The Long Weekend ain’t over yet, folks. If you haven’t given the brand new Green Hands single a look or a listen or both yet, there’s still plenty of time to be doing so, This is the second single to be taken from Green Hands’ upcoming debut album ‘Nebo’s Dream’, out later this year via Breakfast Records.
Following on from the glorious indie tones of recent single ‘I Found a Way’, Green Hands present a second taster from their upcoming album. The track in question is entitled ‘The Long Weekend’ and sees the band push aside the guitars and slide over to the organ.
‘The Long Weekend’ is an intimate piece of music that further showcases Jack Telford’s talent for emotive alternative pop songwriting, “I had probably spent too much time listening to ‘Godspeed’ by Frank Ocean and a bunch of Grandaddy..”, he mentions, “I really wanted to move away from guitars and lean in on some warmer organs and mellotrons”, and lean in he does. A departure it isn’t, but a crowning jewel within Green Hands’ new record perhaps. The bare-bones structure and lyrical content on ‘The Long Weekend’ oozes fragility and intimacy through it’s delicate soundscape, it brings the listener ever-closer to the songwriter.
Telford explains, “The Long Weekend” was written about a period a few years ago during my last months living in Oxford, where I spent a bit too much time cutting about bars and pubs. Trying to balance yourself out in your twenties can be difficult and the song is a reminder that some allures can be strong but after a while, they are temporary too.”
“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.
“What If”, Rhys Lewis addresses this often-detrimental rumination in a way that’s earnestly emotional and touchingly impassioned. Although his lyricism is stunning, with just his vocal performance Lewis manages to convey both the emotions behind his painful reflections on lost love and the intense adoration he once felt. It’s perhaps in the track’s second verse that Lewis reaches his most earnest detailing in previous inability to see in himself what his ex-girlfriend saw in him.
Love can be a boundless feeling. It can lock us into an armored bubble, keeping us from harm. Although it has its magic, love can break hearts and it can silence the clash of two pairs of lips. Dreaming of love will never be as intense as the real coming together of two honest chasers of passion. We all need affection to live a purposeful life. We also need to pick ourselves up when love begins to lose its flame.
Singer/songwriter Rhys Lewis embarks on creating fables within his songs. The young musician tantalises with new track “What If”. It’s a multi-layered, triumphant, cathartic ballad of sorts. Throughout the track, he conveys a sense of loss, describing that he must patch up love’s stricken body, and that he must bring the girl back into his world.
The descriptions are poignant. Lewis’s ability to stir up emotion makes him such a unique songwriter. He dazzles but also seeks redemption, and he implements into everything he produces, a light. This light may not always be brighter than the sun, but it’s always there.
“What If” is yet another forward thinking track. It doesn’t raise hell, but the subject matter is eventful and the arrangements are intricate. Lewis knows how to construct chords and compelling lyrics which intertwine to create a showpiece.
Candy Says were asked to cover the song by director Vicky Jewson, who wanted a new version that fit the mood of the film. The lead character Sam (Rapace) is a badass bodyguard who tries to keep her humanity and emotional fragility out of sight. The band collaborated with the film’s composer Marc Canham to create a cinematic track that prefigures the brooding menace of the brutal score but also gives the audience a taste of the intense emotion that Sam will eventually reveal. The new version had to be approved by Kate Bush herself, and the band were thrilled that after a nail-biting few days she gave it her blessing.
A second single from space travel rock ’n’ rollers Swervedriver has just entered the atmosphere. “Drone Lover” from the forthcoming January 25th release Future Ruins sails and soars while a conscious chorus comments on the depersonalized nature of 21st century techno-warfare. The video is a fitting grainy and distorted collage peppered with found footage, live clips and drone-cam visuals.
Check out the “Drone Lover” video below and Future Ruins album.
Current Band
Adam Franklin- Lead Vocals- Guitars
Jim Hartridge – Vox – Guitars
Mikey Jones – Drums and vibes
Mick Quinn – Bass
or
Ben Ellis – Bass
Swervedriver is a band formed in 1989 in Oxford, England. A new album Future Ruins is released in January 2019.
