading in synth loops I sequenced on a Roland keyboard to warp and twist in weird ways. I absolutely lived for the times I could be messing with programming music in hexadecimal in a DOS tracker or chopping out atmospheres and sound FX recorded in from VHS movies. It’s what I lived for then, and what I have to do now.
Historically, you’ve been a rock musician. When you chose to go into this 80s music project, did you already have an idea for what you were doing or did it kind of develop organically?
With my main project, Blue Stahli, I genre-hop all the way from upbeat funky breakbeat stuff to purely electronic sound design to riff-heavy electronic rock. While doing all this genre-flailing, I would kick out a few nu disco-esque tracks or start leaning towards a more indie pop type of sound. Once the itch for this started lining up even more, it became clear that a lot of these tracks that didn’t really have a home before could all exist under a dedicated project for exploring all the more colorful lo-fi 80s influenced stuff. So I’d say it all reached a point where SunsetNeon *had* to exist.
You were quoted saying “I’m freakishly excited to create some weirdo VHS music.” Could you elaborate on what “weirdo VHS music” is, at least in your opinion?
Some of my favorite things are lost movies or straight to video fare on VHS. The memories of a room lit only by the small screen (in this case, I was watching everything on one of those small portable TV’s hooked up to a clunker of a VCR), and the feeling of the synth scores and lesser known songs that would accompany some of these movies just washed over me. I see the “weirdo VHS music” as SunsetNeonbeing part of the soundtrack to a strange forgotten VHS from 1986 who’s music you love so much you record it to cassette and listen to it until the tape snaps. You’ll hear bits of these songs warp and glitch, sometimes like you’re hearing the process of them being sampled from VHS to an old sampler while the power is flickering.
How was the writing/production process different this time around, creating this “weirdo VHS music?”
This was really all about going back to my roots with tracker music. So just destroying the audio and one shot synth sounds (some of which were made by stacking single cycle waveforms on top of each other and getting all wonky with the layers and filters) and exploring warping stuff with the effects you have to enter in hexadecimal and revel in the fact that all those little bits of information are coming together to form a beat that makes you want to move and evokes emotions. It’s a more stripped down approach, while somehow also being a bit more complicated in other ways.
Everything we’ve heard from your debut album feels like it could be used in a kitchy 80s “throwback” movie (a la Hot Rod) or a fun musical. If you could create anything with this music, what would it be and who would you collaborate with?
Oh hell yes, that is absolutely the intent. It *should* feel like a pure fun jolt of video haze from a guilty pleasure movie you’ve seen 87 times. I would love for this to show up in a movie or tv show (even something animated!) built on the same love for that glow. Stranger Things, Ready Player One, anything that is fully in love with this atmosphere. I have a feeling there are some astounding people who will be creating in this realm that we still have yet to see, and I can’t wait for all of it.
If you could be any character in an 80s movie, who would you choose and why?
A cross between Wolff from Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone for the way he always seemed to know what to do, and Fletch or Axel Foley for always having the perfect string of jokes to accompany getting out of situations in the most hilariously badass way possible.
What are you most looking forward to about this release?
I’m really just excited for this to be out there and connect with people. I do this because I adore it and try to create songs that have an atmosphere you can get lost in, so I hope that these songs serve their emotional purpose for someone out there whether they’re connecting with the more dance-oriented fun material, or the dreamy lo-fi love songs.
___
Starlight is available for preorder now. Keep up with Sunset Neon here.
Experimental indie pop collective Babylawns – comprised of Ryan Egan, Davey Alaimo, Mike Phillips, Chris Tremblay, and Conor Powers – is headed out on an east coast tour this month in support of their brand new album Sorry it’s like this, with the first stop happening tonight in Providence, Rhode Island. The nine track full-length starts with heavy hitting “too big”, crashing guitars leading you into the thrashing feel of “heartbeat” before winding you down into “anxiety”, which happens at a crawling clip. The album meanders between genres, as its listener gets bits of americana, psych rock, alternative, goth pop, and more through the expert instrumentalism of a group that knows how to cohesively switch tempo at the drop of a hat, highlighting the composition of the music at the same importance as the vocals themselves. Sorry it’s like this adequately sums up a highly relatable but often inexplicable melancholic feeling in song. And it’s something you need to experience.
Tour Dates
11/3 – Providence, RI
11/4 – Philadelphia, PA
11/5 – Columbus, OH
11/6 – Ann Arbor, MI
11/7 – Harrisburg, PA
11/8 – Baltimore, MD
11/9 – New Brunswick, NJ
11/10 – Wilton, NH
11/11 – Goffstown, NH
11/30 – Brooklyn, NY
12/1 – Portland, ME
Sorry it’s like this is out now. Keep up with Babylawns here.
Indie pop duo Soft People – the self-titled “America’s Best Gay Socialist Band” made up of couple Caleb Nichols and John Metz – is introducing their first collection of songs to the world, an album titled American Men which debuts on November 7th. The album weaves in an agenda of addressing modern American politics, challenging a generation while critiquing the new status quo. It’s a narrative that is very necessary right now, and Soft People have done due diligence to deliver in a fun and inspiring, rowdy pop music. Today, we’ve got the exclusive premiere of their latest track “New Kampf”.
The song begins with the line: “Nazi, I saw a Nazi!” and you’re pretty sure you know where it’s going from there. But while quirky, honest lyrics outline the spotting of a Nazi for their listener, the drums keep a toe-tapping beat going that is both appreciated and danceable by many. It is relatively clear that the lyrics were developed around the new generation of far right protestors and violent demonstrators, a social commentary delivered with a laugh track in the back. Because – without being too blunt – it’s way too difficult to handle current political goings on without some humor.
American Men is out November 7th and is available for preorder now. Keep up with Soft People here.
