Liverpool duo King Hannah are gearing up to release the follow-up to last year’s excellent debut album, “Tell Me Your Mind And I’ll Tell You Mine”. While a new album hasn’t been officially announced yet, they have just shared an excellent new single, “A Well-Made Woman.” Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle are skillful builders of mood, and here craft layers of smoky atmosphere with simmering guitar lines, clattering drums and Hannah’s low-key, smouldering vocals. “A Well-Made Woman” slinks along familiar path tread by PJ Harvey, Mazzy Star, Portishead, and others — but King Hannah bring their own flair and command of dynamics. It’s a slow-burn stunner.
If you need more fire/heat metaphors, the video for “A Well-Made Woman,” directed by Whittle,
Our brand new single, “A Well-Made Woman,” is OUT NOW!! We’re SO excited for you all to hear what we’ve been working on, and hope you love listening to it as much as we love playing it!!.
King Hannah – 2021 Tour Dates October 16 – Liverpool, UK @ District October 20 – Manchester @ YES (Pink Room) October 21 – Leeds @ Hyde Park Book Club October 22 – Glasgow @ Broadcast October 23 – Newcastle @ The Cluny October 24 – Leicester @ The Cookie October 25 – Oxford @ Jericho Tavern October 26 – Birmingham @ Hare & Hounds October 27 – London @ The Lexington October 28 – Brighton @ Hope & Ruin October 29 – Bristol @ The Louisiana
Liverpool post-punks Clinic have released their first new album in seven years, Wheeltappers And Shunters, today via their long time label Domino Recordings. Previously they shared a video for its first single, “Rubber Bullets”. Then they shared another song from the album, opening track “Laughing Cavalier” also via a Joseph May-directed animated video .
The band’s last album was way back in 2012’s “Free Reign”. “We’d released albums like clockwork every two years, so it seemed natural to have a break,” explained frontman Ade Blackburn in a previous press release about the long gap between albums. “It allowed everyone to do some quite oddball stuff, away from Clinic. I think we all wanted a bit more freedom.”
“Wheeltappers and Shunters” album title is inspired by a 1970s British variety show The Wheeltappers and ShuntersSocial Club, which was hosted by Bernard Manning and according to the press release “recreated the smoky, boozy atmosphere of Northern working men’s clubs for a sofa-bound audience.”
“It’s been a pisstake thing between us for quite a few years,” Blackburn explained. “Whenever we’d talk about a song sounding too ‘cabaret’ or too nice, we’d say, ‘That’s a bit Wheeltappers and Shunters.'”
Wheeltappers and Shunters looks back on the culture 1970s era Blackburn and “his collaborator-in-chief” JonathanHartley grew up in. “It’s a satirical take on British culture – high and low,” Blackburn said. “It fascinates me that people look back on the 1970s as the glory days. It’s emerged that there was a darker, more perverse side to that time. When you look back on it now it was quite clearly there in mainstream culture.”
The previous press release set the scene for Wheeltappers and Shunters: “The Great Britain that Clinic are evoking is not that ancient, bucolic past of village green cricket, half a mild and hanky-waving Morris Dancers that many seem so determined that the country should return to, but a rather more sleazy past. Clinic’s reverie is for a time when Blackpool was the pleasure capital of the kingdom and the public was kept entertained by traveling circuses and the dirty glamour of the funfair; tacky end of the pier merriment and enforced fun at Butlins; when bell-ringing town criers bellowed their nonsensical broadsides into the ether.”
The album was recorded last year at Hartley’s Liverpool studio. Then Dilip Harris (King Krule, Sons of Kemet, Mount Kimbie) mixed the album. “We thought it felt right to make a fun, dancefloor album in these dark and conservative times,” said Blackburn.
We have always loved the Bruce Springsteen album “Nebraska”, how sparse and raw it sounds, and how it is effectively a live demo recording. We wanted to keep that live-feel when covering State Trooper and so we tracked the song live in our little home studio. We tried to do justice to the atmosphere of the original when arranging the track, with rumbling tom-heavy drums, warm creamy guitars and intimate slap-back vocals.
All tickets previously bought are still valid. Weekend & VIP tickets are on sale now. For anyone who has bought day tickets please note they’re still valid and we appreciate your patience as we accommodate to artists new touring timetables.
