David Peach

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  • Hazy (A Desert Opera) by Roslyn Moore

    Hazy (A Desert Opera) by Roslyn Moore

    Like people who remember where they were when JFK was killed, or Princess Diana, I remember exactly where and when I first heard Hazy (A Desert Opera) by Roslyn Moore.

    I was in that midway state of consciousness between awake and asleep, listening to this album. I was enjoying it as an overall experience as my dozing in and out hindered my ability to latch on to the songs. That was until one song in particular stood up and smacked me in the face. That song was “Drama Queen”. It is fucking awesome. In fact I tweeted that exact thought right out then and there.

    A manifesto for love’s losers

    I imagine that this album was very cathartic for Roslyn to make. I know nothing about her personally, but the music comes across so personally and emotionally that it just has to come from somewhere real.

    When I listen to the songs here I don’t feel down at all. I mean, I can imagine people listening to this music in completely different frames of mind. Perhaps you need music to enhance your depression; perhaps to need comfort to remind you that you’re not alone. For me, I see the beauty that has come out of pain and made something that the world needs – real, honest, art.

    Hazy is a brutal manifesto for loves losers. That person willing to take a bullet for passion. At its best, Hazy is ride off the cliff hand in hand music.

    Hazy (A Desert Opera) described on SoundCloud

    Each song on Hazy (A Desert Opera) is completely unique to me. No one song bleeds into another and every song has its own idiosyncrasy that makes it stand out from the next.

    “Malibu” is as great an album introduction as they come. It’s hard to talk about sadcore without somehow thinking of Lana Del Rey, but I got that sort of vibe in this song. But I also got reminded slightly of the singer from a band I used to listen to called Jack Off Jill.

    When presented with a new artist I often can’t help but draw initial comparisons to other artists I like. But if I grow to like that new artist the comparison soon goes away. Before the end of Malibu the comparison was gone – I was officially a fan of Roslyn Moore.

    Roslyn Moore

    The next song, “The Burbs”, is where I fell in love with the album. While writing this post, I focused in on the words of this song and found I could vividly picture the song’s story in my mind’s eye. I couldn’t help but see the scenes play out in a Twin Peaks-esque town. A picture perfect idealistic town with a dark underbelly of taboo hidden just beneath the surface.

    Or am I just thinking about it too much? – I don’t think so. The great thing about music, and art in general, is that every receiver’s opinion is valid.

    I love the lyrics to the next song, “XO”:

    someone cool like you
    who tastes like you and smells like you
    and fucks like you
    someone who talks like you
    and kisses like you and smiles like you
    I really really need someone cool like you
    who moves like you and plays guitar like you
    and looks like you
    someone cool like you
    someone cool like you

    XO by Roslyn Moore

    I couldn’t mention a couple of songs with mentioning “Drama Queen”. The flow of this song just blows me away every time I hear it. The transitions between the song’s sections are so greatly done. How her voice and the accompaniment come together perfectly in the following passage just grabs me:

    every time I close my eyes
    I can see you in my dreams
    I can see you through the lines
    telling me baby, you’re such a drama queen

    Drama Queen by Roslyn Moore

    Curtain Call

    Like many of the emerging artists of today, Roslyn has her music on SoundCloud where you can listen to your heart’s content.

    I urge you strongly to get on SoundCloud, turn the lights off, and enter into Roslyn’s highly-emotive world of Hazy (A Desert Opera).

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  • Churches by Scarlett Taylor

    Churches by Scarlett Taylor

    On my first hearing of Scarlett Taylor’s music I was reminded of Lana Del Rey and Chrysta Bell – both being artists I adore. But now I have listened to Scarlett’s second album “Churches” a few times, I now enjoy it on its own merits, no longer drawing comparisons to other artists.

    Churches is tagged as being “Sadcore” on Soundcloud and I had to research exactly what that was. Wikipedia’s definition states:

    … [Sadcore] characterised by bleak lyrics, downbeat melodies and slower tempos. The term is an example of use of the suffix “-core”. It is a loose definition and does not describe a specific movement or scene.

    Wikipedia definition of Sadcore

    That seems like an accurate stylistic description, but the resulting feelings I get from the music, especially Scarlett’s, is anything but bleak or downbeat. I find nearly all music gives me a lift of some sort, and this includes “Churches”. From out of the darkness and delivery, the music uplifts and creates in me, the feeling of reflection.

    Let us Pray

    The album’s opening song, “Fucked Up”, was the first one I heard before knowing about this album. The song found its way into a soundcloud playlist and I found myself skipping back to listen to it again and again. Although I can’t pick out a bad song from the album, that opening song is still a stand out one for me.

    “Fucked Up” opens with a drone effect and Scarlett’s voice, which immediately blew me away with both her power and the way she delivers. She manages to weave her voice around a song’s structure, dancing in the darkness of the song’s core, not being held in too tightly to the rhythm.

    The second song “Crazy” stays in the same vein as “Fucked Up” and by now I was fully immersed in the world of “Churches”.

