A remixed and pumped-up version of ‘Heat Rises’ from Yanya’s superb debut LP Miss Universe results in ‘H34TRises’. Not that we needed convincing on the original cut but this new edit gives the track a beefier, more electro driven feel. Peep the video shot in Istanbul too.
She emerged in May 2016 with an elegant take on the Pixies “Hey” and followed it up with two stunning songs of her own, “Small Crimes” and “Keep On Calling”. In the space of three songs she outlined her aesthetic – sparseness, deftly intricate guitar and vocal melodies and brilliantly observational lyrics.
Yanya cites Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley and Connan Mockasin amongst her influences She grew up in West London and her parents are both artists, coming from a multi-cultural heritage of Turkish, Irish and Bayan. Yanya started learning the piano at the age of six but at twelve realised a long held ambition to learn the guitar. Her Mother encouraged her to take up the cello at the same time, which Yanya persevered with for a few years, but the practical issues of carrying it, coupled with her emotional attachment to the guitar led her away from classical music.
Inspired by her sister’s CD collection, in her early and mid-teens Yanya developed a taste for skater-rock and indie bands but discovering a passion for Jazz was the eureka moment, the trigger for the type of expression she was looking for as a songwriter. After taking her A Levels Yanya got a scholarship, started performing her songs and now, is one of the most exciting new talents around.
Orindal Records is proud to present the first vinyl release by Chicago singer/songwriter/guitarist Julie Byrne.
The first time we heard Julie’s debut cassette, You Would Love It Here, It’s The Perfect Place For You (Solid Melts), we immediately fell in love with her gentle, understated folk songs. Accompanying herself on a fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Julie sings about memory, hope, and coping with loss. There is restraint and measure in her singing and playing, and both ache with the same fragile beauty.
The two songs on this brief EP tell a complete story; “Holiday” recalls a New Year’s Eve in New York City, future plans made, and the fall-out of a fleeting romance, while the b-side, “Marmalade,” carries a dimming torch into the future, through changing seasons, bringing peace and closure to uneasy memories.
Faster or Greener than Now was recorded live to tape on an April afternoon by Owen Ashworth. Vintage echo and spring reverb effects were added to color Julie’s performances, lending a haunted atmosphere to these raw and intimate recordings.
The title of this record was taken from a Frank O’Hara poem.
The descent into darkness is a trope we find time again across history, literature and film. But there’s also an abyss above. There’s a winding white staircase that goes ever upward into the great unknown – each step, each turn, requiring a greater boldness and confidence than the one before. This is the journey on which we find Angel Olsen. The singer-songwriter’s artistic beginnings as a collaborator shifted seamlessly to her magnificent, cryptic-to-cosmic solo work, and then she formed bands to play her songs, and her stages and audiences grew exponentially. But all along, Angel Olsen was more concerned with a different kind of path, and on her vulnerable, new album, “All Mirrors”, we can see her taking an introspective deep dive towards internal destinations and revelations. In the process of making this album, she found a new sound and voice, a blast of fury mixed with hard won self-acceptance.
By her usually prolific standards, it’s been a long time between albums for Angel Olsen. “All Mirrors” is her first album for three years – an epic gap given that she used to average an LP a year in the early stage of her career. As usual, Olsen has redefined her sound once more, offering up impassioned songs that come backed by bold, wall of sound style production from John Congleton.
There are many moments of stirring intensity, where swirling strings, eccentric electronics and low-slung indie-rock grooves join forces to create stunning and arresting musical works of art. The more contemplative moments often sound a little like “Mezzanine”-era Massive Attack or Portishead, though Olsen’s voice and Congleton’s production are always unique enough to make comparisons with those bands moot.
The mid-album ballad, “Spring.” Over warm, gently warped piano, Olsen opens with advice: “Don’t take it for granted, love when you have it,” she singe, before observing almost in passing how quickly time flies: “Remember when we said we’d never have children, I’m holding your baby now that we’re older.”
For anyone who’s ever invested too heavily in a hypothetical future, or mentally broken apart every minuscule bit of a fresh and failed romance, that lyric can be a terrifying reminder that we will never know what will happen next. Olsen says as much in the next few lines: “I’m beginning to wonder if anything’s real, guess we’re just at the mercy of the way that we feel.”
Her message never veers into existential-panic territory, though, instead held steady by the song’s even-paced, rolling rhythm, and Olsen’s fuzzy vocals, hovering like a reassuring guide. She ends her gentle journey on the only piece of certainty she has access to: the fragile and fleeting present. “So give me some heaven, just for a while,” she sings, before her falsetto takes off into the heavens: “Make it eternal, there in your smile.”
