WAW: The Marias - ABQ

The Marias - ABQ 
Directed, produced, written and edited by María and Ian Lipton

 

March Singles Round Up

April Singles Round Up

Lighthouse Family - My Salvation


Patience - The Girls Are Chewing Gum


The KVB- Violet Moon
<

MorMor - Outside


SOAK - Deja Vu


Automelodi featuring Liz Wendelbo - Les Métros Disparus


Cold Showers - Faith


Bananarama - Stuff Like This


Shura - BKLYNLDN

Next Wave: Pale Moon

Pale Moon is an Icelandic/Russian Psychedelic group which consists of Natalia Sushchenko and Árni Guðjónsson who met in Barcelona and decided to start making music together. Their music was primarily inspired by the Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac and the Shins and delivers captivating melodies and lush Neo-Psych textures in the vein of the 70’s sound. Both Natalia and Arni were having a musical experience prior to forming Pale Moon and Arni already has had a great track record with music which is most notable for his work with “Of Monsters and Men”. Natalia on the other hand decided to take road with design. 

This month they released their debut EP titled ‘Dust of Days’ with three songs. Each song tickles different themes and even musical genres, the unique voice of Pale Moon glues together into familiar yet fresh sound. Both Arni and Natalia are providing vocals in their songs where Arni masters the  instrumentation and musical arrangement. You can preview their music on Spotify now. 

https://www.palemoonmusic.com/ 

WAW: Cold Showers - Faith

Cold Showers - Faith -Motionless 
Directed & Edited by Chris Slater 

Fragrance Release Debut Album 'Now I'm Not Real

Fragrance. a French project led by Matthieu Roche whom we introduced last year on our page, has released his debut album 'Now That I’m Real'. His music remains on the edge between melancholic synthpop and dancing electronics, where his heady soft vocals meet catchy beats and sharp synths.

Where his previous EP, 'Dust & Disorders', was a claustrophobic « huis-clos », turned on inside fears, Fragrance.’s debut album is a first step towards the outside. Semi-dreamed stories, relationship spirals and a thirst for liberation and relief are the themes haunting the 11 original tracks of 'Now That I’m Real'.

That’s why Matthieu Roche naturally opens his world for the first time to collaborations with different artists — both visually, with the participation of parisian clubkid artist Tiggy Thorn and photographer Marie Rouge, as musically, with Canadian musician Maya Postepski (aka Princess Century, known for her work within Austra and TR/ST) and with Hélène de Thoury (from Hante. & Minuit Machine).

Now That I'm Real will be available on Gold Vinyl (limited to 200 copies) and digipack cd (limited to 300 copies).

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/thisisfragrance/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQewyYCrKxTzhAhAgfZ_EGg
https://www.instagram.com/fragrance.music/
https://open.spotify.com/album/1eI45qyMkm9O4OdOQnxQRr?si=OT4o8YmjSQ6I9-jmw7kt3Q

In Review: Pond- Tasmania

The Australian band Pond have returned this year with their eighth studio album titled 'Tasmania'. It has been announced as the sister album to their previous release 'The Weather' from 2017. Both albums and like all the others, have been produced by Kevin Baker of Tame Impala fame with whom the band also shares band members and they also tour together.

For their eight studio long player the band is taking us to the Island of Inspiration, or so to say, it feels that the band managed to draw a great deal of inspiration from their native Australia and Tasmania. Like the previous album and most of their releases, this one is in the Psychedelia vein and it explores the new topics with the well kept music formula. It tackles some political and environmental issues, without getting too heavy and remaining on the pop ground. The album opens with "Daisy" and "Sixteen Days", both previously released as singles. "Daisy" is perfect for spring break and a start of new concept, the Geneve inspired "Sixteen days" follow and gets us some French lines and another highlight comes with "Tasmania" and the wonderful chorus "I might, I might go shack up in Tasmania, Before the ozone goes, And paradise burns in Australia" where the synth elements play very well with the proggy guitars. By reaching the middle of the album, the songs get more elaborated, thicker and less immediate, with "Goodnight P.C.C." and "Burned out Star" eventually closing with the apocalyptic "Doctor's In" track. Here and there are nice sound accessories which contribute to the layering of the sound including, retro vocoders, colourful guitars and glitchy forms on "Shame". Another interesting feature is the inviting album cover which seems to be Poloroid inspired and it implies that based on the single released so far that each colour will represents one song on the album.

