A new patron saint of sad girls, Elizabeth is a glamorous tragic, a queer pop anti-heroine holding a curtain of glittering melodies and catchy veneers over ugly truths. “Parties” is a sparkling, slowburn sad-banger, an exorcism in excess, and an awakening. Channelling the energy of Marissa Cooper dumping her banana lounge into the pool, ‘Parties‘ is messy, glamorous, and demands your attention. The Wonderful World of Nature is made up of pop songs that leave a lasting mark; they bruise and linger. Tasked with building out the world in Elizabeth’s deepest imagination was producer John Castle, who now adds Elizabeth to his roster of collaborators alongside Hatchie, Cub Sport, Jack River and Vance Joy. Operating with an absolute absence of ego, together Castle and Elizabeth succumbed to their purest pop whims.
French Vanilla use slick and bouncy saxophone punk to explore new love and new identities with songs that feel as bold as the outsized subject matter deserves. Every left-field rhythmic breakdown, every zig-zagging blast of saxophone, every oddball post-punk chord change is shot through with infectious wonder. Always a super charismatic and well-recorded band, “How Am I Not Myself” takes French Vanilla’s sound into an even more stylish stratosphere for a record that sounds like it came from Planet Claire—or at least, some far groovier utopian future where the patriarchy has been smashed and everyone is free to be their true selves. But despite its self-declared quest for outrageous self-actualization, this is outward facing music. How Am I Not Myself wants you to believe wholeheartedly in your own magical self, whether that’s in front of a crowd or in front of the bedroom mirror.
Journey through the music of a generation in one of the UK’s most vibrant and creative cities.
Sheffield in the 1970s…. a city in decline, its steel mills and factories closing and its vast housing estates beginning to crumble. Even the city’s two football teams were both experiencing the worst form in their long histories. An unlikely setting, then, for a musical revolution, but aren’t they always? As it transpired, in the aftermath of punk this industrial backdrop, alive with frustrated young talent and peppered with accessible and affordable rehearsal and performance spaces, became a hotbed of uniquely informed new bands that challenged both the constraints of genre and the dominance of music from London, Liverpool and Manchester.
Dreams To Fill The Vacuum charts the revival of Sheffield and its music in the latter half of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, from The Human League to Pulp, via Aardvark, Pax and Native Records, and onto the chart successes of Heaven 17, ABC, Thompson Twins and many others. Featuring cornerstone contributions from the city’s brightest stars – Oakey, Cocker, Ware, Marsh, Hawley, Newton and co – alongside many more lesser-known legends, this is a tale of a city and its people rediscovering itself.
Packed with first-hand artist sleeve notes, insightful essays, revealing imagery and brilliant, essential music, Dreams To Fill The Vacuum offers a story in need of telling.
In the late 70s, the city’s bands set out to create the sound of the future – while trying to avoid getting beaten up. Jarvis Cocker and other leading lights recall a revolutionary scene Sheffield in 1977 had a slight feeling of being the city of the future,” recalls Jarvis Cocker. “I didn’t realise that it was all going to go to shit. It was Sheffield before the fall.”
That pre-fall year is the starting point for a new box set: Dreams to Fill the Vacuum: The Sound of Sheffield 1977-1988. Familiar names appear – Pulp, Heaven 17, the Human League, ABC – but they are joined by a wealth of other acts, such as I’m So Hollow, Stunt Kites, They Must Be Russians and Surface Mutants, spanning punk, post-punk, indie and electronic with that droll outsider energy particular to South Yorkshire.In 1977, Paul Bower was producing a local fanzine, Gun Rubber, and playing in the Buzzcocks-indebted 2.3. Like Cocker, he recalls the late-70s as being a time of optimism and flux. “There’s this myth of northern miserablism, that everything was shut down and shit,” he says. “But it wasn’t – that came later. It was a really interesting, bustling and creative time.”
Sheffield had plenty of dirt-cheap “little mester” workshops, once used by master craftsmen working in the city’s cutlery industry, and these provided room for bands to move in and experiment. Bower’s band 2.3 shared a space with the Future, an early incarnation of the Human League that featured Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh along with Adi Newton before he formed Clock DVA. “We were enamoured with the New York scene,” says Ware. “In our own little way we were imitating the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.” Bower describes it as: “Andy Warhol’s Factory in the land of Bobby Knutt.”