    “Imprisoned” is the album’s third song and it is actually a remix version that has found it’s way on. The song opens with a passage from rapper Zay, who himself is part of a Minnesota-based rap group, “The Truants”. This gives the album a new flavour and dynamic without straying too far from her signature sound.

    At the halfway point of Churches there sits the beautiful ballad “Ignite”. “Ignite” strips away all of the drone effects and electronic backing and presents Scarlett’s voice bare with an accompanying piano. If I was to give you one song to demonstrate her abilities as a singer it would be this one. It’s so great. And its build up towards the end gives the song an equally beautiful climax.

    One of the album’s most haunting songs for me was “Christmas Eve”. Her brooding vocals over a string pedal tone. So emotional and seems to pull me into it every time I hear it. It’s dangerous for me to listen to this one when I’m driving. Also it never fails to give me that Twin Peaks vibe.

    Scarlett Taylor would sound great at the Roadhouse.

    Miss Scarlett in the Ballroom with the haunting voice

    Some people hear emotive music like this and immediately say things like “That sounds depressing” or “Is there anything more upbeat?”. These are people I want to slap.

    I mean, yes, most people wouldn’t get dressed up to go for a night on the town while listening to an album like this. I probably would, but that’s another topic all together. But to dismiss music like this as depressing is, in my opinion, completely closed minded.

    We are lucky to have artists like Scarlett Taylor, who openly bare their souls in their writing and performances; artists who remind us what it is to be human.

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  • Atlas by FM-84

    FM-84 is one of the first artists I heard from out of the New Retro Wave genre of music. And his debut album, Atlas, is already a crowning achievement in his relatively new career.

    Every song has the perfect feel of 80’s Americana, or at least this Englishman’s idea of what that is. Of course my only real notions of 80’s America come from the films and music I grew up on.

    I write sun-soaked 80s inspired cinematic dreamwave and synth pop.FM-84’s Bio from SoundCloud

    FM-84’s Bio from SoundCloud

    Hearing Atlas by FM-84 is like hearing a soundtrack to the best 80’s film I’ve never seen.

    Consistently great feelings track to track

    The album opens with what I can only describe as being similar to those expensive keyboard drumbeats I remember experimenting with when I was at school – only a lot more professional sounding. The drum is clean, hefty and has a fever-inducing beat that makes me imagine what it might be like to drive parallel to the ocean in Los Angeles at sunset.

    Like the opening song “Everything”, half of the songs on this album are electronic instrumentals. Those that do feature vocals are some of the best soundtracks for my own personal montages when I’m driving around.

    Yes I have driven around listening to Atlas, whilst imagining I’m in a similar scene to Rocky Balboa’s flashback montage in Rocky IV.

    Pardon the swearing, but “Running In The Night” is one of the best fecking songs I’ve heard this year. It has everything I love in a song – passion in the vocals; awesome instrumentation and arrangement and the ability for me to pretend I’m in a film’s montage. It’s that good. Also the featured vocalist and co-writer on this song, “Ollie Wride“, has the best sounding voice for this style of music that I’ve heard.

    “Let’s Talk”, another of the albums vocal-led songs – this time provided by Josh Dally, is so powerfully performed. The singing is delivered with a passion you just have to experience. It feel’s like the end credits song to a John Hughes film.

    Each and every one of the songs on Atlas are simply great – they provide a good variety as well as being really well paced. Even the closing song, “Goodbye”, actually sounds like a closing song with it’s slower more reflective words and sound.

    As summer fades away
    Lost in a cloudless haze
    Just hold me and touch a wave
    There’s no more we need to say

    Yet I don’t want to say goodbye
    And I don’t want to see you cry

    Goodbye (feat. Clive Farrington) from Atlas by FM-84

    It’s obvious when listening to Atlas that FM-84 has a deep appreciation for the era he is harking back to. And it shows with every single second of this Album. There isn’t a single song that begs a skip past – instead every song demands multiple listens, each time louder than the last.

    Racing towards the sunset

    Atlas by FM-84 was a complete departure from what I had been listening to up till this point. I don’t even know how to explain how I got on without knowing about this whole musical genre, let alone Atlas.

    I also want to say a huge thank you to FM-84 for making this whole album available on SoundCloud. However you should also be buying it from one of the retailers listed on this page.

    I don’t think we realise just how lucky we are when someone like FM-84 comes along with such a passion for a musical / artistic era, and manages to create something completely fresh and reinvigorating with it. This is both one of my favourite albums of the 80s as well as today.

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  • Down In A Hole by Kiefer Sutherland

    Down In A Hole by Kiefer Sutherland

    I don’t normally keep an eye on country music album releases, but when I heard that Kiefer Sutherland had an upcoming album, I got excited to say the least.

    After getting over the fact that Jack Bauer was singing to me, and actually listened to the music itself, I found that I was really enjoying it on its own merits. The is a great, solid country album with a tonne of variety.

    Track by Track… Bauer

    I’m sorry, I really couldn’t help the bad pun there.