Colourful as it comes, this psychedelic cocktail will give a nice intro to a Spring start, wherever it may hit, and might also be the preparation for the new Tame Impala album which will hopefully be ready for this summer.

February Singles Round Up

February Singles Round-up 

C'mon Tigre- Behold The Man

 Spellling- Under The Sun

 These New Puritans - Inside The Rose

 Ora The Molecule - Sugar

 Fat White Family - Feet

 Chromatics- Time Rider

 Vampire Weekend- Harmony Hall

Cold Cave- Promised Land

Negative Gemini- You Weren't There Anymore

WAW: Ora The Molecule - Sugar

Ora The Molecule - Sugar 
Video by: Nora Schjelderup + Sju Smatanova 

Red Box Announce New Album 'Chase The Setting Sun'

Red Box will return later this year with their fourth album release in four decades. The new album will be entitled 'Chase The Setting Sun' and was in the process of working since 2016 and it will be released through their official store. So far "This is What We Came for" has been revealed as first single and is available below.

https://www.redboxmusic.co.uk/redbox-music

Kate Bush to Release a Brand New Compilation Plus Single

Kate Bush will release a brand new compilation album titled 'The Other Sides' which will include 12" mixes, b-sides, rare tracks and cover versions and remasters of her biggest hits on 4 CDs (track listing below). Along with this, the video for the song "Rocket Man" has been revealed on Youtube and can be previewed below. Release date, March 8th.

b-Movie Return with New EP 'Repetition'

After last year's return with the 'Repetition' EP, b-Movie are back for another one, and this time, with the remix version of the same EP. Both the original and the remix EP include three tracks, the title tracks plus "Somewhere Cold" and "Stalingrad" which are in the tone of the b-Movie classic sound aesthetics. The original EP was released in November 12th 2018 by Loki Records, while the remix version was issued on February 10th.

Automelodi announce New Album in May

The Monteral based synth pop act Automelodi have announced the release of their third studio album titled 'Mirages au futur verre-brisé'. This is their first new release in six years following the 'Surlendemains acides' from 2013. Their synth wave is still at high level as confirmed by the lead single from the album  “La Poussière". The album is announced for release on May 3rd via Holodeck. 

https://automelodi.bandcamp.com/album/mirages-au-futur-verre-bris 

WAW: C'mon Tigre - Behold The Man

C'mon Tigre - Behold The Man 
Directed by C’mon Tigre and Sic Est CG
Produced by BDC

In Review: Ladytron - Ladytron

Ladytron have released their sixth studio album eponymously entitled ‘Ladytron’ after seven years of hiatus. The album was co-produced by Jim Abbiss, also a reference to the Ladytron’s third album ‘The Witching Hour’ which most people believe is band’s most successful album to date. The latest long player was released in partnership with Pledgemusic and it was promoted with series of singles throughout 2018.

 Originally founded in Liverpool, Ladytron have been in the music business for twenty years now. In the early 00’s they started off well with their very innovative and distinct analogue synth pop form and soon, with the rise of Electroclash, became this style’s ultimate trademark. Towards to the mid 00's the band began to experiment even more with the music, embracing new elements and musical arrangements, becoming more mature and complex in sound.

 The brand new album 'Ladytron' is out today, February 15th, and it has been announced  as being much heavier than their previous work on 'Gravity the Seducer'. And indeed, the album does not have this immediate effect on the listener like the first two promo singles "Animals" and "The Island", but still, it manages to get under the skin. Once again the band returns with dark and very atmospheric sound that spreads over the whole album and it sounds like a compilation of songs and styles from all their albums, in a brand new song collection. The majority of songs on the album are performed by Helen Marnie whereas Mira Aroyo take leads on two tracks, "Paper Highways" and "Horrorscope". The former is also one of the album highlights placed halfway through the record changing the dynamics of the album for better course towards the end. Along "Paper Highways", the singles, the haunting "Figurine", dreamy and hypnotic "The Mountain" and acid "Deadzone" are clearly the high spots on the record. There are tracks where the bouncy synth elements might be over exposed, yet this does not affect album's balance in whole a lot.

