FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential January and February Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kelela/PHOTO CREDIT: Jai Lennard for Billboard

 

Essential January and February Releases

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2023 is starting out pretty hot…

and there are two particularly huge albums due in the next couple of months. I have selected the albums due out this month and next that you will want to own. I am going to start with a great album due out on 13th January. Margot Price’s Strays is an album that I would urge people to pre-order on vinyl. It follows her brilliant third studio album, That's How Rumors Get Started:

“Produced by Margo Price and Jonathan Wilson, Strays was primarily recorded in the summer of 2021, during a week spent at Fivestar Studio in California’s Topanga Canyon. While most of the songwriting took place the summer prior – during a six-day, mushroom-filled trip that Price and her husband Jeremy Ivey took to South Carolina – it was amongst the hallucinatory hills of western Los Angeles that Price experienced the best recording sessions of her career. Instilled with a newfound confidence and comfortability to experiment and explore like never before, Margo Price and her longtime band of Pricetags channelled their telepathic abilities into songs that span rock n roll, psychedelic country, rhythm & blues, and glistening, iridescent pop.

Having been together since the days before Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, her 2016 debut that Rolling Stone named one of the Greatest Country Albums of All Time, Price and her band tracked live in the same room, simultaneously expanding upon and completely exploding the notions of every other album they have made together. With additional vocals from Sharon Van Etten, Mike Campbell and Lucius, plus strings, synthesizers and a breadth of previously untapped sounds, Strays is also Price’s most collaborative record yet. “I feel this urgency to keep moving, keep creating,” says Margo Price. “You get stuck in the same patterns of thinking, the same loops of addiction. But there comes a point where you just have to say, ‘I'm going to be here, I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm not going to put so much stock into checking the boxes for everyone else.’ I feel more mature in the way that I write now, I’m on more than just a search for large crowds and accolades. I’m trying to find what my soul needs”.

I will focus on a few great albums due on 24th January. It is always a bit strange when a member of a mega band releases a solo album. We have seen it with the members of Radiohead. Blur’s members have also released their own work, and now their drummer Dave Rowntree is bringing us the superb Radio Songs. Maybe doing what it says on the cover, this is an essential pre-order that Blur and non-Blur fans alike need to get behind. From what I have heard so far, the album is going to be tremendous. A natural lead, Dave Rowntree is ensuring that a potentially cold January will be made warmer and better with his debut solo studio album! Ensure that you do not miss out on it:

“Blur drummer Dave Rowntree releases his debut album Radio Songs on Cooking Vinyl. Standout track London Bridge was produced with Leo Abrahams (Wild Beasts / Brian Eno / Ghostpoet). It heralds the start of an exciting new project for Rowntree, over three decades since Blur formed back in 1989. London Bridge is an enticing opening statement. Deceptively bright and upbeat, with its staccato ‘la-la-la-la’ hook line, the music belies a lyrical sense of dread. As proficient with a synth or guitar as he is behind the drum-kit, Rowntree’s innate ear for a melody is given free-reign on this scuzzy but impactful, lo-fi number”.

I have been looking forward to Låpsley’s new album, Cautionary Tales of Youth. One of my favourite artists around, I really love her music. The York-born artist follows 2020’s Through Water. That was an amazing album, but I think that Cautionary Tales of Youth is going to top that very high bar. Go and buy the album on vinyl if you can, but there are also cassette and C.D. options. It is going to be a truly magnificent album that I cannot recommend highly enough. Låpsley is one of our greatest treasures. Go and pre-order her new release that is out on 20th January:

“Produced in collaboration with Jessy Lanza, Paul White, Greg Abrahams and regular collaborator Joe Brown, Lapsley’s third album is an intimate but universal exploration of those Cautionary Tales that - eventually - may also prove the making of you.

As eclectic as it is unguarded, the album is a form of therapy in the truest sense: a talking cure and a hauntingly beautiful confession, resulting in a thrilling yet soulful work of love, loss and growth”.

One of the biggest albums due this month is Måneskin’s Rush! The former Eurovision winners are a remarkable band in their own right, and their album is definitely going to court plenty of positive reviews. Out on 20th January, go and pre-order this must-hear album from the Italian legends. There is not a lot of information available about the album, so I wanted to source from an NME interview published last year:

“That spirit to defy expectations is what has driven their hotly-anticipated upcoming third album ‘RUSH!’. After their Eurovision 2021 win introduced the band to the wider world, singles like ‘I Wanna Be Your Slave’, ‘MAMMAMIA’ and ‘Supermodel’ have showcased their more raucous edges. The tender and epic balladry of recent single ‘The Loneliest’ surprised many, and is a tasty morsel of what to expect from the upcoming LP. As David puts it, “People have got our aesthetic – now we’ve got to show the inside.”

“It’s a new side for our new audience, but we’ve always been playing ballads,” says De Angelis of the single. “That’s always been a big part of our music, so with this one we tried to experiment a bit more with the sound. We listened to a lot of Radiohead where they work a lot with pedals.”

Guitarist Thomas Raggi agrees: “It’s cool to give another taste of our kind of ballad. Each one of us has different tastes, so we mixed them all together.”

The band tell us how they’re currently listening to the final mixes of the next record, with David revealing how “it’s stepped out of its comfort zone and is trying to do new things”, showcasing “a lot of variety and music skills.”

 Elaborating on the Radiohead influences on the project, David explains: “I think that the inspiration we got from Radiohead was to be very focussed on creating a very specific world for each song.”

“It’s something they do very, very well so we tried to create these amazing atmospheres. They really create an image of what you’re listening to, and that gave us inspiration.”

The band reveal that they’re hoping to attend Eurovision 2023 if they’re “free”. Not only have they never been to Liverpool, but the Song Contest will always hold a special place in their hearts that they’re not looking to forget.

“We’ve never been scared of the Eurovision label,” David admits. “For us, Eurovision was never the goal – it was just a way to reach our goals. Many artists make huge mistakes when they go to these TV shows with just one song. They create a whole image for the TV show so when it’s over, they have basically nothing to share with fans. We were lucky because we already had two albums and one EP. Once the show was over, people could listen to something and see that we already had five years of a career and touring. That was the sliding door for us.”

He adds: “We’ve never been afraid of being ‘a Eurovision artist’ forever. We knew that it was going to change our lives. We’re happy, and we will always remember Eurovision as one of the main steps of our career.”

De Angelis hopes that Eurovision will prove to be more of a platform for discovering legitimate new artists, which doesn’t seem unreasonable anymore. How would they respond to the idea that Måneskin finally made Eurovision cool? “I’m not complaining about that!” the bassist laughs, before David coolly adds: “I’ll take the credit”.

There are a couple of albums from 27th January I want to highlight, before I move to essential February-due albums. The first 27th January album is Samia’s Honey. One of the promising young artists coming through, everyone needs to pre-order a copy of this wonderful album:

“There’s a line on Honey, the latest album from Nashville-via-NYC songwriter Samia, about Aspen Grove, a collection of 40,000 trees in the plains of North America, all connected by a single expansive root system. There’s no stronger metaphor for the audience the 25-year-old empathy engine has been generating since she began releasing music seven years ago. Her songs, her fans, her friends: one enormous, interconnected ecosystem.

Honey, comprised of eleven new moments of catharsis, is by and for that organism. The album was recorded at North Carolina studio Betty’s - owned and operated by Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sandborn and Amelia Meath, frequent touring partners of Samia’s. It was produced by Caleb Wright, part of the team that helmed Samia’s breakthrough 2020 debut The Baby, and a founding member of one of Samia’s favourite bands, The Happy Children. It features some of her nearest and dearest friends: Christian Lee Hutson, Briston Maroney, Jake Luppen, Raffaella. Its songs were surreptitiously road tested for her devotees while opening for Lucy Dacus, Courtney Barnett, and more.

The end result is what Samia calls simply “a real community record.” Samia calls her music “pathologically confessional,” and though she doesn’t mind being the latest addition to the “sad girl” indie rock canon, Honey finds her less concerned with being a “sad girl” than fascinated by the things that keep us together. Memories. Friendship. Small things and big things like Aspen Grove. On this stylish and vulnerable new record, Samia holds the mirror up to herself and allows us to see ourselves in the reflection”.

Before getting to February, there is another great January album you need to own. Meg Baird is a phenomenal American musician based in California. In addition to her solo career, she is known as a founding member, lead vocalist, and drummer for Heron Oblivion. Baird was also a guitarist and the lead female vocalist in Philadelphia psychedelic Folk Rock band, Espers. She has played in a number of projects. This solo album is going to be amazing. I am curious to hear it, and Furling is going to be assuredly nuanced and wonderful. I would urge people to listen back to Meg Baird’s previous worth and her solo albums. She is an artist who has been on the scene a while, but I feel her most affecting and striking music is from her solo albums. Go and pre-order Furling if you can:

“Furling moves through the breadth of Meg’s musical fascinations and the environments around them - edges of memory, daydreams spanning years, loose ends, divergent paths, secret conversations under stars - all led by a stirring, singular voice calling experience and enlightenment, elation, and ecstasy into bloom”.

There are a few albums due out on 3rd February that are going to be worthy of your pennies. I would encourage people to pre-order Ellie Goulding’s Higher Than Heaven. The Pop megastar is about to be release what I think is her strongest album to date. Having been in the industry for years, she has lost none of her power and magic. Higher Than Heaven is another album shaping up to be a superb work. Goulding is a very prolific artist, so there are high hopes for her fifth studio album. It follows the strong and acclaimed Brightest Blue of 2020:

“Pop megastar Ellie Goulding releases her highly anticipated fifth studio album, Higher Than Heaven. Some of pop music’s finest were enlisted to craft the album with her including Greg Kurstin (Sia, Maggie Rogers, Elton John), Jessie Shatkin (Charli XCX, Years and Years), Koz (Sam Ryder, Madonna, Dua Lipa) and Andrew Wells (Halsey, Yungblud). The record sees Ellie put her own spin on modern pop music. Higher Than Heaven is jam packed with infectious hits that see Goulding’s signature vocals take center stage, with top notch production, stomping basslines, soaring synths and euphoric melodies”.

Before getting to the middle of February, an earlier treat comes in the former of Shania Twain’s new album, Queen of Me. Go and pre-order a new treat from the Canadian legend. Twain is one of those artists who does something different with every album. I cannot find much information about the themes and tones that define Queen of Me. It does seem, as we read here, that she is more confident in her skin and herself as she is now in her fifties:

“Shania Twain is getting ready to release her new album, "Queen of Me," in 2023 and said she's feeling more comfortable and confident in her skin than ever before.

"I am a woman in my late 50s, and I don't need to hide behind the clothes," Twain told People in a new interview.

Self-confidence is a theme on the new album "Queen of Me," and the song's lead single, "Waking Up Dreaming," is a celebration of learning to love who you are.

In September, Shania posed topless for the cover art of "Waking Up Dreaming," a move that she told People was all about underscoring the comfort she feels in her own skin, especially as she ages.

 "I can't even tell you how good it felt to do nude shooting. I was just so unashamed of my new body, you know, as a woman that is well into my menopause. I'm not even emotional about it; I just feel okay about it. It's really liberating," said the singer, who is 57.

"I am not regressing. I am embracing my body as it changes, as I should have from my childhood to my teens, as I should be from my taut, 20s and 30-year-old self, to my menopausal body," said added. "I'm not going to be shy about it. I want to be courageous about it, and I want to share that courage in the artwork that I am directing”.

This is an album that comes from one of the most successful female artists ever. Let us hope that we get music from the iconic Shania Twain for years to come. Even though her sound has changed since the 1990s, the quality of her music is still extraordinary! She is definitely a legend whose music will be played and remembered for decades to come. Go and ensure you pre-order a copy of Queen of Me.

There are eight more albums that I want to get to soon. Before that, here is another one from 3rd February. Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavy is going to be another golden release from the Scottish band. They always give the world such exceptional albums, so there is no excuse to miss out on their new one:

“Mercury Prize winning Edinburgh trio Young Fathers are back following 2018’s standout Cocoa Sugar. Made up of Alloysious Massaquoi, Graham ‘G’ Hastings and Kayus Bankole, Young Fathers have long been recognised as one of Britain’s most vital and distinguished bands - merging incendiary and thought provoking lyrics with cutting edge visuals and an undeniable propulsive live show.

Written and recorded over the course of three years, the longest time taken on a Young Fathers album, Heavy Heavy is a tour de force from the Edinburgh trio. An overarching theme of being human can be felt throughout the ten track album, exploring the feelings of euphoria and rush of emotion experienced at the end of a struggle, a sense of fulfilment as a result of the toil and hard graft that life throws at everyone. An unashamedly soulful and heartfelt album, where the drums set the scene throughout to transport the listener to a place of celebration and awakening”.

Let’s come to 10th February. There are a series of wonderful albums due that week. The brilliant Amber Arcades is releasing her new album, Barefoot on Diamond Road. This is another I would urge people to pre-order. She is an artist I love a lot. Maybe not as known as some of the other artists I will name in this feature, let’s hope Barefoot on Diamond Road changes that:

“Barefoot On Diamond Road is the third album from Dutch singer / songwriter Amber Arcades. A record of engaging maturity, filled with slow motion builds and epic lifts that elevate it to dizzying heights.

Immersed in an all-consuming wall of sound, Barefoot On Diamond Road is like My Bloody Valentine gone acoustic, it shouldn’t work but it does; it’s a juxtaposition of textures, from skittery, uneasy dancefloor beats to symphonic kosmische, a baroque pop tapestry side-stitched with cellos and harps with a plaintive steel guitar echoing in the distance.

Conceived remotely with original sparring partner Ben Greenberg (Danny Elfman, Depeche, Ryley Walker) in New York and Annelotte in Amsterdam. It’s a coming of age set in a new town with a new positivity underpinning her, as ever, beautifully crafted and highly personal observations on life, love and how it all should or could work.

“This record really reveals parts of me and my relationship with being a musician and making music. It’s like a reckoning, more in the moment, realizing how important it is to do things for the right reasons and how that can change your process into one that embraces what exists, including yourself.”

Amber Arcades’ new album Barefoot On Diamond Road marks a new phase for a highly respected musician”.

One of the most-anticipated albums of this year comes from the magnificent Kelela. Her 2017 debut, Take Me Apart, is a masterpiece. Her second studio album, Raven, is going to get so much press and love. I predict this will be another year-defining album from the Washington-born genius. Go and pre-order Raven if you can:

“Kelela’s next chapter, Raven, promises a sonically beautiful and lustrous experience. On Raven, Kelela emerges from the tides of her higher self’s oceanic orbit to explore autonomy, belonging and self-renewal as healing across the fifteen-track LP. “Washed Away” and “Happy Ending” have already both been regaled with critical acclaim: Pitchfork called “Washed Away” a “showcase for her swooping soprano” and “Happy Ending” also demonstrative of her “breathy, decorous vocals.”

“I started this process from the feeling of isolation and alienation I’ve always had as a black femme in dance music, despite its black origins. Raven is my first breath taken in the dark, an affirmation of black femme perspective in the midst of systemic erasure and the sound of our vulnerability turned to power,” Kelela says about the project.

Skillfully straddling the frequencies of R&B and Dance music, Kelela has established herself as an artistic interpolator of music, art and fashion. Her early works Cut 4 Me (2013) and Hallucinogen (2015) were momentous examples of her singular spirit, and cemented her artistry as a leading force in the alternative, underground R&B and electronic worlds. She has since collaborated with fellow visionary artists like Solange, Gorillaz, Andrew Thomas Huang and Danny Brown. Thoughtfully intermixing elegance, futurism, divinity and sensuality, Kelela’s unique perspective has carved a lane that demonstrates style as both a component of art, and art in and of itself”.

One of the biggest albums of the year arrives on 10th February. Paramore’s This Is Why is a welcomed new album from the band. It follows their 2017 album, After Laughter. I am excited to hear the latest release from the Tennessee band fronted by the remarkable Hayley Williams. Go and pre-order This Is Why now:

“This Is Why was the very last song we wrote for the album. To be honest, I was so tired of writing lyrics but Taylor convinced Zac and I both that we should work on this last idea. What came out of it was the title track for the whole album. It summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last 3 or 4 years. You’d think after a global pandemic of fucking biblical proportions and the impending doom of a dying planet, that humans would have found it deep within themselves to be kinder or more empathetic or something. The public sphere we find ourselves re-entering after 4 years at home, in our comfort zones, is an entirely different thing than the one we knew. The restlessness, the anxiety, and the compulsion to take action— it all feels like a contradiction. On one hand, we have a legitimate platform to use which makes me want to march at every protest for social justice and devote every waking second to every single cause I believe in. On the other, I just want to go home, plant a garden, and become a distant memory to the outside world”.

I think I can include five more albums. This takes us to 17th February. The magnificent Anna B Savage releases in|FLUX then. Another music treasure that is making music of the highest order, you need to ensure that you pre-order this album. Savage is a remarkable artist whose music I have been a fan of for a while now. I feel that in|FLUX is going to be her biggest statement to date. From what we have heard so far, in|FLUX is shaping up to be a work of brilliance:

“Anna B Savage has always asked questions in her music, but on new album in|FLUX answers are no longer her quest. Vulnerability and curiosity have consistently been operative words to describe her work and on her second album she ruminates on the complexities and variables of humanity, the pain or pleasure of love, loss and earthly connection, capturing it all in devastating, elating and powerful ways. The key difference between this and previous releases: she’s not anxious about what’s on the other side. She’s come to appreciate staying afloat - basking even - in the open ended, uncertainty of the grey area”.

Before rounding things up with 24th February albums, there is one more from 17th that I want to highlight. P!nk’s TRUSTFALL is one I am interested in. P!nk is a legend and icon, so anything she releases needs to be met with respect and anticipation. I have been following P!nk since the ‘90s. Such an enduring and special artist, I am going to urge people to pre-order TRUSTFALL. Again, I cannot find too much information online about the album, but this interview reveals the fact P!nk feels TRUSTFALL is her best album yet:

“The Doylestown, Pennsylvania native's forthcoming album is personal to her for many reasons, she said.

One of the main reasons she feels it's one of her best to date is due to the time she spent making it.

"I took time. I had time and I had a lot of really devastating things happen," she said. "My son and I got really sick with COVID. That sort of distilled down for me what actually matters. And it takes a crisis to do that."

She continued, "It takes your kids getting sick to be like, 'Okay, none of this matters. I wanna see my kids grow up. That's what I want.' I want to only put truth into the world. I want to only be authentic. And I want to be kinder and a better person.

Along with fighting COVID in early 2020 alongside her son Jameson, who is now 5-years-old, the singer also experienced the tragic loss of her father Jim Moore in 2021.

She said the loss reminded her that we all have "a certain amount of time left," which she channeled into her album.

"I just started making music and making -- speaking in melody," she said. "And it came together."

Pink said she's seen how her music has the ability to bring people together and she hopes to do the same with the new album.

"My album is a piece of me, and I think that I am an example of how you can live authentically and fearlessly, in ways," she shared. "And if you look at my show ... I'm a touring artist, that's what I do. We're a traveling city, we're diverse, inclusive, we are a model of what can work."

"We pray to different Gods, we have different skin colors, we believe in all kinds of different things -- you name it, go down the list of differences," she continued. "We love each other, we disagree, we stay together and we show each other our different cultures”.

An album that might pass some by, I think people should be aware of Gina Birch’s I Play My Bass Loud. Out on 24th February, I am really intrigued by it. I would recommend people go ahead and pre-order an album that is going to be pretty amazing. If you have some pennies set aside for albums in February, make sure that Birch’s album is near the top of your list:

“As one-half of the Raincoats’ core duo since 1977, Gina Birch is a punk icon with a pop sensibility, an art-schooled adventurer who has painted, filmed, and performed by her own rules for over 45 years—using her visual art to tell stories, charging raw recordings with concepts. Her history converges onto her first solo album, I Play My Bass Loud, its title evoking her singular approach to her instrument as well as an ethos. She won’t hang back, or play a supporting role. She is now taking centre stage.

In September of 2021, Gina released her first ever solo single, Feminist Song, on Third Man Records in celebration of the opening of their brand new London location. In February of 2023, Third Man release Gina’s brand new and first ever solo full length album, I Play My Bass Loud, recorded by Martin “Youth” Glover from Killing Joke and featuring Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth.

The songs of I Play My Bass Loudwere largely finished before Birch brought them to co-producer Youth, of Killing Joke, who has developed an impressive pedigree collaborating with legendary punk women like Poly Styrene and Viv Albertine, and brought in things like middle eights and choruses. But there were also some moments of spontaneity in assembling a handful of tracks from almost-scratch. In the studio, Birch and Youth built “I Am Rage” into a pop song from its beginning as “a whispered poem.” Together, they wrote a bonafide alt-rock anthem, “Wish I Was You,” and its preceding tone poem, “And Then It Happened,” which Birch called “a letter to myself.” The pair of songs collectively narrate a shift in perception—a woman stepping ever-further into her power and thriving—propelled by a much-deserved wind. Birch said “Wish I Was You” was a joke at first—“I used to wish I was you,” she sings, “But now you wish you were me”—though she also admits, “in every joke, there’s some truth”.

A group that needs no introduction, Gorillaz are releasing their eight studio album, Cracker Island, on 24th February. If you have not heard anything from Cracker Island, then go and get onto it now. It is going to be a brilliant album. You can pre-order it here. There is not a lot of background or any real detail available about the album, but Rough Trade do provide us with a few details. I love the fact that both Stevie Nicks and Beck are among the collaborators that are going to feature on Cracker Island:

“Cracker Island is the eight studio album from Gorillaz, an energetic, upbeat, genre-expansive collection of 10 tracks featuring yet another stellar line-up of artist collaborators: Thundercat, Tame Impala, Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Bootie Brown and Beck. Recorded in London and LA earlier this year, it is produced by Gorillaz, Remi Kabaka jr. and eight-time Grammy Award-winning producer / multi-instrumentalist / songwriter extraordinaire Greg Kurstin”.

I mentioned earlier, when writing about Dave Rowntree’s solo album, that Radiohead members have released solo work. Rowntree is the drummer for Blur, and Philip Selway is the drummer for Radiohead. His album, Strange Dance, is out on 24th February. Although it will sound different to Rowntree’s album, both are stellar works from musicians in giant and hugely influential bands. It is an album that fans of Selway will want to pre-order:

“When Philip Selway approached some of his favourite musicians to play on his third solo record he said he imagined it as a Carole King record if she collaborated with the pioneering electronic composer Daphne Oram and invited him to drum on it. Unsurprisingly they were all sold, and so began the bringing together of an extraordinary number of gifted people, including Hannah Peel, Adrian Utley, Quinta, Marta Salogni, Valentina Magaletti and Laura Moody.

Foregrounding this remarkable union of musical voices was 10 songs written by Selway at home on piano and guitar that show him at the height of his songwriting powers. As Strange Dance unfurls, it takes the listener through different weathers and seasons. Each song carries varied and diverse shades and textures of emotion. Lyrically, it is artful. Selway has a gift at writing heartfelt lyrics which could relate to any number of human experiences”.

There are other amazing albums out this month and next, but I have highlighted the ones that I think are particularly important and worthy. From huge albums by Kelela, Gorillaz, and Paramore, through to those that might not get the same focus, there is a great selection to be found. If you are looking around for great albums to pre-order, then I hope that the suggestions above…

POINT you in the right direction!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Caity Baser

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Craigen

 

Caity Baser

__________

I am featuring a lot of American artists…

in my Spotlight feature, but I want to focus on a British artist who is going to go a very long way. Southampton-raised, Brighton-based Caity Baser is just twenty, but she has already marked herself out as one of the most distinct and talented rising voices around. An honest and authentic artist who is remarkably down-to-earth and unfiltered, it is no wonder her music connects with a young audience. Resonating with so many people – especially young women -, I think that Baser is going to establish herself as a major name very soon. She has been compared to artists like Lily Allen, in the sense that you get an authentic and un-Americanised accent. A tangible artists who many can relate to, her music also translates and connects far wider than a teenage demographic. I am a fan of her sounds, and the fact she has been played on major radio stations and won the focus of a wide range of music websites proves that her sound is universal. I want to bring in just a few of the many fascinating interviews with Caity Baser. We get to find out more about a wonderful artists already tipped among those who are going to change music and direct 2023’s sound. NOTION featured Baser and asked her about her hugely popular song, Friendly Sex, being compared to Lily Allen, and who she’d like to collaborate with in the future:

“What do you think made “Friendly Sex” resonate with so many people on TikTok?

TikTok is so weird sometimes, I don’t know what works and what doesn’t – every time it’s different. The song was just true and I really felt those things at the time and I think that sits with people. Clearly a lot of people were feeling that way too, so it’s nice to feel like you’re not the only one and you’re not completely losing your mind. Also people love it when I do a backstory before the song, they also like it when I’m just being myself. I know that sounds cliché and annoying but I swear that’s when I get the best reaction! Whenever I get all made up and do videos that look proper profesh they never do that well. But when it’s me with no makeup on, towel round the head looking like a mess, they love it! Which works for me cos I cba to go all out every time. Also it makes me happy that people like It best when im just being me. Makes my heart feel SO WARM.

You’ve worked with production duo Future Cut who are known for their work with Lily Allen – what was it like working with people who have collaborated with such big artists so early in your career?

Honestly I went home and cried afterwards it was so amazing. And so surreal. The day before I just started my new job at the Co-Op which I was so excited for, and then the next day I was in this big fancy studio with two of the best producers ever. It was nuts. But I wasn’t nervous at all I felt completely comfortable and like I was supposed to be there. The guys are the best as well we just vibed from the get go and messed around all day while making music. It was the best introduction to the industry I could’ve had and will hold onto it forever.

How do you feel being compared to Lily Allen? Do you take inspiration from her music?

Yeah I love her so much, I always have. She’s just so cool and says whatever the fuck she wants. Also she says ‘rude’ things but makes them sound so sweet and nice which is something that I love doing too. I feel like I take inspiration from everything that I do/see/hear….I love everything. She definitely influenced me to not give a shit about what people say because you can do what you want. Love you Lily, let’s go dance or soemthing!

Which artists would you most like to collaborate with in future and why?

