Track: Piel break out of LA with the sleek, filmic funk pop of ‘Custodian’
AFTER taking part in one of NPR’s essential Tiny Desk Concerts last week, which’ve hosted pretty much anyone who’s anyone in indie music, Los Angelino quartet Piel have released the elegant, dreamy, whisper of “Custodian”, which rolls forward on choppy funk guitars and finely-honed crescendos. To me it sounds like it could have come from …
See: North Carolina’s Owen FitzGerald invites you to his outsider country confessional, ‘Bismuth, The Last Gentleman’
HE’S a gentleman of the leftfield country music scene, is Durham, North Carolina’s Owen FitzGerald who, after appearing in the music world as Jokes&Jokes&Jokes awhile, has returned to his ‘government name’ – the name under which he snuck out two fine if lyrically troubled and akimbo albums digitally in 2015, Tight Gyre and Pointer. That …
News: Sweeping Promises sign for Sub Pop and bring you the post-punk stomp of ‘Pain Without A Touch’, reveal tour dates our side of the pond
SUB POP has made another fine addition to its roster with Sweeping Promises, who come extruding outta the campus town of Lawrence, Kansas with the post-punkery of “Pain Without A Touch” and a comprehensive British and European tour ready to roll. Listen to one and find out more about the other, below. Sweeping Promises is …
See: LA’s Independent Project unveil Alison Clancy with the brooding, potent ‘Mutant Gifts – Live At St John’s’
SHE’S a multivalent creative force who moved from the mountains of California up to New York to pursue a creative life; but the potent, brooding and mantric gem that is Alison Clancy’s “Mutant Gifts – Live At St John’s” came about mainly as her then-day job went on hold thanks to that viral wrecking ball. …
Track: North Carolina’s Boulevards sings an addiction siren song in ‘Better Off Dead’ – an album follows in February
WE’RE born of the good earth, and thence shall we return. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Mud to mud. It’s that thick, wet, good earth of home that keeps up a siren song to songwriter Jamil Rashad, who trades in and around the musical frontier posts as Boulevards; time and time again he leaves …
See: Wunderhorse – ‘Poppy’: Dead Pretties’ Jacob soars into widescreen guitar drama
WITH one breezy and effortlessly ace single under his belt, the bass lyricism and indiepop jangle of “Teal”, former Dead Pretties man Jacob Slater is out to prove his champion solo career as Wunderhorse is no one-trick pony with another lovely single drop, “Poppy”. Take a dive herein. Jacob’s done a fair bit of living …
Tracks: Gizelle Smith – ‘Agony Road’ and ‘Riot Cars’: The mighty Mighty Mocambos talent double drops to wrap up the year
WE’VE has occasion to get our collective groove on many a time here at BSM thanks to the soul and the soar of Gizelle Smith, who has one of those voices that us mere shower-singing mortals can only be dazzled by. Don’t try this at home, folks; failure doesn’t look good. This past year she’s …
See: Howdy, pardner; Novelty Island takes a breezy, bluegrass psych-pop trip in ‘Cowboy On A Bicycle’, with three shows next month
YEP. Yep. You’ve swooned for the baroque-pop, early-Seventies’ auteur styles of Strawberry Guy. Of course you have. Why ever not? The minute you walked in the joint I could tell you were a being of consummate taste. You’ve got a taste for one-man pop visionaries from the north-west, haven’t you? Hungering to explore more? This …
See: The amazing short film about child refugees accompanying Hania Rani & Dobrawa Czocher’s autumnal duet, ‘Malasana’
INNER SYMPHONIES is the album that lifelong friends composer, pianist and singer Hania Rani and composer and cellist Dobrawa Czocher released in October for classical music imprint without parallel Deutsche Grammophon. Recorded together in their native Poland, this collaboration follows 2015’s Biala Flaga, but is their first album of original work; Hania and Dobrawa are …
Track: As Oldham’s TikTok sensation Seb Lowe releases his debut mini-album, delight in the rollicking Pennine lyricism of ‘iPhone’
WITH something like a hundred thousand-plus followers over on shortform video app TikTok, bard of the Oldham streets Seb Lowe is working from the ground up with a fascinating and absolutely necessary line in acerbic socio-political commentary on the state we’re in, AD 2021 – and one in which he leaves us less tech-compliant old …