True to its title, “Emily Alone” was written and recorded by Emily Sprague during a few days last winter; after plans for a full-band Florist album were put on hold, she’d ended up with all these songs ruminating on loneliness that she didn’t know what to do with. It’s funny, though, because the songs that she wrote have the effect of making a listener feel less alone. Sprague creates a meditative, atmospheric blanket, her folky ramblings a comforting presence. It’s a guiding hand through the darkness that we fear so much.
Her third album, Emily Sprague is sitting by the ocean, taking walks, tending to her plants, daydreaming. She’s feeling peaceful and existential and acutely aware of every source of light in the house. The previous two albums from her indie-pop outfit Florist were full-band affairs, but in these 12 songs, Sprague steps away from her collaborators for a spell, tasked with filling time alone. It’s a familiar reprieve for the Los Angeles-based artist, who has also released several excellent ambient collections under her own name. But while those long-form compositions have evoked solitude and the natural world using modular synthesizers, Emily Alone is built from simpler tools: double-tracked vocals, acoustic guitar, and the occasional birdsong leaking in from an open window.
This is a very novel album, guitarist and with energetic choruses. The LP of the duo collects several singles published over several years, but that is why it is still a compact disc. Yawners’ music can be tremendously evocative and absolutely motivating and lively. “Big riffs, big feelings, big tunes. Yawners high energy indie rock feels like a crush.”
Fizzy power-pop duo Yawners are two hometown heroes crafting keen, thoughtful hooks in Madrid’s guitar rock renaissance. Elena Nieto writes her songs on her sleeve, matching earnest, hyper-self-aware lyrics with punched-up riffs and Martin Muñoz’s frenetic drumming. Yawners’ 2019 debut album Just Calm Down captured the manic energy and bone-tired comfort of long summer afternoons, as on “La Escalera,” the album’s only Spanish-language track, whose chorus Nieto wrote as her mom called her down the stairs for dinner. Yawners are the sugar high and the sugar crash and the limitless feeling of both.
“Please, Please, Please” appears on Yawners debut LP “Just Calm Down”, released by La Castanya on LP, CD, and Digital on March 22nd, 2019.
This album has so much heart, so much sincerity behind it that you can’t help but love it. Beautiful lyrics, excellent guitar tones, just enough rhythmic complexity – it’s like a rich slice of pie you eat silently at a family gathering, waiting for the next big thing to happen.
With differing time zones and work hours separating the members of Great Grandpa, their follow-up to 2017’s grunge-influenced Plastic Cough had every reason to sound safe and familiar. Instead, without meaning to, the five-piece recorded an album of emo, alternative, and folk-rock hybrids. Four Of Arrows is an immediate listen; these songs are earnest and worried, seemingly always reaching for hope that’s just out of grasp. But they never sound defeated, at least not with friends by their sides. It’s as if by experiencing major changes individually, they saw all the ways in which Great Grandpa could blossom together.
Four of Arrows, a creative turn toward introspection and Great Grandpa’s collective result of rest and solitude. Undoubtedly, the 11 songs comprising Four of Arrows are a departure from the playful nods to pizza and zombies on Plastic Cough. The writing and recording process had evolved – less Seattle garage jams and more vulnerable solo songwriting sessions. Most of the songs on Four of Arrows were written in isolation by Patrick and Carrie Goodwin while traveling and living in the Midwest.
The band instantly found common threads between their individual contributions, citing mutual love and admiration for vulnerable and emotionally resonate music. Four of Arrows embraces subtlety and pays close attention to the quiet. From the methodical dirge of “Dark Green Water” into the haunting and howling guitar of “Digger” – Great Grandpa try something new by letting the acoustic guitar and piano lay the foundation for many of the album’s tracks.
The Fleeting Joys are a shoegaze band from Sacramento, California, United States formed in 2005. Their sound is influenced heavily by classic shoegazers My Bloody Valentine , to whom they are often compared.