This is so hard! Like I said, I literally love everyone. Ummmmm I feel like Ed Sheehan because he’s just an all-round ledge and that would be crazy! We have similar styles of writing and singing so I think it would work really well. I love Willow Kayne also. Oh, and of course Lily Allen too please. Okay I’m gunna stop ‘cos I’ll be here forever.

How did you feel when your music was played on the radio for the first time?

I ran around the house for about 40 minutes and sent it to everyone I know. It was CRAZY! Growing up I always used to imagine myself being on the radio so when that moment finally came I would not shut up about it. It was the best ever. To hear the people that I grew up listening to say my name and announce my music?!? Like shut up are you mad? That’s crazy! It was so so so so cool. It’s even happened where my friends have been in their cars and I’ve just come on the radio like how wild is that?!”.

So many young artists are getting noticed via TikTok. A wonderful platform that has started the careers of some incredible names, there are those who find viral fame and get noticed that way. Instead, Caity Baser has found a fanbase naturally and has not had to rely on that kind of acclaim. Again, it shows that her music has this potency and quality that is hard to ignore! EUPHORIA. interviewed Baser in May. Again, there are questions about Friendly Sex and comparisons to Lily Allen, but we get to find out the artists that Baser grew up listening to and was inspired by:

“We’ve become so consumed with pop acts rising from TikTok virality over the last two years that it becomes a breath of fresh air when we witness a form of organic growth from the app. Nineteen-year-old Caity Baser is the opposite of a wannabe pop figure, unintentionally building a platform for herself and simply riding the wave that formed.

She debuted with her Lil CB mixtape in summer 2021, and her now manager tuned into one of the many freestyling videos the artist made during lockdown and decided to make the first call. It’s since been smooth sailing for Baser as she draws comparisons to the likes of Lily Allen and Kate Nash for her sharp wit and incorporation of modern British slang within her lyrics.

The latest addition to Baser’s catalog, “Friendly Sex,” extends her momentum, racking up a colossal 4 million views days after posting the 60-second clip online. Running off the adrenaline, Baser headed to the studio with Future Cut (Little Mix, Rihanna) to finish the track, and within a week “Friendly Sex” hit streaming platforms to the sweet tune of 1 million streams and counting.

Speaking to EUPHORIA., Baser gives a retrospective dive into her career thus far and offers a peek into what lurks on the horizon.

Hello Caity! How are you doing today?

Really good, thank you! I came up to London from Southampton because I had a weekend of being crazy with my friends just dancing. Like non-stop. I’m literally so tired, the bags under my eyes are terrible.

Why don’t you briefly explain how you entered the music scene and how long you’ve been writing music?

I posted a TikTok in 2020 during lockdown when life was just terrible, you know, and nothing was going good. I posted a video of me in my pajamas, no makeup on just singing about how much I hated everything. And it got, like, a million views in a night? I never really took TikTok seriously, I just got it to take the mick out of my friends.

And then my now manager messaged me on Instagram and was like, “Hi, I’ve seen your recent TikTok. Can you give me a call?” I was like, “Who are you? why are you calling me?” And she said, “I work for a management company in London; come visit us.” The next day they put me in the studio with Future Cut who is Lily Allen’s producer — the rest is history.

We’ve recorded music all summer and all winter. I’m still doing it now and it’s literally the best thing ever.

You’ve got quite a conventionally British way of songwriting, which can often link comparisons to the likes of Lily Allen, Kate Nash etc. — who did you grow up listening to that you think influenced the way you write music?

The thing is, I grew up listening to every single kind of music you could ever imagine; Motown, jazz, blues, early 2000s boy bands … everything! But I’d say I’ve always been very honest and I’ve always liked listening to funny, honest songs. You know, Rizzle Kicks, Kate Nash, The Streets, I love that kind of stuff. I also love talking about things that have happened to me and I’ll never be metaphorical about it. I’m just like, listen, you’ve annoyed me.

Your track “STD” is what blew things out of the water for you and now the new single “Friendly Sex” is starting to look like the second wave. Could you tell us how this track came about?

Basically, I’ve been hooking up with this guy and you know when it’s nothing and you don’t feel anything, and then there’s one or two nights where you’re like, hang on a minute … Why are you looking at me like that? Then one weekend we went to this techno event and he brought this girl with him. I never usually get jealous but I stood there thinking who was that? Why is she here? Why didn’t I want you to be there with her but with me instead, what does that mean?

I put a beat on whilst I was cleaning my room and the lyrics happened straight away”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Craigen

Breaking away to an interview from NME, and last year was one when Baser was able to play live regularly. Like so many artists, she was finding an audience and getting traction during the pandemic. She has been able to take her music to the masses over the past year or so. NME asked her what it has been like performing live post-lockdown. I like the fact that Caity Baser is especially moved when it is put to her that her music is impacting young women and giving them a voice:

“The road to Reading & Leeds began in earnest back in August 2020 when Baser shared  ‘Average Student’ – a chirpy ode to feeling lost in life and “just kind of winging it” – on TikTok. After the clip racked up over a million views overnight, the Southampton-born artist then received a DM from a management agency and was invited to a London studio – with her lawyer brother in tow – to meet producers Future Cut (best known for their work with Lily Allen).

This unexpected development put paid to Baser’s newly-acquired job at her local Co-op, which she had initially been excited about as a means to save money for studio sessions. “My second shift [I] cried the whole time,” she recalls. “I went in for my third shift and said I’m quitting… how can I get a little taste of what I want, and then go back to normal shit? I couldn’t.”

The risk has paid off: Baser has since gone on to charm her eager and ever-growing fanbase with her personality-packed pop tunes. Tracks like ‘Friendly Sex’ (a  tongue-in-cheek take on sacking off your friend-with-benefits because you’ve started to catch feelings) and ‘X&Y’ (a doo-wop banger that boasts pithy couplets like: “I invested in you like crypto / But I think it’s time to trade”) have racked up millions of streams, soundtracked countless TikTok videos and are now yelled back at Baser whenever she appears on-stage.

Your lyrics are very specific about past situations you’ve been in. Do the people you write about know that your songs are about them?

“I’ll give you facts, receipts, times, what I was wearing! I’m so honest [that] it’s hard for the person to not know it’s about them. I’m still really good friends with some of the people [the songs are] about. One of the boys was at one of my shows and I literally told the story of what happened: I name-dropped him, saying, ‘I think we’ve all had a [she censors out their name today with an “mm-mm”] in our lives’. And then I was like, ‘Fuck you!’ and everyone said it. Then I was like, ‘Point at him and say fuck you!’ It was amazing, and he was just there [looking exasperated]. It’s sick, though: I want to empower girls to be like, ‘Yeah, it’s cool to tell people to fuck off!’”

A lot of women are really identifying with your music. How empowering is that feeling?

“It’s happening again, the goosebumps! I’m getting shivers thinking about it. Yeah, of course it is [empowering]. Growing up I was never sure of anything, and I was quite quiet about my opinions. But now I want to teach people, especially young girls, that it’s so OK to be angry at another person because they’ve done something wrong. You don’t have to go, ‘Oh sorry’. [You can say] ‘No, fuck you. Give me a minute, I’m angry at you, leave me alone”.

What was it like performing your songs live for the first time post-lockdown?

“It’s weird. Since being accepted as Caity Baser – because I never was growing up, it was like, ‘You wear weird things, and why are you singing?’ – now I’m just being me. I never get nervous, as I’m like, ‘These are my people, you make me feel so welcome’. When I go out on-stage it’s not like a gig, it’s like a house party and everyone’s there. I just suddenly get up and am like, ‘Oi! Here’s a load of songs, do you want to hear it?’ I just feel like I’m in a big room with all my friends”.

I am going to round up in a minute. I am not sure whether Baser is working on an album for this year or an E.P. After a series of brilliant singles last year, maybe she will put them onto a mixtape or launch some new tracks. The Line of Best Fit featured the sensational Caity Baser. Reading the interview, and she is charmingly unguarded and open. I use the word ‘authentic’, but I think that is one of the most important and precious qualities for an artist. There is so much adoration and admiration behind Baser right now:

“The mentality of ‘just being a girl in her room’ is something Baser is determined not to lose sight of. A pop star might have fans, but she calls them friends. “I’m in group chats with them!” she enthuses. “They call me, I call them back. We talk. They turn up really early to my shows and I come out and say hello, and then go out afterwards to hug them all.” She tells me there is a group chat called ‘Caity Slays’, a space of “big sister advice”, where everyone – including Baser herself – helps each other through tricky times.

It’s this sense of togetherness, of closing the gulf between artist and fan, which bleeds into everything she does. I ask her what qualities she believes define a great pop star. “Someone who isn’t rude,” she answers immediately. “Someone who just acts like your mate, and is like, ‘Oh my god, hey!’ – someone who will engulf you in a hug when you go up to them. Someone who includes the audience, makes it feel like it’s everyone’s show, rather than just their own. And someone who isn’t a dickhead,” she smirks. “When I perform, I just feel like I’m at a house party with my mates, except I’ve got a microphone and we’re all singing together.”

One of Baser’s upcoming tracks, “2020”, captures the experience of coming-of-age in such turbulent times. “It’s fucked,” she insists. “When I talk to my mum or my dad about when they were twenty, it sounds so much fun. I mean, I’m having loads of fun, but the older I’m getting, the more I’m realising that everything is just… fucked. There are so many problems.” But as with everything, there is a silver lining. “I feel like everyone in the Gen Z demographic… what a good word!” she grins, looking to her manager excitedly. “I feel like we’re all really understanding. You can be who you want to be, and there’s no judgement. Whereas I know some of my friends’ parents would not be okay with some of the shit that I’d be okay with, because of how they were raised. Well, fuck that. Change.”

Her debut mixtape, Lil CB, was a statement of intent, the first embodiment of her vision having been afforded a moment to actually think about what that is. “All those songs are about things that really annoyed me and affected me at one point in my life, so I wrote about it, put it into the world and made a little present out of it,” she smiles, “like, ‘Right, that’s it. I’m done now.’” Reckoning with “Haters”, toxic exes, being broke and the urge to put her phone on airplane mode, it perfectly captures the attitude and spirit of a precocious eighteen-year-old. “STD”, which leans into her taste for reggae-inflected beats, is Baser’s weapon of choice against a ex who had been sleeping around behind her back. “I heard you got an STD / From sleeping with Molly, Libby and Sophie / You had the nerve to cheat on me / Well karma’s a bitch and I was out of your league”, before leaving him with an exasperated sigh, “Ugh, men are fuckin’ trash, goodbye / Fuckin’ see ya / You had a small dick anyway!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Alexander

I wonder if there isn’t a little hurt beneath all this bravado. “Things can be a bit shit,” she shrugs, “but I make good things out of them. I refuse to be like, ‘Wahhh, I’m sad!’ It’s fine, I’ll giggle about it somehow.” But she is the first to acknowledge that since she dropped Lil CB, she has grown up immeasurably. Compare any eighteen-year-old with someone at the age of twenty, and there is a world of difference. “When I listen to the Lil CB stuff, I sound a bit like a kid – I mean, because I was a kid. I’ve changed a lot in these last two years.” That’s why she’s allowing for nuance and vulnerability within her music, releasing the “What I Didn’t Say” edition of her scathing shoot-down hit “X&Y”.

For as long as she could remember, writing a song was how Baser dealt with her emotions. “Whenever anything goes wrong, I go to the studio – even good things, I’ll write about it. I always feel so much lighter,” she shares. The practise room at school was Baser’s regular haunt; she preferred it to socialising, to the point where she didn’t even have to ask to use it anymore – she had her own key. She would sit at the piano and teach herself. “It was like my best friend,” she says. “Because when I felt like I couldn’t talk to anybody – this is so cringey – I would just play the piano and feel so much better.” I find it incredibly hard to believe her when she tells me that she never had many friends growing up. She has a way of talking to you as if she’s known you for years; as if you were the only person who mattered in the room. She sparkles with confidence, and the way she makes the stage feel like a home suggests that she has always been this way.

“I think I’ve always wanted to be confident,’ shrugs Baser. “But everyone around me was always like, ‘Don’t do that.’ I always wanted to wear weird stuff and act weird… I don’t know, no one really accepted me in school and even college. So I was just like, ‘Okay, I’ll talk how you talk, I’ll wear what you wear, I’ll do what you do.’ And then, as soon as I started getting accepted for being me, I was like, ‘Okay! Here I am!’” she grins. “I’ve been long-caged”.

This year is going to be a phenomenal one for Caity Baser. I can see her commanding huge stages and performing around the world. I don’t think it is going to take long before Baser sits alongside our most popular and successful artists. I cannot recommend her highly enough, so do ensure you follow her and give her music a lot of love. She has come a long way in a short time. I think the Brighton-based artist might have to get her head around the fact that things are…

GOING to change in big and exciting ways!

_____________

Follow Caity Baser

FEATURE: Spotlight: NewJeans

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: ADOR/HYBE

 

NewJeans

_________

I am publishing this on the day…

that the K-Pop sensations, NewJeans, release their first single album, OMG (the pre-orders surpassed 800,000 copies). The build-up and countdown was exciting. They put out their first E.P., New Jeans, last year. I will bring in a review. I am going to bring in a review for the E.P. It offers positives whilst highlighting at some flaws. I think the new album is the most complete and finest release from NewJeans. It is a full exploration of their wonderful sound. Formed ADOR, a subsidiary of Hybe Corporation, the South Korean group are conquering the world. They have this infectious and bright sound that is impossible to ignore! The group is composed of Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein. The K-Pop market is no longer confined to South Korea and Asia. Groups such as BTS and BLACKPINK have brought the genre to a worldwide audience. I want to bring in interviews with the group. First, Billboard wrote a feature that was published about a month after NewJeans released their debut video. One that came without any hype or run-up at all. Min Hee Jin, HYBE’s current chief branding officer and CEO of her newly created label, ADOR, discussed an incredible moment for K-Pop:

“NewJeans was helmed under ADOR, a newly created subsidiary under the HYBE Labels umbrella that includes BIGHIT Music (home to BTS and TOMORROW X TOGETHER), PLEDIS Entertainment (SEVENTEEN and fromis_9), KOZ Entertainment (Zico), BELIFT Lab (ENHYPEN) and SOURCE Music (LE SSERAFIM). The new label is under the direction of Min Hee Jin, HYBE’s current chief branding officer, who became famous for her work as the creative director under Korean super-label SM Entertainment, shaping top K-pop acts like Girls’ Generation, EXO and Red Velvet. In 2019, Min joined to help rebrand BIGHIT Entertainment into its larger corporation HYBE and was named CEO of her newly created label ADOR, standing for “All Doors, One Room.”

While envisioning game-changing new K-pop acts wasn’t a foreign task for Min, shifting how a label could shake the status-quo system became her challenge. “I wanted to create a label with a brand-new look that did things never seen in the K-pop scene before,” Min tells Billboard in this exclusive interview. “The kind of music I’m going for is something that hasn’t really been attempted in the K-pop scene, so an independent label was essential to push ahead with this.”

The members of NewJeans — Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein — see Min’s vision and meet her as part of forgoing the typical, traditional rules of the industry. “I thought to myself it would be cool to release them without any teasers,” Hyein, the group’s youngest at 14, says. “And I was surprised when I heard CEO Min’s explanation because she actually had the same idea!” Haerin, 16, adds, “When CEO Min explained that we wouldn’t have teasers, my initial thought was, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun.'”

Listeners have been enjoying the ride, with more joining as time passes. After unveiling music videos for new songs “Attention,” “Hype Boy” and the sparse a cappella-based b-side “Hurt” throughout July, NewJeans unveiled the full, four-track EP titled NWJNS on Aug. 1 worldwide. Initially, only “Attention” and “Hype Boy” entered the Global 200 chart at Nos. 82 and 116, respectively. But as time passed, both songs rose on the chart, and “Cookie” also entered the Billboard Global Excl. US chart. “Attention,” with a sound inspired by ’90s R&B that would make SWV smile, went on to top the Korean charts, while the uplifting future-bass rush of “Hype Boy” became a trend to dance to among fellow K-pop stars. “It’s been really fun watching other people do our songs and I keep checking because I’m really curious!” Danielle, the 17-year-old Australian-Korean who co-wrote “Attention,” says.

The NWJNS EP as a whole began catching on too and hit its best position yet on World Albums this week at No. 11 after six weeks on the chart. In Korea, the EP hit No. 1 and and broke sales records for new K-pop groups once on sale following the surprise release. NewJeans have since teamed up with Geffen Records, joining fellow HYBE artists BTS, SEVENTEEN and LE SSERAFIM at the Universal Music Group label.

What does it mean to you, and the industry, that a label’s first-ever group with a “surprise” debut has been able to break records and top the charts with its singles?

Min: I find it significant that we’re able to give hope and assure people that it’s okay to try something new. We tend to stick with what’s stable because we fear failure, but nothing interesting ever happens if you just stick with what’s stable. If we’re ever going to make the world a little more interesting, we have to try new things and adopt an attitude of being more open and accepting about it. I always talk with the members of NewJeans. We’re ready to take on this adventure together, and I hope that all the new things we’re working on fill people’s lives with a lot more fun!

NewJeans, congratulations on such a successful debut! All four of your songs are making big impact. What were your initial reactions to the music?

MINJI: The first time I heard them, I was instantly hooked. There’s a line in our song “Hype Boy” that goes, “Got me chasing a daydream,” and the song really did make me feel like I was in a dream when I heard it. So, of course, I fell in love right away when I first heard it.

HANNI: When we first heard “Attention,” it really left a strong impression! I just loved the energetic and hip vibe it has! The remaining songs really had a very new style that we hadn’t heard in K-pop, especially from a girl group. The fact that we are now able to call them our songs is very special and makes me feel very proud of the new color we introduced as a team through our debut!

PHOTO CREDIT: HYBE

Can you share a bit more about your musical and K-pop backgrounds?

MINJI: To be honest, I was just an ordinary student who really loved K-pop and other music. I really liked listening to music, but I wasn’t confident enough to sing and I had never danced. I joined the label completely by chance and I think I fell in love with music even more after learning a wider variety of music and culture at ADOR. And that’s the experience that led to all us members meeting and debuting as NewJeans.

HANNI: I’ve also been very involved in music and took part in a lot of extracurricular activities before I came to Korea! I took dance lessons for a few years and my mom taught me and my sister to sing when we were younger. She would bring us into the bathroom—because of the good echo!—and then she’d play a song for me to sing and would try to teach me to sing like the artist. I remember the first song she ever taught us was “All at Once” by Whitney Houston, an absolute gem of a song, Her voice and the song just radiate together.

I’d like you to introduce your group and members in your own words.

MINJI: All five of us are friends and they’re all precious to me. I feel like I can have a conversation with HANNI by just looking at her eyes. She’s always caring for the people around her and considerate towards them. DANIELLE’s bright smile just warms my heart and at times she is like an older sister you can learn things from. HAERIN is the most honest person in the world, so I feel like she’s someone I can trust and lean on. She’s really thoughtful, too. Everything about HYEIN is amazing. She says she doesn’t see it, but that’s actually one of the best things about her. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for her.

HAERIN: All five members have their own characteristics that make them special, but what first comes to mind is how good DANIELLE is at embodying emotions when she sings. She has the power to draw the listener in with her ability to express intricate emotions through the lyrics of any song”.

OMG (the single album) is now out in the world. Having been on the scene a short time, there has been this very quick and intense wave of fandom and love! From their TikTok videos getting reaction around the world to their videos amassing millions of views on YouTube, there is no doubt NewJeans will be among those defining and shaping the music of this year. Rolling Stone spoke to NewJeans about their debut singe album and the success they have already accrued:

“Congratulations on all of the success you’ve had already. I don’t know if you had a chance to see it, but we ranked “Hype Boy” as the 24th-best song of the year, and your debut EP as one of the 100 best albums of the year.

Minji: Of course. After reading the Rolling Stone article, I think we all couldn’t believe it. It was so surprising and it made me feel so thankful once more to everyone who loves our music.

So many of your seniors and peers in the industry are have covered and are still covering “Hype Boy” and “Attention.” Are there any that you were particularly surprised about?

Danielle: All of them, really. We have our chatting room, and when we see a senior doing another cover we just send it to each other.

Hanni: We share them all!

Danielle: And we’re like, “Oh my gosh! No way!” It would always be such a huge honor. And to have so many people enjoy our music and enjoy the dance as well. Because choreography is really special to us as well. It’s always a huge honor.

The members of your group participated in the writing process for “Ditto” and “OMG,” as you did for your first EP as well. Can you walk through your writing process a bit?

Hanni: So it was the same situation as when we all contributed in writing lyrics for our debut. We received songs and then all of us wrote lyrics and then with our label, we go through a picking process and pick the good lyrics. Me and Minji’s lyrics got picked. I think it was a pretty similar process. Listening to the demos, personally, I always try to think of a scenario, and paint a picture in my head, and then try to write lyrics that unpack that. I find nice, pretty words that are nice to listen to — like, good to the ear — and try to match the melody. Because we had the experience of doing it for our debut album, I think it was just a little bit easier, coming to writing lyrics.

Danielle: It came more naturally.

Your fandom name was recently unveiled to be Bunnies. How did you all decide on that name?

Danielle: Oh yeah! Well, I think it’s such a cute name. We all adore bunnies. And I think it’s just the perfect name for them because it mirrors our relationship with our fans and, like, a close friendship, that type of feeling. We really cherish that friendship feeling. So we chose the name bunnies, and I feel now even more, it suits with the winter weather, a fluffy bunny. It’s so cute.

Hyein: It’s also like a friendship… like a cute nickname you would use with your friends. Also, since we write out the letters NJ in the shape of a rabbit, we wanted our fans to also be rabbits, so sometimes we will also call them “Tokki” in Korean. It’s so cute. We’re always sharing things and communicating with each other. Although we’re not physically nearby, we feel close to them, so we gave them a nickname as if they are our friends.

PHOTO CREDIT: ADOR

Fashion is a big element in K-Pop. NewJeans’ style is the top trend right now, right? For me, too, I always curl my hair, but recently, I got it permanently straightened.

Minji: [Gasps.] Oh!

Hanni: It suits you well!

It’s now the end of 2022. Do you have a New Year’s resolution?

Hanni: We actually talked about this quite a lot. Because we debuted in the last half of this year, even though we did quite a lot in a very short amount of time, we had like five, six months of 2022. But next year, we have the full 12 months.

Minji: Yes.

Hanni: I think that gives us the time and opportunity to explore a lot more as NewJeans and as ourselves as people. And gives us the opportunity to perform a lot more, release more content and music, as a goal, just for us to really enjoy ourselves and show the world more of NewJeans. There’s a lot more that we haven’t shared”.

I am going to finish with a couple of different bits. NME reviewed the amazing New Jeans E.P. They had positives to offer about a group who were definitely offering something fresh and memorable:

“NewJeans, the latest girl group to join HYBE’s ranks, were primed from the beginning to go against the K-pop grain. An unorthodox band name. Atypical promotion tactics. Novel musical takes on oft-attempted nostalgic callbacks. Nearly everything about the five-piece’s debut so far aims to frame them as innovative dark horses among the industry’s latest wave of superstar hopefuls.

The first step in understanding the NewJeans ethos is to dive into the meaning of their moniker. As Min Hee-jin, the chief executive of HYBE’s independent label ADOR, explained in a press release: “Pop music is a culture that is very close to our daily life, so it is like the clothes we wear everyday. Just as jeans have withstood the test of time and found popularity among many regardless of their age and gender, NewJeans aspires to become an icon of generations – one you never grow tiresome of putting on.” This lofty ambition clearly demands some degree of ingenuity, especially in a space that often prefers proven formulas and tradition. But as NewJeans prove with their new four-track record, they have what it takes.

@newjeans_official NewJeans 1st EP ‘New Jeans’ COUNTDOWN LIVE🍪  08.01. 5PM(KST) / 4AM(EST) #NewJeans #뉴진스 #COUNTDOWNLIVE🆕👖 ♬ 오리지널 사운드  - NewJeans

Comprising members Hanni, Hyein, Haerin, Danielle and Minji, NewJeans were introduced to the public with zero warning – their first single and EP opener, ‘Attention’, was released on YouTube with an accompanying video well before ADOR shared any information about the members themselves. ‘Attention’ paradoxically charms by being more subdued than the approach one expects from K-pop’s fourth generation, anchoring itself on a groove and keeping its early 2000s R&B-influenced instrumentation minimal. The lack of bombast lends more focus to the heart of the song: NewJeans’ vocal ability. The palpable ease to the song’s delivery feels like a breath of fresh air.

The rest of ‘New Jeans’ continues to flesh out the group’s Y2K vision. ‘Hype Boy’ ups the ante with comparatively frenetic synths and instrumental distortions, but doesn’t divert from NewJeans’ commitment to making their voices the crux of the mini-album. Rather than invoking the slow-jam nostalgia of ‘Attention’, ‘Hype Boy’ instead invokes contemporary reimaginations of 2000s sounds with its tropical touches and future bass, but the way these elements are arranged make for a dreamy, almost hazy atmosphere. As they point out in the chorus, “’Cause I know what you like, boy / You’re my chemical hype boy / Open my eyes to see old days gone like a dream / Hype boy, all I wanna, hype boy, gonna tell ya.”

‘Hurt’ serves a lightweight interlude, a brief respite from the energy of the preceding song. This mellow track is a slow, emotionally charged offering that opts for a consistent groove and in doing so risks repetitiveness. There are no climaxes or dynamic vocal changes, only one-note grooves. ‘Hurt’ might be remarkable as a stand-alone single, but when sandwiched between songs that boast more melodic variation, it ends up falling through the cracks.

And finally we come to ‘Cookie’, an R&B-pop song with a bubbly cadence that has become the most controversial entry on the mini-album. Like the other tracks on the record, ‘Cookie’ is textured in an understated way that still appeals to a wide audience – keen ears will pick up traces of swelling synths, gentle 808 flairs and a fluttering bassline. Unfortunately, this meticulous, subtle production is paired with lyrical innuendo that can only be described as concerning when delivered by a group of 14- to 18-year-olds – some examples that listeners have flagged as distasteful are “Looking at my cookie / Do you ever smell it different? (Taste it) / What’s with a bite isn’t enough?” and “Made a little cookie / Come and take a lookie / Only at my house, come over and play”.

