Late Hala and the surreal black hole of "Dark Clouds"

 

"the disappeared without a trace..."

Breathing, it is automatic isn't it. It is until it isn't. The wonderfully bent, twisted and ominous "Dark Clouds" by the divergent London based singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and artful dodger Late Hala, is a Houdini of a song. It let's you escape into a carnival caper of sorts full of sketchy, dirty organ pushes, Late Hala's commanding vox that soothes and cajoles into diversionary falsettos. The lovely sideways drumming, courtesy  of Mathias 'Bang' Madsen, and Late Hala playing everything else, dark grand piano, interweaving vocal melodies, dreamy guitars, synth orchestrations like alien horns and ethereal gliding transitions into surreal places. At times I feel the ghosts of the psychedelic Beatles and the glam side of Queen. 

Breathing, it is automatic, until it isn't. The lyrical refrain of the "Dark Clouds" being "Don't forget to breathe". The track is co produced and mixed by John Victor from English Indie rock band Gengahr.

-Robb Donker Curtius

Late Hala · Dark Clouds

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/latehala

https://www.instagram.com/latehala/

https://soundcloud.com/latehala

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2mJURO7RBmf0rmy8ELS2P8

Late Hala crafts a cinematic sound combining soft vocals, minimal drums, atmospheric guitars and nostalgic synths, also bringing into play orchestral elements at times. Songwriting traits include reflective lyrics, artful chord transitions and catchy melodies which add a pop element. Late Hala is a London based songwriter, composer and multi instrumentalist with the exception of drums, performed by Mathias 'Bang' Madsen.

Themes of latest single 'Dark Clouds' explore introspection, displacement, space and time, with a sense of profoundness running throughout. The lyrical refrain of the song being "Don't forget to breathe". The track is co produced and mixed by John Victor from English Indie rock band Gengahr. Dark Clouds is released 25th February.

"Echoes of classic British songwriting – aligned to a 21st century pop sensibility" - BBC's Fresh On The Net

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Late Hala, dream pop, London based, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, "Dark Clouds", John Victor produces and mixes, Gengahr, art rock, 

Victory Chimes and the escapist emotional imagery of "Holiday"

 

"two friends on a winter's getaway..."

Some songs exist as background sounds that enrich your lives, as fodder to dance to, as engines of sound to catalyze like a sonic caffeine. Other songs serve as stories to escape into. "Holiday" by Canada's Victory Chimes is one such movie. From the onset, it pushes it's visionary weight around with big synth bass lines and a forceful beat as Jeff Louch unfolds lyrical imagery to gaze at. I love his vocal aesthetic within this dense framework. Even before you pick at and display the words and maybe arrange them, the vocal melodies move you. Louch's tone is wistful and sad but held together with what feels like an inner strength too.

Press Notes reveal:

The characters in the single “Holiday” are isolated and in search of connection online. It’s a satirical narration of two friends going on a holiday together whose situations take a turn for the worse with quite a dark but hopefully humorous ending. “I wanted to juxtapose the apocalyptic events with a light kind of ‘50s psych beach vibe,” Jeff adds.

The new album "When the Fog Rolls In" arrives on May 20th, 2022. The band recorded through the fall/ winter of the Pandemic 2020-21 with Louch on keys and vocals, Tony Spina on drums, Alex Formosa on guitars and synths, Jordey Tucker on guitar, Jace Lacek (The Besnard Lakes) on guitar, Lisa Iwanyki (Blood and Glass, Creature) on vocals and James Hall (Sam Roberts Band) on bass. Engineered and mixed by Lacek and produced by Louch, Formosa and Lacek.

-Robb Donker Curtius




THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/victory-chimes-269620829163/

https://www.instagram.com/victorychimes/

https://open.spotify.com/track/2gXHDtAK1y9zcWMYi0HkQc

After many years of playing with various Montreal rock bands (Jake Clemons – E Street Band, Melissa Auf Der Maur – Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, Plants and Animals, Dear Denizen, Royal Mountain Band, Super Little (now Barr Brothers), Chris Velan, Daniel Isaiah, Courtney Wing, Spoon River, Moufette, Vox Crosby,) and various piano jobs (subway stations, grocery stores, polish restaurants, ballet schools) Jeff Louch started his own band in 2008, Victory Chimes.

After the release of 2 eps, Victory Chimes completed their first full length record. “Spinning Wheel”, released on Nov 16, 2018, digs deep into dark synth pop and the hypnosis of electronic show-gaze. These psych-soundscape textures and long-playing experimental song structures combine with Louch’s ethereal voice and lyrical imagery and explore the themes of self discovery and authenticity. All told, the record is a unique and honest collection of songs maintaining an incomparable sound and presence throughout. “Spinning Wheel” received exceptional reviews around the world and the band spent most of 2019 touring the music around Canada performing as a quartet, as a duo and Louch on his own solo shows as well.

In 2020 Louch was awarded a scholarship to the International Songwriter’s program at the Banff Centre of the Arts as well as the Quebec Council of Arts Research and Development grant which facilitated the writing of a new Victory Chimes record. The band recorded through the fall/ winter of the Pandemic 2020-21 with Louch on keys and vocals, Tony Spina on drums, Alex Formosa on guitars and synths, Jordey Tucker on guitar, Jace Lacek (The Besnard Lakes) on guitar, Lisa Iwanyki (Blood and Glass, Creature) on vocals and James Hall (Sam Roberts Band) on bass. Engineered and mixed by Lacek and produced by Louch, Formosa and Lacek. Further down the rabbit hole of psych synth layers, sub bass drones, hypnotic hip hop drums. Inspired by the awesome solitude of the rocky mountains at the Banff Centre and then thrown directly into the forced solitude of pandemic lockdown. Lyrical colouring across the spectrum from the macabre to blissful fantasy and styles stretching from narrative to stream of consciousness to absurdity. The new record, “When the Fog Rolls In”, arrives on May 20, 2022.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 

Victory Chimes, art rock, singer songwriter, indie rock, Canadian band, Montreal, dense lyrical poetry, wistful, melancholia, "When the Fog Rolls In", new album 2022, "Holiday",

Jamboree and the grunge bathed emotional life line of "The Snow"

 

"thank god the shades were drawn..."

The chorus of "The Snow" by Winnepeg three piece Jamboree is everything you want in this kind of song. The feeling bathed in grunge noise, the mayhemic guitar spewing sounds like something between Italian taxis and a zombie apocalypse, the bass and drums potent and containing the emotions like friends holding back another from a fight and a vocal aesthetic poised between sideways stared emo, furious post hardcore tempered with art rock tones. The pre-chorus (as I define it anyways) is captivating as well (damn, I love the guitar downbeats with subtle sustains and palm mutes) and from the very beginning, "thank god the shades were drawn I can't tell if something's wrong" you feel a spiraling down, a mental deconstruction, maybe an intervention, maybe something else, reaching out desperately to save someone from themselves.

