Indie Roundup | 34 Tracks For A Quirky Tuesday

Quirk, strangeness & charm from Fenne Lily, Mike Edel, T Truman & plenty more.

Fenne Lily uses her words, Mike Edel says hello, T Truman takes a holiday, Josiah Johnson is in the know, Psychlona have a blast and more in today’s decidedly eccentric Tuesday Roundup. Deep cut alert: Scroll down to check out that Anteloper track. You’ll be glad you did.

 


PICKS OF THE DAY

1 | Fenne Lily | Alapathy

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Bristol-based musician Fenne Lily announces Breach, her second album, out Sept. 18. It presents a newly upbeat and urgent streak to her songwriting, immediately evident with lead single Alapathy, and its accompanying video directed by Benjamin Brook. The insistent percussion of the album’s first single mimics the anxious racing thoughts Fenne deals with as an overthinker and chronicles how she “started smoking weed to switch off [her] brain.” The title is a made-up word that merges “apathy” and “allopathic” (as in Westernized medicine). “Western medicine generally treats the symptoms of an illness rather than the cause,” explains Fenne. For Fenne, taking medication to improve her mental health didn’t solve her problems — she felt like she was only treating the effects of her discomfort, not the reason for it. Its stylized accompanying video features Fenne enjoying solitude in various ways.”


2 | Mike Edel | Hello Universe

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “I don’t really feel the doubt, I just wanna sing it loud,” says Mike Edel in his new single Hello Universe. Edel delivers an uptempo summer anthem laden with melodic hooks, and the positivity we need now: inviting us to ‘turn your back’ to the negative and embrace the gratification and simple joy our individual paths through life offer. The accompanying music video is a must see. Shot over five days in Morocco in early March 2020, Edel and filmmaker Jordan Clarke barely made it home in the wake of the global pandemic. “It was a whirlwind video shoot and I connected through Paris,” says Edel. “A little French macaroon lady told me I was lucky I was flying today because the European/USA borders were closing tomorrow.”


ALSO ON THE PLAYLIST

3 | T Truman | Holiday

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:T Truman is the new solo project and alter ego of Vaccines’ keyboardist Timothy Lanham. Today he is sharing his debut single. Holiday paints a care-free picture of a nihilistic life and talks about seeking success without wanting to work for it. He confidently repeats lines like “let tomorrow take care of itself’ and “I’m just a typical guy” as if they’re disclaimers for his attitude. “It’s an approach I resonate with but equally despise,” T Truman notes. Neatly bridging the gap between ’70s pop rock and modern indie, T Truman has an undeniably tight grasp of melody and song construction.”


4 | Josiah Johnson | Nobody Knows

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Josiah Johnson – a former and founding member of the chart-topping band The Head and the Heart – is announcing his debut solo album Every Feeling On A Loop. It will be released on Sept. 4. On lead single Nobody Knows, Johnson sings for people to have courage in sharing and receiving the truths of their hearts. The messages, like the man himself, are a welcome breath of air. “A lot of the growth documented on this album is about taking responsibility for how I’m showing up in the world, and that song was about taking responsibility for how I care for myself,” Johnson says. “Part of my experience with addiction was that I was having a hard time, but I wasn’t raising my hand to get the help I needed.”


5 | Psychlona | Blast Off

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Bradford, UK’s stoner rock wielders Psychlona are set to embark you on a frantic journey with their new album Venus Skytrip, to be issued on Aug. 21. Says Psychlona: “We knew we didn’t want to lose too much of the rawness and homespun vibe that defined the scratchy fun of the first album, but we also wanted to go one step further with this effort and really focus the sound. So the two-step plan would be number one: make it heavier and two: turn up the spaciness to the nth.”


6 | Skydiggers | Brother, Can you Spare A Dime?