    “Down In A Hole” kicks off with the overdrive-guitar sound of “Can’t Stay Away”. It’s a solid introduction to the album with some lovely female backing vocals too.

    “Truth in your eyes” is the next song, and is just as solid as the previous. It deals with the theme of lost love, but approaches it with an upbeat tempo and delivery.

    The first single to be released off of this album, “Not Enough Whiskey”, is the fourth song. Aside from my huge man-crush on Kiefer Sutherland, this song was a big reason why I was excited for this album. It encapsulates most of what I thought a lot of country music dealt with – lament for a lost loved one.

    I really like the guitar work on the album too. “All She Wrote” is a thumping, guitar-chugger that takes its time to build itself up, being the album’s longest song at just under five minutes. I love turning this up to full. Another great example of guitar work is “Going Home”, which has a great solo towards the end. This solo really stuck out to me on the first listen.

    On one hand, as the album does have some absolute belters, it also has the beautiful “Calling Out Your Name”. It’s a light acoustic number with some light accompanying waa waa, and does well to showcase Kiefer’s abilities as a singer.

    Headphones on, Jack in

    Before I started branching my musical tastes out, I had two perceptions of what country music was. The first idea I had was a hillbilly style, the other was the stories of jilted lovers who had been driven to drink and depression. Recently, however, I have learnt to appreciate more of the nuances of country music, and “Down In A Hole” explores a variety of them.

    I highly recommend sticking some headphones on, cranking it up to eleven, and rocking out. I think my fellow commuters may want to kill me though… Damn it.

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  • Mustang E.P. by Hannah Grace

    This E.p. just exploded into my ears in a way that reminded me of later-era White Stripes. The opening song is hugely-energetic that doesn’t let up for a second. It’s labelled as “pop” on my music subscription but I don’t think that does this E.P. justice. It’s got a chugging, powerful groove that would strangle the life from most modern “pop”.

    “Keep your love”, the E.P’s second song starts calmer than it’s predecessor, but soon builds into a big chorus and fuzz-like-effect riffs. I am loving this E.P. already and am already thinking four songs isn’t enough for my newly-acquired thirst for this music.

    The third song, “Blue with you”, really slows thing down into a comfortable groove that gives more room for Hannah’s voice to come through the song, and a cracking voice it is too. She weaves this blues-style song with an ease of command. This is another one too that builds up to a belter of a climax and she really does give it some whelly with her voice before bringing it back down to the ground before the final song, “Hey You”.

    “Hey You” is a lovely, stripped back acoustic number that shows Hannah Grace is great-sounding with or without her huge arrangements backing her up. As much as she opened the E.P. with force, she closes it with a calm, soothing nature.

    Hannah Grace is an artist I’m going to be keeping an eye on over the coming years.

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  • Ladyhawke – Wild Things Video

    I can’t express how much Ladyhawke’s music has grown on me in the short month since I discovered her.

    The song “Wild Things” was immediately one of my favourites from her latest album of the same name.

    I have just seen the music video for this song and it has somehow made me love the song even more. Such a powerful song, and powerful delivery, make this one of my all time favourite songs I think.

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  • The Bride by Bat For Lashes

    The Bride by Bat For Lashes

    On June the 25th, 2008 I went with some friends of mine to watch Radiohead play in Victoria Park in London. The were touring in support of their album “In Rainbows”, and in support of them was a then little-known artist called Bat for Lashes.

    It is a huge regret of mine now that I didn’t pay more attention to her during her set. At the time I think she was still yet to release her first full-length album so in retrospect this seems to have been a really special show.

    Since that day I have re-discovered her through her first two albums, “Fur and Gold” and “Two Suns”, and then her following album “The Haunted Man”. But it is her latest offering, the recently released “The Bride”, that I am now writing about.

    Dark Hymns

    The songs on this gorgeous album feel like dark hymns – dark and beautiful. They mesmerized me from the get go and I don’t think they’ll be letting go any time soon.

    When singing, her voice reminds me of the late Sandy Denny; while in the spoken poem “Widow’s Peak”, she sparks memories of one of Nico’s first albums. These attributes of her’s plant her firmly in a position that is highly unique in today’s popular music scene.

    More than a concept album

    Indeed this is a concept album. Taken from wikipedia:

    According to The Bride’s press release, the work is a concept album that follows the story of a woman, whose fiancé dies in a car crash on the way to their wedding. The album follows her as she decides to go on the honeymoon alone and her emotions as she deals with the tragedy.[5] Khan commented “the trauma and the grief from the death of Joe, the groom, … [is] … more of a metaphor and it allows me to explore the concept of love in general, which requires a death of sorts.”

    Wikipedia

    But not only is it a concept album, but the concept as a whole has been taken beyond the recorded medium. During initial tour dates in promotion of the album she performed within churches and asked her audience to come dressed in formal wear. This idea of taking a musical idea beyond simply the album has always interested me, since first hearing and seeing “The Wall” by “Pink Floyd”.