This album has not revealed anything ground breaking from Ladytron's end, but overall happy to see that band is back and that we have been able to listen to their first new sound in seven years. With this album they mange to make a very nice comeback and round up Ladytron's body of work that now includes two decades. 


78/100

Negative Gemini - You Weren't There Anymore

Negative Gemini - You Weren't There Anymore - Bad Baby EP 
Directed by Cory Nixon 

Bananarama Return with New Album 'In Stereo'

Bananarama will return with a brand new Album 'In Stereo' this spring. This album will also sign the ten year anniversary since their last studio album in 2009. In 2017 the ladies reunited with former member Siobhan Fahey for a ‘original line-up tour’, but as per media announcements she will not be involved in the works from the new album. The first single, "Dance Music", was released on 18 January 2019 the album will be out on April 19th. 

In Review: Sharon van Etten- Remind Me Tomorrow

American singer and songwriter Sharon van Etten released her fifth studio album 'Remind me Tomorrow' on Jagjaguwar in mid-January. This album, in a way, also marks the ten year anniversary since her eponymous debut in 2008 and comes as a follow up to her 2014 release ‘Are We There'. There is an evident gap of four years which Sharon has been using to explore new grounds with acting and she also gave birth to her first child. New events in life certainly have had an impact on this new content which Sharon presented in ‘Remind me Tomorrow’.

"Remind Me Tomorrow" was produced by John Congleton which already successfully worked with Dirty Projectors and St Vincent. It clocks at 41 minutes and includes ten tracks out of which only one goes over 5 minutes and it seems pretty much like a straight forward release. As we did not experience much of Sharon’s previous work, we will treat this as standalone album review. 
Overall the album has a nice atmosphere and feel, and it is very evident that synth arrangements are taking the leads on this record. All in all, going track by track, there are also small instrumentation parts involved, but very measured which keeps up the listeners attention throughout the record. The decision with the two opening tracks in not something I am very happy about, neither lyrically nor production wise, but somehow this is the path up, to the first highlight of the album, the song “Memorial Day” which together with “Jupiter 4” and “Hands” mark this record's highlights. The blanket of synth ambiance seems to be spread over the most of the album's songs and the diversity and quality comes with the layered elements which bring the right amount of decoration to the sound. Organic elements meet with the synthetic textures and manage to spice it up with glitch drums, quirky synths and drone sounds. At the same time Sharon sticks to her very distinct style and her voice modulates perfectly and remains in the center of things.

Overall the album has a nice narrative and although there are weaker tracks it does not threat the dynamics of the whole album nor does it bore the listener. There do not seem to be exceptional lyrical highlights, yet the Sharon mangers to convey her emotion to the listener. Having also listened her previous album while I am writing this review, only confirms that that Sharon steps beyond her scope to create this new cosmic artwork.

82/100

WAW: Fat White Family- Feet

Fat White Family - Feet - Serfs Up! 

Directed by CC Wade 
Produced by Somesuch & Co

LCD Soundsystem Cover Heaven 17 and the Human League as Part of the Electric Lady Sessions

LCD Soundsystem have released a new live album this week, titled 'Electric Lady Sessions'. The 12-track double-LP was recorded live at the Electric Lady studios in New York. The album features live renditions of cuts from the band’s comeback LP 'American Dream' along with some of the LCD Soundsystem favorites from 80's including The Human League’s “Seconds and Heaven 17’s “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang.” The live album is available to preorder now on vinyl or digitally. 

 

TR/ST to Release a Double Album in 2019

Robert Alfons aka TR/ST will release a double album this year and both will be entitled 'The Destroyer'. As per media announcements, the first part of the album is expected to be more up-tempo where as the Destroyer part 2 will explore more the dark side of electro. The first part of the album i going to be released in April while the second will come in autumn. The first single form 'The Destroyer' part 1 has been revealed this week with the stream on YouTube below.