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Skydiggers share a new video for their rendition of Bing Crosby’s Brother, Can you Spare A Dime? The new song will officially be released on July 3, along with a cover of Michel Pagliaro’s Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy. “A couple of years ago we were asked by artistic director Andrew Burashko of the Art of Time Ensemble to participate in a concert with the theme being protest music;” shares Josh Finlayson. “For our section of the program one of the songs Andrew asked us to perform was the depression era tune, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? It was a challenge we really enjoyed. Typically, we don’t learn tunes by request, so this was a unique and different experience for us. As a result, we continued playing the song from time to time and ended up making a recording.”


7 | Mark Gardener | Chained

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Now that shoegaze kingpins Ride are in touring limbo, frontman Mark Gardener has released a new single, Chained, for which he collaborated with 2Square, a.k.a. Stephan Haeri of France’s Telepopmusik. This song comes from a deep space, as Gardener eluciates on a past attempt to face, beat and get away from some personal demons and unhealthy situations and temptations. The accompanying video, commissioned by Gardener, was produced and directed by Dariy Karyakin over the past month. Recorded in Haeri’s small Parisian smoky apartment in the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis area, Gardener notes that this is “up there with my favourite collaborations ever”, saying this will “hopefully take our minds away from all current madness we’re living in.”


8 | Norvhar | Skyline Of Fame

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “About one year and a half after the official release of their debut album Kauna, Swiss Epic Folk-Metallers Norvhar just unveiled a brand new single called Skyline Of Fame with its official music video available right now. In addition to the video, the single, featuring Chrigel Glanzmann from Eluveitie, is also available.”


9 | Turbo | Make Bail

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Another band who have been making good use of quarantine time are Canada’s Turbo, who have recorded a music video for the single Make Bail off their upcoming album Fast As Fvck. Filmed in true DIY style, the video shows the members in each of their houses, and with a little help from filmmaker and videographer Neil Hunt, the video came together better than the band expected. The boys in Turbo definitely deserve an Oscar for their work in this music video, but in case the awards are cancelled they have prepared the following statement about the focus behind the video: “When COVID-19 was on the rise and the quarantine hit in full-force, everyone was trapped inside and bored on a biblical scale. Shows were cancelled, tours were cancelled, and we had to come up with a fun backup-plan and fast. We decided on a DIY music video, and it only took a very short conversation and a coy laugh before we agreed that a song called Make Bail was almost too good of a fit for the Stay The Blazes Home breakout-of-your-house video we had in mind.”


10 | The Dead Centuries | Pop A Soda

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:The Dead Centuries have a new standalone single out entitled Pop A Soda, it is the first track to be released from the band with guitarist Jacob McSheffrey as a writer. It’s the first step in the direction of more hook-oriented, catchy songs. “We’re extremely excited to release this track as we feel it marks a big step forward in terms of songwriting, composition, playing, and production. We think the sonic depth in Pop A Soda is more interesting, ear-catching, and rewarding than previous efforts from the band, and we think listeners will love the caliber of this track.”


11 | Jupiter Hollow | The Mill

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Progressive prodigy duo Jupiter Hollow are sharing with fans their latest music video for their track The Mill in support of their recently released album Bereavement. “The music video for The Mill is a fleeting summary of the entire album’s concept. Showcasing the to main characters among the hundreds of others subtly embodied by Kenny throughout the live shows and various media appearances.” adds JH’s Grant MacKenzie (Guitar, Bass, Synth). The band further explains: “A man with unimaginable global power sends important members of his family and society away to a habitable world outside of our solar system in order to salvage humanity. As capable as this man is of salvaging humanity’s dying society on Earth, he finds more solace in the greed and power he has inherited. Victim of his lifelong internal battle with mental instability, he leaves humanity to extinction on Earth. Struggling with this outcome, he sends himself and his ship aimlessly into space, attempts suicide, and crashes on a planet in another solar system. Upon awakening, he realizes where he is, and that he will soon meet the remaining faces that have abandoned him, just as he abandoned them, and they’re hungry.”