NewJeans’ debut effort is a project of hits and misses. It’s unreasonable, though, to expect complete perfection from a freshly debuted K-pop group. With their musical ability and the label’s bold artistic vision, NewJeans have managed to lay some solid groundwork for a bright future as trailblazers. Will they be able to build momentum and carve out a distinctive, even timeless style as they flesh out their body of work? That remains to be seen”.

I will finish with an article from Hypebae. They shone a spotlight on the first single from OMG, Ditto. One of the best songs from NewJeans so far, it definitely got people excited for the new album. I know there will be huge touring demand and we will see the group take their album around the world. They are a huge sensation and one of the most important groups of this year:

“Buzzy K-pop group NewJeans has dropped their latest single “Ditto,” the first off their upcoming second album titled OMG.

The release was teased over the past week with snippets from the latest music video, where members Minji, Haerin, Hanni, Danielle and Hyein are seen running down the hallway of a school. With mysterious captions such as “NewJeans 6” and six girls seen running past the camera in the teaser, fans were speculating the introduction of a new member, although the rumors were quickly debunked after producer Min Hee-jin shared in an interview that there will be a surprise cameo appearance.

“Ditto” is co-written by Minji and musicians The Black Skirts and Oohyo. Listen to the track on major streaming platforms like Spotify now and watch the music video above. OMG will drop on January 2, 2023, at 6 p.m. KST (4 a.m. EST).

The quintet took to social media to tease their upcoming winter-themed release, titled “Ditto.” The group had already announced last month that they would pre-release a winter song ahead of the official launch of their upcoming album OMG, which is slated to drop in the new year.

The teasers for the anticipated tracks feature motion graphics reading “NewJeans” in a holiday-themed layout while another visual features select song lyrics. Though there isn’t much revealed through the teaser visuals, fans have been commenting, “OMG OMG I’M SO EXCITED,” “Better than nothing I guess, thanks ADOR.”

NewJeans, comprised of five members Minji, Haerin, Hanni, Danielle and Hyein, debuted in August this year with direction by Min Hee-jin, a K-pop veteran known for her work with iconic groups such as SHINee, Girls’ Generation and f(x). The rising music act is the first from ADOR, a sub-label of HYBE Corporation, which is home to BTS”.

Go and listen to and follow the amazing NewJeans. Having been formed only recently, they have already achieved so much. With great K-Pop groups like NewJeans and STAYC offering such vibrant and stunning music, I think there should be more focus and attention paid to the genre. I hardly hear it played beyond certain radio stations. That is a shame. NewJeans have shown that one listen of their incredible music and you are…

COMPLETELY hooked.

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Follow NewJeans

FEATURE: This Way Up: How Aisling Bea’s Words Have Been of Comfort to Me – and Why She is Inspiring Future Ambitions

FEATURE:

 

 

This Way Up

  

How Aisling Bea’s Words Have Been of Comfort to Me – and Why She is Inspiring Future Ambitions

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THE second part of this feature…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Aisling Bea photographed in 2019/PHOTO CREDIT: Dean Chalkley

will relate more to music but, as I have been meaning to write about this for a while… so this is a bit overdue. I wanted to talk Irish comedian, writer and actor Aisling Bea. I will explain how she related to music in a bit but, on a personal level, I wanted to offer her thanks. I know she will never see this – as she gets hundreds of notifications a day and cannot respond to all of them! -, but I follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and her posts provide me with comfort and inspiration. Recently, she posted tips about how she deals with bad days – ones where she is struggling with her mental health. I know a lot of other people do this, but Bea has written about mental health and loneliness before. It has been addressed in interviews, and she does not shy away from the topic. As a comedian, she is naturally very funny, but I assume people think that she must be very happy all of the time – and not have any problems or struggles herself. I will come to why Bea and mental health concerns are particularly relevant to me at this moment. Bea, as a woman in comedy, has campaigned for equality. She has spoken before about her experiences of sexism within comedy and T.V. She has recounted an experience where she was told to shut up on a panel show. You do see more women on panel shows now, but there is still imbalance. Bea is no doubt inspiring a lot of young women coming up in comedy! She is one of my all-time favourite comics and writers, and she is also someone with a beautiful heart. Raising awareness and support for a food bank in Hackney in conjunction with the The Bill Murray Comedy Club, Angel (just down the road from me), Bea uses her platform to help others.

A tremendous comic and writer (her award-winning comedy-drama, This Way Up, is one of my favourite shows of the last ten years), I have a lot of admiration for her incredible work.  At the moment – so young is 2023 -, I am facing a bit of a struggle. With redundancy a possibility in the next couple of weeks, financial security is causing a lot of stress. I have lived with depression for decades now (I am thirty-nine), but, lately, it has intensified and deteriorated (reaching suicidality at times). Loneliness is another big concern. You can be in a big city like London and be surrounded by people and yet feel lonely and isolated. As I was hoping to spend some time in America this year, that has had to be delayed because of unexpected financial strains. I have also have some creative frustrations that are causing their own headaches – but more on that when I come to the music portion of this feature. I will come to some other Aisling Bea interviews where she has talked about mental health. There is one particularly personal and heartbreaking feature (written by Bea) that was published in The Guardian just over five years ago. I remember reading it at the time and being incredibly moved. Bea’s words and recollections about her father’s suicide (when she was a child) were incredibly brave and powerful. My situation is not the same as Bea’s father, but her words have resonated with me:

“I didn’t care that he had not been “in his right mind”, because if I had been important enough to him I would have put him back into his “right mind” before he did it. I didn’t care that he had been in “chronic pain” and that men in Ireland don’t talk about their feelings, so instead die of sadness. I didn’t want him at peace. I wanted him struggling, but alive, so he could meet my boyfriends and give them a hard time, like in American movies. I wanted him to come to pick me up from discos, so my mother didn’t have to go out alone in her pyjamas at night to get me.

I look like him. For all of my teens and early 20s, I smothered my face in fake tan and bleached my hair blond so that elderly relatives would stop looking at me like I was the ghost of Christmas past whenever I did something funny. “You look so like your father,” they would say. And as much as people might think a teenage girl wants to be told that she looks like a dead man, she doesn’t.

And then there was the letter.

My mother gave us the letter to read the day she told us, but, in it, he didn’t mention my sister or me.

I had not been adored. He had forgotten we existed. I didn’t believe it at first. When I was 15, I took the letter out of my mother’s Filofax and used the photocopying machine at my summer job to make a copy so I could really examine it. Like a CSI detective, I stared at it, desperate to see if there had been a trace of the start of an “A” anywhere.

I would often fantasise that, if I ever killed myself, I would write a letter to every single person I had ever met, explaining why I was doing it. Every. Single. Person. Right down to the lad I struck up a conversation with once in a chip shop and the girl I met at summer camp when I was 12. No one would be left thinking: “Why?” I would be very non-selfish about it. When Facebook came in, I thought: “Well, this will save me a fortune on stamps.”

Sometimes, in my less lucid moments, I was convinced that he had left a secret note for me somewhere. Maybe, on my 16th … no, 18th … no, 21st … no, 30th birthday, a letter would arrive, like in Back to the Future. “Aisling, I wanted to wait until you were old enough to understand. I was secretly a spy. That is why I did it. I love you. I love your sister, too. PS Heaven is real, your philosophy essay is wrong and I am totally still watching over you. Stop shoplifting.

This summer was the 30th anniversary of his death. In that time, a few things have happened that have radically changed how I feel.

Three years ago, Robin Williams took his own life. He was my comedy hero, my TV dad – he had always reminded my mother of my father and his death spurred me to finally start opening up. I had always found it so hard to talk about. I think I had been afraid that if I ever did, my soul would fall out of my mouth and I would never get it back in again.

Last year, I watched Grayson Perry’s documentary All Man. It featured a woman whose son had ended his life. She thought that he probably hadn’t wanted to die for ever, just on that day, when he had been in so much pain. A lightbulb moment – it had never occurred to me that maybe suicide had seemed like the best option in that hour. In my head, my father had taken a clear decision, as my parent, to opt out for ever”.

Bea wrote how her father’s death had given her an increased appreciation of women and their grittiness and hardness, in addition to new love for men and their tenderness and vulnerability – traits not often associated with masculinity. Aside from the feature being this very personal and sad part of my Bea’s life, it was also designed to raise awareness of suicide and mental health issues. I know so many people were helped and even saved by Bea’s words!

Something I can also relate to is burn-out. Having a full-time job and being a music journalist, balancing a normal job and a passion can be a real struggle. I have been especially busy and frantic the past few weeks. Coming back to The Guardian, Bea explained why filming the second series of This Way Up was especially tough during the pandemic. Not only is the comedy connection with Bea (which I shall elucidate on later) a reason why I am writing this. As writer of This Way Up, Bea revealed why writing about her character, Áine’s, struggles with mental health was particularly important:

“The second series of your show This Way Up was written and filmed in lockdown – that must have been a gruelling experience.

It was a very tough thing to make the show in January. I was completely burnt out, and everything was done in the hardest possible way for many different reasons. I wrote some of it during the making of Home Sweet Home Alone: I’d go on set and go: “Oh no, where’s my son gone, I’m in Japan and he’s at home.” And then try to rewrite some notes in between scenes. I don’t think I’d ever got to that point from work before, where there was still so much work to do and I had nothing left. It has an effect on your personality. I definitely became less nice. I didn’t like myself very much. I say this with the utmost gratitude knowing what I get to do, but it was too much for one person. I’ve put out my hip, I’ve got repetitive strain injury, the nerves of my little finger’s gone. Woe is me, I’m very aware of that! But it definitely beat the spirit out of me. I never thought when I wrote: “written for anyone who needs a reminder to find hope” [the final episode’s dedication] that I’d be the one needing it then – my past self saying it to me in the editing room.

The show portrays mental health in an impressively nuanced and insightful way. Was that theme there from the project’s inception?

No, initially it was just myself and [co-star] Sharon [Horgan] playing sisters – that was the core of it. But then when I wrote the article about my dad [in 2017, Bea wrote a piece for the Guardian about her father, who took his own life when she was three], I couldn’t possibly reply to all the people who got in touch – there just aren’t enough emotional hours in the day. You feel so guilty because you know that it took a lot for someone to actually type that. I think in some way the show became a reply, or a way I could speak about it that felt the most time-efficient.

Many of This Way Up’s most powerful moments depict Áine struggling mentally while continuing with her normal life. Was that an important aspect of the show for you?

I wanted to make a show about loneliness. I felt like I didn’t always see what most of it looks like. I wanted to challenge drama or excitement. For most people the struggle is the daily-ness, that’s where the heartbreak lies. That’s what grief looks like most of the time: today it’s going to be hard to make a cup of tea. And this sounds like such a tangent, but I realised I love watching Real Housewives, and rather than denounce reality TV, I thought: why do I love watching those shows? A lot of it was the hugeness of the smallness of life. It’s the same in chick lit – I grew up reading Irish authors like Maeve Binchy. Women weren’t allowed to have what you might determine as big lives; a lot of the revolutions happened in kitchens and health centres and in your private parts. For me that’s the unexplored life that we’re only just getting to [own] as women. To go: no, that’s my life and it’s important”.

I can relate a lot to Aisling Bea. Our lives are different, but her posts and words about mental health and loneliness have connected with me in a very raw and real way. A reason why I wanted to thank the Kildare-born legend. I shall come to cheerier subjects soon. There is another interview I wanted to quote from. Going back to 2019, it is again I go to The Guardian. Bea talks about her experiences with loneliness. As a high-profile comedian and actress, many might assume that this would not be an issue. It is a common misconception. I have also included a bit from the interview that mentions Bea’s vital and constant activism and passion for worthy causes:

“In This Way Up, Bea (who took that stage name in memory of her dad, Brian) plays Aine, a foreign-language school worker who’s recovering from a “teeny little nervous breakdown”, with her sister, played by Horgan. “When I started writing the characters, I’d think, what’s their loneliness? Is it being the only person in an environment that does a certain job, or is it the relationship they’re not happy in? Is it being an immigrant?” Loneliness is something she thinks about a lot.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with being alone. I’ve never really been alone. I have an amazing family, amazing friends, I’ve been in amazing relationships…” In recent years, she has been snapped on red carpets with boyfriends including Michael Sheen and Andrew Garfield. “But loneliness,” she says, “for me comes from being your own worst enemy. In not being able to trust your head sometimes, and what it’s going to do next. That’s a wound and a gift.”

She’s not afraid of an audience booing. “I’m afraid of myself. What if I am not on my side that day?” That’s why she has a pint before a performance. “It’s not for confidence, it’s to stop getting in your own way. To forget you’re on stage before the other you realises you’re there. To me, that is a really lonely feeling. Because it’s just you and yourself in that little battle.”

Peppered throughout our conversation are references to books about the brain and the body, which perform, in 2019, as self-help guides for people, like Bea, who are constantly striving and constantly questioning. “The biggest constant in terms of my friends is to do with the plastic-ness of their brains – who’s working on themselves and who will admit that they’re idiots sometimes? We’re all having these mini-breakdowns, some realisations and then some expansions.”

One such expansion has been her increased activism. Bea was a supporter of the change to Ireland’s abortion laws: she and Horgan dressed in Handmaid’s Tale bonnets urging people to vote, and wrote a comic essay published in a collection titled Repeal the 8th, which explains the mystery of women”.

I wanted to write about Aisling Bea, because I have revisited her 2017 article for The Guardian, because it has become sort of relevant to me at a very hard time. As we look out on a new year, it is meant to be a time for hopes, opportunities and resolutions. It can be very hard to feel that optimism when life throws a lot at you. There was more I wanted to say before wrapping up. I know Bea is going to be busy this year, but I always wonder whether she will release a book. Maybe not a self-help one (though that would be amazing), I feel a memoir or a novel would be something people would love to read. I am not sure whether she liked the experience of writing alone, so that might not be appealing to her. Her words have given so much heart and strength to so many people. I would especially love to read her life story. She is such a compelling, warm and talented human. She would give so much inspiration to a lot of people – she does already too. I wonder whether there will be a new Netflix comedy special. There would be so much demand for an Aisling Bea filmed special (she has done one before). Not that this dream would ever be realised, but I have been writing and planning a comedy music film. Bea is a writer and actor I respect so much, but I don’t think that I will ever be lucky enough to have her involved.

It has been a real struggle getting it off the ground, but I am hopeful it will see the light of day in years to come. I also wonder whether Bea will write another comedy or comedy-drama. Shows like This Way Up show what an immense talent she is as an actor and writer. Bea has appeared in films, and it would be nice to think there are a very other major films with her name attached this year. A music biopic I have always wanted to happen is one concerning Blondie. The legendary U.S. band have not had their story brought to the screen, but I have been wary about biopics, as they tend to have mixed fortunes. Aisling Bea is actually involved with a Take That film that has an interesting angle. Starring alongside a stellar cast, it has given me inspiration. Last year, Deadline reported on what we know so far:

“Based on the hit stage musical The Band, the film will feature music from Take That and has buy-in from the band and Universal Music Group. Songs set to feature in the movie include Greatest Day, Patience, Back For Good, A Million Love Songs and Shine. There are also rumors that the band might be writing some original songs for the film.

The story follows five best friends who have the night of their lives at a concert from their favorite boy band. Twenty-five years later their lives have changed in a myriad of ways as they reunite to reminisce about their past and discover their future.

Coky Giedroyc (How to Build a Girl) is directing the adaptation, which is written by Tim Firth (Calendar Girls). Mike Eley (The Dig) is attached as DoP, Amanda MacArthur (How to Build a Girl) is aboard as production designer and Drew McOnie (Me Before You) is choreographer”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Aisling Bea shot by Charlie Clift for BAFTA

It was Bea’s attachment to the film that made me interested. I am trying to do a Blondie biopic but, reading about what the Take That film will offer, there is a new angle that I could explore. Not sticking rigidly to biopic rules, I could do something more musical/comedy-based. Not that the project has actually been green-lit, mind! It is a passion I have and hope to fulfill. I wanted to wish Aisling Bea a 2023 filled with love and exciting opportunities. Maybe time in America filming or excitement relationships. I can see a new sitcom with her involved somehow (I love the fact Bea has such a love for the iconic Father Ted). Whatever this year holds, I felt compelled to write about times where Bea’s words and work have made a real difference. I know I am not alone in saying that. Someone I would love to work with years down the line (when I get good enough to make it to her feet!), I am going through a tough time and am not sure how it will all work out. I wanted to thank Aisling Bea for, at a rather shaky moment, giving me…

SOME invaluable guidance and comfort.

FEATURE: An All Queens Mix: Incredible Tracks from 2021 and 2022

FEATURE:

 

 

An All Queens Mix

IN THIS PHOTO: Brandy

 

Incredible Tracks from 2021 and 2022

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AS we are in 2023…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Nova Twins

I feel the year will be defined by women. As I think back to the great tracks from the past couple of years, most have been made by female artists. For this playlist, I thought I would have an all queens mix. Tremendous tracks from women from 2021 and 2022. This year is promising to be among the best for a very long time, so I will keep my eyes peeled. I have been compiling quite a few playlists recently, but this one has been pretty rewarding and interesting. From 2021 collaborations from U.S. legends to new talent in 2022, women have been ruling! The playlist below contains so many gems so, if you want a sense of which tracks and female artists were bossing the last couple of years, then you should be…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Julia Jacklin/PHOTO CREDIT: Nick Mckk for NME

MORE than satisfied.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Lauren Spencer Smith

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Lauren Spencer Smith

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I have been tipping…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times

quite a few young artists for success through 2023. One that I am fairly new to but has the potential to be a mainstream star is Lauren Spencer Smith. The English-born, Canadian-based artist broke through in 2022. In 2019, her album, Unplugged, Vol. 1, was a Juno Award nominee for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2020. Spencer-Smith gained international acclaim when her song, Fingers Crossed, reached the top twenty in several nations, including the U.S. It also cracked the top ten in countries including Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. Like many of her peers, Spencer Smith has found an audience and attention through social media. Many are cynical when it comes to those who find fame through TikTok, but the quality of Lauren Spencer Smith’s music shows that she can be compared to contemporaries such as Olivia Rodrigo. There have been a few interviews published this year, as Lauren Spencer Smith is an artist to cherish. A Pop act whose music is not reserved to a particular demographic, I know that there will be a lot more great tracks from her through this year. I want to bring together a few interviews. We get to find out more about a hugely promising young artist. At nineteen, she is one of the youngest modern artists who is being tipped for big success this year.

The first interview I want to highlight is from CLASH. They spotlighted her as part of their Next Wave series. It is clear that Lauren Spencer Smith is turning heads and showing that she has a big future:

“Whether it be watching her parents get divorced so young or entering the music world as a teenager, her life is marked by a fighting spirit. She’s been at this for a long time now, and one can only imagine where life will take her.

When it comes to Lauren’s career, it all seemed to start overnight. But it took three years of viral videos to bring momentum to her career. Like many Gen Z success stories of late, it took one or two TikTok videos to blow up and truly show the world a new talent. Speaking on this, she explains: “It was a little bit overnight. ‘Fingers Crossed’, was definitely over a period of a month, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. But it definitely had 10 million views overnight. I thought ‘oh my God, it’s viral’. I don’t know what to do with myself. It was definitely overwhelming and just crazy, but because it was the first time that it was happening. It was so exciting and fun. So everyone was just so happy. But when I was about 15, I had a video that blew up on Facebook and got 40 million views. I took the song that I covered and I put it on Spotify.”

 Even with an overnight viral moment, not many speak on how this can impact on the mental health side of things. It could be the simple things many don’t think about: such as travelling across the world immediately or the need to stay consistent. Even if social media wasn’t something to worry about, there’s the pressure of being an artist in general. But with Lauren, it’s slightly different. She outweighs the positives and negatives and makes sure she only works on herself. It’s something to admire as not many 18-year-olds would get to that point on their own. Then again, Lauren is a different breed.

Lauren Spencer Smith was featured on American Idol and reached the live finals, which is where she was able to truly understand how much she wanted a career in music. Blocking out the noise of the comments on her and the music was what allowed her to have that tunnel vision. When discussing that moment in her life and how the world perceived her, her focus remains on her work. It’s an admirable thing”.

Tracks like Flowers and Narcissist were among the freshest and most memorable Pop tracks of last year. In August, RANGE profiled a TikTok-fuelled artist whose Soul-Pop is tackling heartbreak with a distinct edge. She has this remarkable maturity and focus at such an early age. Someone who can relate to and connect with the teenage market, she also has this far broader reach and potential. A definitely festival headliner of the future:

“Early interviews with pop-soul rising star Lauren Spencer-Smith often find her sitting in her childhood bedroom, the walls adorned with posters of Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran. After the runaway success of what was only her third original single, “Fingers Crossed,” the 18-year-old from Port Alberni, BC on Vancouver Island, connects to RANGE from a hotel room in New York City, having just gone to Times Square to see her face on a billboard right above the American Eagle.

“That was one of the coolest things that’s ever happened,” she beams. In the months that followed, that particular accolade was joined by a couple more options to choose from. After “Fingers Crossed” quickly shot up the global Spotify charts, reaching as high as the runner-up spot after going viral on TikTok, Spencer-Smith has sold out tours across the US and UK, performed at the Juno Awards, and inked a major-label deal, all while sending another heartbroken hit, “Flowers,” to the charts and preparing the release of her latest single, “Narcissist.”

 The singer is wide-eyed and excitable, speaking rapidly and clearly a little overwhelmed by her schedule suddenly becoming jam-packed and chaotic. Still, on some level, she seems confident that it would have happened sooner or later. Spencer-Smith will attest to having a fondness for singing that began around the same time she learned how to walk and talk, and has already racked up the kind of resumé that most aspiring musicians would dream of.

Dominating her local talent show at the Port Alberni Salmon Festival, after three straight victories in the “12 and Under” category the organizers made her compete outside of her age range for fairness’ sake. Spencer-Smith only went up from there, appearing on the Steve Harvey show after scoring a viral video with a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Always Remember Us This Way;” she then finished in the Top 20 of American Idol, and even scored a 2020 Juno nomination in Adult Contemporary for Unplugged Vol. 1, a live cover album recorded during a concert at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre. Most recently she performed her new single “Narcissist” on the Jimmy Fallon Show, which was followed by a stunning homecoming concert of sorts, headlining in Vancouver BC where she left her audience awestruck.

“I’ve always been a dreamer, so there has literally never been a time in my life where I was like, ‘this is not possible,’” she says. “But just being in front of 20,000 people, I really felt the feeling through my body like, ‘this is really what I want to do for the rest of my life’.”

Spencer-Smith wouldn’t be much of a dreamer without what she calls her Manifestation Notepad, which she credits for working overtime to bring her to the level of success she’s experiencing now. Lately, she’s been filling up the pages by writing her greatest aspirations repeatedly. At the time of our interview with the rising star, the most recent success was the acquisition of her US visa, which she used to relocate to Los Angeles, link up with some top-tier producers and get to work on her debut album. Once again displaying her incredible ambition, she notes that she would have done it sooner, but she legally had to wait until her 18th birthday to live alone south of the border.

“Whether it’s just me writing ‘I am happy’ or ‘I am successful,’ or something like ‘I’m gonna have a #1 song,’ I write it down and speak it into existence,” she says. “I refuse to believe that ‘Everything happens for a reason’ type stuff. If you don’t have a manifestation journal, go buy one. It’s legit.”

While the #1 might still be coming in the future, Spencer-Smith did obtain her first top 20 hit on the Billboard charts with “Fingers Crossed,” joining a contingent of Generation Z superstars like Lil Nas X, The Kid LAROI and Olivia Rodrigo who have grown up with a comprehensive understanding of social media and how to utilize it to their benefit.

The parallels between “Fingers Crossed” and the latter’s breakout single “drivers license” are almost eerie – both are lyrically hyper-specific songs in the midst of teenage heartbreak, teased to widespread acclaim and anticipation in a November TikTok post before being released in the first week of the following year and prompting a bevy of Google searches from those not in the know when they shot to the top of the charts. Time will tell if history will repeat itself.

PHOTO CREDIT: Micah Suarez

Success stories like these might seem like a brilliant stroke of luck on the surface, but Spencer-Smith knew exactly what she was doing. She could talk about the ins and outs of the TikTok algorithm for half an hour straight. “TikTok is the one platform that anybody can go viral on,” she says. “You don’t have to have a following, they just put you in front of so many people’s For You pages, no questions asked. The music industry has shifted so much from what it used to be – you can just post a video on TikTok and be the next biggest thing in music.”

It’s difficult to sum up the diverse music of an entire generation, but the one connecting thread between all of the biggest hits seem to be the same kind of emotional vulnerability and half-joking openness about deep-seated issues. Spencer-Smith and many of her contemporaries grew up idolizing Taylor Swift’s legendary pen, and now most of them are emulating her model – with a little bit more profanity. Spencer-Smith draws reference to another teenage TikTok success story of the moment as an example. “GAYLE and her song ‘abcdefu,’ that’s a Gen Z song for real,” she says. “You would never hear anyone in my mom’s generation doing that. They’d call it disrespectful. We’re like ‘screw disrespectful, we’re Gen Z, we can do whatever we want!’”.

I would point everyone in the direction of Lauren Spencer Smith’s music. It is coming from a remarkable assured and professional young artist who is going to amass to a fine selection of incredible songs. Her music is already connecting with a massive audience. When Billboard spoke with Spencer Smith at the start of last year, they were tipping the then-eighteen-year-old for success. I wanted to bring it in to show how far she has come in a year:

“Like Rodrigo, Taylor Swift and other storytelling singer-songwriters within the current mainstream, Spencer-Smith hones in on the specifics that are equally personal to her and relatable to a wide audience.

“It is the best feeling when you post a song, and so many people relate to it — It doesn’t make you feel alone,” she shares of the next generation of rising artists’ emotional vulnerability online, before adding with a laugh, “In a bad and a great way, I live for the drama — because anything that happens, I’m like, ‘There’s a song!’”