With “Swirling guitars… layers of noise… drugged out soft male and female vocals going back and forth… sounding like part love, part death, part hope, part sadness. It’s as if they’ve turned their instruments into liquid and poured them into your ears
Whimsical, reformed in 2015 and our 3rd full length album, “Bright Smiles & Broken Hearts”, self released on November 5th, 2019. Whimsical plays “Blissed Out” Classic Shoegazed melodies with ethereal female vocals floating over the top. Gazers will be mesmerized by this latest offering. Krissy’s vocals simply soar on this release. Neil’s composition and sonic construction is near flawless. Stellar Production all the way through.
Like many important bands, Seattle quartet Versing got their start in college radio—Tacoma’s KUPS. The group’s main songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Daniel Salas served as alternative music director there, where he met guitarist Graham Baker, drummer Max Keyes, and bassist Kirby Lochner. Now Versing are poised to spread their coolly combustible brand of rock on those said airwaves…and beyond if the world knows what’s good for it.
Baker, Keyes, Lochner, and Salas have risen through Seattle’s competitive rock ecosphere with nonchalant élan. They cheekily titled a previous album Nirvana, but never mind the bleach: Versing isn’t emulating Sub Pop’s most famous artist. Rather, these four twenty-something aesthetes are forging an exciting sound that finds a golden mean between lustrous noise and ebullient melody.
“Tethered” is the lead-off single from Versing’s full-length album “10000”, out May 3rd 2019 on Hardly Art records.
With Versing, songwriting is obviously crucial, but much of the pleasure in 10000 comes from its guitar textures. They’re swarming, yet also spiky and agile. Gently chiding the Seattle music scene’s self-seriousness while acknowledging Versing’s playfulness and irony, Salas says, “There’s a ‘let’s just fuck around and see what comes out,’ aspect of what we do, which I think is uncommon for Seattle bands.”
“Whoosh is a silly word,” says Gus Lord of the Stroppies. “There is something completely nonsense about it, especially when removed from any kind of context. For me it conjures up images of something absurd and transient – two things fundamental in the experience of listening to or making good pop music.”
“Whoosh” may indeed be a silly word but it almost onomatopoeically captures the sound and essence of The Stroppies first proper debut album, one that breezes along with boundless energy, a refrained pop strut, infectious grooves and the sort of jangling guitar melodies that sound like a prime-era Flying Nun band.
Between them, the Melbourne-based band – currently comprising of Gus Lord, Rory Heane, Claudia Serfaty and Adam Hewitt – have been in countless bands such as Boomgates, Twerps, Tyrannamen, Primetime, Blank Statements,The Blinds, White Walls, See Saw and Possible Humans. The band formed together around a kitchen table in 2016 with a heavy focus around the essence of collaboration and a DIY ethos. This led to an acclaimed cassette release of lounge room recordings, which was then pressed onto vinyl to more acclaim. The Stroppies next step was then taking their DIY approach to home recordings into the studio to make a transitional leap to what would become their proper studio debut. “Whooshis our first concerted effort to make something with a bit more sonic depth,”says Claudia Serfaty (the bands other primary songwriter). “It was an attempt to take working processes that had been established in a home recording setting and build on them with a broader musical palette in the studio in order to push the band into new territory without compromising what made initial releases so endearing.”
Endearment is something that the Stroppies have no problem retaining on Whoosh. It’s a record that possesses all the spunk and gusto of a young band hurtling forward yet also knowing when to take their foot off the accelerator. It’s an album that simultaneously feels young and fresh but wise beyond its years. “Whoosh is the most robust sounding release we have ever recorded,” Serfaty says. Combining taut post-punk rhythms, indie jangle, seamless melody and sugary pop, it’s a record that Lord says is influenced by: “All sorts of things – life, work, relationships, old cartoons and the last 60+ years of guitar-based pop music in some form or another. This includes everything from Bill Fay to the Clean to Stephen Malkmus.”