"The Snow" is from the band's, Sky Parenteau (vocals, guitar), Nick Lavich (vocals, guitar) and Alex Braun (drums), sophomore album "Life in the Dome" and Alex shares:

“[The Dome is] like feeling isolated from the world at large in Winnipeg, but also feeling some sort of community with the people immediately around us, especially during the pandemic when we were all stuck alone together but it’s also an embrace of the idea that the worst is always around the corner, this feeling that if we’re gonna get killed by a deadly virus and then destroyed by climate disasters, why don't we make our own disaster and elect some idiot to trap us in a dome?”

The album was recorded and mixed by Lino D’Ottavio in his basement studio, and mastered by J. Riley Hill at No Fun Club. It arrives digitally and on cassette April 1 via House of Wonders Records.

-Robb Donker Curtius

House of Wonders · Jamboree - The Snow

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/jamboreeeeee

https://jamboree.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jamboreedart/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0uw-Sy113-cAAQ9Y-7TsFg

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jamboree/1413451005

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1YyuDWi5kz0dav5M4t0Wz3


This is the thought that drove the creation of Life in the Dome, the sophomore album from Winnipeg indie-rockers Jamboree. Since the band formed in 2018, they’ve been known for their jagged, emotionally charged music rooted heavily in the sounds of 1990s alt rock (a decade, one should note, that they weren’t alive for). Sky Parenteau, Alex Braun, and Nick Lavich work as a singular creative unit, creating nimble, hook-filled music that explores themes of alienation, mental illness, and modern anxiety. In 2020, amidst an era of confusion and angst, they conceived of The Dome; a story of a community electing a mayor who then erects a glass structure over the town, trapping the residents inside.

“[The Dome is] like feeling isolated from the world at large in Winnipeg, but also feeling some sort of community with the people immediately around us, especially during the pandemic when we were all stuck alone together,” says Alex Braun, the band’s drummer. “But it’s also an embrace of the idea that the worst is always around the corner, this feeling that if we’re gonna get killed by a deadly virus and then destroyed by climate disasters, why don't we make our own disaster and elect some idiot to trap us in a dome?”

Beginning as a home-recording project, Jamboree made their debut with a pair of lo-fi releases in the summer of 2018. By February of the following year, the band had already made the cover of Winnipeg paper The Uniter as winners of the annual Uniter Fiver competition. Soon after, they became known as a live act to watch, following opening performances for indie favourites Mauno, Hot Garbage, and Living Hour, as well as an appearance at the Winnipeg Folk Festival as part of the Young Performers Program. In 2020, they self-released their debut album A Beautiful Place and began work on their followup, and were signed to House of Wonders Records in 2021 on the strength of their new material.

Behind the band’s steady output and rapid ascent is a deep love of songwriting as a craft. Jamboree has no primary songwriter; each member contributes equally to the creation of the music. The band creates quickly and without inhibition, and then refines towards a greater goal.

Says Parenteau: “When I write a song, it happens extremely fast and it feels like I am spirited away. I like to imagine that my spirit acts on its own and possesses me to write the words and music. It’s hard to describe but I think everyone who creates something has a spirit that works in collaboration with them. Creating something isn’t merely about skill but something deeper in you.”

* * *

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Jamboree, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, Winnipeg, Canada, sophomore album, "Life in the Dome", themes of alienation, mental illness, modern anxiety, alt rock, nugrunge, "The Snow", three piece, post punk, punk, 

Drake Elliott and the outstretched love of "Rage of Cups"

 

"you're right on the edge, quick as a blink you could be gone..."

"Rage of Cups", the newest singly by singer-songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Drake Elliot and who I wrote about previously (HERE), spoke to me pretty much from the onset. The track, just shy or 3 minutes, somehow feels weighty, sober like hands and hugs reaching out to someone. The sound with a waltz of simple instrumentation has an undeniably late 60's / early 70's brightness within the melancholy. The patterned guitar offsets the meandering piano notes. I love the open spaces that allow you to hear the squeaks and guitar neck slides, the textured pushes, the bass melodies and the ethereal Mellotron from another world. Drake's vocal aesthetic is easy and real, you don't feel like it is over stylized or caged in any indie tropes of the day. This sound while nostalgic feels timeless, like a lullaby or eulogy.  

The artist shares this:

["Rage of Cups" is about reaching out for a friend in a dark space, while navigating your own path, and trying to share some insight into the significance and value of their life. the song ends in an observation of the impermanence of each moment, and that developing an that each ending is as beautiful as each beginning is where the true value of our time on earth lies.]

I urge you to click on Drake Elliott's Bandcamp link below and dive in. It will be an impactful swim. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

Drake Elliott · Rage Of Cups

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://drakeelliott.bandcamp.com/album/mother-frog

https://soundcloud.com/drake-elliott

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5iRrYFwOC5LATHupLfzlrd

"Drake Elliott is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter now based in Boston, MA. having formerly lived on a small island across from Anacortes WA. Having spent what feels like too many years playing in bands in the bay area and Portland (Floating Room, Gillian Frances, MEH,) he's found himself trying to write and explore different sounds. "Pause" is a track off his first attempt at a solo album, titled "Mother Frog," set to be released early February on Raw Pop Syndicate, a record label out of St Petersburg, Russia. It's a dragging celebration of breathing, waiting, and growing even through a sometimes grey world. Drake's songwriting on "Mother Frog" incorporates a variety of instruments and textures while remaining centered on acoustic guitar and vocals throughout. The songs are then strung together with overlapping drones and waves of keyboard tones, violins, vibraphones, and washed out electric guitars. With string arrangements and production by Portland Oregon's Mo Troper, the album was recorded in 2019 at a combination of Singing Sands Studios in Portland OR, The Unknown Studio in Anacortes WA, and various rooms and homes in between. The album is a delicate, sometimes unstable attempt at finding a warmer and quieter sound than where he's been before."

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Power Pop, Garage Rock, Dream Pop, Drake Elliott, "Rage of Cups", mellotron, 70's sound, written for a friend, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, Boston, piano, open spaces, guitar, melodic bass lines,

Pastel Hell and the otherworldly proto punkian cinema of "Rooting For Judas"

 

"A sultry night of pop / Then the poet's walk of shame / I promise it was not my fault..."