The pioneering industrial and electronic outfit Cabaret Voltaire had been active since 1973. “They were the godfathers of Sheffield’s new music,” says Simon Hinkler, who played in bands such as TV Product and Artery, as well as producing early Pulp. “You can’t overstate how important they were.” Ware echoes this. “They were our mentors,” he recalls. “Their methodology and lifestyle was something we aspired to. Not so much musically, but as a template for doing your own thing.”
“In Our Element,” fittingly, finds Kate Teague inhabiting her twang-tinged indie-rock sweet spot, her rhythm guitar subdued and built upon by slow-burning, oft-bent lead notes. “It’s in my head, I’ll push it away / I’m glad to have you here anyway,” she sings. Teague explains that she “wrote this song in response to completely misinterpreting someone’s body language at a series of parties. I began falling in love with the idea that someone was falling in love with me, but I ultimately realized it was all in my head.” “In Our Element” is the latest in Teague’s aforementioned string of killer singles, following “Gilly,” “Good to You” and “Low Life,” all three of which were released in 2018. As for her debut album, all we know for now is that it’s coming sometime in early 2019.
Kate Teague’s songs are dreamy and narrative, threading interpersonal connections throughout the cosmos. The Oxford, Mississippi musician has a classic folky voice, but that voice is surprisingly malleable. On her debut EP, she adapts to a disco shimmer on “Good To You” and bristles up on “Sweetheart,” where Teague insists, “I can frown if I want to/ Don’t call me a sweetheart.” She’s most in her element when she’s languishing in rootsy malaise, when her voice is able to spread out and take hold through dusty, mournful coos. melodic electric guitar soft rock, with a slight county pop twang, to be expected from a Mississippi gal recording in Memphis. For lovers of Christine McVie & Stevie Nicks in Fleetwood Mac, Pernice Brothers, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, even The Sundays. And that’s damn good company.
Weightless guitar tangents and lush, aquatic soundscapes are a vital part of what embodies “Swim Team”, her debut EP that serves a powerful introduction to Bofale’s budding artistry. Somewhere between influences like Joni Mitchell and Alex G, Bofale has found a sweet spot for her sound that lives between both harsh and gentle terrain, achieving a relaxing, yet rugged tonality.Each track pictured on Swim Team is brushed vividly with colors that illuminate the fear of being honest and doing that much needed personal work. Bofale’s earnest and bravery is a snapshot of black mental health and the nuance it carries. Being real isn’t easy, but it’s crucial in cultivating spaces for healthy discussion and giving other black women like Bofale a platform to do the same.
With her debut EP Swim Team, Congolese American songwriter Christelle Bofale relishes the ebb and flow of love, while also exposing its underbelly. On songs like “Love Lived Here Once” and “U Ouchea,” against a lush guitar backdrop, Bofale’s lyrics land like crashing waves, transforming her innermost revelations of fear and complacency into resonant and prophetic incantations. At times reminiscent of Lianne La Havas’s sophomore effort Blood,Swim Team also pays homage to singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Bill Withers who deeply explored the rich spectrum of love—unearthing its ache, its murkiness, and its confusion. This EP is one piece of stellar work by this amazing singer/songwriter.
Brighton post-punk act Thyla has dropped the music video for “Lenox Hill” where we see frontwoman Millie Duthie hit various spots across the city in funky outfits. The video looks like Millie is the only earthling existing and she’s having a grand time cavorting cements to grass. It’s chic and feels like every hermit’s dream come true:
“The urge to put ‘Lenox Hill’ to video was too strong to ignore so we decided to try and shoot something essentially for free. We bought a gimbal stabiliser off amazon and used Danny’s iPhone to shoot the whole thing, turns out all you need is some outfits, a willingness to look a bit silly to passers by and a whole load of patience for editing in iMovie and you’ve got yourself a music video! We had a lot of fun making it and we hope it sheds some light on the song and how it makes us feel,” shared Millie.
This Brighton dream-pop outfit released their second EP, “Everything At Once. Everything At Once” follows their 2019 debut EP What’s On Your Mind, which landed on our list of best EPs of last year. Everything At Once includes three previously released singles, “Two Sense,” “Lenox Hill” and “December,” plus a brand new track, “Everything.”