Spencer-Smith goes into detail about the “drama” right from the first line, so much so, that it feels like reading thoughts straight out of the teen’s diary. The track opens by painting the picture of a relationship at its peak: “Introduced me to your family / Watched my favorite shows on your TV / Made me breakfast in the morning / When you got home from work.”

“Legitimately, I envisioned myself in his room with his family watching my favorite shows on TV,” Spencer-Smith explains of her songwriting process. “I’m very specific with what happened in the situation.”

From its devastating storyline, you’d think “Fingers Crossed” was written in a post-heartbreak funk. In reality, though, it was written in reflection while she was feeling loved and appreciated in a healthier, new relationship — and she says she had a blast recording it.

“For a while, I think I was in an ‘I’m heartbroken, nobody loves me, I hate myself’ mindset while writing songs. But for this one, I met somebody new that was raising my standards and teaching me how I should be treated,” she explains. “I went into my session feeling angry and wanted to write a heartbreak song. We came up with the ‘Fingers Crossed’ idea, and I think the song speaks for itself. It has that angsty emotion. It’s not just, ‘Oh, you’re going to cry in your bedroom.’ It’s, ‘I’m mad at this person, I’m angry, I could say sorry but I’m not.’”

With only a couple days’ worth of chart metrics following its release last Wednesday, “Fingers Crossed” already has debuted at No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100, and will likely jump up the chart next week following its first full week of tracking. And with the chart placements, new followers and hype surrounding the song, the 18-year-old takes away an important lesson from the pain that led to “Fingers Crossed,” and the much healthier relationship that came from it.

“Keep your standards high, women!” she concludes. “It’s not you. It’s the men that you’re interested in that aren’t meeting your standards”.

I have seen Lauren Spencer Smith named as an artist who will define 2023. There were end-of-year lists about the artists to watch in 2023. There are more coming through now. Although there is a lot of competition and alternatives, I feel she will definitely create huge waves. I know she is working on a new album at the moment. It will be exiting to hear that. Her latest track, Single on the 25th, is one of her very best. It is exciting to see just how far Lauren Spencer Smith…

WILL go this year.

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Follow Lauren Spencer Smith

FEATURE: Spotlight: Amelia Moore

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Amelia Moore

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SUCH a great time for new music…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Travis Bailey

there are some remarkable artists emerging and growing that are adding something special to the scene. One artist that everyone needs to know about is Amelia Moore. The U.S. songwriter is a true phenomenon. I want to address a few interviews that she gave in 2022. This year is one that she will definitely make a big mark on. Before I go on, here is some biography about the amazing Amerlia Moore:

“Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Amelia Moore creates the kind of visionary alt-pop that both defies all expecation and feels immediately essential. In a whirlwind journey she describes as “homeschool to Hollywood,” the 21-year-old Georgia native got her start singing in the church choir as a little kid, followed her dreams to Los Angeles at age 18, and soon attracted a massive following on the strength of her bold but vulnerable songwriting (a feat that includes gaining over 50,000 followers on Spotify before she’d even officially released a song). True to her TikTok and Instagram handle (@icryatwork), the 21-year-old artist approaches all her music with a fierce commitment to total emotional transparency—an irresistible counterpart to her kaleidoscopic and endlessly unpredictable sound.

Originally from Lawrenceville (a town outside Atlanta), Moore grew up in a conservative Christian household and first discovered her natural musicality by singing in the choir and taking up violin at age five. But despite her immense talent on the violin, she felt compelled to expand her horizons. “From a really young age I felt creatively trapped and knew I wanted to write my own music, so I quit violin and taught myself piano on a cheap little Casio keyboard,” she says. Also a worship leader at her church, Moore began writing her own songs at age 13 and within two years joined an Atlanta-based artist development training program to sharpen her vocal and performance skills. When her parents refused to pay for the program (“I remember them telling me, ‘Maybe music can be a hobby, and you can be pharmaceutical sales rep instead,’” she recalls), Moore got a job at a fast-food chain and raised the money on her own. “It completely changed my life—from then on I believed in myself 1,000 percent,” she says.

After graduating from high school at 16, Moore kept on writing songs and ventured into producing for other artists, then enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville. “It was the craziest culture shock I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she says. “I went from being so sheltered to being surrounded by kids who are all drinking, partying, hooking up, and pretty quickly I started questioning everything I was raised to believe.” As she broke out of her shell and adjusted to life on campus, Moore continued collaborating remotely with her longtime friend Austin Sanders (aka ASTN, a Florida-bred singer/songwriter), and soon began heading to L.A. for co-writing sessions. During her first trip, she crossed paths with up-and-coming producer Pink Slip and instantly felt a potent creative chemistry, striking up a collaboration that endures to this day. Halfway through her sophomore year, Moore dropped out of Belmont and moved to L.A. on her own—then found herself frightfully adrift when the pandemic hit just two months later. “Any opportunity I’d had to play shows or put a project together fell apart so fast,” she says. “Like so many other people, everything I’d been working toward was swept out from under my feet.” Determined to move forward, Moore immersed herself in writing and refining her vision for her debut project, and eventually began sharing her songs on TikTok. Within the very first week of posting her original material, she’d amassed over 100,000 followers drawn to her unaffected yet magnetic presence and fearlessly honest perspective—a turn of events that ultimately led to her signing with Capitol Records in fall 2021.

Released in October 2021, Moore’s debut single “sweet and sour” is an intoxicating first glimpse into Moore’s untamed imagination and overall mission as an artist. “One of my main goals is to elevate what we expect from pop artists, and usher in a wave of weirder, edgier, more left-of-center music with production that’s really crazy but also refined,” she says. Produced by Pink Slip, “sweet and sour” fulfills that ambition by delivering a stark yet explosive collage of sonic details: shadowy beats, jagged guitar tones, sudden shifts in texture, a gloriously fuzzed-out and frenetic outro. Meanwhile, its lyrics speak to the sheer power of embracing your own complexity. “This song is a perfect statement of who I am as a person,” says Moore. “For the most part I’m a total angel and super-sweet, but the second you mess with me or any of my friends, that’s all over. It’s kind of a warning to everyone, telling them to be careful and tread lightly, or else they’ll get the sour.”

Naming hyper-inventive artists like Frank Ocean, SOPHIE, Kanye West, and Flume among her inspirations, Moore continually feeds her creativity by seeking out boundary-pushing musicians and soaking up inspiration from art forms outside music. “One of my favorite things is to go to museums by myself, put my earbuds in, check out the art and ask, ‘How can I make a song that feels the way this looks?’” she reveals. And with her debut EP due out next year, Moore is intent on merging her wildly original sound with lyrics that encourage listeners to fully live their truth. “I hope my songs make people feel powerful, and inspire them to believe in themselves and trust their gut no matter what everyone else is doing,” she says. “You really can alter your reality, and it’s completely up to you to make that happen”.

With a stunning E.P., teaching a robot to love, released last year, we got this incredible offering. One of the finest E.P.s of last year, it proved Amelia Moore is an artist to behold. DORK interviewed her in June. I have selected some sections to highlight:

“All that aspirational dreaming ultimately led to the stunning series of songs released in the last six months that have got people so excited. Amelia Moore makes big music. Big dramatic, emotion-laden music with an expressive, dynamic future-facing flourish. She uses her voice as an intensely powerful and malleable instrument full of personality and texture. On songs like ‘Sweet and Sour’ and ‘Vinegar’, you can hear an artist working at the midpoint of Charli XCX-style sonic innovation and Mariah and Ariana-style vocal masterclasses. It’s an intoxicating mix.

There is a rawness and directness to the music on her debut EP. “This project is my perspective on falling in love for the first time and what that was like as a homeschooler who was just learning a lot about the real world growing up,” explains Amelia. “Unfortunately, it was a negative experience, as you will hear in the music. This first project is really an exploration of me learning a lot about the world after growing up very sheltered. It’s me growing into myself. Since being away, I’ve grown into myself more as a person and artist. I feel so connected to the music because everything I’ve learned about has happened so recently, so it still feels very real to me. It’s like an open wound.”

In the studio, Amelia channelled all that emotional vulnerability into the music. “There were days when I would walk in and just absolutely sob, and they would just hold me on the couch before I could write anything,” she says. “I learned to not overthink too much in the studio, and the music that connects with people the most is just honest and vulnerable. It’s really important not to shy away from anything, be honest with yourself and be real. Even teasing some of these songs on the internet now people have really connected with some of the moments that were just conversations in the studio.”

Online teasing is a big part of the buzz surrounding her like it is for many artists in the social age. “In December 2021, I started taking my social media really seriously,” she says. “I posted this song about moving away from all of my best friends in Nashville to LA; it was literally the first original song I posted on TikTok. Within a week, I gained over a hundred thousand followers. It was insane. From that point on, I continued to post my original music, and people seemed to like it. That moment in December when things really started to kick off on social media was a big moment for me.”

Amelia has already released three statement singles, but she says the EP will highlight a different side to her artistry. “I have a lot of different sides to me that people are yet to hear,” she says confidently.” I love making more R&B influenced music. I’m very inspired by a lot of R&B singers. There’s also some raspiness in my voice on this project that nobody’s heard from me yet. I’m excited for people to hear that.”

The reaction Amelia has had to her first few songs is based on universal feelings of deep emotion that we can all relate to and learn from. “I hope people take away a feeling that if you’re trying to teach a robot how to love, you should probably just do yourself a favour and pack up and leave,” she laughs. “Sometimes we’ve just gotta learn what it feels like, and it’s ok, but going forward, let’s notice the red flags, feel all of the emotions but save ourselves the heartbreak. Being in love with somebody should not feel like you have to teach them how to love”.

There were a few interviews out in June 2022, as that was the month teaching a robot to love was released. Wonderland. chatted with Moore about her debut E.P. and what her mindset was going into it. They also asked what she wants to achieve in the future:

“Hey Amelia, how are you? How has this past year been?

I’m doing great! My dreams are coming true, baby!

With everything that happened during the pandemic, how has your creativity been affected?

I learned to enjoy writing by myself. I used to avoid it at all costs, but now it’s one of my favourite ways to write.

And talk us through your journey, how did you first get into music, and what sparked your interest?

I played the violin for seven years starting at the age of four before I taught myself piano. I was really involved in theatre and choir programs at my church as well. I thought I wanted to be a Broadway star but I realised I’d rather be myself and sing my own songs on stage than pretend to be somebody else! I really started taking it seriously when I was 15.

And now being managed by the team behind BROCKHAMPTON, how did this venture come about?

I met my manager Brian Washington through another client of his, who also happens to be one of my good friends! We’ve accomplished so much in our first year together; I couldn’t have asked for a better coach on my team.

Now you’ve dropped your debut EP, talk us through your mindset going into it?

HA. You know, agony, heartbreak, drama, frustration – I was going through a breakup that should’ve happened way before it did. I was emotionally exhausted and really just needed an outlet to express how I felt. Shoutout to all my best friends – who also just happen to be my collaborators – for listening to me cry over the same guy for two weeks straight!

And looking back, what was the most challenging aspect?

Showing up at the studio the day after this breakup happened. Looking back through it, thank GOODNESS I was able to keep myself busy and make use of everything I was feeling.

What do you hope people take away from your music?

I hope they learn from my mistakes! If you see any signs of a robot babes, run. GET OUT OF THERE AS QUICK AS YOU CAN!

Who would you say inspires you?

Aside from my musical heroes, (Justin Timberlake, Kanye, Lorde, Frank Ocean), my friend Jbach is such an incredible writer and a really great friend to me. He’s so himself, all the time works so hard and I’m always so inspired when we write together. Love you, Jonathan!

What is next step for you? What are you most excited for?

A couple more singles this summer, hopefully another tour, potentially a mixtape and teaching a robot to love was about an experience I had…but I’m excited to show everybody a bit more about who I am”.

Before rounding off with a review of the incredible teaching a robot how to love, there is another interview that I want to include. The Forty-Five spoke with someone try to reinvent Pop. Amelia Moore, as someone who was home schooled, has used music to figure things out:

“At 18, Moore left home to study commercial voice at University in Nashville and quickly experienced a massive culture shock. She’d grown up being homeschooled, as had her friends back in Georgia. “I show up to college and everybody believes something different, everyone’s wearing different things, people are hooking up with each other, people are drinking – I didn’t realise that existed at all,” she explains. “After my first semester, I was just asking myself, ‘Amelia, were they the ones that were raised differently or were you?’ It was definitely me!”

Being homeschooled, she says, has allowed her to have a different, unique perspective on the world that’s encapsulated on ‘Teaching A Robot To Love’.

“This project is the exploration of all of these feelings of falling in love for the first time and stepping outside of my shell and really figuring out who I am aside from growing up the way that I did, because I’m a completely different person,” she says. “I’m assuming growing up in high school you have a bit more of an understanding of the real world and what life is actually like. As a homeschooler, I was sheltered and just had no idea about anything. This music is me figuring it out in real time.”

While she was still in her first year of uni, Moore visited LA for the first time, met her collaborator Pink Slip, “learned more in a week of sessions than a whole semester on campus” and quickly realised that was where she needed to be. She quickly dropped out and headed to the west coast, desperate not to waste any more time in a place that wasn’t right for her.

In California, she went through another culture shock – this time with the fake people she’d meet at parties. “You have a really good conversation with them and they’re like, ‘Oh what’s your Instagram? Let’s stay in touch’,” she says with an eye roll. “I distinctly remember hitting it off with somebody and they handed me their phone so I could type my Instagram in – they saw how many followers I had, which was maybe 6,000 at the time and were just like, ‘Oh, cool…’ and walked away.”

The joke is very much on that person, though. When the pandemic hit shortly after Moore arrived in her now-home city, she turned to posting her songs on TikTok in a bid to get herself out of a pit of depression. The first track she uploaded on the app did better than she could ever have imagined, scoring her 100,000 new followers within a week.

Despite TikTok’s prevalence within the music industry these days, there’s still some snobbery around artists that get discovered on the app. That’s something that made the musician hesitate over sharing her creations on it at first because she “didn’t want that judgement”. “But once I realised how to make it work for me, I didn’t care if anyone was judging me,” she says. “I was like, ‘This is working, people care about my music now. Say all you want, I’m going to keep posting regardless of what you think’.”

Now, she’s on course to achieve her grandiose goal of reinventing pop, as reinforced by ‘Teaching A Robot To Love’, which is both accessible and infectious, but feels thrillingly new and interesting. “I’m really inspired by artists that bend genres and don’t stick in a certain box,” Moore notes. “People like Frank Ocean and Kanye who’ve always been really, really ahead of their time. I just want to keep pushing the boundary forward with almost abrasively honest lyrics and experimenting. I’m really excited to experiment with some R&B-hyperpop-sounding things – I want to be the first artist to really do that on an album and just make whatever I feel like making”.

I will round things off with a review for teaching a robot to love. It is a brilliant E.P. that capped off a terrific year for Amelia Moore. This is what EUPHORIA. had to say in their review of Moore’s debut E.P. It is one that everyone needs to hear:

“Amelia Moore single-handedly faceted a musical genre all her own appropriately adorned with avant-garde touches and a futuristic flair. Likely one of the most versatile songwriters of our generation, Moore presents the seven-track EP teaching a robot to love — arguably the strongest debut project any artist could wish to make. Aesthetics aside, the singer boasts a striking set of vocal chords offering a next-level listening experience able to keep up with the likes of Ariana Grande.

teaching a robot to love sets itself apart mere seconds into song one. From the minute long prelude “intro” into track two “moves,” Moore creates an impressively sublime transition between techno, R&B, and pop in under 3 minutes. Alongside renowned producer Pink Slip, the singer manages to produce a groundbreaking identity as hyper-pop’s edgy, darkened twin. Where alternative sounds meet experimental spirit, Moore shines like a star.

While “moves” is the ideal chill track for a feel-good moment, songs like “crybaby” take on a moodier (but still incredibly catchy) tonality. Moore masters the careful art of layering harmonies flawlessly; frankly, there’s nothing quite like a tune with the artist’s best skills at the forefront.

Put plainly, her voice is the star of the show. EP standout “teaching a robot to love” shares its title namesake for a reason: the number is the embodiment of everything Moore’s complex vocals are capable of. Between Billie Eilish-esque whispers swelling into resounding symphonies and traces of robust whistle notes, the vocalist establishes herself as music’s ultimate shapeshifter.

“This project is the culmination of first love, first loss, and the recognition that love is what separates us from the robots,” Moore states in a press release. Halfway through the EP, listeners earn insight into the message behind her lovestruck madness with “IFE_outro_V4_AM_24b.wa.” Talking to who we can assume are other producers in the recording studio, the songstress inquires, “So it’s like, can you really not feel anything? Or are you just afraid”.

If you are new to Amelia Moore, make sure you follow her and check out her music. This year is going to be a great and big one for her. She made big leaps last year, and I think this is going to continue. A lot of people are tipping her for enormous success through 2023, and you…

CAN see and hear why!

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Follow Amelia Moore

FEATURE: Setting the Stage... Hoping for Financial Recovery and Strengthening of the Live Music Scene This Year

FEATURE:

 

 

Setting the Stage…

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa at Lollapalooza 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana 

 

Hoping for Financial Recovery and Strengthening of the Live Music Scene This Year

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I am going to bring in…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Rodrigo on stage in 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

a recent article from The Guardian who spoke to the legendary and hugely admired Los Angeles-based photographer Pooneh Ghana, and her observations about the live music scene. As someone who started out photographing smaller acts and now has captured everyone from Dua Lipa to IDLES, she has this unique perspective when it comes to crowds and how the scene and structure has changed since the pandemic started in 2020. It is an interesting insight from one of the most respected and talented music photographers around. I have used a few of the images from the article and, as always, I am making no profit from them at all. I want to use them to illustrate the fine work of Pooneh Ghana, and the fact the struggles and problems in live music are affecting photographers and others. First, here is some of that interview from The Guardian:

“Touring has really taken its toll on everyone. I hope that bands can find a more sustainable way to do what they love and the fans don’t have to pay $100 a ticket to go see these artists because ultimately it affects each other,” she says.

She notices musicians facing increased financial pressure from a broken industry. “It’s crazy – you hear about how basically if you’re not selling out a 3,000-, 4,000-capacity room tonight, you’re not even breaking even on tour. Hearing how much bands are struggling has been really tough.

“Obviously there’s something broken in the system when bands are not only unable to afford to live, but they’re also canceling shows because they’re being pushed so hard,” she says.

As touring musicians have taken a hit, so have the photographers who rely on them for work. “Every music photographer I’ve spoken to this year is so tired. None of us predicted it, so I think we’re all just really tired, but really grateful for things to be kind of back at the extent they are.”

IN THIS PHOTO: A brilliant shot taken during The Viagra Boys’ tour in 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

The first live music Ghana shot in 2020 was two days before the year ended: two nights of livestreamed performances featuring Black Pumas and Maggie Rogers at the Wiltern. “It was a full production performance to no one, but they needed live shots,” says Ghana. “Looking back and seeing an empty theater was so jarring.”

In early 2021, Ghana shot a cover photo of a pregnant Juliette Jackson for the Big Moon’s recent album Here Is Everything. She traveled to meet Jackson in London when the world was still reeling from the pandemic. Covid compliance required an extra level of planning – double vaccinations and two weeks of quarantining.

“The first tour I did back [after Covid protocols were lifted in late 2021] was six weeks with Idles. Idles shows are crazy. People were wearing masks, but for the most part people were just kind of letting loose. It was chaos, the guys are going into the crowd all the time. But within those six weeks nobody got Covid, miraculously.

“Then I did another tour a few months down the road where it was like a strict Covid bubble and nobody was allowed to leave and it ended up getting canceled the last week and a half because somebody tested positive.”

The diminished number of live music photographers and tour crew members who managed to get through the financial dry spell have faced a surge of live shows in 2022 – bands are trying to make up for lost opportunities and newer acts are vying for a shot. It’s been a busy year for Ghana, who now approaches her work with a new sensibility.

“I’ve started to pay attention to the environment more, especially post-Covid. It’s just so fascinating looking at what the crowds are like and how the crowds react to being at a show or you know, the lead singer spitting beer into the crowd.”

She is cautiously optimistic about the future and hopes artists and their crews will find a way to persevere, despite the uphill battle. “The music scene is such a community where everyone from the sound engineers to the photographers to the fans to the managers are all in this ecosystem that is fragile, but there’s also a support system through it”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Joshua Hanson/Unsplash

Maybe Ghana is established enough that she will be okay, but it would have been tough during 2020 and 2021. With few gigs taking place, there is still recovery happening at the start of 2023. Whilst artists, to an extent, had an option to live-stream gigs and earn a small amount of money virtually, the situation was bleaker for live crews, photographers and those who work at venues. It is apparent that artists are being pushed to the limit. As I wrote last year, many have had to cancel and reschedule dates because of exhaustion and mental health issues. The same is happening with photographers. After a scary 2020 and 2021, last year was especially hectic and busy. The reality is that, unless you can fill stadiums and huge venues, you have to tour relentlessly. Many are not breaking even and, for stars as big as Olivia Rodrigo and Dua Lipa, they may be comfortable enough financially, but the demand on them is huge. Almost catching up still, the physical and emotional toll is enormous. There is that pressure to deliver to fans and not ‘let anyone down’. Not that they are! It is a shame that hard-working crews and artists have endured a tough year. I am not sure what systems are in place in the U.S., but I do worry whether there is going to be adequate financial aid for artists, venues and crews this year. It is still a time of rehabilitation and recovery after the pandemic. Even without that, I feel artists are touring more and pushing themselves at a time when there is demand and a lot of competition. Also, I don’t know how much artists will earn from individual gigs when all other costs have been deducted.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Wet Leg at Union Pool in Brooklyn, December 2021/PHOTO CREDIT: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone

The situation is more severe for smaller artists. It was interesting reading that interview from The Guardian where Pooneh Ghana reacts to the reality that the diminished number of live music photographers and tour crew have faced a surge of live shows in 2022. Fewer people but more shows means there is that extra work and pressure. I wonder whether the industry will be replenished so that there is an easing for those who have shouldered a lot more. Bands are trying to make up for lost opportunities and newer acts are vying for a shot, it seems. This is the first year when there seems to be no threat or delays because of COVID-19. We will rely on Government financing and support for venues. I can understand the desire for artists to gig a load and see their fans, but this a strange situation where they are barely making any more and performing more than they ever have. Artists like Sam Fender and Wet Leg have had to cancel gigs because of the effect they have felt from an especially frantic 2022. This year does look more promising, but we need the brilliant and innovative photographers at their very best. Those documenting the artists delivering something extraordinary from the stage. The same goes for the crews and those at venues that make shows run smoothly. More than anything, we need the bigger artists at their peak, but we need smaller artists to get their space and share. I guess, the more artists that come through, the tougher it is to get noticed. Things have changed since 2019, and there has been a need to adapt. Live music has been so important to so many music fans, and we all want it to flourish. It does seem, happily, that this year…

 PHOTO CREDIT: fandrejevic/Unsplash

LOOKS a lot brighter.

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: Guitares et Claviers, 1986 (Yves Bigot)

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

 

Guitares et Claviers, 1986 (Yves Bigot)

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I am running low…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Pierre Terrasson

on interviews I can source from the mighty Reaching Out website of Kate Bush interviews. I like to focus on old press to show what Bush was being asked, how she responded to questions and, in general, show how her career developed. This interview is from the French music magazine Guitares et Claviers, February 1986. It is an interesting conversation, and it came out the year after Hounds of Love was released. Yves Bigot spoke with Bush. It is one of the most interesting periods of her career. Naturally, there was a lot of media attention around her. I have not included many European interviews in this run of features. In the interview, Bush was asked about her songwriting and songs on Hounds of Love. One of my favourite exchanges was when Bush was asked about her dreams and how that relates to her music. Bush noted how dreams were essential to humanity:

“Highly aware of her image and of the public impression her career makes, she was one of the first to use a video as a promotion vehicle. In 1981, with the confidence of a Joni Mitchell, she decided to take complete charge of her destiny, and, already responsible for every aspect of her life-style, took equal control of her music in producing The Dreaming, a ground-breaking and adventurous album in the style of the third Peter Gabriel. "Sat In Your Lap" brought her the success she needed in order to continue, but the tour that had been planned did not materialize.

One had to wait until last autumn to hear talk of Kate Bush again -- and what talk! Even if Hounds of Love is not the cut gem that its predecessor was, it has generated a far greater success, and "Running Up That Hill", number one throughout Europe, is opening the doors of America for the first time...

Y.B.: More than three years between The Dreaming and Hounds of Love, that's a lot. Were you trying to break Randy Newman's record for laziness, or what?

K.B.: It seems a long time, but I didn't need all of it just to record the new album! After The Dreaming, I decided to re-organize my life, and that took me a certain amount of time. I left the city and moved into the country, I started taking intensive dance courses again. Then I had to build and equip my own recording studio, at my home; it was only after all this that I was able to compose and put on tape what has become my new album. Eighteen months of off-and-on work, all the same, between the first song and the final pressing.

Y.B.: Where does this absolute desire to control everything come from?

K.B.: Production was a logical extension of my desire to make sure that my songs sounded exactly as I heard them. When you write something, you want it to be in a style that is the most precise, the most complete, the closest to your original idea as possible. Each element that goes into the track affects it for better or worse. I discovered that in involving myself in the process of following up on my music, it was necessary to become the producer, which, today, is only one supplementary aspect of my job as author-composer.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush for the single photoshoot of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Y.B.: I presume that the invention of the Fairlight and the development of automatic consoles helped your apprenticeship as producer.

K.B.: Technology is a valuable aid for me. The Fairlight is, for me, a marvelous invention which has allowed me to greatly develop my capacities as arranger and composer. Electronic drums have changed my life as well. After that, it was natural to have my own studio, so as to be able to work naturally, in tranquility, in proximity to the origins of my songs.

Y.B.: You own your own Fairlight?

K.B.: Now, yes. At the time of the last album, I worried whether it was worth the expense, because they're incredibly expensive. But since buying it, I congratulate myself every day.

Y.B.: You're not kidding! Your last two albums seem almost submerged under the characteristics of the Fairlight!

K.B.: It was the sound and style that I've wanted since the beginning. But in those days I had neither the tools nor the capacity to express myself as I wanted. Little by little I feel more satisfied, more free, happier.

