Music
NEWS: Scottish Alternative Music Awards announces shortlist and live stream details
THE Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMA), now in their eleventh year, is an annual celebration of the best in new leftfield Scottish music. This year’s live ceremony will take place online at 6.30pm on Wednesday, November 18th, in partnership with live streaming platform Twitch. The ceremony will include live performances from Glasgow quintet Walt Disco, who are known …
TRACK: Edith Frost – ‘Little Sign’: a psych-country call for positive action
NOW THERE’S a singer from Drag City’s diverse and always lovable stable that we haven’t heard nearly enough from in recent years. San Antonio’s self-styled purveyor of “pensive, countrified psychedelia”, who recorded a lovely quartet of albums for the label around and just past the turn of the century, has broken ground in 2020 with …
SEE: King Hannah’s ‘Meal Deal’; they announce first EP for City Slang
LIVERPOOL’S Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle who, after working as musicians separately for years, met in a bar job, and decided to make beautiful music together as King Hannah, have just dropped their second single after signing to City Slang, “Meal Deal”. Have a watch of the video, below. It comes after the stark, emotionally …
Track: Made Kuti signs to Partisan, with debut single
THE RECENT announcement of Made Kuti’s signing on the dotted line for Partisan marks him as the third generation of his family to join the record label, after legendary and revolutionary grandfather Fela Kuti and four-time Grammy nominee father Femi Kuti. The debut single “Free Your Mind” exhibits a myriad of Kuti markers but also …
ALBUM REVIEW: Pole – ‘Fading’: an enveloping electronic palimpsest
Fading is a palimpsest, Stefan writing over and erasing, finessing and revisiting all the Poles which make up Pole. Think of Fading in terms of depth, of descending, and exploring what lies within. It’ll envelop you.
SEE: Caroline Polachek – ‘The Gate (Extended Mix) – ethereal bliss with stunning visuals
IN CELEBRATION of the first anniversary of her debut solo album, Pang, Caroline Polachek, former singer with the lovely Brooklyn lo-fi poppers Chairlift, has released a blissful extended mix of “The Gate”, one of that album’s standout tracks. Watch the blissfully ethereal video for the ten-minute new mix below. It unfolds at a blissful pace, …
EP: Ups and Downs – …Another Country
Brisbane band Ups and Downs were an indelible part of the paisley revolution in Australia in the eighties – drifting in the slipstream of The Church but along with bands like Crystal Set, Falling Joys and the Hummingbirds forging their own brilliant expression of jangly, chiming pop songs (see their fantastic track ‘The Living Kind‘). …
Track: Sydney band Erthlings release the sublime, dreamy, fuzzy single Irrational
There is an ambient fuzz and, antithetically, a gorgeous delicacy to the new single ‘Irrational’ by Sydney band Erthlings. This is a dreamy and heavenly track that is imbued with an achingly melancholic shimmer. The single has an eighties day-glo brilliance with an instrumentation that reflects some kind of weird mix between M83 and Dinosaur …
News: Belle and Sebastian release live album ‘What To Look For In Summer’
On December 11th, Matador Records will release Belle and Sebastian’s What to Look for in Summer, a live double album gathering choice selections from the band’s 2019 world tour, including last summer’s epic “Boaty Weekender” cruise. Check out the video for ‘My Wandering Days Are Over’, below: “We’d been badgered by our fan base to put out …