While the cross genre'd, cross generational, sort of otherworldly, sort of late 70's proto punkian "Rooting For Judas" by the wonderfully odd and artfully divergent Pastel Hell, the project name / band of experimental pop singer-songwriter, musician, DIY producer Alex Fox Tschan, might have you gleefully scratching your head and suddenly crave black nail polish, it is but a mere appetizing foray into Tschan's mind and Pastel Hell's full length, "Ruthie". If you enjoy the revolving door of "Rooting For Judas", the percolating, half step shapes, broad vocal theatricality and puzzle piece aesthetic, you will surely find the other eleven songs intriguing.

You will surely be entranced by the flamboyant bullfight sashay of "Brutal Page" or the new wave inside out Roxy Music flair of "Leo Without Lions" or the Goth pop glam drenched "Tryst and Shout" or the collision of the T-Rex and Sparks wrapped in velveteen cinema of "Don't You Untie Me Now". On these and other songs, you get the impression that Tschan possesses the ability to channel dadaistic ghosts of the past and brilliantly patch them into these grand artful creations. You can feel a vast sweep and knowledge of musical motifs from the late 60's and onward.

I get the sense that Tschan / Pastel Hell embodies his artful life fully, sonically and visually. I can imagine that many things in his everyday life inspire his art in wonderful ways.

-Robb Donker Curtius

Pastel Hell · Rooting For Judas

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://pastelhell.bandcamp.com/track/rooting-for-judas

https://soundcloud.com/pastelhell/1_rfj

https://open.spotify.com/track/6CMqkcy6cmm7YURPKseUBE

https://pastelhell.com/

https://www.instagram.com/alexpastelhell/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/alexpastelhell

Pastel Hell is an experimental pop band led by songwriter Alex Fox Tschan. Their sound may conjure images of Robert Smith in a bucket hat, or David Bowie in wide-leg Dickies. No need to be alarmed if a brawl breaks out 25 years ago—much dexterity is accessible within the righteous denim legs of our Jnco’s (left leg Tears, right leg Fears). Big influences surely come from the UK crooners of yore (Edywn Collins u up?), but also contemporary lyric-centric songsmiths like Destroyer, Weyes Blood, King Krule, & Father John Misty. All spiced with a lyrical perspective of someone coming of age in the 90s & early 2000s.

Tschan is from Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay where he first started writing songs at age 14, largely because of seeing SLC Punk! & Good Will Hunting. A few years later at 17, having saved up enough money from his construction job, he bought the Gibson SG you hear all over Ruthie. It has been his one & only axe for nearly two decades. From Elliott Smith to Robert Fripp, Tschan has accumulated a number of guitar idols over the years, culminating in his inventive style.

In 2009, Tschan moved from Blacksburg, VA (where he attended college) to Brooklyn with his band The House Floor. After having garnered a little national buzz from their lone epic album, Warship, they disbanded in 2011. Tschan continued writing & recording different projects until finding creative solace as Pastel Hell in 2015.

This new 12-song collection of work was written & recorded entirely at Tschan’s home studio in Brooklyn between October 2020-October 2021. Ruthie is often confessional, drawing upon addiction, godlessness, inspired romantic hope, infatuation, searing loss, internal hypocrisy, & coping through the majesty of dark comedy. We hope you enjoy.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Pastel Hell, Lo-fi Rock, Indie Rock, alt rock, nostalgic, art punk, "Rooting For Judas", new album "Ruthie", evocative vocals, 90's goth pop, late 70's proto punk,

Shaylee and the heartland rock cinemascopic "Danger Decides" (Official Video)

 

"but what kind of message is that... that I just needed love that bad..."

The shimmy shaking surf beat and rolling thunder guitar on "Danger Decides" by Shaylee, the Portland based project, alter-ego, band of divergent singer-songwriter, creative queer trans artist Elle Archer, is downright captivating in it's sort of doo wop punk, heartland rock, 60's teen tragedy pop milieu. There is a lot going on and Elle crafts this shiny piece of loveliness in wide cinemascopic ways. There is a blue collar rock texture with more innocent leanings, chunky heaviness and pearly sounds like Springsteen colliding with twee pop. Elle's tender vocal melodies oftentimes mirrored by synths and bells is so incredibly dreamy with bits of melancholy happiness (yes, that's really a thing). I have written about Elle before and while I have not delved into her entire collection of work, this (to me) feels like the most vast and romantic thing she has done. 

To make matters even better, the Official Video, written and directed by Elle and India Jade Petersen is unbelievably fun. The list of disclaimers at the beginning is so funny and you feel the collective love throughout as you watch the silliness unfold. I do urge you, though, to listen to "Danger Decides" on it's own after you view the video because listening to it on it's own will surely conjure up things in your head and heart that are new to you. It is that kind of special song that you will likely (like me) listen to on repeat a buhzillion times. 

"Danger Decides" is from Shaylee's full length homegrown album "Short-Sighted Security" dropping on March 18th, 2022. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/shayleeband

https://shayleeband.bandcamp.com/

https://twitter.com/Shayleeband

https://www.instagram.com/shayleeband/

https://soundcloud.com/shayleepdx

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6TZ8OLOLqfh4tvA0XIu1I6?si=VDhI_H9jQJOVw-d702h-bQ&nd=1

As Shaylee, Portland, Oregon’s Elle Archer writes music that is expansive, lush, and heartbreaking. She’s been making music since she was a teenager, but her upcoming release, Short-Sighted Security, almost feels like her debut. “I’ve had so much time to grow artistically, it feels like a culmination of all the work that I’ve done up until now,” she says of the record. Spanning thirteen songs, the album is the result of a dedicated and deep love of music. It’s also a thematically unified record, one about failing relationships, growing pains, and falling short of your goals of self-improvement.

Elle, who is a queer trans woman, grew up enamored with making music. She cites early experiences as a teen playing guitar on church worship teams as well as in her high school jazz band as heavily formative. She remembers mixing every element she’d hear on stage in her in-ear monitors, and then going home to toy around with what she had learned, in awe of the endless possibilities that come with sitting alone and reimagining sound. Elle also has a history of listening to and loving music, especially turn-of-the-century space rock opuses like Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized, The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin, Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and Radiohead’s OK Computer. You could say that Short-Sighted Security is a tribute to indie music, a study of a lifelong obsession with the jangly hooks of indie pop, the grandiosity of post-rock, and the lean toughness of indie rock, all wrapped up with the wide register of feelings associated with those early days of listening to songs that changed Elle’s life.