Y.B.: Peter Gabriel, the pioneer of the instrument, has visibly had a huge influence on your development. But one could say that something more exists between you, like a telepathic link. Do you disagree?

K.B.: It's difficult to say. Comparing me to him is a marvelous compliment, and certainly exaggerated. I greatly admire what he does; he's a brilliant artist. I think that people like him and me are similar because we are trying to do something new. The pop world does not enter into our pre-occupations. We are that kind of people. Peter, of course, but also David Bowie, who was incredibly innovative at a moment when it was needed, Bryan Ferry with Roxy Music, Brian Eno, who can't be honoured enough for what he's done. All are very important musicians, whose influence greatly exceeds their popularity, which lasts three minutes in the charts.

Y.B.: Well, you found a magic formula there, since "Running Up That Hill" is a worldwide success, your first hit in the United States, and since the album stayed at number one in England for a month.

K.B.: It's extraordinary. You can't imagined the pleasure that brings me, after having worked so hard, to see that the public receives this record so well.

Y.B.: Do you think of the public when you're in the studio?

K.B.: I think that one always writes a song for oneself. You let yourself be swept away from your environment and you listen to your "interior voices". The only censure consists in knowing what works and when. But ultimately, you're on the watch for the opinions of others: the musicians who come to play their parts, the engineers; you sense immediately if their interest is aroused, and maintained, when they hear what you're working on. Everything is public.

Y.B.: With regard to voices, yours never stops plunging lower and lower, with each album. It's true that, with "Wuthering Heights", you were taking the soprano part!

K.B.: In my first two albums, I had it in my head to sing only in my highest register. A whim, but it made people think that it was the only way I knew how to sing. However, when I was truly a little girl, I never sang in that way. Since then I've been trying to explore the possibilities of my larynx, to find that which best suits the piece. Furthermore, in growing older, the voice changes. I'd like to hope that it's changing for the better. In any case, I control my voice much better than formerly. Being the producer also allows me to devote more time and attention to the method in which I want my singing to sound. That's another source of progress.

Y.B.: The impression your album leaves, ten minutes after listening to it, is this profusion of voices and percussion.

K.B.: That's very interesting. The voices are of capital importance for me. They allow me to express the story of the song in different degrees. I care very deeply about my lyrics. What bothers me is what you just said on the subject of percussion...

Y.B.: If I could use only one word to describe your music, it would be: psycho-analytic.

K.B.: There's another fascinating observation. I'm certain that everyone who writes, all artists, are very analytical. Often, that's what expresses their most destructive side. Tony Hancock {Goon Squad comedian very popular in the early 60s} is a perfect example: he was a remarkable actor, who ended up by examining himself, criticizing himself so much that he destroyed himself. It's something that exists in each one of us, but which one must succeed in mastering, otherwise one risks going mad. When writing, every time, one is really obliged to analyse the things one is talking about. That's the essence of the creative process.

Y.B.: Often you do not hesitate in crossing the limits of hysteria. "Running Up That Hill", and even more, "Hounds of Love", are two good examples.

K.B.: In "Hounds of Love" there's an energy of despair, yes. It's about someone terrified, who is searching for a way to escape something. My voice, and the entire production, are directed towards the expression of that terror.

Y.B.: Could you clarify "Running Up That Hill" a bit more than the lyrics do?

K.B.: A man and a woman love each other enormously, so much so that the power of their love is the source of their problems. Briefly, if they could make a pact with God to exchange their roles, the man becoming the woman and the woman the man, they would understand each other better and would resolve their differences.

 

Y.B.: From a first listening, one gets the idea that it's with God that want to switch roles...

K.B.: There are several people who have heard something of that sort. THERE's a good reason for doing this interview, if one needed one. Tell them that I would never dare imagine such an exchange.

Y.B.: "Cloudbursting" {sic}, the second English single, is also tricky, for those who haven't done the same reading as you.

K.B.: It's a song with a very American inspiration, which draws its subject from "A Book of Dreams" by Peter Reich. The book was written as if by a child who was telling of his strange and unique relationship with his father. They lived in a place called Organon, where the father, a respected psycho-analyst, had some very advanced theories on Vital Energy; furthermore, he owned a rain-making machine, the Cloudbuster. His son and he loved to use it to make it rain. Unfortunately, the father is imprisoned because of his ideas. In fact, in America, in that period, it was safer not to stick out. The drama: the father dies in prison. From that point on, his son becomes unable to put up with an orthodox lifestyle, to adapt himself. The song evokes the days of happiness when the little boy was making it rain with his father.

Y.B.: Dreams form an important part of your preoccupations, at first glance.

K.B.: It's that there exists only a very fine barrier between them and reality.

Y.B.: With this difference, that your dreams rarely make the headlines of newspapers!

K.B.: It doesn't go that far, you're right. But dreams are essential to humanity.

Y.B.: That's what the whole second side of Hounds of Love talks about?

K.B.: More the struggle brought about by the need to stay awake, when it would be so easy to fall asleep. It's the story of someone who is in the sea, at night, and the experiences through which they pass in order to emerge a better person by morning. I'm making a long story short.

Y.B.: How did you come upon the idea of working on this concept which fills an entire side, which has become extremely out of fashion?

K.B.: It's not nice to call it a concept, because automatically it causes panic, and everyone is convinced that they're going to die of boredom. But that's an idiotic attitude. A concept allows you to develop a piece of music around a theme, at a length which exceeds ten minutes. Before pop music, all the great works of music were of this kind, of this shape and of this attitude. It's unjust. I've wanted to work on something of this kind for a long time. For me, the more an idea is extended, the more riches it contains.

Y.B.: This allowed you to use traditional music, which you like very much.

K.B.: Irish, as far as this particular album goes. English and Irish folk music have had a gigantic influence on me, since I was a child. My brothers played it constantly at home and that affected me profoundly. Whenever I hear Irish folk music, nowadays, I feel drawn to it; I greatly enjoyed introducing it into my own vocabulary and using its musicians.

Y.B.: On The Dreaming you went to some pains to announce on the sleeve that this music must be played very loudly. That amused me at the time.

K.B.: In the studio, you heard it really loud. For mixing, we had to turn it down, to pay attention to details, but my desire was to be totally overwhelmed by the flood of sound. In any case music, all music, was made to be heard at the volume at which it was played, that is to say in this case LOUD.

Y.B.: That album was a difficult one to accept, for the uninitiated.

K.B.: I have no doubt that those who buy singles because they like my hits, are completely mystified upon hearing the albums. But if it comes to that, they should listen to it LOUDLY! If a single theme linked The Dreaming, which is quite varied, it would be human relationships and emotional problems. Every being responds principally to emotions. Some people are very cool, but they are silenced by their emotions, whatever they might be. To write a song, it's necessary that I be completely steeped in my environment, in my subject. Sometimes the original idea is maintained, but as it takes form, it possesses me. One of the best examples would be this song that wrote on Houdini: I knew every one of the things that I wanted to say, and it was necessary that I find new ways that would allow me to say them; the hardest thing, is when you have so many things to fit into so short a space of time. You have to be concise and at the same time not remain vague, or obscure. The Dreaming was a decisive album for me. I hadn't recorded in such a long time until I undertook it, and that was the first time that I'd had such liberty. It was intoxicating and frightening at the same time. I could fail at everything and ruin my career at one fell swoop. All this energy, my frustrations, my fears, my wish to succeed, all that went into the record. That's the principle of music: to liberate all the tensions that exist inside you. I tried to give free rein to all my fantasies. Although all of the songs do not talk about me, they represent all the facets of my personality, all my different attitudes in relation to the world. In growing older, I see more and more clearly that I am crippled in facing the things that really count, and that I can do nothing about it, just as most people can do nothing. Making an album is insignificant in comparison with that, but it's my only defense.

Y.B.: Alot of people complain that your music has become too complex, inaccessible, exclusive.

K.B.: People's reactions before any kind of music reflect more their own personality than that of the composer. As far as my lyrics are concerned, I take a great deal of care; they are very oblique and describe situations that are not always simple. It's not always easy, but it's necessary to make an effort and listen actively, give of oneself. But even if nobody understands my stories, to understand the music, once more, they must play it LOUD!

Y.B.: As a general rule, you're not very optimistic.

K.B.: I wouldn't say that I'm not. I think I'm realistic. If you want to accomplish things, you must accept compromises. That applies particularly to human beings, who are so determined to get what they want, that they only give in when they've been defeated. It's necessary to know how to give in, to accept and defer, sometimes. Situations of love, for example, begin very simply, then, even before you can perceive it, they become a spider's web of problems, so inextricable that they end in the most complete chaos. I just lived through a marvelous and destructive adventure. I believe furthermore that love and inter-personal relationships are the most important things in existence. My family represents everything for me. And even if, every time, failures repeat themselves, I never take them as such, but rather as new tests on the path that I have still to run.

Y.B.: This makes more than five years since you last mounted a stage. Is there hope for 1986?

K.B.: I was hoping to avoid that question!!! I certainly want very much to play on stage again, but it's a decision for which the consequences are enormous, both financially and in terms of the amount of time and energy that are necessary. I've just given everything in me to complete this album and I'm not certain that it's for the best that I plunge into such a venture, all the more as I've received several propositions of an entirely different order, but which would not be compatible with a tour. As they say over here: "Allons voir {Wait and see}!".

I will do a few more of these features. I like dipping into the interview archive, as it is wonderful to read Bush’s words. She is always so dignified, intelligent and thoughtful. This interview form a French magazine is particularly interesting. Each interview reveals the fact that Kate Bush is…  

SUCH a compelling person.

FEATURE: Negative Feedback: Is There Still Sexism Towards Embracing Women with Guitars?

FEATURE:

 

 

Negative Feedback

IN THIS PHOTO: Paramore’s Hayley Williams/PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes for the Los Angeles Times

 

Is There Still Sexism Towards Embracing Women with Guitars?

_________

I am not sure whether…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Wet Leg/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris McAndrew for The Times

it extends to every genre and stage in music, but I think there is still the perception that either women do not play guitars. That, or else there is surprise and a patronising attitude towards women who do play. Perhaps more reserved to the electric guitar, I wonder whether there is still this age-old sexism that assumes men are Rock stars or play guitar. It seems strange that, in the modern day, there are women in music who feel like they cannot play guitar at gigs, lest there are comments or judgement from the audience. Things are perhaps not as bad as they used to be. I saw an NME article from December, where Paramore’s Hayley Williams has said she does not play guitar on stage, fearful of comments or even abuse. Maybe the audience cannot get their heads around the fact that it is perfectly normal for women to play guitar. Some of my favourite modern guitarists like Anna Calvi and St. Vincent must have faced these attitudes and this misogyny:

“Paramore‘s Hayley Williams has discussed sexism in music with Wet Leg, saying she doesn’t “dare” play guitar on stage due to sexist comments.

The artists were speaking to each other for a new podcast from The Face, when they discussed the higher bars set for female musicians in guitar-led spaces.

Wet Leg vocalist Rhian Teasdale said: “I think for us one of the hardest or most irritating things about being women is probably just the stupid comments on the internet like, ‘Oh she’s holding that guitar but she’s not actually playing it’.

 She continued: “Like, for example, when I am just not using my guitar but then I need to play it in the chorus or something, there will always be a comment being like, ‘Girls shouldn’t play guitar, women shouldn’t play guitar,’ and it’s just like… it’s so dated but it’s still there! And I just hate it so much. It’s so frustrating.”

Williams added: “I know those people so well, and I don’t even play guitar on stage. I don’t even dare, because I love to play guitar but I don’t know if I could handle… man. I feel you so hard.

“I just hate that people even need to point it out,” she said. “I don’t even really think about my gender at all, when we play the music especially. It’s just not part of the picture. I’m trying to lean into femininity and empower that part of myself more in this era of my career, but do you ever get on stage and feel ‘other’? You feel like this alien thing that’s powerful and beautiful.”

Wet Leg’s Hester Chambers responded: “It’s a scary thing to be confronted with. When it’s just us being ourselves in a room, I’m not thinking about it at all. But as soon as you have a gig and an audience, you become a bit hyper-aware”

Whether the same attitudes are levied at women who play bass or drums I am not sure, but there is this opinions that men shred and play guitar, whereas women sing or play other instruments. Do people need to point out the fact that a woman is on stage with a guitar in 2023?! It seems completely angering and baffling. Something natural that needs to be embraced and celebrated, established acts are already finding that they have to hold back or face endless comments and idiocy from fans and those in music. Does that men that young women coming through learning guitar might feel reluctant to go into the industry because they will not be accepted? I do think that Hayley Williams and Wet Leg’s experiences are not isolated. I know a lot of fans are not to blame, but I think it is mainly men that are turning their noses up at any woman who dares to play guitar. Like they shouldn’t be doing it. How frustrating it must be for artists who are trying to do what they love and are having to encounter such dinosaurs and sexists. Women are dominating music right now so, whether people like it or not, they are defining the sound of today. As part of that, of course they will be playing guitar – and anything else they want to! We should be encouraging girls and young women to pick up guitars and follow their heroes and heroines, but it is going to be devastating if there is this barrier in front of them. Rather than dismissing and judging them, the brilliant women who are influencing others to pick up the guitar should get nothing but…

POSITIVE feedback.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Barry Can’t Swim

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Barry Can’t Swim

__________

WORKING my way through…

names to watch out for in 2023, and it takes me to the incredible Barry Can’t Swim. An amazing producer and artist, here is someone whose music has its own world, skin and sound. A magnificent and enriching blend of sounds makes Barry Can’t Swim’s work some of the most rewarding and fantastic around. I will come to a couple of reviews with the London-based producer. First, here is some background to this immense talent:

“Edinburgh born, London Based producer Barry Can't Swim (real name Joshua Mannie) is quickly becoming well known for his trademark blend of skillfully crafted electronic production mixed with Jazz inspired strings and keys.

The classically trained artist grew to love Jazz from a young age, learning how to play the piano from the age of 9, to then working in various Jazz bars during his teenage years, which inspired a deep understanding and appreciation for the genre. During his time at university Joshua expanded his musical skill set, becoming involved in various bands, picking up the guitar, bass and drums, to then working as an intern at Glasgow's SOMA Records, giving him an insight into the underground electronic scene. Shortly after he made the move to London and became fully immersed in dance culture and electronic music, developing his solo electronic projects and honing his craft, which eventually evolved into Barry Can't Swim at the start of 2020.

Since then Barrys's rise has been unstoppable, making heads turn and feet dance on the international club circuit with his lush textures, blissed-out vocal samples and euphoric, orchestral elements. 2021 saw Barry release his debut EP "Amor Fati" with Bristol based record label Shall Not Fade with a follow up single 'Everything Is Going To Be Alright.' He shortly after joined the Ninja Tune family, releasing the critically acclaimed single 'Blackpool Boulevard' in collaboration with rising artist Anish Kumar via imprint label Technicolour Records, which lead to Billboard voting Barry Can't Swim as one of their '10 Dance Artists To Watch in 2022.' The track received amazing support (scoring a spot on the BBC Radio 1 playlist) from the likes of Pete Tong (Top 20 Countdown of 2021's Essential New Tunes) who described the record as "an utterly infectious modern dancefloor classic." Additional support came from Danny Howard (Hottest Record), Sarah Story, Clara Amfo, Jaguar, Jack Saunders and Mixmag who voted the track as one of their 'Best Tracks of the Year' saying, "The joint tune from the pair brandishes a sublime orchestral lead up to its dancefloor-moving, four-to-the-floor finale." Barry was also tipped as The Blessed Madonna's 'Ones To Watch for 22' and Annie Mac's 'New Names for 2021.'

Kicking off 2022, Barry returns to Technicolour with "More Content" -- a 4-track EP marking the producers first solo release for the label -- which showcases his vast musical knowledge and skill, blending seamlessly between Jazz, House, Techno and Jungle to name just a few. "Living in London you hear so many different styles of music just walking about, out of cars or flats and shops" he commented, "I wanted to channel that energy and appreciation of those genres”.

There aren’t many interviews around with Barry Can’t Swim, so I have grabbed from one that was published last year, plus one that was out this year. As he is being tipped for big things, I hope that there are more interviews online soon, as that music deserves a very wide audience! The Skinny fired some questions the way of Barry Can’t Swim last year:

“What’s your favourite place to visit and why?

I’m based in London but originally from Edinburgh and I love going back to visit as often as I can. It’s a beaut city. I appreciate it more now that I don’t live there. My favourite place I’ve one-off visited is probably Lebanon – food was quality, really nice people too.

Favourite food to cook in lockdown and why?

I was cooking a lot of fish until I saw Seaspiracy and that just ruined it for me. I can never look at a prawn the same way again now. A lot of curries – easy to throw together with what’s in the cupboard.

Favourite colour and why?

Purple. No real reason, just a really nice colour. Regal.

Who was your hero growing up?

John Lennon / my dad. Lennon because he’s the greatest songwriter in pop music history. My dad cos he’s a class joiner and a really good dad.

Whose work inspires you now?

I’m loving Aleksandir – unreal musician. His production is on another level. There’s so much space in all his tunes but it never feels empty. Big fan of Khruangbin too. Still got Skee Mask’s last album on repeat as well.

What three people would you invite to your virtual dinner party and what are you cooking?

Marcus Aurelius, John Lennon, then a toss up between the Buddha or Tim Cahill. Might get a bit too deep and serious having both Marcus and the Buddha so probably Tim Cahill. Meat and two veg.

What’s your all time favourite album?

Really hard question. I can’t overlook Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not by Arctic Monkeys. That was an absolute gamechanger for me growing up. Astral Weeks and Channel Orange are up there too”.

More Content is the brilliant new E.P. from Barry Can’t Swim. Released earlier this year, I think it is his finest release. Ahead of the E.P. coming into the world, Dance Wax asked about, among other things, the inspirations behind the E.P. They were also curious about the intriguing and standout cover art:

“Barry Can’t Swim is an Edinburgh-born, London-based producer renowned for his trademark blend of skilfully crafted electronic production, mixing a whole host of genres including jazz inspired strings and keys. With a splendid back catalogue under his belt, the young producer further cements his name within the electric music scene, announcing his brand new EP entitled More Content dropping on Ninja Tune’s imprint Technicolour. The record channels fluidity and flow found within a live performance, containing four unique tracks, ranging from the ‘Lone Raver’-inspired opener “God Is The Space Between Us” featuring singer Taite Imogen, to the more nostalgic and melancholic tones of “Can We Still Be Friends” featuring fellow hotshot Laurence Guy. Reminiscent of the lively vigour of recent single “Blackpool Boulevard”, the new release is set to mark 2022 as a milestone year for Barry Can’t Swim, as he continues to garner a serious amount of attention across the UK. Out on 24th June, we caught up with the youngstar to gain a deeper insight into More Content.

Congratulations on your forthcoming EP ‘More Content’, how are you feeling ahead of release?

Im gassed. it’s nearly a year since my debut EP  dropped and I feel as though my influences have changed a bit since then, especially now clubs have reopened, so I can’t wait to get it out.

Can you explain the overall meaning behind the EP?

Each tune has a different meaning really, but in terms of the title it’s a play on words about my experience while I was writing the music. When I wrote this over lockdown I realised that I was writing more music and committing more time to the project to distract and feel in a better headspace. I was creating more content in order to feel more content. Musically it’s a reflection of my changing moods at that time, each tune is very different and I think each triggers a different kind of emotional response that reflects where I was at then.

The EP cover art is super eye catching, what’s the inspiration behind this?

Ah man I love it, the designers at Ninja smashed it! I’d love to tell you I’ve got a garden of eye flowers I tend to every day but there’s no deeper meaning to it, just looks sick and is colourful, playful and surreal which is a good representation of the music. I think the best artwork looks how the music sounds.

In terms of production, when did you record the EP and did lockdown have an impact?

Last year, most of it during that proper grim January, bit depressing that haha. I think it definitely influenced the writing, this EP is darker than what I would usually write, but it’s also uplifting at points for sure. Making these tunes was a total escape for me at that time so it makes sense there are these uplifting moments, although that wasn’t a conscious thing when writing it.

Describe your new EP in three words.

Wee bit sad”.

Someone I can recommend very highly, the tremendous Barry Can’t Swim will definitely be busy through 2023. An artist who has been named among those we need to keep an eye out for, his incredible vision and production will lead to massive success. If he is not on your radar, then make sure that is righted straight away. Barry Can’t Swim is a magnificent musical force, so do make sure that you go and support…

THIS wonderful artist.

_____________

Follow Barry Can’t Swim

FEATURE: Spotlight: GloRilla

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

GloRilla

__________

EVEN though she has a big fanbase…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Gabriel S. Lopez

I think that GloRilla is an artist still coming through. The U.S. rapper is a major force and inspiration, but I feel her best work is still ahead. Her remarkable E.P., at nine tracks long, could be seen more as an album. Even so, Anyways, Life’s Great, is something that announced an artist stepping into the spotlight. A twenty-three-year-old Tennessee-born artist, GloRilla (Gloria Hallelujah Woods) is coming to prominence. I am going to come to a few interviews with an artist that is among my favourite right now. GloRilla is definitely primed for world domination! I’ll start with COMPLEX’s in-depth interview with a major force in Rap. There are some sections of the interview that caught my eye:

“It’s her voice, her attitude, and her flavor that have caught the world’s attention. And, of course, her princess street rap: her lyrics and themes hold a certain level of femininity that align with women listeners, but her sound has an aggression and authority—the extra bass GloRilla puts on wax—that brings in all types of listeners. I’ve been in parties where, when mixed over sinister crunk beats layered with keyboard synths and drum patterns, the men in the crowd are more than happy to shout GloRilla’s lyrics about scamming or receiving sexual favors. “I’m just different,” she shrugs.

It’s been less than a year since GloRilla stepped into the game, and she already has two hit singles, a BET Award, and a Grammy nomination. Plus, her newly released EP Anyways... Life’s Great debuted at no.11 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Because of this, GloRilla’s schedule is jam-packed with visits to three radio stations, the Billboard office, and a meet-and-greet album signing. The day, dreary weather aside, begins smoothly when I meet up with the rapper at 9 a.m. outside of Sway in the Morning’s Rockefeller Center studio. She’s just as sprightly and youthful as she appears on social media and in her videos: When TikToker Cristian Dennis asks to perform a dance with her on camera outside of the building, she complies with a laugh.

But as she checks the three radio visits (one at Sway and two with SiriusXM stations) off her to-do list before 1 p.m., the fatigue starts to set in. Back aboard the tour bus and on the way to our next destination, we get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. There’s a parade marching down Fifth Avenue, the exact street we need to be on. The bus driver and Glo’s publicist anxiously try to find a way around the gridlock, but Glo—unaware of the situation—leans back in her seat and sparks a meaty blunt. With just one exhale, her face relaxes and she musters up the energy to tell me her story.

GloRilla was born Gloria Hallelujah Woods in the summer of 1999 in Frayser, a neighborhood that leans on I-40 and the Mississippi River on Memphis’ north side. She was named after her grandmother. Though she can’t remember the origin story of her middle name, she was born into a large and conservative Christian family, the eighth of 10 kids, and acknowledges that her religious background may have played a significant role. Growing up, her family didn’t practice Christmas traditions like gift-giving because they believed they were derived from a Pagan custom. But even with her religious upbringing, music was always present. Her parents often played gospel artists like Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin in the house.

Despite her parents’ religious beliefs, the hardcore rapper says they have always backed her career choice: “My daddy know I be talking crazy. Him and my mama,” she adds, giggling and shaking her head remembering the time her dad called her laughing about the title of her single “Nut Quick.” Normally, though, her parents just follow her moves on the internet. “They search me up on YouTube every day and find out everything I done did.” Besides the gospel playing in her background, rap music was also prevalent in her early years: Though GloRilla was an avid 106 & Park viewer like many Y2K kids, it was the street rappers who drew her to the art. “Chief Keef, that’s who inspired me to rap,” she says decidedly, reflecting on her early musical taste. “I was a big fan of his”.

When an artist blows up quickly in today’s digital streaming era, one-hit wonder accusations are always lurking, and people question how much longevity GloRilla would have in the rap game. But she squashed a lot of that chatter in September, when she dropped “Tomorrow 2.” The original version came out in early July, but this one featured a guest verse from Cardi B. It was a co-sign that caught Glo by surprise. As the story goes, Cardi B sent GloRilla a voice message, shortly after “F.N.F.” blew up, with words of encouragement. Then, when she was thinking of who to collaborate with on the “Tomorrow” remix, she instantly considered Cardi. “I was in the studio one day and I was listening to all my songs, and I’m like, ‘Who can I put on this song?’” Glo told SK Vibemaker in October. “So I’m like, ‘OK, I’m finna text Cardi.’ I text her and I was like, ‘I got a song I want you on.’ She was like, ‘Girl, I already did my verse on ‘Tomorrow.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ [Yo Gotti] and them were tryna surprise me.” On an Instagram Live session a few hours before the their music video dropped (they didn’t even meet in-person until the shoot), Cardi told Glo, “I loved this song. I love you as a person… I love your personality because you really remind me of me and my friends. You just looked like a good time.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jerald Cooper

“Tomorrow 2” is a certified banger. Produced by Macaroni Toni, it’s a modern day motivational anthem that encourages listeners to find the rainbow even on the cloudiest of days. GloRilla’s verse was already fantastic—“Every day the sun won't shine, but that's why I love tomorrow,” she raps—but what makes the remix so magical is Glo’s Memphis style colliding with Cardi’s Bronx drill approach over a hard-hitting 808 beat. Glo pushes Cardi to deliver a new cadence and flow that is grittier than her previous singles, while Cardi brings even more fun and playful energy to the track. Together, they dish out braggadocious and punchy bars that work well as an Instagram caption or fun one-liners to yell in the club. “I stay on her mind, I got condos in that bitch head,” Cardi B spits. With “F.N.F.” and “Tomorrow 2” giving her two consecutive Hot 100 entries under her belt, Big Glo felt immense pressure to deliver even more with her debut EP, Anyways... Life’s Great. “Every song I got out right now, they were going crazy for,” she explains, taking another hit of the blunt while we only inch a little forward in traffic. “So I know they expected the most out of me for my EP. That’s what I was nervous about”.