    Song by Song

    The album opens with the optimistic “I do”, which is where we meet our heroine, “The bride”. “I do” conjures up imagery of a bride singing to herself with an accompanying harp – the main instrument in the song. However we do get a subtle low string in there which gives that sense of foreboding of the tragedy that is pending.

    The next chapter in the tale is “Joe’s Dream”, which starts us down the dark sound of the album with a sinister 3-note guitar riff and a distant thundering marching-like drum sound. These songs are soundscapes that you can close your eyes and escape into.

    “In god’s house” just keeps upping the stunning arrangements that this album seems to keep presenting. Bat for Lashes always seems to create such unique soundscapes with her music and hearing this third song on the album reassured me that she still has the touch.

    In God’s house I do wait
    For my love on our wedding day
    Dewy eyes and lashes long for my love
    But I’m feeling something’s wrong

    What’s this I see?
    My baby’s hand on the wheel
    What’s this I see?
    Fire
    Fire

    “In God’s House” from the album “The Bride”

    The albums fifth song, “Sunday Love”, takes a slight left turn stylistically. I mentioned earlier about the Radiohead concert I first saw her supporting – well this song’s opening reminded me of something you might hear from Radiohead in their “Amnesiac” / “Kid A” days. Although by this point I am in love with this album’s tone and mythology, this change in pace and sound was a refreshing minor detour.

    The faster pacing of “Sunday Love” brings us perfectly into “Never Forgive The Angels” and “Close Encounters” and their slower paces. The latter of the two has a great display of Natasha Khan’s ability to bring an uplifting feeling out of the Bride’s mourning.

    Two thirds into the album and we come to the spoken word “Widow’s Peak” as mentioned earlier. This choice of having a spoken word section was something I also loved on Lana Del Rey’s album Honeymoon too. This song has one of my favourite pieces of imagery in the album too, the last line of the following:

    There’s a demon loose, a demon loose
    I can’t get home, I can’t get home
    For the road is a snake of mist
    And the shadow of a rebel’s fist
    His jacket on my back, his bones on the shore
    But the secret of dreams is to dream up a door
    A portrait of him, a picture of her
    A keyhole in a Douglas fir

    “Widow’s Peak” from the album “The Bride”

    By the time we get to the closing three songs of the album, our heroine is becoming optimistic about the future with the song “I Will Love Again” and the uplifting feel of the penultimate song “In Your Bed”.

    The Perfect Marriage

    Through writing about this album it has forced me to look deeper into it; into its songs and their words. I am so glad I did choose this album to write about next. “The Bride” is a grand accomplishment and does so much in its 13 songs. At a little under an hour long, this album is the perfect story to listen to when you want to experience more from music than simply the music you hear. If you want to be taken on a story across one woman’s emotional journey from dark beginnings to her destination of acceptance and optimism for the future, then this album is for you.

    “The Bride” is the perfect marriage of storytelling, emotion and great song writing.

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  • Fast Moving Cars by Carla dal Forno

    This single, and indeed its accompanying song, “Better Yet”, is one of the nicest musical surprises I’ve had recently. I’d never heard of Carla Dal Forno before stumbling upon the song “Fast Moving Cars”.

    The songs on here are so wonderfully bleak, especially “Better Yet”. I don’t know what it is about the atmosphere that these songs have, or what feelings they evoke, all I know is I can not wait for her debut album.

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  • Wild Things by Ladyhawke

    I made my finger bleed playing along to one of my favourite songs on this album – the titular song, “Wild Things”. The song isn’t fast, and I’m not particularly great on guitar – I had simply been bitten on the index finger of my fingering hand by our hamster, Moomin. But I didn’t care, it’s a great song to play along to. I didn’t know what key it was in, so I just found a couple of notes that sounded good and pretended I was on stage with Phillipa Brown herself.

    Extremely catchy, infectious electro pop.

    This is my first time hearing any music by Ladyhawke, and I’m already completely hooked. Listening to her sing, she sometimes reminds me of the vocal sound of Bananarama and even Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders.

    The music throughout this album feels like it’s constantly driving forward with ever-increasingly infectious grooves and power. “Wild Things” is a consistantly brilliant, idiosyncratic album and even though each song is unique, the album has a strong consistency throughout which is tied together by Phillipa Brown’s stunning vocals.

    This is what a great album sounds like

    The opening song, “A Love Song” pulls no punches. It immediately pulled me into its infectious electro-pop groove and built me up to its big chorus. These huge, unashamed choruses are a staple of this album’s core.

    The third song is one of my favourites on the album. “Wild Things”, the titular track, builds up slowly with its ambient electro sounds. Then from out of its electro-atmosphere we can hear a voice rising, singing what will be the album’s chrous. As soon as her voice has risen into coherence we drop into a slower, more reflective sound than has been heard up until now.