Short-Sighted Security is also a record that is as DIY as they come. Recorded almost entirely alone in a living room in Portland during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elle did everything on this record, she plays all the guitars (for the heads: she used a Rickenbacker 330 for nearly every track on the record), a prized Roland Juno 60, the drums, and the bass. She also sings, mixes, and engineers. The only other musicians she enlisted are her friend Matt, who is credited with organ, violin, and cello on a couple tracks, and her friend Travis, whom she credits with bongos, and crucially—whispers. This sort of intense precision and dedication is clear from the album’s outset.

Opener “Oblivion,” features quivering vocals, and intricate guitars that slingshot like rubber bands thrusted into deep space. The track vividly immerses the listener in darkness with a deft mix of paranoid psych rock, jazzy chromaticism, and spacious, burbling synths. “They called me out and I deserved every bit of it/So I stepped out, stepped outside for a cigarette,” she sings, immediately honing in on the idea that this is a record about simmering in your feelings, detailing the rumination stage that comes before actively trying to change the ways in which you move through the world. Second track “Ophelia,” splits open in the song’s final third, exposing a network of crash cymbals, spectral pianos, and ecstatic vocals. The song is otherworldly, a bricolage of ‘60s British invasion bands like the Kinks and noisy, overblown indie pop that travels in the most unexpected of directions. The kinetic “Danger Decides,” is both a light at the end of the tunnel and a relapse on bad behavior—An exuberant mission statement of debauchery set to anthemic power pop, all decadently laced with mellotrons and glockenspiels and outfitted with one of the record’s most infectious hooks: “I’ve got a new lease on life,” Elle proclaims in a seeming moment of clarity, only to deliver her sinister conclusion, “Danger decides.”

Some of the record’s most beautiful moments come from its most candid lyrics. Take “#1 Destroyer Fan,” a song that almost feels like a diary entry. “Purple, white, grey, black flag hung above where we were fags/ A chasm forming in your head/The last time I saw your bed,” Elle sings in one particularly intimate part of the song, evoking a memory of an intense experience she wishes she handled better. So much of life, the song seems to say, is spent recognizing where you need to grow but not knowing the right way forward. That throughline can be found in every corner of this record. Short-Sighted Security reads like a lonely cautionary tale set to the soundtrack of a deeply musical mind with a singular vision, making for an ambitious label debut that establishes Shaylee as a force all its own.

We get by with a little help from our friends

Shaylee, Elle Archer, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, divergent rock, dream pop, doo wop punk, cross genre'd, cross generational music, "Danger Decides", "Short-Sighted Security" album,

 

Matthew And The Arrogant Sea and the embrace and scribbled wisdom of "D F K"

 

"it don't matter at all, we're all just existing..."

At this time in my life I feel my diet changing. I can still digest rabid, feral, powerful rock / punk rock to pump up the psychic adrenalin in me (and the real adrenalin) but for the most part I crave thoughtful divergent music. That, not always, but usually comes from bands who have been around the block, who have well worn calloused fingers, maybe walk instead of run and had their hearts broken too many times. I don't know the collective core of Matthew And The Arrogant Sea (MATAS) from a place I have never been to, Denton - Texas, I have never spoken to them but every time their music crosses my path it feels thoughtful to me. I gleam something from their songs and I can "relate" to their words.

"DFK" is no exception. On easy sort of folk rock / indie rock sways Matthew Gray sings, "It was the dumb fuck kids who lit the match and got it going... lit up and pissed about the state of things and you can't really blame them... we would of done the same thing..." and as the song blossoms with some truly magnetic musical diversions that snap the synapses in your brain and even create a flutter in your heart, Gray conjures up feelings, resolute and aware to chew on. 

The refrain "it don't matter at all, we're only just existing" sticks to me and while there are other reflections that feel like the claustrophobic walls of life creating intense anxiety, I also feel the Zen-ness of giving your self to the flow of it all. Now, in the 13 years that I have written about music and artists (nearly everyday) I have often said that music, that songs are sonic Rorschach tests for us to imprint our feelings, our deep shit upon and I feel, see a lot of things on the inkblot-ness of "DFK". A WHOLE lot, too much to write here but within the thought of existing there is the unfathomable thought, notion, of not existing and that thought invades my being from time to time. So the take away is to appreciate, be present in every moment of living, even relish in the bad things. Really notice the warmth of your coffee cup and if you take a tumble, slip and eat it during your morning run realize that, shit, that was a good fall. Yes, this came to mind while listening to Blake Vickery embracing bass lines, Tony Whitlock's lead guitar tones, Hagen Hauschild's easy in the pocket drumming, Jesse Chandler's garden rock keys and swelling synths and Matthew Gray's acoustic engine and beautiful voice crooning his poetic words. 

Thoughtful music, hell yes. Oh, and I hate to compare one artist to another because really all artists just sound like themselves (with the exception of Greta Van Fleet) but for whatever reason, listening to Matthew And The Arrogant Sea, I flashed on an amalgam of R.E.M. and Miracle Legion. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/Matthewandthearrogantsea/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6md5awM3LGuP8VM04YqM2n

https://soundcloud.com/matthewandthearrogantsea

https://matthewandthearrogantsea.bandcamp.com/

https://www.makeamericaweirdagain.com/

Matthew And The Arrogant Sea (MATAS) are a North Texas based indie rock collective. With a rotating cast of collaborators the core unit of the group remains: Tony Whitlock (lead Guitar) Blake Vickrey (bass) Hagen Hauschild (drums) Juan Pablo Alzate (Rhythm Guitar) Matthew Gray (Words/Vocals/Acoustic) The band has been performing since the early 00’s and continues to prolifically release new collective works. Their latest effort has been a series of singles/eps entitled “A series of dreams” their latest addition “DFK” is much darker than what we’re accustomed to with MATAS. But it packs an emotional punch that will leave you begging for more.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Matthew And The Arrogant Sea, Indie Rock, Dream Pop, indie pop, Denton, Texas, "D F K", folk tones, thoughtful words, divergent shifts, street wisdom,

Deadletter and the lit fuse tortured punkery of "Hero"

 

"I'm begging god to take me from this horror movie scene..."

Six piece UK alt rock outfit DEADLETTER on the lit fuse scenario of "Hero" swing and slam with huge bass lines, dirty vibraphonic guitar jags, smashed drumming, sort of 50's torture pop saxophone wails and Zac Lawrence's vocal aesthetic that sounds fatalistically dead pan like a suicide squad member wishing to die. The song is informed by stories of firefighters starting the fires they end up putting out in order to come off as heroes like some arsonistic form of Factitious disorder.