In November, GRM Daily spent some time with the magnificent GloRilla. They asked her about the amazing debut E.P, signing to CMG, and going viral. I think that 2023 is going to be the most successful year for this phenomenal artist:

“With you growing up in the church, what did you listen to?

“My mom had us listening the gospel, we had to sneakily listen to the other music on radio. She would let us watch 106 and Park and BET countdown and stuff but driving in the car it was 95.7, Hallelujah FM”

Which artists did you enjoy listening to yourself?

“When I was young, I used to love Nelly, Soulja Boy, Bow Wow, I loved Beyonce. Then in high school it was Chief Keef”.

How did you decide you wanted to get into music?

“Chief Keef[…]like he was coming in so different, nobody was coming like him. Young, turnt, gangster. He created his own sound. That made me want to start rapping”.

A lot of rappers start off freestyling, was it like that for you?

“I went straight into writing, I’m not a freestyler, I’m a straight writer”.

A refreshing approach from a new age artist, she professes knowing she wanted to take music seriously from the start hence going straight into writing songs. Freestyling never being a thought, but delights she would be up for a deliver bars for a top line freestyle platform.

Pivoting to her breakout hit ‘FNF (Lets Go)’ alongside Hitkidd which has over 26Million streams on Spotify alone, the visual on a whopping 48Million+ YouTube views in 6 months. Many peoples entry point to GloRilla, excitable clips took over social media earlier this year.

 How did “F.N.F” going crazy feel for you?

“It was crazy because I’ve never went viral before that but leading up to that I’d say around 2020 I have started going viral I was making little Triller videos to my songs. So I had the inner city like Memphis, Arkansas, Mississippi all rocking with me.

“So I made a triller for “F.N.F” and DJ Duffey, French Montana’s DJ, she made she made a reel to it on Instagram and it went viral. Then we done the video to it and that went viral as I had my pregnant friend in there at the red light, so everyone was going crazy about the video and then the song. It was crazy, I didn’t know what the hell to do”

Your visuals are all very fun, you have all your friends in the back, is that something you do consciously?

“It ain’t gotta be every video but the turnt videos then yeah[…] I never want to overdo a video unless its a serious serious song. And I don’t make serious serious songs, yet”

Is that something you want to get into?

“I actually have two pain songs on my EP!”

Getting into some of your collabs, “Tomorrow 2”, the “F.N.F” remix .. how did those come about?

“Cardi, I got hit with a was surprised when she did. I had been speaking to her about another song but I didn’t know they hit her to get her to do, my team tried to surprise me. She was like I already did the verse for Tomorrow and I was like what? And she sent me the clip and I heard it like omg she just murdered this song. She said to me we had to do a video. It was so good working with her, I love Cardi so bad, thats my cousin[…]the energy was unmatched. With JT and Latto, I was happy to have them on the song but I actually didn’t plan that or go to the studio with them”

When asked about who else she’d like to collab with, she playfully answered Chief Keef and Beyonce – two of her childhood listens.

Her debut EP released Friday 11th November, 11/11. As many angel numbers lovers would know, the numbers are said to hold a certain significance. Quickly chatting about it, GloRilla reveals it being a calculated coincidence.

What can we expect from the EP?

“I got two pain songs on there, turnt music on there too. I just feel like there isn’t any skips on there and hope everyone feels the same way too. I’m nervous because I know people are expecting a lot out of me. But I feel like they’ll like it”.

I’ll end with some coverage from NME. Maybe not as recognised here as in the U.S., I do think that GloRilla will get plenty of gig requests here. She is one of the best rappers in the world. There are so many incredible women adding their voices to the genre. In fact, I think they are leading the charge and creating the best, most important and original music:

“You’ve become close with Cardi B over the past year. What was it like working with her on ‘Tomorrow 2’?

“I ain’t got a lot of friends, and I’m just easy to deal with. Cardi is my cousin. I was so happy and excited during the whole creative process. Cardi is a really sweet soul and has such a genuine heart, and we come from a similar background, so it was easy to connect. And it was crazy when [‘Tomorrow 2’] hit the charts. I was like, ‘Ah! Ain’t nobody know about me a couple months ago!”

Cardi DM’d you when ‘FNF’ first started blowing up online. How did you react?

“I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ I had just got off the plane in New York, and I had been at the baggage claim and she texted me, almost as though she saw that I had landed in the city. I had been sending Cardi music since I first started rapping, and I tried for so long to get her to look at my music. But then she ended up listening, and liked my music, to the point where she was like, ‘I’ve already done my verse for ‘Tomorrow 2’, before I heard anything else from her. I love Cardi.”

What does your relationship with Yo Gotti and CMG Records mean to you?

“[Yo Gotti and I], we come from the same place in Memphis, so our connection is really like a culture thing. I had gone to a couple of [major] label meetings, but they weren’t getting me. I was listening to them but none of them were making me go, ‘Oh! I wanna do this’. But when I linked with Gotti, he made sure I understood him.

“When I first met Gotti, I met him on a yacht in Miami. He was saying to me that he believed in me past [the viral success of] ‘FNF’. Everybody else I was going to, they just wanted to sign me after one song. But Gotti liked my story and the rest of my music. There was something special there, I felt it.”

Your upcoming EP, ‘Anyway, Life’s Great’ will be released via the label. What does this new project represent to you?

“I think that people are going to love it. I got some catchy songs on there, but I also talk to my people there. There’s songs about… pain — well, I ain’t going to say pain because the only difference between the past me and who I am now is that I’ve got money now. I feel like I’m the same person, but [musically] I have found my sound. When I’m in the car with my manager and they start playing my old music, I’ll be like, ‘Turn it off!’.”

 You grew up listening to drill pioneer Chief Keef. What do you continue to find so inspiring about him?

“Chief Keef is the person that truly influenced me. He’s young, turnt and gangsta – and that’s kinda what my music is like. I feel like I’m a female version of Chief Keef. I got faith. I got into Chief Keef in high school. In 2012, [when Chief Keef blew up], I was staying with my mom and she didn’t let us listen to [music] like that. The first song I heard of his was in ninth grade, and we had a project where we had to recreate skits, and these dudes had reenacted the video for [2013 hit] ‘Now It’s Over’. They played it and I was like, ‘I love this song!’, and then I looked up all of his songs.

“Chief Keef came out around the time I started to go to school, because before that, I was home-schooled, so all I knew was church music. I was in church, but at the same time, I was from a real ratchet area. We’d go to church, but when we’d go outside afterwards, all the bad kids got together. By the sixth grade, I was just badly behaved because I didn’t know how to act. My environment was split between going to church, and then going to the extremely hood schools.”

Do you feel like you’ve found your voice as an artist now?

“I’ve instilled in my head that anything I can do, I can do. I want to be the Beyoncé of my era — not just of rap music, but music in general. I don’t know anybody better than Beyoncé, just ‘cause I love her so much. I know people are sick of me talking about Beyoncé because they’ve heard me talk about her a million times. But, she had a big impact on my music, and I want to follow her”.

I am going to follow GloRilla, as I think that her career is going from strength to strength. Such a captivating presence, she will go down as one of the legends of Rap in years to come. With a new and thrilling E.P. in the world, the horizons are open for GloRilla. It only takes a few minutes of her stunning music before it…

LINGERS long in the mind.

_____________

Follow GloRilla

FEATURE: Looking Back on a Great Year… The Best Singles and Songs from 2022

FEATURE:

 

 

Looking Back on a Great Year…

IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé/PHOTO CREDIT: Rafael Pavarotti for Vogue

 

The Best Singles and Songs from 2022

__________

WE have just said goodbye…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rosalía in 2019/PHOTO CREDIT: Ruven Afanador

to 2022, but I wanted to use this opportunity to take a glance back at some of the best songs and singles from the year past. I cannot include all of them, but I have been looking at various polls, music websites and elsewhere to collate the tracks that were the hottest from 2022. It is a broad and exciting playlist that you can use to remind you what the past year provided. There will be tracks you already knew, but there are some that will be new. I hope that there is enough in there to give you a post-New Year celebration. This year promises some fantastic music, and I wonder whether it will match the brilliance of 2022. We will soon see! Below are the singles, songs and wonderful cuts that made last year…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kendrick Lamar

SUCH a great one for music.

FEATURE: Future Hopes: Plans for a Brighter and Better 2023

FEATURE:

 

Future Hopes

PHOTO CREDIT: Florian Klauer/Unsplash

 

Plans for a Brighter and Better 2023

_________

I think most of us…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sebastian Banasiewcz/Unsplash

have had a pretty unpredictable and less-than-ideal last few years. Since the pandemic started in 2020, it has been pretty tough and unusual. With everything happening politically at home and abroad, everyone has had to cut back and acclimatise. The sense of accommodation and almost dread that we have gone through is not the cheeriest to go into 2023! I am not a fan of New Year or celebrate it at all. To me, it is another day, rather than it being this fresh start. Invariably, there will be similar issues and disappointments next year as there has been this year. Rather than expect a completely different year and something akin to a rebirth, I am quite pragmatic with my projections and predictions. I do not do resolutions either – as they will never be kept -, but there have been some life events recently that have thrown things into perspective and, indeed, changed my ambitions and outlooks. First and foremost, having produced hundreds of features this year, it is humbling that the audience has grown and I am in a position where my work is being seen and shared by quite a few people. I am always grateful for that and will never take it for granted! I have one or two special things planned for next month but cannot go into too much detail. When I think about next year, I think where I live and what I do as a job (as journalism is an unpaid hobby at the moment) is going to effect how things pan out. This year wasn’t bad but, with the possibility my current job is at threat, and no real improvement in terms of my personal happiness and relationship status, I am stuck a bit. There is a word that keeps coming back to mind: progress.

 IN THIS PHOTO: An artist I am very keen to interview in 2023, Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor)/PHOTO CREDIT: Suzie Howells for The New York Times

This is something that everyone needs to ponder at the start of a fresh year. Rather than thinking it is a chance to be a new person and make everything better, it is simply no different to any other year. I will need to be proactive and take some leaps in 2023. I am determined to keep the blog going as much as possible though, if I take a new job or relocate, time might be a bit more precious in that regard. I am going to run it for free, as I have not discovered a viable way to monetise it where I think people are getting value for money. I will not post updated videos or do a Patreon, as music journalism, to me, is more about the written word and communicating that way. I will try and do a podcast at some point. Requiring a bit of technical help and financing, I hope to find a space next year where I can record something. Kate Bush is sixty-five in July, so that seems like as good an excuse as any to put together a podcast celebrating that! Generally keeping the blog fresh and making sure it is relevant, has strong and diverse content and keeps the quality up. Those are the objectives I want to maintain. As much as anything, my blog has given me more pleasure, distraction, fulfilment and satisfaction than more or less anything else. I am in no shortage of feature ideas, so next year is going to be pretty busy I hope. Expanding it a little is a necessary evolution, so that will involve returning to interviews (whether emailed or via Zoom), a few live reviews if I can swing it, plus I will try and secure a few big names in music to do an interview or contribute to features.

 PHOTO CREDIT: ev/Unsplash

I am also eager to see whether I can use the blog to fundraise for charities and the music industry. There are charities close to my heart such as Crisis and the Samaritans, so anything I can do to put money their way is very important! This may take the form of a challenge or 24-hour event on my blog. Maybe an endless playlist or live broadcast. Doing more than merely publishing features and posting them out there is a big ambition for next year. Eleven years after I started my blog, I think it needs to get a bit more eclectic and multimedia. Maybe some new feature ideas, bigger projects or, as I say, a podcast or two if money and situations permit. I keep coming back to the people who share and comment on my stuff. I would literally not be continuing with the blog if my features fell into the abyss and were not seen. Some so that but, for the most part, they are viewed and liked. Those small gestures of recognition mean a lot. I have new followers who I am very appreciative of, and the reliable Twitter followers I have always had provide vital support and a willing audience. Through spotlighting artists, my horizons have been opened, and I think I have improved as a writer as the year has worn on – though some may disagree! As much as anything, as was true this time last year, music journalism is a love and passion that I need to keep in my life for wellness and future careers. Maybe I will scale back on the time spent writing features and posting, but it will definitely not be a quiet 2023!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Fadi Xd/Unsplash

The other side of the 2023 coin is the non-music blog side. That covers quite a large remit! I am currently living in a less-than-nice flat in London, so I keep thinking about the fact I will be forty in May. I am not one to measure myself to others or feel like I need to be married or have a dream job. I do feel, however, that milestone (if arbitrary) birthday is a wake-up call. Finding a relationship is always important. It hasn’t happened this year, but it is certainly near the top of the priorities list for next year. As many ring in 2023 latter with loved ones, it is different for me. That need for like-minded company and companionship has become much more important. Of course, that might mean redressing the work-life balance: spending more on the latter and economising on the former! Because my employment status is very much in the air, a new job in London is almost going to be an inevitable January task. I keep thinking about where I want to be and live. London does offer a world of music and options for someone like me. It is busy and diverse, yet there is chance to escape somewhere quieter. I had always planned to move to Manchester but, as it is hard to have a job and living space organised and waiting from London, the logistics is a bit tricky! Even if I am getting older and approaching the fifth decade of my life, faults and all, I still crave a busier and more buzzing environment. The noise and natural issues with city life and not going away, but I am using next year as a chance to try and make it a more positive and happier situation. I think this year has been quite a tiring one, and I come out the other end asking myself what I have achieved personally and professionally.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Steven Pahel/Unsplash

When I think about the dreaded 4-0, it does put in my mind questions. They revolve around work, love, happiness and ambition. Certainly, as a journalist, there are other cities and countries that are better options. I have an interest in scriptwriting too and, as I am writing a comedy feature and have a passion for and curiosity in film/T.V., America comes to mind. New York always appealed for the music and cultures, but maybe California would suit both worlds when it comes to music and film. I know the realities of packing up and having a job and apartment waiting are extremely difficult, so it may not be something that will happen until later next year. Even at a ‘mature’ age, I still see myself working for a well-known actor or a studio. Seeing my film idea seen as progressing is another massively important goal for me. I love American culture and accents, and I think I would slot in nicely. The chance at better weather and a whole new environment definitely appeals to me! In music terms, there are publications I could work for. If I got a regular job, I would still be in a great place where I could search and find bigger opportunities and potential. I know how I am spending my fortieth (on 9th May), so I cannot make any big moves until after that. In terms of the things that I want to fulfil or address next year, they would be career, location, love, health, and fulfilment. Finding a new career maybe or city. Taking chances and being bolder with my journalism, and definitely keep battling when it comes to film studio and the perils of trying to get noticed when you are effectively unknown!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Blondie’s Debbie Harry in London in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris

If they seem lofty to achieve within a year I hope, this time next year, I am in a position where I can at least say I am better off. That might be a few podcasts under the belt, a happier living space, or even a relationship. I do not see each year as this big revolution and need to celebrate. I do see the weeks ahead and know that I need to use them wisely and effectively. Whilst there will be cheer and celebrations at midnight, I am going to be (after as much sleep as you can get in London!) looking at some obtainable aims for the year ahead. Rather than them being resolutions, they are deeper aims and life events. Of course, there are smaller things that I would like to address in terms of resolutions. Health, diet and the usual are all in there. I feel, more than anything, a proactive and productive year that results in visible improvements. It may sound quite dry or boring but, actually, I have some big ambitions when it comes to music and film. I am still pushing for someone to make a Blonde biopic. I am going to do some big stuff around Kate Bush’s sixty-fifth birthday in July and, money-permitting, consider spending some time in the U.S. This year has not been bad, but it has felt a little bit wasted. Full steam ahead with the blog and achieving as much as I can. It only leads me to wish everyone else a great start…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Japan in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

TO a new year.

FEATURE: On the Billboard… The 20 Best Pride Albums of 2022: Staff Picks: The Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

On the Billboard…

IN THIS PHOTO: Doechii

 

The 20 Best Pride Albums of 2022: Staff Picks: The Playlist

__________

I am doing…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Rina Sawayama/PHOTO CREDIT: Thurstan Redding

a lot of Spotlight features before next year, as it is great to highlight these amazing artists who will make big waves and steps in 2023. I am also doing some end-of-year features. I have done all the best albums features I can. I was going to do the best singles of 2022, but that sort of passed me by. I am interested in the great Pride and L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ albums that arrived in 2022. Billboard named their favourite twenty Pride albums of this year. They highlighted some great work by queer artists. Some iconic new artists and anthems a plenty! This is what they wrote:

“2022 was good for a lot of things — in the music world, artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Bad Bunny and more had blockbuster years worthy of recognition. But when it came to the continued fight for LGBTQ rights, 2022 proved to be more of a backslide. In the United States alone, queer and trans folks spent the year working tirelessly against more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures (including Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for young people), threats towards gender diverse kids and their families, a fatal shooting at a gay nightclub, and countless more tragedies and setbacks. Around the world, people struggled to support the biggest sporting event in the world being held in a country where being queer is a crime, while anti-LGBTQ sentiment and hate crimes continued to rise around the world.

Despite the onslaught of negative sentiment and oppressive ideals, queer artists showed up to represent and support their community in 2022. The methods they employed through their albums were often varied — some aimed for sheer escapism, creating new sonic worlds for their fans to luxuriate in; others looked their circumstances dead in the eye, using their music to channel the rage they felt at a world that was seemingly set against them. Either way, LGBTQ artists made their voices heard through some of their best works to date in 2022”.

To celebrate the amazing Pride albums that have come out in 2022, below is a song from the twenty that Billboard selected as their favourite. There are some truly amazing artists here! Albums I have heard part of, but I have been compelled to dig deeper. In the playlist below are songs from the best Pride albums…

IN THIS PHOTO: Steve Lacy/PHOTO CREDIT: Julian Klincewicz 

OF 2022.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Ninety-One: Sheryl Crow

FEATURE:

 

Inspired By…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Peyton Fulford for The New York Times

 

Part Ninety-One: Sheryl Crow

__________

ONE of the most important…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

and influential artists of the 1990s, there is no doubt that Sheryl Crow is a music legend. An incredible songwriter who rose from being a session player and backing singer, she established herself as a mainstream artist with a huge fanbase Someone who has influenced many other artists, I am going to end with a playlist of songs from a selection of them. I know I have featured Sheryl Crow a fair few times through the years, but not including her here has been an overnight I am correcting today. Before getting to the playlist, AllMusic provide a biography about the great Sheryl Crow:

“Sheryl Crow's fresh, updated spin on classic roots rock made her one of the most popular mainstream rock artists of the 1990s. By the time she struck gold with 1993's sunny, good-time rocker "All I Wanna Do" from her debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club, she'd already spent over half-a-decade paying her dues as a songwriter, industry session player, and touring back-up singer. That blue-collar work ethic seeped into her albums, which were loose and eclectic on the surface, yet consistently tied together with polished, professional songcraft. Crow's self-titled 1996 follow-up was another massive success, yielding additional signature hits like "If It Makes You Happy" and "Every Day Is a Winding Road," and establishing her not only as a dependable star, but one with a knack for creating consistently high-quality material with an organic flair. Crow's success carried into the 21st century with a pair of platinum albums in 2002's C'mon, C'mon and 2005's Wildflower. Her career was briefly put on hold after a cancer diagnosis, but she recovered and recorded 2008's gold-certified Detours. Crow also continued to evolve musically, embracing vintage soul and R&B on 2010's 100 Miles from Memphis and country music on 2013's Feels Like Home. Throughout her career, Crow has collaborated with a wide array of high profile musicians ranging from Eric Clapton and Keith Richards to Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn. Her 2019 album Threads, which she billed as her last, assembled an intriguing cast of stars like Willie Nelson, Chuck D, and Stevie Nicks to join her for a set of duets. Crow was the subject of the 2022 documentary film, Sheryl, which was accompanied by a career-spanning album, Sheryl: Music from the Feature Documentary.

Sheryl Suzanne Crow was born February 11, 1962, in Kennett, Missouri. Her parents had both performed in swing orchestras, her father on trumpet and her mother as a singer; her mother was also a piano teacher, and ensured that all her daughters learned the instrument starting in grade school. Crow wrote her first song at age 13, and majored in music at the University of Missouri, where she also played keyboards in a cover band called Cashmere. After graduating, she spent a couple of years in St. Louis working as a music teacher for autistic children. She sang with another cover band, P.M., by night, and also recorded local advertising jingles on the side. In 1986, Crow packed up and moved to Los Angeles to try her luck in the music business. She was able to land some more jingle-singing assignments, and got her first big break when she successfully auditioned to be a backup singer on Michael Jackson's international Bad tour. In concert, she often sang the female duet part on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." After spending two years on the road with Jackson, Crow resumed her search for a record deal, but found that record companies were only interested in making her a dance-pop singer, which was not at all to her taste.

Frustrated, Crow suffered a bout of severe depression that lasted about six months. She revived her career as a session vocalist, however, and performed with the likes of Sting, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Foreigner, Joe Cocker, Sinéad O'Connor, and Don Henley, the latter of whom she toured with behind The End of the Innocence. She also developed her songwriting skills enough to have her compositions recorded by the likes of Wynonna Judd, Céline Dion, and Eric Clapton. Thanks to her session work, she made a connection with producer Hugh Padgham, who got her signed to A&M. Padgham and Crow went into the studio in 1991 to record her debut album, but Padgham's pop leanings resulted in a slick, ballad-laden record that didn't reflect the sound Crow wanted. The album was shelved, and fearing that she'd let her best opportunity slip through her fingers, Crow sank into another near-crippling depression that lingered for nearly a year and a half. However, thanks to boyfriend Kevin Gilbert, an engineer who'd attempted to remix her ill-fated album, Crow fell in with a loose group of industry pros that included Gilbert, Bill Bottrell, David Baerwald, David Ricketts, Brian MacLeod, and Dan Schwartz. Dubbed the Tuesday Night Music Club, this collective met once a week at Bottrell's Pasadena recording studio to drink, jam, and work out material. In this informal, collaborative setting, Crow was able to get her creative juices flowing again, and the group agreed to make its newest member -- the only one with a recording contract -- the focal point.

Crow and the collective worked out enough material for an album, and with Bottrell serving as producer, she recorded her new official debut, titled Tuesday Night Music Club in tribute. The record was released in August 1993 and proved slow to take off. Lead single "Run Baby Run" made little impact, and while "Leaving Las Vegas" attracted some attention, it reached only the lower half of the charts. A&M took one last shot by releasing "All I Wanna Do," a song partly written by poet Wyn Cooper, as a single. With its breezy, carefree outlook, "All I Wanna Do" became one of the biggest summer singles of 1994, falling just one position short of number one. Suddenly, Tuesday Night Music Club started flying out of stores, and spawned a Top Five follow-up hit in "Strong Enough" (plus another minor single in "Can't Cry Anymore"). Crow was a big winner at the Grammys in early 1995, taking home honors for Best New Artist, Best Female Rock Vocal, and Record of the Year (the latter two for "All I Wanna Do"). Her surprising sweep pushed Tuesday Night Music Club into the realm of genuine blockbuster; after close to a decade of dues-paying, Crow was a star.

Having made her first album as part of a large collective of songwriters, Crow set out to prove her legitimacy with her second album. Bill Bottrell was originally slated to produce the record, but fell out with Crow very early on, and the singer ended up taking over production duties herself. However, she did bring in the noted team of Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake as assistant producer and engineer, respectively. Froom and Blake were known for the strange sonic experimentation they brought to projects by roots rockers (the Latin Playboys) and singer/songwriters (Richard Thompson, Suzanne Vega), and they helped Crow craft a similarly non-traditional record. Released in the fall of 1996, Sheryl Crow definitely bore the stamp of the singer's personality and songwriting voice, especially in the idiosyncratic lyrics; plus, she was now doing most of the writing, usually with her guitarist, Jeff Trott, proving that she could cut it without her previous collaborators. The singles "If It Makes You Happy," "Everyday Is a Winding Road," and "A Change Would Do You Good" were all radio smashes, and "Home" also became a minor hit. Sheryl Crow went triple platinum, and Crow brought home Grammys for Best Rock Album and another Best Female Rock Vocal (for "If It Makes You Happy").

Crow toured with the Lilith Fair package during the summer of 1997 (the first of several tours), and subsequently wrote and performed the title theme to the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. In the fall of 1998, she returned with her third album, The Globe Sessions. A more straightforward, traditionalist rock record than Sheryl Crow, The Globe Sessions didn't dominate the airwaves in quite the same fashion, but it did become her third straight platinum-selling, Top Ten LP, and it won her another Grammy for Best Rock Album. It also spawned two mid-sized hits in the Top 20: "My Favorite Mistake" and "Anything But Down." In 1999, she contributed a Grammy-winning cover of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" to the soundtrack of the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy. She also performed a special free concert in New York's Central Park, with an array of guest stars including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Chrissie Hynde, the Dixie Chicks, Stevie Nicks, and Sarah McLachlan. The show was broadcast on Fox and later released as the album Live in Central Park, just in time for the holidays. "There Goes the Neighborhood" won her another Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal.

Hit with a case of writer's block, Crow took some time to deliver her fourth studio LP. In the meantime, she produced several tracks on Stevie Nicks' 2001 album, Trouble in Shangri-La, and also recorded a duet with Kid Rock, "Picture," for his album Cocky. Finally, in the spring of 2002, Crow released C'mon C'mon, which entered the LP charts at number two for her highest positioning yet. It quickly went platinum, and the lead single, "Soak Up the Sun," was a Top 20 hit and another ubiquitous radio smash. The follow-up, "Steve McQueen," was also a lesser hit. At the beginning of 2005 it was announced that there would be two simultaneously released new albums available by the end of the year. The project was then scaled back to the single-disc Wildflower, which saw release at the end of September. Crow was forced to take time off from her musical career in 2006 after being diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. After successful treatment, she returned in 2008 with her sixth studio album, Detours. The soul-inspired 100 Miles from Memphis followed in 2010 and featured guest spots from Keith Richards, Justin Timberlake, and Citizen Cope. By the end of that year she had performed with Loretta Lynn and Miranda Lambert on the title track of a Lynn tribute album, Coal Miner's Daughter. This country-focused collaboration was an early indicator of the direction that Crow's work would eventually take in the years that followed.

