Chemtrails – Watch Evil Grow
‘Watch Evil Grow’ is the second single off the long-awaited debut album from Chemtrails, the project of Mia Lust and Laura Orlova. An addictive shot of fuzzy guitar licks and hip swinging percussion, infused with their double pronged insiduous harmonies, that link arms and tred on each others ties as they burst through your front door with a melody that burrows its way into your brain and won’t let go. Its an unstoppable tuneful visitation from two twisted sisters. Their debut LP, titled Calf of the Sacred Cow, is due on February 9, 2018 via PNKSLM Recordings.
MILE ME DEAF – Love Int
MILE ME DEAF aka Austrian mastermind Wolfgang Möstl returns with his new album ‘Alien Age’. Calling it a ‘swan song for the human race..’ and ‘offers a tongue-in-cheek infatuation with extraterrestrial visitations, human extinction, and all manners of bizarreness from the depths of the internet.’ The first track ‘Love Int’ is a luxurious suite of 70s’ lounge pop dappled with wonderful flutes, saxophone solos and bubbling beats, redolent of the undulating sample patchworks of Air and Beck at his most sumptuous and playful. If there’s a party to celebrate the upcoming end of civilisation then this would be colourful soundtrack. Utterly delicious. (BC)
Perfect Body – Getting Colder
As we plunge to the depths of Winter let me introduce you to emerging Cardiff group Perfect Body, Their apt debut ‘Getting Colder’ posssess clattering percussion, that’s drenched in wave upon wave of clanging distortion peddle guitars that sheet-like spitting rain on a grey day, while ghostly female vocals are whistling around your head and enveloping your heart. The obvious touch points of Slowdive are present and correct, but there’s a darker more sinuous, unsettling gloomy majesty at work with Perfect Body, one that suggests carvernous wells of potential. (BC)
Lissie – Blood and Muscle
Lissie’s last album chronicled her extended sojourn in California. The new one, Castles, which will be released in March, comes two years after she was ensconced back in her native mid-West, having found her “40 acres in the sun”. Judging from this song, the second single to be released, it will be less whimsical than its predecessor and earthier, as she seeks out here a love made of ‘Blood and Muscle’. She’ll surely find it somewhere out there on her ranch.
While she’s chock full of good intent and philanthropy, there’s something about Lissie that suggests that if you sought her out while passing through Iowa you’d find her in the local dive bar, in her dressing gown, playing pool, swigging a bottle of Miller Lite, chewing tobacco and turning the local rednecks redder still with colourful language. And long may it continue. (DB)
Lissie will tour the UK next April, with three dates announced so far, in London, Manchester and Glasgow.
O-SHiN – Walking Water
O-SHiN is Berlin-based but having rejected the collective input of various producers she headed to, and recorded her second single, Walking Water, in the Swedish countryside, living in a cabin with several ad-hoc musical acquaintances. They employed not only some exotic instruments they discovered there, but also the natural sounds they found around them and launched the project called O-SHiN
The song is about taking risks in life, its transience, and death, and believing anything is possible. It’s certainly catchy in the way that another relatively new entrant to the business, Vivienne Chi, manages on her material; the harmonies are exotic, while the O-SHiN vocals channel Banks at times. (DB)
https://soundcloud.com/o-shinmusic/walking-water
Walking Water is self-released and is available on Spotify and Soundcloud. There is no word yet about an EP or album.
Eloïse – Now He Wears White
There’s something Banks-ish about Colchester’s Eloïse Keeble, too, though she has also been compared with a host of others, including Lorde and Sigrid, which is a mighty fine top table to aspire to. She’s still young, only 18, but has a trio of singles under her belt, of which ‘Marie Antoinette’ and ‘Studio 54′ garnered widespread praise. That’s an impressive range of subject matter – a French Queen and a 1980’s New York nightclub – for someone who was still a schoolgirl when she wrote them and on Now He Wears White she brings Elvis and Jesus on board.
An R&B artist who is able to incorporate electronic pop flourishes and often sinister lyrics, her contralto vocals suggest an older, wiser head. It’s no surprise to learn that Lana Del Rey is her chief influence and you can hear it in this track. Damon Albarn apart, Colchester doesn’t have a great record of producing successful artists. A somewhat similar one to Eloïse, Polly Scattergood, should have been a megastar by now but isn’t. Over to you, Eloïse. (DB)
https://soundcloud.com/eloiseofficial/now-he-wears-white-2
‘Holy Fool’ is the debut single from the latest signings to the legendary Wall of Sound label, Milton Keynes-based trio Sir-Vere, a fusion of rock and electronic elements that the label is dubbing RDM. It kicks off like one of Prodigy’s more high-octane workouts, adds some a Josh Wink-style acid throbbing, and tops it off with a scorching guitar riff and some icy, brooding vocals straight from the school of early 80s electropop. It’s an intoxicating combination that’s further enhanced by its promo which goes to unravel a little of the song’s mysterious meaning, attacking the hypocritical co-option of religious rhetoric by unscrupulous politicians. So, who is the ‘Holy Fool’ in question? We’re saying nothing, but yes, that is Trump Tower you can see in the video.(DB)