We really hope that with our new dates, we finally have something to look forward to! Once again we really are overwhelmed with the support and love we’ve received from everyone and hope you’re as excited as us to party together, but this time in October. Join us for one of the most unforgettable Sound City’s featuring headline acts Rejjie Snow & Red Rum Club & many more including The Mysterines, The Lathums, Lanterns On The Lake and 100s more to be announced!
Liverpool’sAmber Jay: ‘Stay the Same’ is out now, ahead of debut EP ‘Never Too Far From A Dark Thought’.
“‘Stay The Same’ is a classic heartbreak track. It encapsulates that pining feeling for someone when a relationship has ended and whatever you try to do to fix it just makes the other person more and more distant. Kind of like when you’re swimming and there’s like a lilo in the water and every time you try and wade towards it to get on, the water’s ripples from your movement pushes it further and further away. This track was super fun to make and the first track we recorded. I was so happy with how it sounded that it made me want to make an EP. So, without this track there would be no EP!” .
My EP ‘Never Too Far From A Dark Thought’ which comes out March 3rd
Liverpool four-piece Courting are set to follow up breakthrough singles ‘Football’, ‘David Byrne’s Badside’ and ‘Not Yr Man’ with a new EP via renowned indie label Nice Swan Records. ‘Popshop!’, a short, fast paced song, with lyrics offering wry bemusement about the commodification of music. They’re a blistering, fast-rising four-piece from Liverpool capable of taking on the world
Sharp-witted frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill — who, remarkably, is still in college; the band are all 18 or 19-years-old offers his break down of the track: “Popshop” is about the music industry, the idea of selling out and consumerism. The name is derived from Keith Haring’s store of the same name, and the idea that it is positive for your art to be consumed by a larger audience rather than only seen as something for upper class art collectors or something to buy for its future resale value. We’re also poking fun at bands writing the same song over and over again, and wishing that we could sell our bathwater like Belle Delphine.”
The guitar-driven music underpinning the lyrics, meanwhile, benefits from the tightness you get when a band is living out of each other’s pockets. Just as adept at belligerently shreddy wig-outs reminiscent of Parquet Courts’ crankier bits as they are at ramming the hook home with an unforgettable riff – there’s a lot to endear to.
With their releases now becoming more substantial and their live reputation catching on through word of mouth, the future is looking even brighter for Liverpool’s most exciting new band. Courting, like Sports Team before them, are well on their way to the forefront of this new wave of Britpop and set to gatecrash the charts.
Courting are: Sean Murphy-O’Neill (Guitar/Vocals/Cowbell) Sean Thomas (Drums/Vocals) Michael Downes (Guitar) Sam Brennan (Bass)
Their debut EP Grand National is out in 2021 via released on Nice Swan Records
Liverpool post-punkers Gen and the Degenerates have wasted no time in announcing live dates for 2021 and their audience will be as eager as them to share in the eccentric energy of their live shows. This, they say is only the beginning of their plans for the year – and we’ll be waiting to hear what else they have in store. Gen and the Degenerates have been causing a stir across Merseyside so far in 2019. Playfully aggressive and a message worth listening to, people are learning what the Degenerates knew all along: They’re destined for big things.
“If Gen and The Degenerates keep releasing music like ‘Cocaine’ and ‘Jesus Green’ then they will almost certainly be headlining big venues in the next year.”
Gen and The Degenerates are Infamous for their high energy, larger than life, live performances. Making a hobby of gate crashing the UK music scene, bringing with them their unique breed of blood and thunder rock n roll, they have appeared alongside Strange Bones , WSTR , Bang Bang Romeo , The Ninth Wave and many more.
A track about diving head first into a toxic relationship, despite knowing it’ll only end badly. Gen Degenerate throws caution to the wind as she sings, “you’re the kind of girl that I’d like to ruin my life…”.Littered with fluttering hooks to match the feelings of attraction, the song builds and builds towards a tense release. The melody is infectious as it wraps around Gen’s words. It’s fun, in your face and loud. Speaking about the song, Gen Degenerate said: “I wrote this song about an ex-girlfriend who I knew was going to be terrible for me but pursued anyway. “Even though she did ruin my life, I still love this song because it celebrates a flawed queer woman.
I don’t think the media and music industry uses its platform to celebrate them enough. As a flawed queer woman myself, I can verify that we’re fucking fantastic.” If Gen and the Degenerates keep producing songs like ‘Very Fast, Very Dangerous’, ‘Cocaine’ and ‘Jesus Green’, then it won’t be long before the media and the rest of the music industry celebrate the flawed queer woman and her degenerates.