A creatively quiet 2011 ended with her appearance on William Shatner's space-themed third studio album, Seeking Major Tom. Crow's delicate, piano-fueled cover of K.I.A.'s "Mrs. Major Tom" was generally received by critics as one of the highlights of the disc. Then, in summer 2012, she revealed details of another health scare. Although Crow had been diagnosed with a brain tumor at the end of 2011, it was found to be benign, and six months on she was quoted in many news reports as feeling healthy and happy. That November she issued the download-only, politically charged "Woman in the White House." It was her first self-penned material to appear in a couple of years and was her most out-and-out mainstream country track to date. March 2013 saw the release of "Easy," the first single to appear ahead of Feels Like Home, a country-steeped full-length that appeared in September of 2013. Feels Like Home debuted at seven on the Billboard Top 200 -- and number three on the country chart -- but generated no country hits, so Crow changed direction for 2017's Be Myself by reuniting with her '90s collaborators Tchad Blake and Jeff Trott. The politically charged 2018 single "Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" saw Crow pairing up with St. Vincent's Annie Clark. That track later landed on her star-studded duets album, Threads, which recruited a wide array of guest artists including Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Mavis Staples, Chuck D, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Willie Nelson. Crow released Threads in September 2019, citing that while it would be her last full-length studio album she intended to continue performing and recording occasional new music. She was later the subject of the subject of director Amy Scott's feature documentary film Sheryl, which was released in May 2022. A hit-packed double album, Sheryl: Music from the Feature Documentary, accompanied the film and featured three new songs including the single "Forever”.

I will round up now. One of the greatest artists ever, I wanted to celebrate that by featuring artists in a playlist who have been influenced by the mighty Sheryl Crow. I hope that she continues to record music for a while longer, because her absence would be…

A terrible thing.

FEATURE: Kate Bush and 2022: Part Two: Books, Magazines, and the Rest…

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush and 2022: Part Two

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

  

Books, Magazines, and the Rest…

__________

IT is no surprise…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

that Kate Bush has been dominating 2022. In terms of her impact and new attention, it is pretty much down to one song: the magisterial and mighty Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). I covered that song in the first part of this two-run salute. Bush has posted several updates to her official website. Thanking fans for buying and streaming Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), and how touched and stunned she is by all the reception it has accrued! There has been another side to Bush’s success this year. Away from the titanic resurgence of a classic song, there has also been a lot of affection for Bush elsewhere. Apart from the countless tweets and posts acknowledging her supernatural talent and incredible endurance and importance, there have been magazines articles, books and features written about her. I guess I have written more than my fair share of Bush features, but we celebrated forty years of The Dreaming back in September. Her amazing and still-underrated album has reached new fans. This feature from Salon is particularly interesting and insightful. There are some very important anniversaries in 2023. Aside from Bush turning sixty-five in July, The Kick Inside (her debut album) is forty-five in February. The Red Shoes is thirty in November, and it will be about fifty years since Bush recorded some of her earliest demos. She was laying down some very interesting songs in 1973.

This year has seen no new Kate Bush music, but there have been new investigations and spotlights shone on her music. MOJO’s October issue responded to the success of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) by doing a deep dive of its parent album, Hounds of Love. That 1985 masterpiece was given a song-by-song examination by artists and creatives. I guess a lot of people would have heard RUTH (as I will abbreviate to from now on), but not necessarily the entire album. Consider the second side, The Ninth Wave, and cuts like Under Ice or The Morning Fog might have been new. One of the first side’s tracks. Mother Stands for Comfort is also alien to most new fans. It was good for MOJO to do that salute and study of a timeless and hugely influential album. The Dreaming was given a substantial and passionate write-up in UNCUT. where Peter Watts interviews people involved with the album. It was nice to see an album still a little misunderstood and overlooked get a new lease and dose of love – rather than just rehashing old articles. Whilst those magazines focused on particular albums, Classic Pop published a magazine in September that was dedicated to the career-spanning brilliance of Kate Bush. Inspired by Stranger Things’ use of RUTH, it was a chance to broaden the conversation when it comes to Bush’s remarkable career.

They explored her wide-eyed beginnings, through to her critical and commercial success. There were interviews with KT Bush Band members, official photographer, founder of KateBushnews.com, and Kate herself. Classic Pop took a look at Bush’s musical collaborations. There was a brilliant top forty and in-depth album profiles, plus a fascinating look at the storytelling in Kate’s songs. UNCUT also did an ultimate music guide to Kate Bush. They wrote about her videos, reviewed the albums, and revisited her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. I know there will be new Kate Bush books next year. It is hard to say exactly what form they will take but, given everything that has happened this year, I can see at least a couple coming out! The same goes for magazine articles. I would imagine there’ll be some for The Kick Inside’s forty-fifth anniversary. Its first single, Wuthering Heights, is forty-five in January, so there may be something about that. We will wait and see. There were a couple of Kate Bush books published this year. Someone who has published a few books about Bush, Laura Shenton’s Kate Bush: A Visual Biography is a treat:

“From producing her own albums, to designing her own stage performances, Kate Bush has been an innovator throughout her career. With hits such as ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘Babooshka’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’, her music has always been ethereal and her endearing image has often been regarded as one of mystique. The creativity and the conviction with which she has made her music continue to be an inspiration to not only her legions of fans, but many of her peers. In celebration of Kate’s entire career to date and complemented with a narrative by Laura Shenton MA LLCM Dip(RSL), this visual biography is packed with photos – many of which haven’t been published before (including several from her 1979 tour)”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Perhaps the most notable release of the year relating to Kate Bush came from Tom Doyle. His excellent and unique biography, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, is a really great read that everyone should own. I would recommend it as a post-Christmas gift for the Kate Bush fan in your life. This is what Waterstones say about the book:

“Re-examining the life and career of one of our most enigmatic pop stars, Doyle's revelatory volume draws from his own interviews with Kate Bush alongside insights from fellow musicians such as Dave Gilmour and John Lydon to create a rounded portrait of an enduring legend.

Kate Bush: the subject of murmured legend and one of the most idiosyncratic musicians of the modern era. Comprising fifty chapters or 'visions', Running Up That Hill is a multi-faceted biography of this famously elusive figure, viewing her life and work from fresh and illuminating angles.

Featuring details from the author's one-to-one conversations with Kate, as well as vignettes of her key songs, albums, videos and concerts, this artful, candid and often brutally funny portrait introduces the reader to the refreshingly real Kate Bush. Along the way, the narrative also includes vivid reconstructions of transformative moments in her career and insights from the friends and collaborators closest to Kate, including her photographer brother John Carder Bush and fellow artists David Gilmour, John Lydon and Youth.

Running Up That Hill is a vibrant and comprehensive re-examination of Kate Bush and her many creative landmarks.

 MEDIA REVIEWS

'Approaching its subject from inspired angles...probably the best Bush book to date' * 4/5 Record Collector *
'Running Up That Hill offers a range of new ways to appreciate the single-minded inspiration that it springs from' * 9/10 Uncut *
'Funny and illuminating. A refreshing take on one of our most complex, gifted artists' * 4/5 Mojo *
'A very beautiful book' -- Chris Hawkins, BBC Radio 6
'An unconventional but insightful biography of the famously reclusive singer songwriter" * Choice Magazine *
'A great gift for a music fan' * My Weekly Magazine *
'A comprehensive rejection of the caricatures that still cling stubbornly to the subject's name' * The Herald *
'(A) celebration of the famously elusive figure" * Woman and Home *
'Even familiar stories or well-worn anecdotes come to life... Doyle imbues them with a freshness. A thoroughly enjoyable read.' * Super Deluxe Edition”.

There have been many articles written about Bush, and I would advise you to seek them out! It has been a strangely eventful year for Kate Bush and her music. Nobody would have guessed that she’d go into 2022 and have this chart success! Breaking records and reaching a whole new generation, it sets up a very interesting 2023. Who knows what the year will bring. Maybe not new music…but there will definitely be a lot of love and coverage. Maybe a book or two, alongside a slew of articles and magazine features. It shows that forty-five years after she came into the music world with a bang, her music still holds…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 1979 for her one-off BBC Christmas television special/PHOTO CREDIT: TV Times/Future Publishing/Getty Images

SUCH beauty and power.

FEATURE: Emerald & Gold: Ten Remarkable Irish Albums from 2022

FEATURE:

 


Emerald & Gold

IN THIS PHOTO: SOAK 

 

Ten Remarkable Irish Albums from 2022

_________

I have looked at great Welsh albums…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Hannah Peel/PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Heartfield

in a previous feature, and I have looked to Scotland this year. This year, to me, has seen some truly phenomenal Irish artists release some terrific music. I am including those from EIRE and Northern Ireland. Nations that have never been short of talent and huge originality, some of the absolute best of 2022 have come from native Irish acts or artists based here. It is hard to whittle down, but I have selected ten that have caught my eye. They include Irish groups, solo artists and duos (in the case of Bernard Butler & Jessie Buckley, Buckley is from Killarney). Ending a brilliant year for music, below are ten stunning works from the beautiful nations. If you missed any of these albums from earlier in the year, then make sure that you…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Pillow Queens/PHOTO CREDIT: Rich Gilligan

GIVE them a listen today.

______________

Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler - For All Our Days That Tear the Heart

Release Date: 17th June

Label: EMI

Producer: Bernard Butler

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/jessie-buckley-and-bernard-butler/for-all-our-days-that-tear-the-heart

Standout Tracks: The Eagle & the Dove/Seven Red Rose Tattoos/I Cried Your Tears

Key Cut: For All Our Days That Tear the Heart

Review:

“Is pain the most valuable of all feelings? This is a question that underpins Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler’s collaboration. Both artists have come to this record with singular histories — Buckley as an Oscar-nominated actor, and Butler, formerly of Suede, then a solo star — yet there is a cogent sensibility.

Part of this collaboration is down to Butler’s manager, who introduced the pair, feeling that there might be a sympathy. It is perhaps to be found in the Irish connection, but also a shared love of artists from Nina Simone to Pentangle to Talk Talk. They have previously spoken of wanting people to discover the record “as if they have tripped across a box of photographs in the back of their closet”, and there is certainly something mysterious and fundamental at work.

The Eagle and the Dove opens with fierce intention, a work that seems to dance on a kind of musical tension, with Buckley’s impressive vocal sweeping and soaring, interrogating darkly lit corners, and Butler’s playing at once complex and understated. The album folds in so many elements — elevated folk, classical, blues and rock — and there are lovely moments everywhere. From the lonely-sounding trumpet and piano melody in For All Our Days That Tear the Heart that frames Buckley’s assertion that “we want to be things we’re not”, it is all orchestral intimacy. The sea-shanty folk of 20 Years A-Growing (inspired by Maurice O’Sullivan’s 1933 memoir) mirrors the elegant sadness of Shallow the Water, and The beautiful Seven Red Rose Tattoos is built upon a sense of contradiction, where “sunbathing in the rain” is posited as a natural state of affairs.

Contradiction is everywhere, going back to that central question about the value of pain. How do we know if it has been worth it? Babylon Days tries to answer, as Buckley’s supple voice flies optimistically around Butler’s evocative guitar, and the softness of the reedy fiddle on Footnotes on the Map complements its strident male choir. A bluesy sway adorns We’ve Run the Distance and I Cried Your Tears, and Beautiful Regret shows the range of Buckley’s voice, where she is reminiscent of Karen Carpenter, or on We Haven’t Spoken About the Weather, where perhaps Feist fronts Kings of Convenience. But the doleful vocal intelligence is all her own.

Catch the Dust is an affectingly wheezing prayer to “catch the dust of a memory from a photograph”, that dust evocative of a time once-lived, that life is a precious, fleeting gift, and even amid pain, still remains compelling” – The Irish Times

CMAT - If My Wife New I'd Be Dead

Release Date: 22nd April

Label: AWAL

Producer: Oli Deakin

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/cmat/if-my-wife-new-id-be-dead

Standout Tracks: I Don’t Really Care for You/Lonely/Communion

Key Cut: Nashville

Review:

“Considering her sweepingly-coiffed, tassels ’n’ rhinestones aesthetic, perhaps the most surprising thing about country pop jokester CMAT’s debut is that a fair whack of the grammatically-perplexing ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’ isn’t nearly as country as you might imagine. Though it opens with a paean to escaping to Nashville and closes with a yeehaw-worthy one-two of self-explanatory previous single ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’ and the twanging, acoustic string plucks of ‘I’d Want U’, there’s plenty nestled in between that pulls from shimmering pop (‘No More Virgos’), American indie (‘Every Bottle (Is My Boyfriend)’) and plenty more besides. It’s a smart move that means ‘If My Wife New…’ feels like a more well-rounded, modern proposition than one solely indebted to the oldest style going could suggest. While CMAT’s love of soaring, dusty melodies and heart-on-sleeve emoting is evident, she’s also a keenly specific storyteller, musings over adulterous film directors on ‘Peter Bogdanovich’ and throwing in references to Bacardi Breezers and Marian Keyes on ‘I Don’t Really Care For You’. It all works together, amping up the winking, cheeky side of country while also showing CMAT to be an artist enthralled by the genre but not beholden to it” – DIY

Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia

Release Date: 22nd April

Labels: Partisan/Rough Trade

Producer: Dan Carey

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/fontaines-d-c/skinty-fia

Standout Tracks: Big Shot/Jackie Down the Line/Skinty Fia

Key Cut: I Love You

Review:

“Fontaines DC will never not be an Irish band. It’s embedded in their lyricism, their imagery, every note that drips from Grian Chatten’s unmistakeable drawl. And yet as they adjust to being one of the world’s breakout rock acts, they’ve often spoken of having to find new ways to carry their identity with them, to keep each record connected to home even as success takes them further and further away.

In ten songs, ‘Skinty Fia’ tackles a range of increasingly dour topics: consumption, greed, corruption, despondency, isolation, heartbreak. It’s heavy, but never heavy-going; cinematic is an easily lauded term, but these are definitely tales of literary prowess, showcasing their growing ability to shape an atmospheric sound. Very few rock bands are doing hooks as well as they are right now; the drum’n’bass breakdown of opener “In ár gcroíthe go deo” (meaning In Our Hearts Forever) comes as both a surprise and an immediate reminder not to pigeonhole, while the title track borders on a ‘90s basement groove, not outrageously dissimilar to what you might expect from a Kasabian or Stone Roses offering. ‘Jackie Down The Line’ reveals Nirvana as a bigger influence than ever, but there are shades of Oasis too - ‘How Cold Love Is’, ‘Roman Holiday’ ‘I Love You’. The latter’s unspooling, retooling and then even bigger race to the finish has the kind of relentlessness that only the deftest of songwriting talents can truly pull off, capturing fury and confusion without ever compromising on dynamics. Described by the band as their most political song to date, its melody seems determined to burrow its way into the brain, deepening its message of propaganda patriotism.

On meditative shanty ‘The Couple Across the Way’, Grian struggles to unpick himself from the woven tapestry of the world’s ills, contemplating his melancholy role: “All the mirrors face the walls and I wake just to long for bed/ ‘Love what’s got you so down low? / The saddest tongue is in your head!’”. Similar to ‘I Love You’’s confessional, it speaks of the unsettling nostalgia that so many of us feel when we leave our home towns behind, the sadness of distance between future and past. By shedding light on Ireland’s struggles, Fontaines DC serve only to highlight their nation’s enduring character, the reasons why it is so central to their beating heart. For those who missed the rabble-rousing of ‘Dogrel’ but liked the darkness of ‘A Hero’s Death’, this record splits the perfect difference, sealing it along the middle with the superglue of a band who now know exactly where they’re going. Truth be told, they’ve never been more at home” – DIY

Pillow Queens - Leave the Light On

Release Date: 1st April

Label: Royal Mountain Records

Producer: Thomas McLaughlin

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/pillow-queens/leave-the-light-on

Standout Tracks: Be By Your Side/Hearts & Minds/Historian

Key Cut: No Good Woman

Review:

“The Irish quartet have always been pretty exceptional at making main character music; think fireside evenings with friends and roof-down road trips in summer. It’s why their feature on the coming-of-age Dating Amber soundtrack made so much sense, and it’s a spirit that’s kept alive throughout their most recent project. On Leave The Light On, their sound is cohesive without being one note; they take their time without labouring the point.

The record opens with the thumping heartbeat on “Be By Your Side”, building up to its chorus before falling back on dreamy harmonies. As frontwoman Pam explains, the track explores “the feeling of being about to burst and how cathartic it could be to allow yourself to let your emotions out and feel the world around you.” A similar level of catharsis is reached on “No Good Woman” - “pretty much a song about Sisyphus” - as the band rail against unattainable standards and the hopelessness that can come with that.

Across their discography, Pillow Queens have effectively nailed the art of finding those small moments of introspection or insecurity and engulfing them in sound: on “Hearts & Minds” the imposter syndrome they’ve discovered in a male dominated industry is mapped onto the earworming chorus; with “Historian”, it’s the everyday moments of falling in love that match up to a restless instrumental. “Sonically we wanted it to sound like it was tender and delicate but with moments of chaos,” guitarist Cathy explains, “echoing the unexpected nature of it.”

Standout moments from this record are found on the opening riff of “Well Kept Wife” and in the crescendo of “My Body Moves”, but across the record it’s clear that Pillow Queens have truly hit their stride as a band. Leave The Light On strikes the balance between the excitement of an early career and the deliberate precision of seasoned musicians” – The Line of Best Fit

Wallis Bird - Hands

Release Date: 27th May

Label: Mount Silver Records

Producers: Marcus Wüst, Philipp Milner and Wallis Bird

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/wallis-bird/hands

Standout Tracks: What’s Wrong with Changing?/Aquarius/Pretty Lies

Key Cut: DreamWriting

Review:

“Walis Bird’s music has been a staple in the Irish music scene since her first release Spoons in 2007. Her spirited releases have followed those who have been growing in an environment where genres have been mixing and matching such as Saint Sister and Ailbhe Reddy. Now with Hands, Bird faces into her personal history with empathy and the energy that pushes her into legendary status.

Bird captures how exciting trusting yourself can be and Hands is all about taking that leap. Her openhearted lyrics and earthy vocals instil a sense of pride, not only of yourself and the tribulations you’ve been through, but as an Irish person, of how far Ireland has come. On ‘What’s Wrong With Changing?’, tribal drums accompany an empowered Bird who looks back on the progressive actions of her home country.

‘Aquarius’ and ‘Dreamwriting’ float along on childhood memories and fantastical imaginings. The warped echoing guitar and shimmering synths surround the more gentle moments in an ’80s haze.These moments bookend the uplifting chaos as if Róisín Murphy and Kate Bush were playing back to back.

Ultimately, Hands blends fun with reflection; bombastic melodies with passionate confessions. The closing tracks ‘The Dive’ and ‘Pretty Lies’ lead into a wondrous ending that has birdsong and an electric guitar solo working hand in hand. Pushing you to groove one minute and breathe the next, Wallis Bird has crafted a multifaceted record; one that honours her roots” – Loud and Quiet

Aoife Doyle - Infinitely Clear

Release Date: 22nd April

Label: Rannagh Records

Producer: Michael Buckley

Buy: https://aoifedoyle.bandcamp.com/album/infinitely-clear

Standout Tracks: Love Conquers All/Infinitely Clear/Awakening

Key Cut: They Say

Review:

“Aoife Doyle is an artist on a steep upward curve. Her first two albums, This Time the Dream's On Me (2013) and Clouds (2017) were well-received and charted the Wicklow-born vocalist's progress from a fine interpreter of other people's songs to a composer and lyricist who was beginning to find her own voice.

Infinitely Clear, however, is on a whole other level, a gorgeous confection of jazz, folk, soul and country that will surely bring her the attention she deserves and bears comparison – in sound, in finesse, and in its potential to make a star of its creator – with Norah Jones’s debut album. Songs like They Say, Love Conquers All and Strength to be Strong, already released as singles and getting plenty of mainstream domestic airplay, glow with inner warmth and conviction, with more than enough to satisfy the heart and the hips.

Talented musicians

As before, Doyle has gathered around her a group of talented musicians – including her classy regular trio of pianist Johnny Taylor, bassist Andrew Csibi and drummer Dominic Mullan – and brought them into the House of Horns studio in Dublin where producer and master saxophonist Michael Buckley has worked his magic. With gorgeous horn arrangements from Buckley and trumpeter Ronan Dooney, delicate backing vocals from Margot Daly, and further layers of lushness from organist Justin Carroll and guitarist Jack Maher, Infinitely Clear is a heart-warming gem, a classic in the making from an artist who has found her groove and, one senses, is about to be huge” – The Irish Times

Sorcha Richardson - Smiling Like an Idiot

Release Date: 23rd September

Label: Faction Record LTD.

Producer: Alex Casnoff

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/sorcha-richardson/smiling-like-an-idiot

Standout Tracks: Shark Eyes/Purgatory/Jackpot

Key Cut: Spotlight Television

Review:

“Smiling Like An Idiot is, according to Richardson, “about falling in love with a person and a place, which in this case is Dublin, and how those two are interlinked.” Across 11 tracks, we follow her through the stages of relationship that we experience collectively but often do not understand. Sorcha has already become known for writing her biography through her albums, while making it relatable, sincere, always with a little humor sprinkled on top; on the album we hear her process her euphoria, her anxiety, the person she was, her doubts and more.

Melancholic electric guitars with a folksy, almost country twang accented by slide guitars open the album in “Archie”, a song about friendship rather than love. Fear not, she sings away without mentioning those country crutch words “truck”, “beer”, or “girl,” using her lilting vocals to maintain a steady plod until her chorus enters with a cymbal crash, vocal layers, and warmth. The track becomes one of movement in her triumphant lament: “waiting on the weekend / there’s nothing for me here / so don’t you be a stranger / don’t you disappear.”

A moody synth arpeggio opens “Shark Eyes” with an echo of Tangerine Dream. Sorcha’s sweet, innocent vocal belies her intentions; “I ain’t waiting on the outside / looking for your invite…  I’ll just say it outright, I knew it the first night.” She floats around the ups and downs of her love over bright droning synth pads and energetic drums. Collaboration with producer Alex Casnoff (Sparks, Dawes, Harriet) did not prove to be an issue across the distance: she in Dublin, he in LA, and his mark is apparent in tracks like this where he makes the bed and she builds on top.

“Spotlight Television” opens with a chorused electric guitar that reminds of Jane’s Addiction’s “Classic Girl”. Sorcha enters with a honeyed melody and ponders another love found and possibly lost; “we hold our nerve / get the love that we deserve / won’t let the signal die keep calling in the blackout / I won’t let the line go dead.” Full of dreamy harmonies, it’s a windows-open kind of tune.

Ambient synth pads give way to arpeggiated electric guitars and shuffling drums, while Sorcha reflects on a love gone awry in “Stalemate”. Grungy guitars counterpose the acoustic strums and solo violin that raise the final choruses, an uplifting feel that almost contradicts her worries; “don’t you think you got me wrong / yeah, you might have got me wrong.” Sorcha has said she “was trying not to think too much about genre, so the references could be anything from Carole King to LCD Soundsystem” and this is apparent in “Stalemate” and the album as a whole, as so many of the tracks effortlessly cross genre.

“Purgatory” begins with the sounds of a room and sweet synth but dissolves into distorted stabs and fuzzed out guitars. Sorcha trudges through seven terraces of her love story: the tone gets a bit darker for a spell but we see again her melodic craft and lyricism. I can’t tell if her purgatory is closer to heaven or hell, but with the way she lays it out, I would take either with her.

During her time living in her grandparents’ home, she wrote a string of tracks right after the next: “Jackpot”, “Holiday”, “Good Intentions”, and “Starlight Lounge”. The latter was released as a standalone single, while the rest appear here on Smiling Like An Idiot. As she explains: “the stakes in these songs feel high, these moments are so charged and magnetized, and I wanted the music to match that adrenaline.”

“Jackpot” is an acoustic ballad full of coffee-shop-vibing. “Holiday” lifts the levels just a bit but makes it clear the tracks were siblings in the writing process. It’s a natural sounding track, and it’s not hard to imagine lying in a room with the songwriter “playing songs on the speakers.” Any song opening with happy claps gives you the warm and fuzzies of her anthemic evolution.

While the album’s themes could be taken as melodramatic, Sorcha’s coy lyricism lifts the album to a level of sophistication on par with her contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers. Among the main themes on the album is the insecurity one feels in a new relationship, and Sorcha has said: “There’s a need to take a leap of faith and ask someone to take a bet on you, or to take a bet on you when you’re not sure you would bet on yourself.” This could also be an allegory for the experience of releasing an album, and Smiling Like An Idiot is absolutely one to bet on” – Beats Per Minute

SOAK - If I never know you like this again

Release Date: 20th May

Label: Rough Trade

Producer: Tommy McLaughlin

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/soak/if-i-never-know-you-like-this-again

Standout Tracks: purgatory/get well soon/swear jar

Key Cut: last July

Review:

“SOAK’s first two albums had already established their brand of queer indie-rock befitting a coming-of-age soundtrack, so it wasn’t surprising to hear them featured on episode six of Heartstopper last month. Now, their third record is “the most accurate picture” of themselves to date, written over the long months of the pandemic. “I felt no pressure at all,” they explain. “It was almost like I was ranting as I was writing.” Complete with dreamy guitar bends, gorgeous harmonies, and a candid lyricism that Phoebe Bridgers would be proud of, If I Never Know You Like This Again has undoubtedly delivered a hat-trick for the Derry-born artist.

From examining uncertainties on “purgatory”, the record moves to one of its highlights, “last july”, a near anthemic pop track set against a wall of guitar that echoes the sound of fellow Irish rockers Pillow Queens. From there. SOAK’s talent of tongue-in-cheek writing truly comes into its own: “what if you fall in love overnight / with some posh boy on a gap year?” they fret on “bleach”, an intimate confession of their insecurities as a lover. The heartbreaking “get well soon” strikes a similar balance between the serious and the cynical: agonising over words unsaid to late friends, and of ongoing mental health struggles, they offer the weak suggestion that “maybe we should hang a ‘live laugh love’ sign”.

