It’s the last Tracks of the Week of 2022. Revving up for Chrimbo and the New Year after this, where we’ll be bringing you some Best of’s and Tips for 2023. Enjoy these ripsnorters and we’ll see you on the other side. Nice!
Ellur – Now I’m Alone
Why we love it: Ellur says ‘Now I’m Alone’ is “a song I wrote about approaching adulthood and finding myself very much alone with a lot of daunting and difficult feelings.” A stunning torch ballad that strips everything back to a single piano and her vocal, as she looks in the mirror in a raw moment of isolated self-reflection. With a deeply impressive voice that envelops you like a weighted blanket the Halifax born singer delivers a devastating and spine tinglingly vocal performance. You could throw around comparisons like Adele, Alison Moyet or Lana Del Rey but it shows her prodigious songwriting and a vocal talent that’s impossible to ignore.
It follows her epic last single “Best Face On, a song I wrote about going out too much and not wanting to come home,” she explains. “The pair are both the most honest songs I’ve ever written and releasing something so personal is pretty scary.”
“Lee and Rob at Greenmount Studios did an absolutely magical job on the production and really brought to life how it sounded and felt when I wrote the song originally, on the upright piano that’s decades old in my childhood home.” (Bill Cummings)
James Brandon Lewis – The Blues Still Blossoms
Why we love it: “I was thinking about miles of blue fields, that was the visual in my mind,” James Brandon Lewis says of his contemplative new song, ‘The Blues Still Blossoms’. “I wanted a blues that sounded like it was floating and never ending. And new, refreshing. The piece is built on word-like phrasing – I’m not thinking about time at all. It’s like a breathing walk, or a conversation.”
And as descriptions go, it is pretty darn accurate too. Here the acclaimed saxophonist, composer and jazz pathfinder joined considerable forces with Chris Hoffman (electronic cello) and Max Jaffe (drums) both of whom play on James Brandon Lewis’s upcoming album Eye of I, out on February 3, 2023 via ANTI-.
This is the live version of ‘The Blues Still Blossoms’ and here we find the trio getting down fine and mellow. (Simon Godley)
The Zephyrs – Leatherback
Why we love it: The Zephyrs hail from Edinburgh. Their Twitter account attests that their music comes their soul and reels into our souls. And on the evidence of the Scottish five-piece’s latest single ‘Leatherback’ they will not be falling foul of the Trades Description Act anytime soon. I mean, after all, they have been doing this sort of thing for almost a quarter of a century now, locking into a rhythmic groove and dousing it all with delightfully transportive melodies.
‘Leatherback’ is the opening track from what will be their sixth album, For Sapphire Needle, out on 27thJanuary next year via the Spanish label, Acuarela. Originally conceived as a series of EPs based on the seasons in which they were created, the recordings span a year of sessions with long-time collaborator and producer Michael Brennan at his Substation studio, next to a naval port of Rosyth on the Firth of Forth.
Somewhat improbably, this is The Zephyrs first album in 12 years. It’s like they have never been away. (Simon Godley)
NiNE8 – Noodle Poodle
Why we love it: Skillfully marrying dexterous harmonies, pitta patter beat and playful rhyming, surfing hip hop, rave and laid back guitar motifs, woven with tales of relationships and the bonds that bind us, ‘Noodle Poodle‘ is a catchy, refreshing delight, and marks this collective out as an emerging force.
NiNE8‘s Lava La Rue says of the single, “”Noodle Poodle” sonically fits into a genre me and Nige like to jokingly call “Brit Trip”. It’s really hard to describe the genre of any NiNE8 music as it’s such a mash up of what often get slapped under the buzzword umbrella of “lofi uk hip hop” but our most recent songs feel like a real hybrid of brit pop & trip hop influence. Brit pop not just being the alt rock genre but its original meaning of popular British music. I feel like Mike Skinner is a good example of someone who over a decade has encapsulated this fusion sound with unapologetic British lyricism but paired with UK rave/DnB/garage and trippy hip hop drums.”
Mac Wetha adds, “”Noodle Poodle” is a song about relationships written from various different perspectives. We were all writing about the same subject and maybe even about similar events, but everyone’s reactions and points of view differ when it comes to love and friendship, and that’s what this is all about.” (Bill Cummings)
MYNK – Boundaries
Why we love it: With the ‘Boundaries’ MYNK sink their hooks into you with insidious tapestry of shadowy new wave with caustic riffs, and Bex Morrison’s standout vocals that slither with sinister intent in the verse before exploding in a chorus that packs a punch. Coming off like latter Depeche Mode grooving with Garbage this is a song about self-preservation as she rides awesome rocky terrain littered of observations of bad habits and the trappings of unhealthy relationships, when she sings “Lost in this trend / Under your supervision” , it feels like a promise to the end. Super cool. (Bill Cummings)
LINN – Okay, sister
Why we love it: Haunting and beguiling ‘Okay, sister‘ simmers on a bed of acoustic motifs and sepia tinged electronic atmospheres, LINN‘s tone is vulnerable and quivering through this mooted hushed melody that could be sung in your ear in the dead of the evening. Very impressive. Danish artist LINN is gearing up to release her new EP Femte Dimension (out 19th Jan), a beguiling new set of tracks that span unplugged ballads to glitchy electronically manipulated soundscapes.
LINN cut her teeth in other outfits collaborating with the likes of Violent Femmes and Nouvelle Vague, as well as playing alongside Garage and Lydia Lunch, but this new material sees her really come into her own balancing the mesmerising and melodic with the oblique and experimental.
You can check out the single here – the video was also filmed by her 4 year old on an uninhabited island in Southern Europe. (Bill Cummings)
The Honest Poet – 1994
Why we love it: The Honest Poet is an artist we have had a ear out for a few years here at GIITTV, I saw him deliver a wonderful set at . Sewing together elements of heartfelt soul, hip hop and reggae flecked runs, ‘1994’ is his rawest and most powerful cut yet. The Welsh artists impassioned vocals illuminate a soundtrack of scattered pianos, strings and acoustic arpeggios: it tells a personal tale of prejudice, growing up and his mums struggle, punctuated by an affecting chorus a peek inside his diary and a taste of his songwriting talent. The Honest Poet is crafting heartfelt messages we want to listen to. He says: “It’s a song that represents my mums struggles and the gratitude that I have for her for pulling through such a hard time, the line “in 1994 it’s like they never seen a black kid raised before” is like the middle finger to the naivety to the society at that time. It’s a song that I hold close to my heart” (Bill Cummings)