    Your heartache is not forever
    It’s another road that we walk together
    And our lives become much stronger
    As the world goes on much longer
    I wandered far to find the answers
    What keeps me alive while taking chances

    When you’re always almost lonely
    You forget to take it slowly

    There’s a fire
    In the heartland
    We dance around it like the wild things in the night

    “Wild Things” from the album “Wild Things” by Ladyhawke

    “Chills” burrows its way into that part of the brain that makes you bob you head and tap your feet without realising. As I am writing this along to the song, I realise that I am almost full-on dancing where I sit. God help me when I’m driving home listening to this.

    “Golden Girl”, although having lyrics of what I think is about unrequited love, feels like one of the album’s most upbeat-sounding songs.

    There’s no way up, there’s no way down
    You stole my heart but you throw it around
    You give it up then you give it away
    Your golden girl waits another day
    Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
    Your golden waits another day

    This is the daughter of love running wild
    We are the children that play on the other side
    But here I am holding cards that will show you
    My aching heart’s all too easy to cut through

    “Golden Girl” from the album “Wild Things” by Ladyhawke

    The album’s closing song, “Dangerous”, is also up there as one of my favourites. Phillipa sings so seductively on the song’s bridge before throwing you into one of the album’s biggest, and definitely my favourite of the album’s, choruses.

    This is an album that goes out with a huge bang, and I can’t help but want even more of it once it’s finished.

    Underneath it’s spell

    The front cover of the album reads “Recorded in spectacular 100% stereophonic sound”. Now I have no idea what that actually means, but I do know that this album does sound 100% spectacular.

    Although my thinking of this as an electro-pop album, “Wild Things” has a much more “real band sound” than other electronic albums tend to have – especially the drums. Perhaps that’s part of the whole “stereophonic sound”.

    This feels like an album that only comes along every once in a while and is definitely going to remain in my repeated playlist for a long time to come.

    This is what a great album sounds like.

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  • Midnight Machines by Lights

    Over the past few years I’ve been noticing how things have more of an affect on me than they did when I was younger. Films that touch on the human condition move me more than they did; songs about a loved one have a greater affect as I imagine myself and my girlfriend in place of song characters.

    Lights’ music on “Midnight Machines” has this affect on me too. An album that I probably would have dismissed a few years ago, is now one of my favourites of this year so far.

    Midnight Machines opens with a slow, finger-picked guitar piece called “Up We Go” and gives a good taste as to the pace and mood of what’s to come on the album. The soft guitar and quiet kick drum that enters later serve well the almost-husky voice of Valerie Poxleitner, the real name of the artist “Lights”.

    All of the songs on the album are routed in soft acoustic guitar, minimal percussive arrangement and a voice that remains consistently heart-warming throughout. Occasionally, new instrument sounds will weave into the compositions in a way that helps keep you hooked on her words. The album is built on a foundation of strong lyrics.

    “Same Sea”, the second song on “Midnight Machines”, opens with the familiar soft finger-picking but now backed with low piano chords and later a low-played string instrument – cello perhaps. No matter what instrumental arrangement is backing her up, the harmonies produced along with Valerie’s voice are always very moving and very personal.

    For me the fourth song “Meteorites” is the best example to showcase her abilities as a vocalist and how beautiful her voice sounds with these awesome harmonies. That’s not to say that other songs on the album are weaker – far from it – this is just the one that particularly struck out to me.

    My favourite songs on “Midnight Machines” are the ones where her lyrics are the most personal. In “Don’t Go Home Without Me” she sings a beautiful, reflective song where she perfectly puts herself into the shoes of her future self, reflecting back on a life well-spent with her partner and how she’ll be with them till the very end, and how she is grateful for them having stayed with her.

    This is the song I will sing to you when you’re old and tired
    I will sing it to remind you that I’m old beside you
    And if you’re tired of hearing my voice
    I’m gonna sing it to you anyway
    ‘Cause I know that if we made it this far
    Those differences I would put away

    Don’t Go Home Without Me from Midnight Machines

    When the next song begins it really shows off the great pacing on both the songs and the album as a whole. “Running With The Boys” is possibly my favourite song on the album, and is the one that stands out the most to me for being the more upbeat and faster-paced of the album’s songs.

    Throughout the album, she tends to keep her voice at a calm, soothing level. Occasionally when she does raise her vocals up at particularly emotional points, it’s done to great effect.

    When I think of this album, I think of it as a warm blanket that I like to wrap myself up in at least once a week. Next time you want an album you can relax to – and enter a calm, reflective mood to – check out “Midnight Machines” by Lights.

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  • JUTRØ – Travva (voc. LINDA)

    Dark, industrial, brooding and haunting. This song scares me – which probably has more to do with the accompanying video, but a great video it is.

    It feels as though I am falling down into the abyss of hell when listening and to be honest, when I am listening to it, I’m happy to just keep falling.

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  • Long Way Home by Låpsley

    One of the first thoughts that came to me when I listened to Låpsley’s first album, “Long Way Home”, was just how ahead of her years she sounds. She has the air of an artist who has been around for over twenty years or more, when in fact she herself is less than that at the time of writing. At the age of just nineteen, she has already laid the first stones of what will hopefully be a very long, and no-doubt will be a very successful, career.