Another of the record’s standouts is “baby, you’re full of shit”. “I probably won’t listen to your podcast,” SOAK concedes with brilliantly brutal indifference, refusing to make any more excuses for a walking red flag. That they were ranting as they were writing can be heard most obviously at the tail-end of the album, as “red-eye” relives the feelings of displacement on a trip to America with restless frustration. That energy carries on into “neptune” - an epic of a crescendo that almost reaches seven minutes in length. It would, perhaps, have made sense to leave this as the record’s conclusion, but the epilogue track, “swear jar”, is far from an afterthought. “Where have I been all my life? / Watching myself from the sidelines,” SOAK muses over an acoustic guitar and haunting harmonies. It’s as much a moment of catharsis as “neptune”: where the first came wrapped in energy and volume, the album’s true finale is found in quiet self-reflection” – The Line of Best Fit

Hannah Peel - The Midwich Cuckoos (Original Soundtrack)

Release Date: 3rd June

Label: Invada Records

Producer: Hannah Peel

Buy: https://hannahpeelmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-midwich-cuckoos-original-score

Standout Tracks: Cuckoo/Hive Screams/A Pattern

Key Cut: Pregnant

Review:

“Deeply unnerving but weirdly consoling at the same time – rather like the children who have mysteriously arrived in the town!

Peel’s ability to portray pastoral scenes through her electronics is a massive bonus, for some of the scene setting is exquisite, matching the rich green shades of the production. Yet there is often a dark undercurrent to the writing and a sense of profound unease, especially when describing the hive mind the children have in place. This is done with a single pitch of changing colour and tonal quality, an eerie echo rebounding as though off the walls of a quarry. Lasting comfort is hard to find, though there is brief solace in the mother-child relationships that are formed.

Peel writes descriptively, her melodies portraying the strength of emotion on show from the mothers towards their children, but the deep drones and atmospherics tell a very different story, revealing the layers at work in the youngsters’ minds.

The title music itself is otherworldly, suggesting the intervention of beings from well beyond this planet, and quoting the birdsong of the cuckoo which has at its heart the promise of spring. The Cuckoo music takes the form of the bird as it grows, with the telling lyric “In June, I change my tune”. The Midwich Cuckoos Theme is dark indeed, blotting out the light in a haunting 20 second salvo” – arcana

Just Mustard – Heart Under

Release Date: 27th May

Label: Partisan Records

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/just-mustard/heart-under

Producers: Just Mustard

Standout Tracks: Still/Blue Chalk/In Shade

Key Cut: Mirrors

Review:

“Since the release of their debut album ‘Wednesday’ in 2018, Dundalk five-piece Just Mustard have been gradually shifting their sound towards something more uncategorisable. Through the singles ‘Frank’, ‘October’ and ‘Seven’ as well as tours with Fontaines D.C. and gigs alongside The Cure, the band’s sound has slowly shifted towards heavier, noisier tones and left behind the shoegaze tag that has followed them around since the release of their debut. On ‘Heart Under’, their second album and first for Partisan, they present themselves as a truly unique gem.

Across the whole of the new album, Just Mustard’s instruments are used inventively, finding new corners of untouched landscape. The scything sound that begins ‘Still’ sounds like industrial machinery firing up, rather than the noise of a guitar, and the dual attack of guitarists David Noonan and Mete Kalyoncuoglu is the album’s main focus throughout. The pair are constantly stretching their instruments to new levels, sounding like everything from wailing sirens (‘23’) to techno synths (‘Seed’), while also often providing watery, ambient beauty (‘Mirrors’). It contrasts beautifully with the warm melodies of Rob Clarke’s basslines and Katie Ball’s deeply atmospheric vocals.

Speaking to NME recently, guitarist David Noonan said that the band thrive when “finding ways of arranging songs with traditional rock band instrumentation, but trying to find ways of doing it that reflect other types of music that we are interested in, not just guitar-based music.” Many of the choices made on ‘Heart Under’ feel deliberately picked in order to avoid easy categorisation, but the conviction with which the band go through with them makes them feel purposeful, rather than purely an exercise in doing something different for the sake of it.

After being self-produced by the band at Donegal’s Attica Studios and then finished at home once the pandemic hit, they enlisted David Wrench, one half freak-pop duo Audiobooks, whose production credits include The xx and Frank Ocean, to mix the record. As such, ‘Heart Under’ skews away from the traditional structures of rock music – there are no ‘choruses’ as such here – and seems to rise and fall on its own timeline, be it at the cacophonous end of single ‘I Am You’ or right out of the gate on the harsh, metallic ‘Seed’; this is music that keeps you guessing.

The band have said they want ‘Heart Under’ to feel like the experience of driving through a tunnel with the windows down. Through deliciously inventive musicianship they’ve created something even more thrilling” – NME

FEATURE: Fear na hÉireann: A Tribute to the Wonderful Michael Byrne and the Beautiful Book, Finding Kate

FEATURE:

 

 

Fear na hÉireann

 IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Byrne and Marius Herbert (Finding Kate)

 

A Tribute to the Wonderful Michael Byrne and the Beautiful Book, Finding Kate

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ANY passing away that relates…

to Kate Bush is very sad, but there was something particularly heartbreaking about the fact author and writer Michael Byrne died on Christmas Eve. On a day of wonder, expectation, excitement and happiness, someone who is so important to the Kate Bush community left us. I have been re-reading a book that he helped to bring together, Finding Kate: An illustrated journey through five decades of the music of Kate Bush. What he did, alongside illustrator Marius Herbert, was to bring Bush’s unique, always remarkable and poetic lyrics to life. I think that many listen to her music and focus on the vocals. Maybe not recognising the beauty, originality, power and depth of her words, Finding Kate was a book that immersed you inside some of her best-known and lesser-heard tracks. With Michael selecting some excellent and memorable lines, and Marius producing these stunning images, the book is a must-own for established Kate Bush fans and new converts alike. The Twitter account is still active. I am going to get to the book and why I love it so much in a bit. First, from the Finding Kate book official website, the sad announcement of Michael’s death was announced:

“We are heartbroken to let you know that Michael sadly passed away on Christmas Eve after a short illness.

Michael was incredibly passionate about Kate Bush’s music and about the artist herself. He was driven to share this passion with fellow fans and also hoped he might draw in new fans through his beautifully written book.

 IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Byrne and Marius Herbert (Finding Kate)

Michael produced many books over the years but ‘Finding Kate’ was a labour of love for him and it is what he is most proud of. He was initially a little anxious about how the book might be received, particularly from dedicated Kate Bush fans, but the book has been sold all over the world and the positive feedback we have been receiving back since the first copy was sent out has been quite phenomenal.

Michael found great joy in hearing from people who have said that the book has touched them or helped them in some way. Kate Bush fans have told us that they have read things in the book that they never knew about her before but also that they felt that they got to know a little bit about Michael through his writing in the book

We will keep Michael’s legacy going and hope that people will continue to enjoy this book for many years to come. It is definitely what Michael would have wanted.

>> Deirdre and Marius <<”.

Prior to coming to my thoughts and recollection of Michael Byrne, here are some details about the essential and gorgeous Finding Kate. It is a book that I hope will reach the hands of Kate Bush fans for many years to come:

“An illustrated journey through five decades of the music of Kate Bush

In 1978 a then totally unknown teenage girl topped the UK Singles Chart with her debut single Wuthering Heights and in doing so became the first female artist to achieve a UK number one hit with a self-penned song. In 1980, aged 20 she was also the first British female solo artist to to enter the album charts at number one with Never For Ever, her third studio album. Her career currently spans five decades and she has had twenty five UK Top 40 singles in that time. As a singer, songwriter, musician, dancer and record producer she has been a groundbreaking artist in the truest sense of the word, often laying bare her soul in her songwriting and she is someone who has never been afraid to take risks creatively.

Finding Kate is a large, beautifully produced coffee table book that sets out to visually and textually explore her eclectic and often experimental musical style, her unconventional lyrics and in doing so celebrate the genius of one of the true icons of British music – Ms. Kate Bush”.

 IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Byrne and Marius Herbert (Finding Kate) 

“Finding Kate explores a selection of the author Michael’s favourite Kate songs which he has chosen from her extensive five decade long career, each one conceptually visualised as double page spreads with accompanying text detailing song facts, together with his own personal insights into the music – all beautifully digitally illustrated by Marius. The book is broken into five chronological chapters each covering a defined period in time, plus there will be other interesting Kate content related to her recorded work to date (we say ’to date’ because as fans we really hope there is more to come!).

As nearly all of the photographs that have been shot of Kate over the years are very familiar to fans through their constant use both online and in press, the aim of the book is to create vivid and exciting ‘illustrated visuals’ which will be new to fans. These ‘illustrated visuals’ will be based on original photographs (which we are licensing the rights and paying for) and which will connect with the text and visually explore the themes in Kate’s songs.

Like all of Kate’s own work, this book will be produced like a labour of love to the highest possible standard, both at the design and the print production stages. Michael and Marius alone will conceptualise, write, create, illustrate and handle the pre press stages of the book.

Finding Kate was launched on December 3rd 2021 and has been enthusiastically received by both the music press and fans of Kate Bush worldwide. It is currently in stock and ships immediately upon purchase”.

  IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Byrne and Marius Herbert (Finding Kate)

Michael Byrne kindly credited me in the acknowledgements of the book. Whilst it was being written and compiled, he asked me about Kate Bush songs and whether there were any I would particularly recommend. I suggested some of her songs I felt were quite underrated and had particularly good lyrics. Alongside more obvious songs, there is a nice selection of deeper cuts that made it into the book. During the pandemic, me and Michael had a Zoom chat. He didn’t need to do it but, thankful for my input, we had a great chat. He was calling from Ireland, and we discussed the book and how it came together. It was clear from the chat and the many Twitter messages we exchanged how he was passionate about Bush and her music in a way I had never seen before! I thought I was passionate about Bush’s music, but Michael’s knowledge, enthusiasm and curiosity was on another level! He had this innate understanding of her lyrics and why particular songs were effecting and standout. This is reflecting in the marvellous Finding Kate. It is a book that I will treasure and will come back to time and time again. The combination of Michael’s lyrical selections and words, together with those sublime images makes it a visual feast! Thanks to Michael, the book has given me a new appreciation for Kate Bush. I have explored songs of hers I hadn’t listened to for a while. I have also thought deeply about Bush’s words and what they mean to people. How they connect. Why they are so timeless and moving.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Michael Byrne, Mandy Watson (Cloudbusting) and Marius Herbert in Dublin, July 2022

It was a privilege to speak with Michael and exchange messages for months. He explained to me a while ago how he suffered an accident and was out of commission for a while. Even though that, he was optimism and still had that drive and love for Kate Bush in his heart. I know how hard it was to get the Finding Kate book funded and to the people. It was a labour of love for Michael and Marius, and their commitment and hard work made Kate Bush happen. Even though we sadly say goodbye to the great Michael Byrne, his amazing contribution and legacy will live forever. I want to end with some beautiful words from Kate Bush News. In December 2021, the Kate Bush Fan Podcast spoke with Michael about Finding Kate. Go and listen to it now:

“Michael, a kind, industrious, soft-spoken man who ran a creative publishing company in Dublin, first came to my attention during lockdown in 2020 – contacting me to feel out an ambitious, high quality Kate Bush coffee table book project, Finding Kate, that he was undertaking with his colleague, the supremely talented Irish designer and illustrator, Marius Herbert. Needing something to throw his endless energy into while business took a pandemic downturn, his passion and sincerity as a fan managed to convince me that this was going to be special so I was on board, plugging his crowdfunding campaign (it wasn’t a cheap book to produce) and helping to spread the word. Michael succeeded in getting interviews on national Irish radio and press articles about the book, and I am delighted that we got the chance to record an episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast together all about the Finding Kate project. You can hear it here – it’s so wonderful to be able to hear him talk last year about realising his dream project. The detailed effort that went into creating each image is so evident in his voice.

 The early peeks I got of the book were breathtakingly good. The reaction from fans was highly enthusiastic, the book was hailed as a great success. As I wrote before on this site, “it was a joy to leaf through the pages of the book and talk through this impressive piece of work with its clearly relieved and delighted creators. As promised, the book is a visual feast, illustrating twenty six of Kate’s songs across sumptuous double-page spreads. The songs have been chosen by Michael, a major Kate Bush fan (it shows!) who writes beautifully about each song’s significance in Kate’s career and what they mean to him.”

Some of the sumptuous reward items crowdfunders received with their early orders

“The unexpectedly generous introduction sections by Michael throughout constitute a wonderful, concise synopsis of Kate’s recording career, so there’s plenty of great reading here for both casual and more hardcore fans of Kate. But, this large LP-sized book is intended to be a visual feast and Marius has produced some breathtaking images filled with detail and touches that were agonised over for months between the pair – a honeybee flies across the pages from a near psychedelic explosion of Kate in colourful nature imagery (and a familiar yellow sun-design) for Delius, a floating, angel-winged electric guitar poignantly reflects the departed musicians name-checked in Blow Away (for Bill), a water-submerged Kate simultaneously floats, dreamlike, above the planet for Hello Earth, an Irish dancer’s feet captured in whirling mid-step on a flagstone floor for Jig of Life, four glorious pages devoted to A Sky of Honey where the crimson, red and rust of golden hour transform a female figure into an explosion of feathered wings and avian friends, soaring skyward…and so many, many more surprising visuals.”

IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Byrne and Marius Herbert (Finding Kate)

Michael had told me that one of the sparks of inspiration to do the book came from seeing the Kate tribute band Cloudbusting play in The Sugar Club in Dublin, so it was my pleasure just a few short months ago in July to arrange for Michael and Marius to meet the band backstage before their Dublin gig, where he presented the band members with copies of the book. It was plain to see the joy and pride Michael had on his face as he explained the book and thanked the band for spreading Kate’s music out into the world. He was floating on air. I had no way of knowing that was the last time I’d see him, but I’m glad it was such a joyous occasion for him. Very recently, Michael managed to get the book mentioned again on national radio here in Ireland, presenter Ryan Tubridy truly impressed by the book – a flood of new orders ensued. Of course.

Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with Michael’s wife Deirdre, his children Holly, Conor and Alyson and to all his family and friends. He will be terribly missed. An online book of condolence is here. We especially send a big hug to Marius, who patiently and painstakingly helped Michael to put together something that remains utterly unique for Kate’s fans around the world to enjoy. Marius, your illustration work is exquisite. You have done yourself and Michael so very proud. I would urge anyone reading this to get your copy of the book to see it for yourself. It’s available to order worldwide from https://findingkatebook.com/ – RIP Michael, you did it x”.

Michael will be very much missed by us all! In addition to the beautiful tribute from Kate Bush News, there have been some touching tributes and words from those who knew Michael and who have bought the Finding Kate book. I still can’t process the news. I am glad he achieved a dream in getting a book made - and we are very grateful for all that he has given us. I only knew him for a brief time, but it was a real pleasure and honour! When it came to showing love, passion and dedication to Kate Bush’s iconic music, there was…

NOBODY quite like him!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Eyelar

FEATURE:

 


Spotlight

 

Eyelar

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I am recommending an artist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Eyelar

who had a busy 2022 and, to be fair, has been pretty busy since lockdown started in 2020. Perhaps someone who was hoping to be busier and tour more in 2020 and 2021, Eyelar is an artist making up for lost time now! There are not that many more recent interviews with her, but I wanted to look back at one from 2020, one from 2021, plus a relatively new one from late last year. One reason I am featuring her here is because she has been tipped for greatness this year. The Dutch-born, London-based Eyelar Mirzazadeh is a sensational artist everyone needs to look out for through 2023. I am going to come to a few interviews. The Forty-Five chatted with such a bright, hugely talented and passionate artist in 2020. At a time when lockdown was in force, it must have been frustrating that she was not able to get out and play gigs:

“With her animated demeanor and vivid, candyfloss curls, it’s immediately obvious that Eyelar Mirzazadeh doesn’t do shy and retiring. Apparently, she never has.

Speaking today from her mother’s home in Amsterdam, the 24-year-old enthuses about her childhood, recalling how she would voluntarily entertain the guests at her parent’s weekly parties, performing improvised choreography to the Persian music filling the house. By the age of 16 she was effortlessly belting out Mary J Blige ballads on national television, and subsequently made the semi-finals of ‘The Voice of Holland’. Within a few years she established herself as a much sought-after songwriter in London, regularly working with A-listers like Little Mix, Demi Lovato and Charli XCX. But while all of this would have been impossible without her possessing even the mildest of exhibitionist streaks, the Dutch-Iranian singer-songwriter maintains that her sole motivation has always been forging an honest connection with her audience.

That fact is abundantly clear on her debut EP. Produced by her good friend and long-time collaborator Fred Again (Stormzy, Headie One, Jamie xx), ‘Doin It Again’ finds Eyelar delivering four unflinching snapshots from her life. “I got so tired of loving men, so I fucked a girl just to pretend,” she sings over undulating keys on ‘Man Like Her’, a sweetly apologetic ode to a lost night of experimentation. Eyelar’s hurt is palpable on ‘Care Like You’ as she reels off a list of imagined revenge tactics aimed at an ex-partner over twitchy beats and pillowy soft-synths. Meanwhile the title track tackles the difficulties of resisting damaging romantic attachments while swelling beautifully into soulful, electronic-pop from its foundation of sparse, shimmering guitars.

Hey Eyelar, how has lockdown life been treating you?

“Well, for the first two weeks I was a bit like, ‘Fuck, what am I gonna do?’ Because I love making music with my friends in the studio, and that’s what I do every single day, usually. And if I don’t make music I get in a really weird place. But then I decided to pull myself together, so I bought a microphone, fiddled with Logic and I think after about a month I started really writing and recording, and I would shoot and edit videos. It’s been really productive for me, actually – I’ve grown so much. I also tried to learn to skateboard, but I fell really hard. (Laughs)”

So can you tell me more about your route into songwriting?

So I come from a town where nobody does anything other than school stuff. I didn’t know anyone who was creative, basically, so I decided to enter ‘The Voice of Holland’ because I needed to do something. I didn’t tell my parents, because I wanted to see how far I would go, and then I got to the semi-finals. And that was good for me because then I had a way into the music industry.

So after ‘The Voice’ I started writing songs and toplines for DJs and stuff, because that’s what everyone was doing, and then after a year I got really bored of writing dance songs and was like, right, ‘I need to go to London.’ I didn’t know anyone there but I knew if I wanted to make it I needed to go to London. Then I found out that this producer called Distortion was Dutch but lived in London, so I just tweeted him, like, ‘We should work together,’ and he was like, ‘Sure, send me some stuff.’ I did and he really liked my songs, so I literally got on a plane to London to do a session with him and we wrote two songs together. And his manager was like, ‘Wow, who’s this girl?’ and he ended up becoming my manager.”

How has London shaped you as an artist?

“I grew up on hip hop and R&B, because I had a bigger brother who was into that and I always wanted to impress him, but when I came to London I started listening to a lot of rock music. That was something that was quite new to my ears: The 1975, Nirvana, The Clash… I have a really weird song with Brunswick called ‘Fxck You Cause You Were The One’, that’s literally inspired by ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ by The Stone Roses. Those earlier songs I released were my experimental phase, and that was definitely inspired by English music. I think London as a city suits me and my music. London feels like home for me”.

I will come to a quick question and answer interview from Gig Goer from 2021. The last couple of years have been productive and successful for Eyelar, but lockdown and the pandemic has definitely delayed things. 2022 was a busier one, and I think this year is the one where Eyelar breaks through worldwide and is recognised as one of the most striking and remarkable artists around:

“How would you describe the project to someone at a dinner party that’s never heard of you?

Honest lyrics and (what I strive to be) beautiful melodies.

What advice would you give to your pre-lockdown self?

You’re gonna be okay. In fact, I’m giving myself that advice to post lockdown me as well.

How would you sum up your 2020 in one sentence?

Fucked and beautiful. I’ve connected with myself and with people in ways I’ve never connected before.

Name one thing you can’t imagine your life without.

My mum.

What is the most useless talent you have?

I’m weirdly good at ping pong and for someone who doesn’t drink a lot I have a high tolerance for alcohol. I really don’t know why, but I do.

What are your hopes and dreams for 2021?

To FINALLY perform on a stage with people and dance together!!! I’m dying to go out and dance with my friends again.

And also release more music and write the best songs I’ve ever written. I also hope I can keep my room more tidy.

Which artists excite you the most this year?

I’m sorry to say it’s myself.

And finally, what does your music say about you?

It says that I am emotional, expressive and a little bit crazy”.

A sensational artist who I am predicting big things for this year, 1883 spoke with Eyelar about her then-new single, Till You Hate Me, at the end of last year. It is clear that Eyelar has always been determined to be a musician. She was definitely born to bring her wonderful music to a wide audience. I think that she will achieve huge things this year:

“Growing up in The Netherlands you said you didn’t come from a very musical family but dinner parties were aregular fixture which gave you and your friends the opportunity to come up with shows and perform them for everyone. At what point did you realise creating music was what you wanted to do with your life? What do you think you would be doing now had it not been for music, did you ever have a sort of backup plan?

I grew up in a really, really small town and no one was doing anything creative so my interests were not something I shared with anyone really. My parents knew I loved singing because not only would I perform, dance, and sing but I would also find out the lyrics of songs and memorise them all. I would just always be thinking about music and singing. Then I went to high school and no one was doing anything creative but I just knew I was going to do music at some point in my life, I didn’t know how, when, or with who but I just knew it was going to happen. I even found a little diary in my mom’s house from when I must have been around fourteen-years-old that I wrote a manifestation in and it said “When I’m 25 I’m only going to be speaking English, I’m going to be a huge musician, and I’m only going to be making music”. That was at a time when I didn’t even know anyone who was in music or was doing any sort of music at all but I was always writing songs, short stories, and handwritten poems which I still have at home.

Speaking of the old diary you found, it’s been 10 years since you wrote that manifestation you’ve gotten to a point where it has become reality. Do you manifest often?

I manifest a lot, I have a notebook where I journal often and it’s really nice because once a year I go through my old journals just to see what my list of manifestations were and they always change. Most of the things I have written down though have all come true so I am a huge believer and even when I feel like I don’t believe in myself or when I’m really low in energy, I still do it because I just think it’s super powerful. Words are really powerful, especially when they get out of your thoughts and onto paper. I definitely believe in manifesting and it’s nice because the goals I have written so far in my life have mostly come true. You do kind of get to a goal and then your goal shifts and becomes bigger and more specific. You also grow as a person so maybe your goals change. I manifest every day.

It’s always great to be able to look back and see that you have achieved your goals! I also think the more specific, the better. So I’m quite specific. I have the big goals but I also write down really specific things, years, months or even people. It’s quite specific.

Your music career began in 2012 when you appeared on the Voice Of Holland and made it to the semi-finals. You mentioned the reason you did it was because you had to do something when it came to music and it served as a way into the music industry. After the show, you spent time writing for other people before releasing your first single as an artist. Did you feel any pressure when beginning to release music yourself or did it come naturally to you after spending so long creating behind the scenes?

Wanting to release my own songs happened really organically because in the beginning when I moved to London, I was in the studio every day and that’s what I wanted to do. It’s not like I didn’t want to be an artist, I just really wanted to write songs every single day. Also, when I learned what artists were doing and how to do it I was like “Whoa, I just want to be in a studio” so I did that for a while but after a few years I just wrote some songs I didn’t want to give away. It wasn’t a case of “Okay, I’m going to write and then become an artist”  it was more me just writing songs and then some of the ones I was writing I didn’t want to give up. It was actually a really cool moment because I remember having written a song and that was the first time I was like “Oh, maybe I should release this” but I only thought about it, I didn’t do anything. I was in West London in Sarm Studios and that day my manager called me about that song and he was like “Should this not be your song?” And I was like “Oh my god, that’s crazy” and that was the first time this whole process started happening, at a super slow pace.

I think there is definitely a certain pressure that I didn’t feel. There is always pressure when you’re in the industry but I’m also someone who puts pressure on myself, that’s just my personality. My parents moved from Iran basically because there wasn’t a future for me and my brothers so I always felt pressure to do well in whatever I was going to do so when I started releasing my own songs I felt the pressure of comparing myself to other people. I would be looking at the numbers, if you have 100 positive comments and one of them is negative, you tend to fixate on that one which is something that’s very unnatural and weird. It’s like a different kind of pressure you have to navigate your way through.

You take a lot of inspiration lyrically from things that have happened in your life and conversations you have had and said lyrics are the most important part for you. Does your writing process differ at all when writing for other people rather than for yourself? Or do the two tend to converge?

No, it’s definitely different because when I’m writing for someone else, usually I’m in a room with them and it’s more about writing a song that is the artist or collaborator’s story. It’s all about talking and usually, from that hour or two hours that we talk and hang out, there’s already a song concept–well, on a good day anyway! When I’m writing for myself, it’s less of a pop approach. It’s more a case of just letting everything come out and hoping that it’s a good song.

Rather than thinking within a pop formula, just let everything out and see what happens…

Yeah, see what happens and maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not but it’s definitely more a train of thought where I just let it all come out. When I write for other people, whether they’re in the room or not, it’s a different approach.

You mentioned when you came to London that you had quite a bit of inspiration from listening to bands like Nirvana and Hole. Who would you say are some of your biggest inspirations, musically?

That’s a really hard question because I’ve written so many songs in different genres. I’m from an Iranian background and grew up in Holland before moving to London so I grew up on hip hop and R&B and have so much music I love. For me, I think it’s if the storytelling is good. That’s why I really love Kurt Cobain, with his lyrics it feels like you’re inside his mind and I really love that. Equally, I think Taylor Swift does it as well. Those are things I really love but I also love artists who make you feel like you can express freely so for that reason I love Madonna as well, she’s done so much for female pop culture. I think there’s inspiration everywhere, even with Tupac, I love listening to his songs and looking at the lyrics. Sometimes I read the lyrics as the song is playing because Tupac is also a really good storyteller. For me, it’s any artist who is a great storyteller”.

If you have not listened to Eyelar’s amazing music, then go and follow her and make sure she is a permanent part of your listening this year! I discovered her fairly recently, but I have no doubt that she is going to be a huge proposition. A stunningly original and accomplished artist already, there is a wonderful career ahead of her. One hit of her music is enough to…

SEDUCE the senses.

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