On this day in 1990, Oxford, England shoegazers Ride unleashed their debut album, “Nowhere”, at the height of shoegaze, and it still stands up as one of the genre’s defining works. The word “shoegaze” became one of my favorite musical styles. “Nowhere” is the debut album by Ride, released 15th October 1990. Rolling Stone called the album “a masterpiece”,one of [shoegazing’s] enduring moments”. Ride had released three EPs, Ride, Play, and Fall, prior to the release of “Nowhere” .
Before the ear-splitting beauty of My Bloody Valentine, the sugary noise-pop of The Jesus and Mary Chain or the washed-out soundscapes of Slowdive,
“Vapour Trail,” though this string-filled ballad wasn’t quite full-on shoegaze like the remainder of the record, its swirling, transcendent energy and chiming 12-string guitars left me wanting more. I previously knew of the band’s co-lead singer and guitarist Andy Bell as the bassist in Oasis, but after I heard him sing on “Vapour Trail” with soft-hearted conviction, At the time theybecame my new favorite band—Ride.
The opening track, “Seagull,” I was met by a guitar assault, an unrelenting drone-like groove, breakneck drums and the harmonized co-lead vocals of Mark Gardener and Bell. Sure, This LP made me completely rethink the capabilities of musical transcendence.
I’d been exposed to uplifting romanticism and isolating sadness colliding in the same song before with artists like The Smiths and The Cure, but never with such extreme poles as Ride. On the eight tracks of “Nowhere”, Ride fired a distorted wash of piercing guitars, Loz Colbert’s vigorous percussion, bassist Steve Queralt’s clamoring melodies and Gardener and Bell’s angelic vocal harmonies. Songs shift from the soft wisp of “Dreams Burn Down” and “Vapour Trail” to the chugging chaos of “Decay” and “Kaleidoscope,” but more often than not, they incorporate both delicate allure and fierce annihilation within the same song.
Ride are a musical contradiction, and the best shoegaze music excels at contradiction. One of the things that kept pulling me back to Ride’s “Nowhere” and the rest of their discography and separated them from other shoegaze bands I love—was their refusal to obscure their harmonious vocals. If you were to transcribe the lyrics of bands like Cocteau Twins or My Bloody Valentine, you’d probably get a different set of words with each attempt due to their washed out sound mix. But with Ride, they preserved their distorted onslaught of instrumentals while allowing their shimmery pop vocals a la The Byrds or Teenage Fanclub to remain fully audible. Its opening cut, “Seagull,” is a stunning exploration of strung-out guitar notes and elongated vocal textures; a mission statement, for what would be one of shoegaze’s most pristine moments. “Definitions confine thoughts, they are a myth” Mark Gardener muses, The Songs like “Seagull” and “Polar Bear” display the perfect fusion of Gardener and Bell’s vocals with their discernible Oxford tongue and even those turned off by their wall of sound would admit to being charmed by their vocal match made in heaven.
The discourse around shoegaze seems mostly to be structured around a Holy Trinity dynamic, with Slowdive, Ride and My Bloody Valentine making up the trio of essential bands within the genre. Ride, though, were never quite as exclusive to reverb and hushed vocals as the other two, tailing off into Britpop, the total opposite of shoegaze, territory far too often to be considered their greatest. “Nowhere”, though, was arguably the highlight of their discography—a cohesively immersive, stunningly crafted shoegaze coup.
For a brief moment in 1990, Ride defied definition—crafting one of the most mind-bending and utterly stunning records of the era. Leaving “Nowhere” out of any record collection is totally inexcusable.
I’ve since come to know and love the overwhelming disarray of My Bloody Valentine, the hypnotic spirituality of early Verve, the sprightly, quiet firestorm of Lush and the intricate shoegaze-pop of DIIV, but it all began with Ride’s Nowhere. I’m not sure I would be able to come to grips with the harsh underbelly of bands like those along with the ambient work of Grouper or the atmospheric dream-pop of Galaxie 500 if it weren’t for the noisy, divine abyss of shoegaze via Ride’s Nowhere. I view Ride and Nowhere as the essential connecting tissue between the jangle pop of The Stone Roses, the dream-pop of The Ocean Blue, the discordant haze of My Bloody Valentine and the machine-like krautrock of Toy.
The Fat Angel Sings 