Sometimes a band arrives out of nowhere, with a fully formed sound ready to fill a stadium. King Hannah are one of those bands. The Liverpool band led by the creative force of Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle have arrived with ‘Tell Me Your Mind And I’ll Tell You Mine’, an EP that is both soothing in its moods and intoxicating in its rushing soundscapes, containing a sound that is both brand new and completely mature. Their neon guitar lines and intimate torchlight vocals put the everyday on a pedestal, lifted by melodic licks that swell into dense and swirling atmospheric textures.
‘Tell Me Your Mind And I’ll Tell You Mine’ sounds like late nights and early mornings, from the beauty and closeness of acoustic guitar in opener “And Then Out Of Nowhere, It Rained”, to the final immersive thicket of distorted guitars in “Reprise (Moving Day)”. In between, “Meal Deal” is smoky backroom Americana transposed onto the precarity of finding somewhere to live; “Bill Tench” feels like melancholic euphoria of travelling in fast cars at night – drums flash past like lines on the asphalt with angular guitars. “Crème Brûlée” is a moody fugged-out ballad for the everyday, and “The Sea Has Stretch Marks” conjures a whirling post-rock exploration of cinematic memories. King Hannah lean in to immersive moments in their music. “We want people to get lost in the music,” says Craig.
Craig formed King Hannah before Hannah knew anything about it. He had seen her performing years before, but they didn’t meet until she was assigned to show him the ropes at the bar job they’d both taken on to get by while still making music. He immediately pestered her to play some music with him, and they started a routine, spending the hours before work at Craig’s house, where for a long time Hannah could not pluck up the courage to play him her own music. “That went on for a year,” said Hannah, while Craig just waited patiently for her to play. When they finally got to writing their own songs together, everything clicked into place.
Both had played in bands before, but until they started King Hannah, neither had found what they were looking for. Hannah grew up in Tan Lan, the world’s smallest village in North Wales, and can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a singer. Craig started playing guitar age 13, and was taught Jackson Browne songs by his older brother. Within a year he was playing in bands. All this changed as soon as they formed King Hannah. “It’s just about finding the right people. When I go to Craig with some chords and lyrics, he just gets it,” says Hannah. “If we hadn’t found each other, I don’t know where we would be,” says Craig.
Led by Hannah and Craig, the density of their sound comes from the combination of their guitar and vocals with support from Ted White, Jake Lipiec and Olly Gorman. Inspired by the vocals of Mazzy Star and guitars of Kurt Vile, Hannah writes lyrics first thing in the morning and lets her mind spill onto the page, and they contain all the raw vulnerability and mundane reflections of that mental space. This vulnerability is something Hannah feels acutely on stage, but is also what makes their music so magnetic. “There’s nothing pretend about us,” she says – the grit in their sound and her voice speaks volumes. “We don’t want to sound clean or polished,” says Craig, “we want to sound real, and dynamic and authentic.”
Who are King Hannah? the Liverpool duo of Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle whose shimmering, atmospheric alt-pop is the perfect soundtrack to midnight journeys through neon-lit skylines. The Breathtaking debut single “Creme Brûlée” is a captivating melange of The XX, Mazzy Star and Pink Floyd, as Merrick understated vocals remain dazzlingly powerful. The Follow-up single, the lo-fi acoustic Meal Deal, sees them channel their Kurt Vile influences for a vulnerable cut of modern Americana.
Merrick and Whittle met at a bar they were working at, with the latter urging her to make music together. This went on for a whole year before Merrick plucked up the courage to agree to write together. The rest is history. Thank god!
Their EP “Tell Me Your Mind And I’ll Tell You Mine” is out now via City Slang Records Releases November 20th, 2020
Liverpool four-piece Courting are part of a new wave of bands spearheading the Britpop revival. I’ll confess, I LOVE Courting, in fact, I am actually have a tee with their logo emblazoned on the front. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m probably supposed to be impartial, but these guys have real talent and they’re doing it the right way, whatever that is. Their last single, David Bryne’s Badside, was a and subsequently they made the 6 Music playlist, being championed heavily by Steve Lamacq.
Previously four, Courting are now a five-piece from Liverpool signed to Nice Swan Records, describing themselves on Bandcamp as a Take That cover band. They’ve just announced an EP, Grand National, to be released in April. Like all music artists this year, they’ve suffered a severe lack of exposure due to covid restrictions, missing out on Glastonbury, but I feel once these guys get back on the road again they’ll be an unstoppable force.