    My first taste of her music was from her 2015 E.P. Understudy and it was the opening song “Falling Short”, which was the only song from that E.P. to feature on “Long Way Home”, that immediately got me hooked on her minimalist arrangements and stunning voice.

    I can honestly say that she is an artist who I could pick out of a thousand, identifying her with confidence based on her voice alone. She is one of those singers whose voice you simply can not forgot once you’ve heard it.

    Room by room

    The opening song “Heartless” serves as a welcoming, calm introduction to this interesting, boundary-pushing album, “Long Way Home”. “Heartless”, like many of this album’s songs, is centred around a calm piano harmony with Låpsley’s voice up front. This isn’t, however, a run-of-the-mill piano ballad as it contains, as does a lot of the album, some really effective uses of odd samples and interesting production techniques.

    “Hurt Me”, the album’s next song, opens with a synthesized staccato melody, which really drove me into the album and introduced me to the kinds of sounds that I just wasn’t expecting until now. Even at the end of the song there are odd little samples that work perfectly in a really weird kind of way. By now I knew that Låpsley was an artist not only ahead of her own years, but that of many of her contemporaries too.

    I’m not going to mention every song, as I’d like you to find out for yourself, but I do just want to say something about the third song “Falling Short”, the video for which I have included at the end. The lyrics in this song are some of the most cryptic for me. The lyrics seem extremely personal and the way that she delivers them serves to enhance that feeling. In all honesty it was only as I write this now that I have actually gone and looked at the actually songs lyrics as a whole. This song’s lyrics – along with the rest of the album’s – can be enjoyed through simply listening to them being sang, without any real thought into what they mean. Looking deeper into those meanings is like peeling back the onion layers of this complex, compelling artist.

    One month till February
    Keep on holdin’ on
    And I know it’s short
    And I know it’s short

    And it’s times like these
    And it’s days like these
    And it’s times like these
    And it’s days like

    It’s been a long time comin’
    But I’m falling short
    It’s been a long time comin’
    But I’m falling short

    Falling Short from Long Way Home

    As the album approaches its half -way point with the fifth song, “Operator (He doesn’t call me)”, the album’s sound took an up-tempo turn. This song’s story centres around a woman whose boyfriend doesn’t call her. Instead she finds herself in contact more with the phone operator, and so considers falling in love with the operator instead. It’s a fun song with it’s routes in one of the most boring aspects of life – being kept on hold. Låpsley seems to have the ability to find little nuggets of inspiration in unlikely places.

    He doesn’t call me so put me through operator
    Maybe I’ll leave him and fall in love with you operator
    My baby doesn’t call me so put me through operator
    So tell me should I leave him and fall in love with you operator

    Operator (He doesn’t call me) from Long Way Home

    One of my favourite songs on “Long Way Home” is called “Station”. It is one of the most minimal as I remember that has everything that I love in her music – her voice sang with shifted pitches, layered to hamonize with each other; great sound effect samples used in refreshing ways – notable one which sounds like a pitch-shifted dog woof; minimal instruments that make her voice almost acapella. “Station” is beautifully haunting and would serve as a perfect introduction if one hadn’t ever heard Låpsley’s music before.

    The last but one song, “Leap”, reminds me of something from Radiohead’s Amnesiac album, with beautiful echoing synth sounds with a basey, driving beat – not fast – just driving.

    Lock the door behind you

    Versatility and and a desire for experimentation – this is what Låpsley brings to her craft. I love as well how she doesn’t settle on a set of default samples across the album. Throughout it you will keep hearing new and unusual sounds that never feel disjointed or mish-mashed. I get the impression that she has toiled for hours and hours over the years, building up a unique sensibility for how to put these sounds together in really interesting ways.

    Something I’ve also noticed, listening closely whilst writing this review, is how much more I’m hearing around the main songs that I don’t remember hearing before – the odd sample or harmonisations. This album really is a gift that keeps on giving.

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  • Kicker by Zella Day

    Kicker by Zella Day

    The bohemian style of artistic life has always seemed like a very romantic one to me. The idea of an artist just upping and heading to a remote place for some unknown amount of time with nothing but a journal and a guitar and just writing for themselves. In today’s world of rushing about and the constant flow of nauseating crap of social networks, it would be easy for you to assume that that way of life was all but gone from the world.

    Well you’d be wrong. Zella Day is flying that flag for me.

    She embodies many things that I love about great artists and song writing – interesting, sometimes cryptic, lyrics; a fashion sense from days of old but made very much her own; music that is greater than the sum of its parts – she is the kind of artist that the world needs.

    All killer, no filler.

    On first listening to “Kicker”, I was immediately hooked with the sound of the guitar in the opening of the song “Jerome”. Before I’d even heard her stunning voice, my first thoughts were that if the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks had a rock night, Zella Day and band would go down really well. This first song also demonstrates her vocal abilities – varying her style throughout the song from verse to chorus to coda. From whispery, almost Stevie Nicks-esque sounding, to the controlled screaming of the songs title in the chorus.