I am digging the sound here and I haven't heard a better use of punk forward sax since Richard Hell and the Voidoids. DEADLETTER are Zac Lawrence (Vocals), George Ullyott (Bassist), Alfie Husband (Drummer), Will King (Guitarist), James Bates (Guitarist) and Poppy Richler (Saxophone).

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://soundcloud.com/deadletter-band

https://open.spotify.com/track/2eDceCLP0YbpYjF5w9fmlM

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9U6BvqeOtBLOtIeH_SP_tA

DEADLETTER's 2020 debut single "Good Old Days" was a clear stylistic marker of the band’s vision and received both regional BBC and 6Music play, as well as being added to 6Music’s ‘Introducing’ playlist alongside the normal A, B and C list. Follow-up single ‘Fit For Work’ received both regional BBC and 6Music play from Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson. The track was also made Huw Stephens’ “Tip of the Week” on BBC Radio 1, and a live session of the track was also played on his Introducing show on Radio 1. Third single "Fall of the Big Screen" received national airplay from Steve Lamacq (who chose the band as his ‘Spotlight Artist’) and Tom Robinson on BBC 6Music, and Gemma Bradley on Radio 1.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Deadletter, Post-Punk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, UK, arsonistic, false heroes, punk, art punk, snarky, "Hero", shebang, 

FUTURE KULT and the dark reflective cracked mirror of "My Brothers And Me" (Official Video)

 

"we're losing family, my brothers and me..."

The darkly artful, mesmerizing and thoughtful musical and lyrical shapes of FUTURE KULT's spiraling aggressive "My Brothers And Me" from the dynamic duo's eponymous album dropping today (2/25/2022) and heightened by the cinematic visions of director Mac Nixon feels potently relevant. Cardiff bred film composer Sion Trefor and Berlin bred musician/art producer Benjamin Zombori once again have something to say while skewing artistic expectations and leaving indie pretense (and tropes) behind. Of the track, the duo explores, “the mechanisms of aggression with which men have, and continue to engender their own demise - from feuding brothers, to gang wars, to the fall of empires - the inescapable cycles of violence that permeate and entrap our culture.” 

As we all tackle the seemingly continuing devolution of male culture. As we remember how indie artists and labels tackled the predatory nature of some males in power. The fact that 'rape culture' and 'grooming' has been the subject matter within the music business. That fact that Russia is bombing civilian targets in the Ukraine. The fact that my daughter confided in me that she has worn a backpack at music festivals not because she needed to bring things in but that the backpack served as a barrier from men who purposely take advantage of a packed crowd to rub up on girls. All of this is a disturbing reminder of male toxicity, how while most men are good, much too many are not. It is a huge disturbing problem. 

Again, FUTURE KULT's debut eponymous debut album drops today, Friday, February 25, via Action Wolf Records/AWAL. 

-Robb Donker Curtius 

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.instagram.com/futurekult/

https://www.zombori.net/futurekult

The initial spark of FUTURE KULT caught on in a remote river valley in Hidalgo, deep in the Mexican countryside. For three months in late 2020, film composer Sion Trefor and musician/art producer Benjamin Zombori left their respective lives in Cardiff and Berlin behind and set out to channel the music of the future. What they created, far off the grid, is the sound of everything, now.

Like a trip into a parallel musical universe, the nine tracks of FUTURE KULT are dark, mystical visions of a world coming undone. Unfolding in a mind-bending mass of mangled vocal chants, raw guitars, stark, whipping beats and driving harpsichords, the songs are thematically linked, describing a world in which we are all fighting a battle of retreat against overwhelming technological forces. Algorithms want your soul. They are taking over the world, shaping everything you hear and see.

“When we started working on this record, we became aware that the world has become too complex to be fully grasped,” notes Trefor and Zombori.“Surrounded by paranoia, tragedy, extreme tension and fractured hope, we wanted to create music that courses with everything we feel as humans living in the 2020s.”

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 FUTURE KULT, Gothic / Dark Wave, IDM / Glitch, alt rock, industrial rock, electronica, artsynth, art rock, film composer Sion Trefor, musician/art producer Benjamin Zombori, Cardiff, Berlin, "My Brothers And Me", 

Jenny Berkel and the artful folk indie countenance of "You Think You're Like the Rain" (Official Video)

 

“I know you’re not the rain, though maybe you’re everything.”

Step gingerly into the pearly folk indie rock movements of "You Think You're Like the Rain" by Jenny Berkel and soon you will be gliding on acoustic rhythms, garden rock guitar embellishments, wanderlust beats and, most of all, Jenny's deeply engaging vocal aesthetic containing stories. Within her authored runaway melodies and resonant vibrato sustains you feel like you are on a journey, an emotional diorama that turns at will, emotional cadence cued by the vibrancy of the music that shifts. Loving the musical shapes, the guitar grooves and Jenny's unique voice. 

"You Think You're Like the Rain" is from her upcoming album "These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving" dropping on May 13th (2022) and press notes reveal: [The album features contributions from critically acclaimed folk duo Kacy & Clayton, and string arrangements by Colin Nealis (Andy Shauf)—and for the first time, Jenny took on a production role, co-producing alongside Dan Edmonds and Ryan Boldt (The Deep Dark Woods). “I wanted the songs to feel like living creations that capture a living moment,” says Jenny about envisioning the recording process. “I wanted that theme of big fears in small spaces to be heard and felt as a coexistence of intimacy and menacing permeability.” Recorded live off the floor at the Sugar Shack with engineer Simon Larochette, the album sparkles with its intended intricacies. Musically, it feels both close and expansive.] 

The Official Video shot against vast haunting Nova Scotian landscapes and featuring Berkel clad in an outfit that seems drawn from times before, artfully cambraily avant garde colliding the past and the future at once is an enticing embellishment for her emotive countenance.

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/jennyberkel/

https://soundcloud.com/jennyberkel-sc

https://www.instagram.com/jenny_berkel/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4Ff0I4P7d0FLK7Ctwy2pub?si=s9C1XQ9wS5qVIBszSJAGIw&nd=1

“I wrote the album in a tiny apartment, at a time when everything felt big and overwhelming,” says poet and songwriter Jenny Berkel about her new album, These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving, out May 13 on Outside Music. She was living in a brownstone walk-up full of radiant light and the ever-present soundscape of a leaky bath faucet. It was a sudden move at the time—a spontaneous departure from touring, bustling city life, being many things to many people—that landed Jenny in a space of self-imposed stillness.