Finalists in Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition 2020, the quartet draw influence from the likes of Parquet Courts, Pavement and LCD Soundsystem whilst maintaining a very British identity.
David Byrne’s Badside was released back in May to critical acclaim and sees the band taking the mick out of modern-day Britain with razor-sharp wit.
Speaking on the single, lead singer and guitarist Sean says: ‘David Byrne’s Badside has nothing to do with the Talking Heads frontman. It’s about class tourism and the casual racism that exists in Britain today. It’s a portrait of the type of person who votes UKIP and wants to close our borders yet promises they’re not a racist. The type of person who says to buy British yet owns a Porsche.
Courting…who are they? a blistering, fast-rising four-piece from Liverpool capable of taking on the world in the next 12 months. Their brand of tight but scrappy post-punk is reminiscent of Light Up Gold-era Parquet Courts but where they really shine is their unabashed, tongue-in-cheek lyricism that takes aim at the British way of life, delivered with a fun dose of self-deprecating humour by frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill.
Their debut EP Grand National is out in 2021 David Byrne’s Badside · Courting on Nice Swan Records Released on: 2020-05-15
Liverpool quartet Hannah’sLittleSister share the grungy, helter-skelter video for recent chaotic anti-capitalist call-to-arms ‘Gum’. With the release of the single they announced debut EP – ‘EP.mp3′ – for November 20th via HeistorHit (Her’s, Pizzagirl, Brad Stank), and gained support from Blogging Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and DIY Magazine.
‘Gum’ is a wild ride. Skittish rhythms teetering over the edge, psychotic Jack-in-the-box synths and manic, yelped vocals are the chief ingredients of the psychedelic stew. However, amongst the madness, lead vocalist MegGrooters finds crystal clarity in the anti-establishment message:
“Gum is another sort of rant (oops!) about consumerism and how it’s constantly distracting us from ourselves and from the state of our society/country/government/world etc. – all of the things!
I wrote it to remind myself there’s a difference between what I want and need, and what I’m being told or shown I should want or need. We’re encouraged by the Big Boys in power to become addicted to materialistic things and social media, because it’s a great way of keeping us under control as a society that continues to put money in a small number of very rich people’s pockets.
Whether it’s social media, new trends, cool clothes or whatever, they’re vices pushed upon us that keep us pretty mind numbed and depressed. Yet we cling on to them in the false belief that these things can provide us with greater happiness or status, and help us climb up the socioeconomic ladder.” The perfect experimental pop exploration, this rapid track emerges itself as one of the most energetic and immense listens. Hannah’s Little Sister provides completely compelling arrangements that are unique, fun, and alluring. Whereas the dress up couture, sketchball storylines and freakadelic artwork exudes a space cadet vibe, the band themselves are very self-aware and grounded. The surreal world they’ve built is used as a way of sending up the music industry, as well as the corporate structures in the crosshairs across ‘Gum’ – whilst also accepting that as individuals it is hard to disassociate from it:
“I get so frustrated at myself when I spend hours scrolling through a timeline, knowing I’ve just drained a bunch of my energy and wasted time on something useless that didn’t make me feel very good. But we’re all pushed and pressured to do so and honestly I’m probably still going to do it again a couple of days later. It’s an addiction and it’s easy.
More than that, it prevents us from noticing, caring or becoming too vocal about the more severe injustices surrounding our society, such as racism or sexism, or the wealth gap in this country.
Government, financers and big corporations bank on these addictions and insecurities that keep us from feeling powerful enough to try and change that and I hate it. We’re knowingly brain washed and we all feel powerless to change a fake world we’ve accepted and I just think it’s NAFF. So go pirate our single!!”
This sound was aided in achievement by rising producer SaamJafarzadeh, also responsible for helping to build the transportive sonic worlds of fellow Merseysiders Her’s and BradStank.
The band originally started turning heads with debut single ‘20’ – a fizzing shock from the blue that earned them champions at The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit and Clash Magazine. A sort of LoFi gap year took place after that, the group taking time to hone their sound and anarchic stage show, up to the point that the unique power of controlled chaos is but a finger click away.
Hannah’s Little Sister are MegGrooters (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards, the colour Green), WillBrown (Drums, Ciggies), NinaHimmelreich (Bass, Vocals, German) and AshleySnook (Guitar, Vocals, Gossip).
The Fat Angel Sings 