“Spring” is the song that stayed with me the longest, through my dozens upon dozens of replays lying in my darkened bedroom, cooking with my roommates in my kitchen, singing by myself in the shower, like a forever-looping Twilight Zone-ish theme song. There is no true rhyme or reason to anything; there are just things that happen to us and people we meet, and we should try to enjoy everything while it lasts. It may not be a satisfactory revelation and — don’t get me wrong — it will emotionally wreck you. But once the tides of perpetual uncertainty subside, it’ll feel quite freeing.
A year ago, Melbourne musician Grace Cummings started playing her own songs armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. She has since fascinated local Melbourne audiences as she sings simple and honest songs with a powerful recklessness. Within a year she has shared bills with the likes of J Mascis and Do Re Mi as well as a breakout performance Boogie Festival. Her very first collection of solo songs will be released by Flightless Records in late 2019.
Grace comments ,A little while ago I started playing my own songs and writing more and more of them.
I went over to Jesse Williams’ house and recorded a bunch of solo songs in an afternoon… These have become my first album.
I am lucky enough to have it put out by Flightless Records who are the absolute coolest. The album ‘Refuge Cove’ comes out November 1st.
The voice and the space between the words are unmistakably Josienne Clarke.‘Things I Didn’t Need’ is a powerfully brittle love song. The arrangements of all the songs are barer than the chamber folk of SEEDLINGS ALL, Josienne’s stunning 2018 duo album with Ben Walker. There is room to hear every emotional syllable and nuance with voice, strummed electric guitar and some atmospherics to make the whole thing crackle. The effect is hypnotic, giving weight and power to every word.
Expect to hear these tracks soundtracking poignant moments in arty TV dramas soon. ‘Season And Time’ features a beautiful picked acoustic and Clarke’s wonderfully melancholic voice with some wonderful lyrics. ‘Never Lie’ adds some atmospheric textures and layers to Josienne’s fine voice and guitar, building a wonderful soundscape. Three tracks, individually sublime, also act as a starter, hinting at the rich treasures and sounds on Josienne Clarke’s forthcoming album that she describes as filled with misery, anger and a, longing for better.
Opening lines can be so crucial to a song, the way they set a mood, create a scene and instantly plant the listener squarely in the centre of proceedings. “You’ve got your problems but I’m the one that needs to change”, is how Josienne Clarke’s new single, If I Didn’t Mind, greets you. Instantly thrusting you into the centre of a failing relationship, a row so instantly real you feel like you’re going to be ducking flying plates and pulling your hands out of the ways of slammed doors. The track is lifted from Josienne’s upcoming debut album, In All Weather, a record about pulling yourself out and starting again, “I exiled myself, moved to an island, metaphorically and literally; broke up with everything but songwriting, to re-make myself and learn to let it all go in peace”.
Built around a fluttering bass-line, and rolling drum beat, most of the track’s melody is carried by Josienne’s vocal. Throughout there’s a calmness and a strength to the delivery, that doesn’t disguise the hurt underneath, almost if Josienne is steadying herself determined to make her point. Discussing the album as a whole, Josienne has suggested In All Weather is, “a manifesto of how to leave and how to change”, a series of songs about breaking-up and crucially about moving on, on this evidence one enthusiastic writers claim that these are, “the best break-up songs since Blood on the Tracks”, might actually have some legs.
In All Weather is out November 8th via Rough Trade Records.
I am regularly astonished by the vividness of the imagery Bianca Blackhall’s music creates in my mind. On her debut self-titled EP, she demonstrates her prowess as a teller of stories imbued with the textures of our country’s vast and varied landscapes.
The slow burning ‘Sharks’ simmers and heaves, and the members of Blackhall’s band melt together to form one swelling organism. The clamorous blare of a CFA siren slices through the haze at the song’s peak, before the surging tide turns and ebbs and the waves subside.
From the Apple Isle comes Bianca Blackhall and her four piece band, stepping into the fracture of alt country and moody pub rock. Propping up shimmering vocals with lurching rhythms and wily guitar, Bianca Blackhall brings you music of the lucky country – it’s land, loss and love. Songs to lean back and have a long guzzle of your Cascade to. Grief and apathy. A commentary of Australian life from the bewildered perspective of a 27 year old woman.
The band have played every dog-eared pub in Hobart as well as Falls and Unconformity Festival. Their first EP is out in July 2019 and can be found on band camp.
Debut single from Tasmanian artist Bianca Blackhall.
Band Members
Bianca Blackhall -vocals
Nick Milnes- lead guitar
Trent Thomas – bass
Hans Christian Ammitzboll – drums
Melbourne-artist Sandy Hsu releases her stunningly bold and soothing new EP, “She Comes to Me in a Fever Dream”.