The four-track EP is full of invigorating, crisp rock songs, all cloaked in glorious guitar mist. Lead singer Millie Duthie’s voice is positively sublime—she’s just as proficient in exalted rock anthems as graceful pop introspections. Their newest song, “Everything,” has the kind of rich climax that requires closed eyes and an unlimited imagination—once that cutting guitar kicks in and Duthie’s stirring, layered vocals begin to surface, you’re fully dialled in.
“Lenox Hill” is from Thyla’s sophomore EP Everything at Once, which will be out on February 7th.
Philadelphia punks Mannequin Pussy are on a roll. Both their 2014 debut GP and 2016’s Romantic clocked in at less than 20 minutes but brought a spirited thrust of punk that didn’t put them on a pedestal or skimp on bursts of melodic pop bliss. Their third album Patience doesn’t ditch the snappy punk that makes them so vehement, but it does find the band wielding hooks and more traditional song structures to an extent they haven’t before. Their new album has a whopping 26-minute run time, and lead singer Marisa Dabice has a lot to say—whether it’s fighting against self-hatred, coming to terms with the reality of an abusive relationship or resisting the urge to compare herself to others. With producer/engineer Will Yip (Quicksand, The Menzingers) on board, Mannequin Pussy attempt to balance their vigorous, zippy punk spurts with peppy moments of pop/rock immediacy, and they do it to a T.
In an era when rage and frustration are status quo, it’s a pleasant surprise to hear Philadelphia punks Mannequin Pussy traverse new territory on Patience. While singer/guitarist Marisa Dabice confronts some of life’s darkest demons—abuse, greed, and heartbreak—the band’s usual storm of dense, guitar-driven rock retains its shimmer. Slashing riffs are offset by the appearance of dreamy, atmospheric guitars, and Dabice’s voice swings from furious roar (“Cream”) to something softer and almost romantic (“High Horse”). It’s a complex journey—an album rooted in recovery instead of anger, and a reminder that even the deepest cut can eventually heal.
“Drunk II” by Mannequin Pussy from the album ‘Patience,’ available June 21st
Ever since we first heard the lush Cranberries-esque guitar strums that opened last year’s Sugar and Spice, Hatchie’s debut EP, we’ve been desperately waiting for a full album from the Australian dream pop artist. One of our best new artists of 2018 delivers a home run on her debut, “Keepsake”, one that’s more polished and Sky Ferreira-esque than last year’s EP, fully capitalizing on the promise of those first handful of songs. Every track here is a knockout, each equally life affirming and capable of soundtracking nearly any indie film. Keepsake is a gorgeous listen front to back. Get ready to believe the hype.
In interviews promoting her breakout EP Sugar & Spice, Harriette Pilbeam expressed reticence about the pop format, saying that her song “Sleep” was “the most pop” she would ever go. But Hatchie giving up pop songs would be like Éric Ripert trading cooking for baseball. Why quit doing something you have such a gift for? Over the course of Keepsake—which delivers on the promise of Sugar & Spice and then some—Hatchie swirls irresistible hooks in cotton-candy guitars and caramel-colored synths, imagining what might happen if The Cocteau Twins reunited to collaborate with Carly Rae Jepsen. But amidst the giant, billowing clouds of sound lay deceptively searching lyrics. On the sterling album standout “Her Own Heart,” over guitars that wax and wane like the tide, she offers, “No more smiling from the sidelines / No longer the girl with the cynical view / Think it’s high time now she was her own muse.” On Keepsake, Hatchie steps in from the sidelines herself, crafting an elegant, intoxicating pop record that sinks deeper and deeper into the skin until it becomes the sugar in your bloodstream, waking you up and making you smile.
‘Without A Blush’ is taken from Hatchie’s debut album ‘Keepsake’ which came out June 21st on Double Double Whammy, Heavenly Recordings and Ivy League,
Did Sleater-Kinney have an identity crisis, or did we? On their ninth record, Sleater-Kinney remain resolutely misunderstood, though they’ve always sounded different from record-to-record. While Sleater-Kinney are a rock band, The Center Won’t Hold isn’t really rock music—the epic scope and industrial aspects of this words-and-mostly-guitarless offering—courtesy, some might say of producer Annie Clark (though who really knows)—have far more in common with stylized art pop than anything in their back catalog. But its aims are grander, as well, and Sleater-Kinney still bring a vibrating desperation and undimmed punk anger to their music in a way that suits our new era of fraying nerves and grinding anxiety. Carrie Brownstein throws off the Hollywood sparks these days, but it’s true believer Corin Tucker whose full heart promises protection from the oncoming terror. “Tell me if you feel like you are lost and alone / I am your friend / You can cover me / Just come over here and give me everything” she sings on “The Future is Here.” Her vocals brim with tenderness and compassion, a motherly bookend to the Tucker of 20 years past, who furiously wailed, “Not what you want? It’s everything!” And everything it remains.