    The next song, “High” brings more focus to the massive drums and chugging rhythm guitar and does, by all accounts, have the parts needed to qualify as a rock song. But to label it as just a rock song, or a rock album for that matter, I feel would cheapen the album. Zella is bringing so much more to the mix that I don’t think a simple label is possible. It would be like calling Kate Bush simply a pop singer.

    “1965” changes the sound up by focussing more on piano from the start and then using more minimal drums and climbing strings throughout.

    “Hypnotic” is one of my favourite songs on “Kicker”, with one of my favourite riffs, and at just 4 seconds shy of 3 minutes, this song is as catchy and full of a hit song as they come.

    “Mustang Kids” changes things up again with half of the vocals provided by Baby E, telling the story of a small no-name town with nothing good to do in it.

    Small town gang got nothing to do
    We got guns, got drugs, got the sun and the moon
    We got big city plans but it always rains
    And the sheriff is a crook and knows me by name

    I said momma was insane and daddy was a criminal
    I grew up in a trailer with a dream of fucking centerfolds
    Now I’m making money experimenting with chemicals
    The fact I’m still alive is why I still believe in miracles

    Mustang Kids, Kicker

    With “Jameson” we can hear a beautiful finger-picked guitar ballad that oozes country music sensibilities – with that slide guitar sound that is so engrained into country music. When you hear a song like “Mustang Kids” and then “Jameson”, you really get a sense of Zella’s versatility as an artist.

    Easily my favourite song on “Kicker” is the album’s penultimate track, “Sweet Ophelia”, which is one of those songs that build up to a huge chorus with a slightly breakbeat drum beat that reminds me of Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” beat. The musical arrangement serves to complement Zella’s voice to the final big chorus of the album and leads perfectly into the final song, “Compass”.

    “Compass” is the perfect final song for an album with this much energy. A piano ballad that brings Zella’s voice to the forefront as she leads us back to our daily lives that more enriched.

    Songs with quality roots

    All of Zella’s songs, whether they be huge anthemic belters or mellow acoustic ballads, are all rooted in quality song writing and a unique vision. I also learned through watching her video series, Day X Day, that she writes all of her songs on guitar first – with the idea that they could all be played acoustic with no accompaniment if she wanted.

    When you hear a song like “Hypnotic”, it may be hard to imagine it stripped back to vocal and guitar, but when you listen to her play it like this, you realise that her songs could either fill a stadium or a coffee shop. She is the very definition of a versatile artist.

    I hate to use the term “X-Factor”, as that phrase is now synonymous with crap TV, but Zella Day definitely has that unknown ingredient that makes her musical vision and style special.

    She is an artist whose career I will be following closely, and I strongly suggest you do too.

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  • Natural Born Losers by Nicole Dollanganger

    Natural Born Losers by Nicole Dollanganger

    This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” was quite an emotional one. One of the more likeable, newer characters got a good amount of screen time for some interesting character development. That was just before that person was shot in the back of the head with an arrow. When carrying her body back to the home base, the remaining characters were backed musically, by one of my favourite artists at the moment – “Nicole Dollanganger” with her song “Chapel”.

    Contrast

    Art, whether it be film; tv; or music, is always more interesting when two or more contrasting ideas are brought together to form something that wouldn’t have been thought possible before.

    Like when Quentin Tarantino had “Stuck In The Middle With You” by “Stealer’s Wheel” playing over the famous ear-cutting scene in “Reservoir Dogs”. Or when we see Hannibal preparing a beautiful meal only to know that it was made from human flesh.

    Nicole Dollanganger’s music fits into this idea of stark contrast perfectly, and is one of – if not the – most beautiful joining of acoustic guitar and a female voice I’ve ever heard.

    She is a siren

    The opening to the album, “Natural Born Losers”, tells you straight away what Nicole is all about stylistically – although not what she is limited to. Poacher’s Pride opens with a sweet, innocent-sounding voice singing the follow words:

    I shot an angel with my father’s rifle
    I should have set it free, but I let it bleed
    Made it into taxidermy, hung it on my wall
    On my wall

    Poacher’s Pride, Natural Born Losers

    Straight away you get the beautiful sound of Nicole’s haunting voice along with the dark lyrics – a siren enticing you in to experience this darkness with her. And you wont be able to deny her.

    That song – and the rest of the album – conjured up imagery and feelings to me, of my watching the first series of the aforementioned TV series, “Hannibal”. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s that dark feeling of beauty in death, and innocence that can be found in the darkest places.

    The Style of the Album

    Her voice, when I first heard her, immediately made me think of a slightly-introverted, young girl sat in the corner of a pub on open-mike-night, performing to herself, with everyone else there as extras. Her lyrics however reveal anything but an introverted artist – she is telling stories about, and based on, some dark, hard subject matters.