In the lead up to Sandy’s new EP, her single Angel Energy has reached #2 on the AMRAP charts, and the vivid and nostalgic Limbo was premiered by Frankie Magazine and featured on Purple Sneakers who described her music “beautifully effortless”. A transitional and reflective release, She Comes To Me In A Fever Dream explores themes of tenderness, strength, femininity, change and self-reconciliation. Sandy describes the release as having ‘many moments of inward looking, observing my own growth and possibly how that reflects outwardly’.
Taken from the forthcoming EP She Comes To Me In A Fever Dream (Healthy Tapes), Sandy Hsu’s second single ‘Angel Energy’ is a reminder that change, while potentially overwhelming, can also be beautiful.
Hsu has realised that she knows nothing, and has accepted this, embracing growth, learning and transformation. Hsu’s lyrics bleed self-awareness, sometimes harshly so, and she threads them delicately through a swirling, ethereal mist.
Sandy Hsu’s upcoming EP She Comes To Me In A Fever Dream is out via Healthy Tapes digitally and on limited cassette on September 26th.
That’s the recurring sentiment Lætitia Tamko carried with her through the writing and recording of her second album under the Vagabon moniker. Her first, 2017’s Infinite Worlds, was an indie breakthrough that put her on the map, prompting Tamko to tour around the world and quit her job in electrical/computer engineering to pursue a career in music full-time. Tamko’s self-titled Nonesuch Records debut finds her in a state of creative expansion, leaning fully into some of the experimental instincts she flirted with on the previous album. This time around, she’s throwing genre to the wind. Vagabon is a vibrant culmination of influences, emotional landscapes, and moods; a colorful and masterful statement by an artist and producer stepping into her own.
Following her 2017 debut Infinite Worlds, Vagabon (aka Laetitia Tamko) became one of the most distinct voices in indie rock. Her husky alto is warm and unforgettable. Now add indie pop to that faction of genres. Her next album, a self-titled effort, breezes through synthy breakdowns and horn numbers with ease, never content to be just one thing. Tamko’s voice remains each song’s focal point, especially on the bouncing pop numbers, but the album as a whole feels most like a low-lit mood. Hypnotic and transportive, Vagabon feels even more like Tamko’s arrival than her warmly received debut.
In All Weather is a new collection of songs, in which she goes it alone; musically, as this is her first solo record, and in her own life, laid bare and played out in the leave-it-all-behind-and-start-anew nature of the lyrics.
“Learning to sail in all weather, the line from which the album title comes, is what we are all trying to do,” Josienne explains. “To right ourselves when things feel turbulent and uncertain. How to correct your course and stay true to the things you believe and need and let all the rest go.” Fans of Josienne Clarke’s previous melancholic chamber-folk duo will recognise her uniquely sorrowful and jewel-like vocal style. But these new songs were sung and played by Josienne in the manner they’ve always been written; emotionally raw, immediate and unvarnished. Gone are the duo’s grandiose arrangements; Josienne accompanies herself on pared-back acoustic and electric guitar throughout. She’s joined on the record by experimental piano prodigy Elliott Galvin, innovative jazz drummer Dave Hamblett, celebrated Scottish harpist Mary Ann Kennedy and guitarist/bassist Sonny Johns (best known for his work with Fatoumata Diawara & Polar Bear) who co-produced the record with Josienne at Watercolour Studios in Fort William, Scotland.
Singer and songwriter, BBC Folk Award winner. Committed harbinger of melancholy. “Sings like a haunted angel”
Taken from Josienne Clarke’s forthcoming solo album ‘In All Weather’, out 8th November.
Bea Kristi is all of 19, and her music as Beabadoobee has already evolved in profound ways. She got her start as a bedroom-bound pop singer whose hushed, Elliott Smith-inspired whispers radiated soft intimacy. But as her star has risen — after going viral on YouTube in 2017, she’s released a handful of EPs and racked up tens of millions of streams — her newest singles have located her sharper, more forcefully anthemic edges.
Following the release of a handful of EPs on Dirty Hit, home to The 1975, beabadoobee celebrated mainstream success as the guest vocalist on Powfu’s UK top five single Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head). The track sampled beabadoobee’s 2017 debut Coffee, and paved the way for her first solo charting single, Care. Listed on the BBC’s Sound Of 2020 and nominated for the BRIT Award’s Rising Star accolade, beabadoobee (real name: Beatrice Laus) revealed details of her Fake It Flowersf ull-length in July 2020, to be released in October of this year.
Based on your previous use of Gigs and Tours, we think you might be interested to know about Beabadoobee’s latest announcement! Beabadoobee, one of the UK’s most exciting recent breakthrough artists has confirmed a run of headline shows for 2021 in celebration of the release of her debut album next month!
The artist has also recently shared her new single ‘Worth It’ from her highly anticipated upcoming debut album ‘Fake It Flowers’, out October 16th via Dirty Hit.
The ‘Fake It Flowers’ tour will take place in September and October next year and includes a hometown show at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town.
The Fat Angel Sings 