“The songs themselves are a study of proximity, bringing big fears into small spaces,” says Jenny, reflecting on the album. “They’re intimate examinations of a world that often overwhelms.” Each song is set in the micro-world of a keen feeling observer, trying to parse a mindful moment in a setting where it feels impossible to drop a truth anchor—a post-Trump, heavily gaslit world where perceptions of reality remain distorted. “Kaleidoscope,” the first single from the album, is a dissonant and poetic consideration of the importance of care and precision in language, both in the broader political landscape and in intimate emotional ways. From the heart-wrenching confusion of interpersonal manipulation, it extrapolates a collectively felt disorientation at the kaleidoscopic swirling of disinformation and misinformation. “Lavender City” is a more intimate look at lies. A breakup song with crescendoing strings, insistent percussion and hopeful harmonies, it’s about gaining the capacity to see clearly again – but with the painful entailment of anatomizing the lies that drew you in. Looking beneath them to see what’s inside.

Songs like “July” and “Just like a River” embody a similar dichotomy, but feel more like mellow meditations; they are recreations of moments where small, specific reveries gave way to more sprawling contemplation–but in an appreciably peaceful and illuminative way. “July started as a tiny chorus written for somebody I thought I could maybe love someday,” Jenny says with a smile, in a conversation about the seeds of the album’s singles. “It was a hot summer, one that reminded me of being a small child in the middle of July in southwestern Ontario. It’s a love song, but it’s also a nostalgic song that expresses how memory shifts and shapes you, and how the stories we tell become who we are.”

The album features contributions from critically acclaimed folk duo Kacy & Clayton, and string arrangements by Colin Nealis (Andy Shauf)—and for the first time, Jenny took on a production role, co-producing alongside Dan Edmonds and Ryan Boldt (The Deep Dark Woods). “I wanted the songs to feel like living creations that capture a living moment,” says Jenny about envisioning the recording process. “I wanted that theme of big fears in small spaces to be heard and felt as a coexistence of intimacy and menacing permeability.” Recorded live off the floor at the Sugar Shack with engineer Simon Larochette, the album sparkles with its intended intricacies. Musically, it feels both close and expansive. Each song unfolds like a widening web of poetic associations, narrated by nostalgic piano, pondering strings, glittering guitars—and Jenny’s hauntingly immersive vocals. At times, songs end with an unravelling, the music splintering apart into disintegration like a lingering open question. Warm and dark, soft with stabs of madness, These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving is a cohesive collection of spare songs that bloom lushly with detail.

Whether you’re reading Jenny’s poetry—in her debut chapbook Grease Dogs with Baseline Press—or listening to her songs, you’ll experience her drawing layers of far-reaching concern into particular moments, like concentric waves rippling inward toward a lone cast stone. These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving showcases the perspective of a unique storytelling artist, with an evocative practice that hinges powerful narratives on the intricacies of a multifaceted musicality. A songwriter immersed in poetry, a poet immersed in music—her work in all its forms is an invitation into a world of relatable introspection, in which even absences can be sculpted into vividly memorable verse.

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Jenny Berkel, folk, "You Think You're Like the Rain", poetry, singer songwriter, musician, artful, avant garde touches, garden rock tones, folk indie, album "These Are the Sounds Left from Leaving", 

groan room and the powerful emotional rot of "greasy thumbs"

 

"please stick around and I'll try not to grind you down..."

The exquisitely constructed, brilliantly caustic "greasy thumbs", by the Salford (UK) based lowercased alt rock band groan room, manages to blend pommeling grunge tones with bending melancholy indie rock that you will want to wrap yourself into. Now depending on your mental state and relationship status you might find yourself head banging with a good drink or maybe lying in the fetal position or lying flat on your back staring at the ceiling in deep thought. 

I love everything about this. The big yet sparse sound, the ringing bass and potent drums that feel so sonically textured, the pearly picking fairly clean electric guitars that turn into monstrous fuzz laden walls of sound, all the while the vox detailing a relationship rotting slowly from the inside out. The vocal aesthetic is biting but also (maybe) saturated in the self loathing of fucking up something that might of blossomed but maybe wasn't watered enough. 

The words spell out what we have all felt. A love song in decay with the refrain "cuz I'd give a 1000 fucks what you'd think, just thought you ought to know..." is gut open candid with glimpses of the numbness that can occur when mornings don't feel full of sunshine. There is talk of the stench being cleaned up and crushed hope, "we passed countless families that I dreamed we'd be, planting lemon trees for a cat to climb in, have a little yard...". The phraseology is wonderfully poetic but sad with tidbits that sting "we turned the car around" and "launched into a meandering march" and "I remember feeling small but with you never alone". Amid the sheer power there are such lovely musical shapes especially in the emotional gripping, heavy lead guitar work. To call this sort of emo feels wrong because it does not sound whiney but it is massively emotional. A broken love song. 

-Robb Donker Curtius  

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.instagram.com/groan.room/

https://soundcloud.com/user-907074984

https://open.spotify.com/track/4qX5KUQI5fWABWOLsFUo0e

https://www.facebook.com/Groan-room-100729004956865

groan room’s ear-splitting, raucous and hook-heavy sound is inspired by the transatlantic 90s - grunge and brit-pop with a healthy splash of slacker-rock thrown in for good measure. The Salford-based four-piece of seasoned musicians cut their teeth on the North West’s band scene before getting into the practice room together. the songs are full of self-deprecation and a tongue-in-cheek apathy towards life and some of the terrible curveballs it throws us. That unsettling angst thrown up by your mid-late twenties is the driving force behind the lyrics, and is further audible in the screeching and groaning of distorted guitars and the furious energy pumped out by the band’s accomplished rhythm section. In March 2020, through an overwhelming act of kindness, groan room went to the iconic Abbey Road Studios to record their debut, cacophonous, three-track EP.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 groan room, Indie Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock, post punk, UK, "Greasy thumbs", grunge tones, emo tones, heavy, lead guitar melodies, evocative lyrics, passionate vox,

The Parasocials and the run into the fire imagery of "Deadzone"

 

"we are atoms clinging to atoms dying to feel good..."

Falling into the downward spiral of "Deadzone" by London based The Parasocials and I can't help but smile because the dense musical narration, cinematic and dark, sneaks up on you. It starts like a group of passengers driving towards danger at least that is the sense I feel. Love the vox with a primary lead vocalist with constant backing support. The cagey jammy music with sort of blues punk underpinnings and dozen's of quotable lyrical gems that hang in the air is an exercise in brooding and bad assery. I love when the spoken word happens as the head bopping bass and drums anchors the track in cement as lead guitars build tension. There are weird shifts and sort of proto punkian atmospheres and I thought of a weird amalgam of artists like Richard Hell & The Voidoids, The Misfits, Golden Earing, Midnight Oil and Johnny Thunders. 