Sleater-Kinney newest album, The Center Won’t Hold, released on August 16th via Mom + Pop Records. The song from it, “Can I Go On,” via a lyric video. It comes accompanied by the band’s press photo as a duo (Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker) in the wake of drummer Janet Weiss unexpectedly announcing at the start of the month that she was leaving Sleater-Kinney only a month and a half before their new album is to be released.
Brownstein had this to say about “Can I Go On” in a press release: “In this song, a woman’s desire is used against her, so she turns it into a sinister infectiousness. The narrator finds herself on the brink of self-annihilation, grappling with the paradox of an internal darkness at odds with the pressure to outwardly perform modes of joy, relatability, and likability.”
In a previous press release Brownstein also had this to say about recording the album: “Instead of just going into the studio to document what we’d done, we were going in to explore and to find the essence of something. To dig in deeper. It felt like a really crucial part of the process itself, not just the end game.”
The Center Won’t Hold finds the band experimenting with a slightly more polished sound, thanks to producer St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark), and on a new label in Mom + Pop. Prior to the announcement of The Center Won’t Hold, Sleater-Kinney shared the album’s first single “Hurry On Home” via a Miranda July-directed lyric video for the track . When the album was announced they shared its second single, “The Future Is Here,” Then they stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform “Hurry On Home,” in what might be Weiss‘ last public performance with the band. Then they shared the album’s title track, “The Center Won’t Hold”.
At long last, “Night of the Worm Moon”, the highly-anticipated new album from La Luz singer/guitarist Shana Cleveland is out on LP, CD, digital, and cassette. Critics are already calling the album a “miniature masterpiece” (Uncut) and “a triumph entirely of its own kind. It’s like a garden of quiet yet cosmic folk delights with chasers of old west sounds” (The Big Takeover) that “silently explodes and blossoms out like a magical cosmic flower, arriving just in time for the Spring Equinox” (SLUG Magazine). LP copies on “Face of the Sun Yellow” at Shana’s merch table on her upcoming North American tour while supplies last.
Night of the Worm Moon, the new solo album from Shana Cleveland, the singer/guitarist of acclaimed surf rock band La Luz, watch Shana’s music video for album standout “Face of the Sun” . Cleveland directed this homage to ’70s-era anti-drug PSAs herself. Night of the Worm Moon sees Cleveland expanding her sonic palette, incorporating psychedelic folk sounds with out-there subject matter and inspiration including Afro futurism and alternate dimensions.
An idyllic day takes a turn for the surreal in this music video for “Face of the Sun,” from Night of the Worm Moon, the solo album by La Luz’s Shana Cleveland, Also check out the psychedelic music video for Shana Cleveland’s“Don’t Let Me Sleep,” off the solo album from the La Luz singer/guitarist, The video, from director Ryan Daniel Browne, stars Cleveland as an extraterrestrial exploring a woodland environment under a full moon as the landscape transforms around her.
Shana Cleveland is in the middle of a nightmare when Night of the Worm Moon begins, scrambling over a fence with an unnamed threat in pursuit. “They’ll catch me alive / Don’t let me sleep too late,” she begs on the chorus. The half-dreamt plea sets a spooky opening scene for an album of eerie acoustic lullabies that take place in subconscious worlds—ones full of menace, but equally full of love. Accompanied by only the sparest of instrumentation, Cleveland uses the meditative quality of fingerpicked guitar to create moments of heightened perception and thrumming reverie. She isn’t quite a futurist—the alternate dimensions she explores in her music exist alongside our own—but where Cleveland lights up entire galaxies with her rock band, La Luz, the intimate universe she spins as a solo act can fit in the palm of your hand. Full of flickering baroque details and gorgeously arranged melodic passages,
“Don’t Let Me Sleep” is the second single from Night of the Worm Moon.
Night of the Worm Moon was recorded during the 2017 solar eclipse and was inspired by Afrofuturism, science fiction, and the surreality of daily life in Los Angeles.