“Whoosh” is a record that combines a natural sense of urgency with a thoughtful approach. Something that the recording process itself was emblematic of. “Budgetary restrictions meant that we had two days to lay the foundations,” Serfaty recalls. “So it was axe to the grind: burning through live takes interspersed with tea and Turkish food from the local kebab shop, which culminated in twelve half finished cuts, rough and ready.” That was the urgent part, what then followed was a focused and labour intensive approach to get the most out of the bare bones of the record as possible. “We spent hours building up, stripping down and mixing the work that had been recorded the month prior, throwing everything we could think of at the songs to see what would stick. We utilised whatever was on hand to pull sounds, including but not limited to vintage synths, rain sticks and an old door frame that we used for percussion.” This was done with Zachary Schneider, a friend of the band, budding producer and established musician who is most notable for his guitar work in bands such as Totally Mild, Free Time and Full Ugly.
By the end of that period the band got so absorbed in the record that they almost lost sight of it. “I’m still a little too close to this record for it to evoke anything in particular,” Lord says. “Except for perhaps dull anxiety. Towards the end of recording I felt like I was drowning in the process and lost all clarity on what it meant or it’s value. Kind of like saying a word over and over again – it starts to lose all meaning.” Although with time comes clarity and even amidst the fog of making a record that has taken over his life, Lord knows the band has made something special. “Reflecting on the process I feel really proud of the album.”
After a two-year hiatus, Froth are back with their most fully realized work to date, ”Duress”. Co-produced with longtime friend and collaborator Tomas Dolas (Oh Sees/Mr. Elevator) at his analog-focused Studio 22 in Cypress Park, CA, the record is unapologetically experimental yet undeniably accessible – combining some of the band’s strongest hooks with left-field sounds and unexpected flourishes of electronica. Joo Joo Ashworth has matured into a talented producer in his own right, communicating his singular vision through studio technique as much as his angular, Verlaine-inspired guitar sound. As always, the rhythm section of Jeremy Katz and Cameron Allen displays a tightness and sense of mutual understanding only achieved through years of friendship and extensive touring.
“Duress” sees the band stepping outside the shadow of their influences and into something wholly their own. It’s an impressive and self-assured statement from a group only just entering their prime
Band Members
JooJoo Ashworth- Guitar/VOX
Jeremy Katz- Guitar/bass
Cameron Allen- Drums
Gnoomes, the Russian outfit who blend a potent mix of psychedelic stargaze, kraut techno and kosmiche pop return with a brand new album, MU! their third for Rocket Recordings.
Since the release of their last album Tschak! the three piece has turned into a quartet with synth player Masha Piankova joining the band. And it was the success of their tours in the UK and Europe that subconsciously created a template and tone for where the band would go next with this new album; to capture that surging drive and throbbing assault of their pulverising live shows. “We decided to make this record more live and less electronic,” Sasha, singer and guitarist from Gnoomes said. “We were thinking about how to make it sound more dynamic.” Masha’s introduction was a key one, with her replacing Sasha on synth bass whilst he moved over to second guitar to add a fuller and more impactful sonic crunch.
MU! has been part recorded in the same old soviet radio station where the band recorded Tschak! part in a professional studio and then part at home. This was to ensure the best capture of Gnoomes live assault. The results brim with a magnitude and sense of coherence that belies some of the environment it was created in. Fuzz-driven guitars shift in engulfing waves, resembling shoegaze giants at their most ferocious, whilst elsewhere layered vocals stack on top of one another, weaving between pristine melody and augmented discordance. Whilst the glacial electronics and coldwave tendencies that soaked much of their previous album may be more absent here, this record pulses with an electronic tinge that bubbles more subtly under the surface of immersive guitars.
The music they produce ranges from the most beautiful and melancholy soundtrack to the loudest of feedback driven postrock. They have certainly mastered the soft/loud dynamic, of bands such as Swans, Mogwai and low”
ClubDasEnde
Southampton’s Burning House have created a sepia-tinted sound that is both pastoral and psychedelic.
Since their formation in 2011, Burning House have been slowly picking up a storm. The glacial arpeggios, the guttural feedback that owe’s much to the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, as it does to the likes of Red House Painters and My Bloody Valentine. The music truly takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions which evolves a certain sadness, elation, but also black humour. The sound is also dreamlike recalling moments of our youth lost to time’s unforgiving fire.