Ride into the void, the "Deadzone" is penned by Felix Slander, the Parasocials very own Byronic anti-hero, with an aim to capture a particular feeling of languor and trepidation.

Penned by Felix Slander, the Parasocials very own Byronic anti-hero, with an aim to capture a particular feeling of languor and trepidation. The band is comprised of Tomer Krail: Guitar, Bass, Vocals, Synth / George Calne Jones: Guitar, Bass, Vocals / Felix Slander: Bass, Guitar, Vocals and Rob James: Drums, Vocals.

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/parasocials

https://www.instagram.com/the_parasocials/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7zXmmTjGkMsoUvkZNlXghg

https://theparasocials.bandcamp.com/releases

Alright baby bois, we're the Parasocials yeah

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"Deadzone", alternative rock, The Parasocials, indie rock, blues punk, garage rock, post punk, storytelling, bad ass, cool, "Deadzone",

For Tuesday and the glowing folk eulogy of "Grow This Garden" featuring Emorie

 

"didn't want to go that morning and be contentious to while the hours away..."

Life is a struggle and we toil away at it for the almighty dollar. At least most of us do. There is nothing wrong with that of course. In our system of competition rather that cooperation it is what we must do to survive, to feed our families, to live the life that we choose for ourselves. Maybe, though this system teaches us from a very young age to praise greed over other things. Maybe this kind of system fosters selfishness over charity. 

"Grow This Garden' by For Tuesday, the personal indie lo-fi emo rock project of singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, producer Mark Ferris and also featuring the voice of Emorie (Jessie Villa), is a tender tribute to man who touched them both. The song with touches of ambiance and field recordings glows somberly and serves as a touching eulogy of the man and an expression of Ferris and Villa's Christian spirituality. 

From the artists:

"This is the story of a profoundly impactful encounter Emorie and I had with a remarkable man. Naed was a devotee of the Catholic Worker Movement, living intentionally in poverty to work charitably within his impoverished neighborhood. A single day with him inspired us to strive for the kind of love and mercy he gave to others, love which he attributed solely to the grace of God, the “tears of amazing grace” which watered his beloved community garden. This is our humble eulogy in memoriam of him. His voice can be heard singing a favorite hymn with us at the end of the track, recorded stealthily by me on the actual day which the song is about."

It's funny, I have a problem with a lot of organized religions and especially the so called super churches. That being said, some of the finest, best people I have met in my life are deeply religious whether be Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or their own brand of spirituality. Did the religion shape their giving spirit or did their giving spirit flower toward religion? It is hard to say but in the end it doesn't matter. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/fortuesday

https://twitter.com/fortuesdaymusic

https://www.instagram.com/for.tuesday/

https://soundcloud.com/fortuesday

https://fortuesday.com/

For Tuesday is an indie lofi emo rock music project from Mark Ferris, the songwriter, instrumentalist, producer/mix engineer behind the songs. The project began as a series of lofi music sketches on Instagram and TikTok where Ferris explored the creative possibilities of cassette tapes, guitar pedals and synthesizers to make short-form tape loop driven ambient, lofi, experimental music. Inevitably, the project birthed a series of single releases to explore different ways of integrating some of those lofi tape sounds with an indie pop or rock sensibility, leading to the release of The Postal Service-inspired single “Hard Drive” in August 2020, followed by the release of The Smashing Pumpkins-esque “The Summer Went” in October 2020, then rounding out the year with the release of the synth and riff-heavy “Count Me In” a month later, described by Chalk Pit Records as “idyllic synth-pop anthem (which) will have you listening on repeat”.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 For Tuesday, singer songwriter, Emorie, folk, indie folk, charity, Christian, Spirituality, Eulogy, memoriam, giving spirituality, "Grow This Garden", Mark Ferris, Jessie Villa,

Alix Page and the pure unframed beauty of "June Gloom" (Official Live Video)

 

""I sat down, made a list of all the things I care about / Think I mentioned Scott Street and Springsteen / And I wrote your name twice"

Nothing, nothing will pull you in close and push all that pain away (that may be hovering around you like Japanese ghosts) than a perfectly poised, emotional, relatable voice and acoustic guitar only. The Beatles knew that when Paul sang "Yesterday". It is the reason why "Everlong" by Dave Grohl is a hundred times better than when the Foo Fighters perform it. Kurt Cobain knew the power of voice and acoustic guitar and, of course, Phoebe Bridgers embodies it as did the forever, forever missed Elliot Smith. This fact and blessing came to mind when I listened to and absorbed the penetratingly beautiful "June Gloom" by Alix Page. 

As a celebration of her recently released and highly anticipated debut EP "Old News" she has released some purely acoustic renditions, "June Gloom" being one of them. I actually prefer this stark acoustic version over the studio version and the ambience of cars or wind rushing by feels right. Alix's voice somehow feels even more beautiful without any hints of reverb or studio embellishments. It is safe to say that her melancholy tenderness makes you think of Phoebe Bridgers and some might even say that Alix's vocal aesthetic or lyrical shapes may not of existed in quite the same way if Phoebe hadn't come before. That doesn't bother me and, in fact, it makes me happy. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/alixpagemusic

https://www.instagram.com/alixxpage/

https://twitter.com/alixxpage?lang=en

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7hp6PmppZj6iiolLVT4iEZ

Praised by key tastemaker outlets including NME, The Fader, Stereogum, CLASH, and more, Alix Page, 20, may at first seem indistinguishable from the average teenager.

She has a severe love for skorts, has been dubbed “a pleasure to have in class” on more than one occasion, and still revels in the feeling of seeing someone’s bedroom for the first time. Instantly, Alix Page transforms into the best friend you didn’t know you had. Although ordinary, upon closer examination you’ll find yourself enthralled by Alix’s unconventional inner world, rooted with talents beyond her teenage years.

Along with her kindness, Page is equipped with a multitude of irrefutable abilities. At 3, she began reciting songs in full to anyone who’d listen. At 5, she found trouble by openly humming during parent-teacher conferences. Page discovered her love of expressing vulnerable emotions through song, backed by her perfect pitch and multi-instrumentalism, branching outwards with each shaping experience in life. For Alix Page, admiring, reflecting upon, and performing each passing moment is an effortless expression of bravery, honesty, and clarity.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Alix Page, "June Gloom", acoustic version, singer songwriter, indie rock, folk indie, bedroom pop, EP "Old News", acoustic,

Giant Waste of Man and hard edged beauty and comfort of "Swim" (Official Lyric Video)

 

photo by Robin Laananen   "but wanna be good when I'm dead..."