    The album’s instruments are often minimal and range from acoustic guitar, to thundering bass-heavy kick drums that you will feel more than hear, as in the song “Executioner”. Occasionally the guitars are used to give a drone, pedal-tone effect, but then out of that darkness a heavily-distorted, almost smothered, electric guitar will stalk towards you. You can hear this in the album’s mid-way song, “Alligator Blood” – one of the album’s heaviest-sounding songs, along with “Executioner”.

    From out of the darkest places.

    “In the Land” is one of my favourite songs on “Natural Born Losers”, and is a beautiful sounding song with the most horrifying inspiration for a song I’ve ever come across. As I read on a comment for the song, it was apparently partly inspired by an american serial torturer called David Parker Ray, whose story I wont repeat here.

    Give it up for the milk carton angel
    Soaked in vomit, tied up at the kitchen table
    Choking on the chicken bones, a plate of mashed potatoes
    Her momma screaming “come on, bitch, chew and swallow”
    When she’s done she will give her to the earth

    In the Land, Natural Born Losers

    In fact a lot of the album seems to have dark inspirations, which is in stark contrast to the result that her songs have. These are some of the most beautiful, emotive songs I’ve heard in a long while and often have her music on repeat when at work.

    In Closing

    I have tried to give as honest as possible a review of this album and really hope that people reading this don’t see this album’s darkness as something to be avoided. As humans it is important that we experience a wide range of emotions from art and music – even if it sometimes makes us feel uncomfortable – for only when we experience those feelings can we truly grow.

    It is artists like Nicole that deserve to be, and need to be, heard. She is one of the few people who dare to look into the darkest reaches of human experience, and sometimes depravity, and come out with some of the best music I’ve heard in a while.

    And thank you to Grimes who put Nicole’s album “Natural Born Losers” out on her purposely-formed company in order to get more people to hear this unique artist. Nicole had already recorded many albums by herself at home before this album came out, which are just as good as this album. Its great that she has now been introduced to many more people who can themselves now investigate her amazing back catalogue.

    What are your thoughts on “Natural Born Losers”, or on Nicole Dollanganger’s music in general? Leave your comments below and let’s talk.

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  • All I Need by Foxes

    All I Need by Foxes

    I’ve never been much of a Doctor Who fan but I do sometimes find myself watching it with my girlfriend, who likes it. One of the better episodes I have seen was one called “Mummy on the Orient Express”. It was about a Mummy that was killing off passengers in a space version of the Orient Express. This was also the first time I’d heard the artist whose album I am now writing about – Foxes.

    In the episode she performs a cover of Queen’s ” Don’t stop me now”. She has a knack for performing great covers, as I later discovered with her version of Pharrel’s happy, mixed with Massive Attack’s “Teardrops”.

    “All I need” is the follow up to her debut album, “Glorious”. I didn’t hear the latter until it had been out for about a year and a half. But with “All I Need” I jumped straight in on the strength of that first album. And I wasn’t disappointed – I loved it immediately. There was no skipping through songs to hear the singles I was familiar with; I always listen to this album front to back.

    The songs on this album sound huge. Many are unashamedly pop belters with big drums, strings and Louisa Rose Allen’s stunning vocals. Then there are some that take a step back with a slower and, dare I say, darker tone. In fact my favourite song on this album is “Devil Side” – A darker ballad about being in love with someone who has a darker, perhaps even violent, side. But that’s open to interpretation.

    Run and hide, it’s gonna be bad tonight
    Cause here comes your devil side
    It’s gonna ruin me
    It’s almost like, slow motion suicide
    Watching your devil side, get between you and me

    Devils Side, track 7 from All I Need

    Common Themes

    When you focus on the lyrics of this album, the theme comes through evidently – that of doomed love, and of loving someone that your heart says yes to, but your head is yelling no.

    This is what I take from it anyway.

    Burrowing a little deeper

    Each song on All I Need is great, there’s no filler songs here. And the pacing across the album is just right. In one breath you’ll be hearing a catchy pop tune while in the next you’ll be hearing a stripped down piano ballad.

    The opening of the album is an epic-sounding instrumental, which is later reprised on the album’s closing song.

    Then we drop into “Better Love”, which starts with Louisa’s singing over simple piano, followed soon by a recurring sound from the album – a pulsing kick drum. This song, along with the following – the super-catchy single “Body Talk”, serve to give you a good idea of what to expect from Foxes – vast, layered, powerful songs.

    Of course like any great artist there’s variety in this here album. As mentioned above, “Devils Side” slows things right down, as does “If You Leave Me Now” and “On My Way”.

    With “On My Way” Louisa sings over piano backed with a light string arrangement and one of my favourite choruses on the album. The song is played light on the piano as she sings softly. Then the chorus drops deep and heavy as she sings:

    Something I just need to learn
    Every time I feel alone
    I can’t keep running back to you again

    Turned my gold into dust
    Rain on me until I rust
    All I do is run to you again

    On My Way, track 12 from All I Need

    In Conclusion

    This album has songs that would be great to get ready for a party to. Equally some others would be suited to lying in the dark, retrospectively.

    If you’re looking for a modern pop album that isn’t afraid to dip into the darker side of love, then check this one out.

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