On Valentine’s Day, fans of 96.5 The Buzz gathered at The Truman for their annual Valentine’s Day show. This year, FIDLAR joined Kansas City as the headliner, with openers The Sluts. It was a night of wonderful entertainment, surrounded by an enormous amount of blue balloons.
Keep up with FIDLAR here.
René Methner has created a gem with latest German musical project Para Lia. Often supported by the vocals of Cindy Methner, his music takes on a throwback 80s vibe, if not only for the common use of synths and the tone of his voice. Today, we have the premiere of his new single “The Man Who Went Away”, and we’re already smothering our day in it.
The track itself is intriguing from the start, a pace and instrumentals that captivate you immediately and guide you through the theatric, robust vocals. Check it out for yourself below, and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Para Lia’s forthcoming album.
Soap Bubble Dreams by Para Lia is coming out March 29th.
On February 15th, Kalyn Fay released her new 11-track full-length, Good Company, to a patiently waiting bevy of fans. Hailing from Claremore, OK, Kalyn Fay is a of Cherokee descent, and happened to have earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees while consuming herself in songwriting. Her work is incredible, and this new release is no different. We’re thrilled that it’s now out in the world for all of us to enjoy.
Beginning slowly, the title track carries us into a robust and wonderful soundscape, a pace that is reduced again in “Wait for Me”. “Highway Driving” gives us more of that quintessential twang and Fay’s voice gets raspier, which is the truth for “Baby Don’t You Worry” as well, a more bluesy and rich track. “Come Around” continues at this pace, but has more of a an ethereal feel to it than its predecessors, while sixth track “Long Time Coming” almost seems to play with dissonance, with its trudging and melancholic, yet wonderful, instrumentals.
“Oklahoma Hills” has a piece of home in it, “Alright in the End” feels morbid with its title but turns out to be a very comforting and warm song, and “Faint Memory” is perhaps the softest and most Lillith Fair-worthy track, a commentary on how easy it is for time to “play tricks” on you. “Fool’s Heartbreak” sounds more like the southern music that inspired the track itself, soulful in its disposition. “Dressed In White” rounds it all out nicely, alluding to marriage, of course. But we see it as infusing a sense of a freedom in a young woman, whether her father is offering her up for marriage or to live a healthy, independent lifestyle.
Either way, we feel that fullness and that freedom as the last notes hit, a faint smile left on our lips.
Keep up with Kalyn Fay here.
Following Harley‘s first release “Behave”, comes thrilling, smooth new track “Backseat”. The amount of vulnerability that is displayed in the specifics as emotional vocals croon in your direction is astounding, and the song itself is bittersweet in its existence. Admits the band:
It was really cool to write a fully loaded song [emotional] with the guys like that. We based it around some slang that we feel like we coined and that is so deeply rooted in our vocabulary. There was this girl I couldn’t shake, and she was always in the backseat of my mind. We sat down as a team and immediately started to get to work on it.
Keep up with Harley here.
Following in our nostalgic-tinged soundscape-leaning pattern, noir pop duo 8MM – Juliette Beavan and Sean Beavan – we hear a little 90s pop woven in with their quintessential sound in “Self-Inflicted Heartache”, the first track off their new released Heart-Shaped Hell. As you may have guessed, the soundscape twists and turns after that, a bit more edge to “Supercrush” before leading into a true pop single with the title track, somehow delivered with an eery twist. “Bring It On” is the most moody of them all, the second half growing powerful with the added male vocals. The pair round it out nicely with “Move With Me” and its accompanying radio edit, slower paced, but filled with emotional range to keep you on a sort of edge regardless.
Stay on edge with Heart-Shaped Hell. It’s a wonderful experience.
Keep up with 8MM here.
Electro-pop stunner Host released her debut EP this week, and you’re in for a real party with Adolescent Content. And – though the lyrics sometimes take a turn for the more serious, like third track “Taste of Your Love” and the way it highlights a breakup – the entire EP is something that will get your heart pumping and leave that glittery, enticing feeling of nostalgia in your veins.
“Goodbye” is sugar sweet 80’s pop, something you immediately feel like you need to bop your head to while wearing a pastel windbreaker. Host’s vocals dim the electric energy slightly, but only to give it a moody, ethereal feel. Second track “B4me” of course follows suit, but is led by ints interesting percussive aspects. It’s one of those songs that, for half of it, you’re not really sure how to dance to it. But it’s intriguing and beautiful as well, not unlike chaotic predecessor “Taste of Your Love”. By the time we get to “Forgetting Me”, we are ready for the slight pace change, luring us into a hypnotic spell with its drawn out notes and swirling soundscape.
Keep up with Host here.
Jon Kohan’s Granite to Glass is chamber ensemble is much different than others, emphasizing an indie-folk sound that is both vibrant and welcoming. He created an incredible soundscape for track “With Every Rainfall”, and the same can be said for its accompanying visual. While the song takes its time revealing its multiple layers, the video is a vivid masterpiece from the beginning, playing with color and contrast, emphasizing small moments in a relationship. A flurry of scenery changes remind us of our own memory banks. Explains Kohen:
This piece challenges time as an A to B progression, from birth and death, to love and loss. We as human beings experience time linearly. But if time is viewed from the perspective of the universe, life as we know it is one solid chunk of existence, nonlinear and unbroken, each of its moments existing forever.
Everything and everyone has been, is, and always will be. Those we loved who are gone from this world maintain a presence forever in time itself. The rainfall metaphor represents the possibility of time traveling from moment to moment. Hearing literal whispers of past conversations every time it rains.
Keep up with Granite to Glass here.
Brooklyn-based quintet Kleptokrat – comprised of Alex Carter, Walker Esner, Graham Galatro, Danilo Randjic-Coleman, and Teagan Taylor – is ready to slow it down for us all, releasing their brand new anthem “The View at Bethlehem” today. We’ve got the exclusive premiere of the slow, intricately-layered soundscape, which utilizes the lyrics to encourage us all to “make it through.” The song plays a balance between the positive and negative, but with the aid of the magnetic vocals, we are drawn to believe in ourselves throughout the duration. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like a whole lot more of that in my life.
Keep up with Kleptokrat here.
Over the next few weeks, we will be expecting a few new tracks from alt/rock/punk project A Day Without Love (Brian Walker). Today, we’ve got his latest track “FASHIT” featuring Bartees Strange. With the most rock-worthy guitar, this song is approached with finesse and a bit of reverb to really make it feel hard and fast, when truly the pace is pretty easy-going. The energy in the track lifts and lowers with such subtlety, that it will leave you on a high long after it ends.
Keep up with A Day Without Love here.