Ahh, it is nice, even sort of cosmically comforting when someone or many someones are able to translate what you, yourself is feeling. When that happens it can feel sort of magical. That kind of collective comfort comes through when you take an emotional and cerebral dip into "Swim" by Los Angeles based alt rock stalwarts Giant Waste of Man. Infused with a divergent cracked glasses sensibility with beautifully rolling guitar lines that somehow make me think of 90's college rock radio (high praise) and acerbic, thoughtful, maybe dada-istic lyrics sung with brooding hushed passion that made me think of, around the periphery, of a collision of Miracle Legion and Modest Mouse, this is a song that moves you.

The song starts with beautiful piano notes and Cam Dmytryk's melancholy curious lyrics as bass notes and drones of sounds slowly ramp up, "No one will go swimming with me / I wanna write a song with the guy / The guy that breaks into my home / We’ll wear those masks I wore Halloween / I hope he can mix". As the eruption's start happening, stunning big drum sounds, waves of heaviness from all sides, the song pulls off wonderful emotional deep dives. The band shares that "Swim" is essentially, "a collection of lonely epiphanies, the kind that weave in and out of everyday thoughts" and the ending refrain "and I guess that's anxiety" that punctuates the close held emotional mayhem is both chilling and (again) comforting at the same time.

"Swim" is for those of us who stare up at the bedroom ceiling too much because the nature of life and the crazy fucked up world we view on our phones keeps us up at night. The ponderous feeling that we cannot save the world, that we cannot even save the bi-polar guy spiraling out of control who lives seven houses down and you feel sorry for. It is for those of us who grow older and might have too many regrets and worry that it all doesn't matter and can't figure out what it all means.

I really dig this track. It is one I have and will come back to often. Giant Waste of Man (GWOM) features two vocalists and multi-instrumentalists, Ben Heywood and, the aforementioned, Cam Dmytryk and "Swim" is their first hard release since their well received 2019 debut album "The Politics of Lonely". The band is comprised of (former and current) members of acts such as Black Heart Procession, Sun Drug, Summer Darling, Kissing Cousins, Facial, and QunQ.

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://giantwasteofman.bandcamp.com/music

https://twitter.com/giantwasteofman

https://www.instagram.com/giantwasteofman/

https://soundcloud.com/giantwasteofman

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0so7V9DStA5VCWSYVKcm5q

For fans of Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene, and the sound of the Pacific Northwest in the ‘90s, the Los Angeles-based GWOM is made up of rock veterans. Collectively comprised of (former and current) members of acts such as Black Heart Procession, Sun Drug, Summer Darling, Kissing Cousins, Facial, and QunQ, the GWOM bandmates have spent time touring the U.S. & Europe and have opened for acts such as Billy Corgan, Pedro the Lion, Young the Giant, Dead Sara & Explosions in the Sky.

“Swim” is the first release from GWOM since their 2019 debut album The Politics of Lonely. The LP earned the band press looks from entities like LA RECORD, Buzzbands.LA and The 405… garnering praise from The 405 for leading the “grunge revival train with a vengeful clarity.” Lyrically, “Swim” is a collection of lonely epiphanies, the kind that weave in and out of everyday thoughts.

We get by with a little help from our friends

 Indie Rock, Emo, Alternative Rock, Giant Waste of Man, Chain Letter Collective, "Swim", Los Angeles, alt rock tones, guitar rock, 90's college radio, emotional waves,

Sibille Attar and the surreal clenched fist of "Cold Generation"

"my mamma's heart is still broken..."

Blast off with "Cold Generation" (after the countdown) by vastly intriguing Swedish / French artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer Sibille Attar and you will surely feel transported to other worlds. After the kind of broad indie pop keys (I thought of an amped up "Clocks") I am stunned, take aback by Sibille's vocal aesthetic. She has a powerful strident almost childlike quality full of whimsy but full of closed fist guts too. To me it is wildly theatrical, like off off and off again Broadway musically. As the song expands with big bass walks, chill drums and ascensions of sound it feels like performance art that tugs at your heart but also blows up in your brain in an array of dazzling colors, a sprint down the yellow brick road.

"Cold Generation" first came out in 2017 and is part of a compendium to celebrate Sibille's decade of music and dream making. The EP is called "Lost Tracks 2012 - 2022" and I can't wait to escape into it. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/sibilleofficial

http://sibilleattar.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sibilleattar/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZldG6CBSH0Xk6X1yqT2vCw

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4hCWXPfrkKQKDVVbRUmkTq

Swedish-French Sibille Attar is the artist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer who has made a lasting impression – with an audience as wide as the repertoire. She has been compared to a young Patti Smith, but like her predecessor, Attar has created a musical world that is her own, where she has given herself space to create freely without compromise.

Since her entry on the music scene in the early 00’s, she has played in several well-regarded indie bands; Tourettes, Speedmarket Avenue, Ingenting and Little Red Corvette. But the big recognition would come when she made her solo debut in 2012 with the self-produced EP “The Flower’s Bed”, and was Grammy nominated in Sweden as “Newcomer of the Year”.

The following year, the debut album “Sleepyhead” was released, which was hailed in unison in the media and nominated for “Pop of the Year” (Swedish Radio P3), as well as in 4 categories at the GAFFA Prize (biggest music magazine in Sweden). But then it became quiet. The fatigue that came from trying to adapt to the opinions of others led to a long break until she in 2018 released the mini album “Paloma’s Hand”. Which again cemented the image of an artist whose expression is as mysterious as direct, with the voice as the supporting element, where the music is allowed to develop at its own space.

In 2019, Attar chose to resign from her extra job to live on music to the fullest – which would result in a productive year 2020. In addition to completing her second album, she initiated a call against unfair restrictions in cultural industry, produced songs for Therese Lithner and Ludwig Bell, and wrote music for Håkan Hellström. Also, she wrote music for the acclaimed author Sara Stridsbergs play “Heart Angel” for the Royal Theatre in Sweden.

In 2021, her second full-length album “A History of Silence” was released – written, recorded, and produced by Attar – an album that reflects events from the past, and a new, more confident Sibille Attar. It contains powerful drama, characteristic singing and an innovative soundscape that is as full as it is stripped down. Clearly, an album that marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter.

* * *

We get by with a little help from our friends

alternative rock, Sibille Attar, dream pop, "Cold Generation", performance artist, art rock, dreamy, mysterious, punchy, whimsical, EP, ""Lost Tracks 2012 - 2022",