12+13 | Howling | Lover + Dew

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Howling share a new double single, Lover / Dew, lifted from their forthcoming album Colure, out July 24. Made up of solo alternative artist RY X, and one half of Ame, Frank Wiedemann, the Howling sound is assuredly dualistic: electronic and acoustic sounds sitting comfortably side-by-side, and big melodic hooks laced into hypnotic club productions. Howling once again demonstrates their versatile and contrasting skill set with Lover / Dew. Recorded during a late session in Berlin, they experimented with new techniques on Dew, “we began to crack open new aspects of our soundscape during those Berlin sessions” they commented. On Lover they pushed their sound further with the use of improvisation. “At first Lover felt different from the other tracks, but it bloomed into a song that very much feels a part of the whole record, while also carrying the places it was born in. We can feel Ibiza and LA in this one.”

 


14 | Plants and Animals | House on Fire

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Montreal indie rock trio Plants and Animals announce The Jungle, their fifth studio album set to be released Oct. 23. Their shortest album yet and certainly their boldest, The Jungle is eight acts in a world full of noise. Today they share their lead single and video House on Fire, an upbeat and energetic anthem that seemed to be aligning perfectly with the surreal summer the world will experience this year. House on Fire came from the haunting feeling that a friend who was taking too many sleeping pills might forget to turn his stove off. The band explains : “We started working on this a couple of years ago. Warren was afraid for a friend’s health. He thought he was self-medicating too much and not taking care of himself. He couldn’t let go of this image of an overworked dude swallowing too many sleeping pills and falling asleep with the stove on. So it began as the place next door, sometime before Greta Thunberg turned the expression into a rallying cry, where Earth is the house and the people are sleeping. It’s terrifying, and on the whole we’re not unlike this friend, are we?”


15 | Rituals of Mine | Come Around Me

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Rituals of Mine — the immersive, hybrid R&B electronic project of Los Angeles-based songwriter Terra Lopez — announces her new album Hype Nostalgia, out Sept. 25, and shares the lead single/video, Come Around Me. On the self-assured Come Around Me, the most straightforward song Lopez has ever written, she confronts being taken advantage of as a gay woman of color in the music industry. “None of this fake shit when you come around me.”


16 | Lesser Glow | Versterven

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Atmospheric doom/sludge metal practitioners Lesser Glow are pleased to unveil their haunting new video for Versterven, off the band’s Nullity full-length released in April. With Nullity, Lesser Glow rip open a massively wide and confident blend of traditional doom meets melodic metal, paired with the likes of hardcore, post-hardcore, noise rock, post-rock, and beyond. Molding all these into one cohesive mix, Lesser Glow stand out as a refreshing and unapologetically brutal take on heavy music. Conceptually based around the concept of human beings existing on earth as parasites, the scope widens throughout the course of the record, touching on creation myths, existence within nature, interpersonal and internal struggles, and finishing out with the mass extinction/cleansing of mankind.”


17 | Jess Cornelius | Body Memory

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Los Angeles-based musician Jess Cornelius releases a new single/video, Body Memory, from her debut album, Distance, out July 24. Its accompanying video, the second she’s made since the start of the pandemic lockdown, was created by Cornelius and her partner and filmed on an iPhone at Lake Isabella, California. Cornelius elaborates on the video: “Originally I had a much more elaborate, narrative-based concept, where I was this woman running away from a cult, (hence the tracksuit and Nikes), to be filmed in Oildale and Posey where my partner, Joe, is fixing up an old cabin. At the last minute, we decided to drive to Lake Isabella because of supposed good visuals there. I was grumbling all the way there about how the location wouldn’t fit with my shot list, but when we got there and I started dancing on rocks, we just threw away the shot list and made it up as we went along.”


18 | Katie Wood | Uh Huh Yeah

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “There’s a place that exists somewhere between the past and future, that isn’t now. A kingdom of flamboyance, eccentricity and otherworldly hues and a desire for charm beyond the physical. This is where you will find Katie Wood, music for the electric, songs that permeate the heart, lyrics that reveal your power, and a voice to remember. Welcome to her world. Wood is unveiling Uh Huh Yeah. The self-produced track narrates the singer’s struggle with agoraphobia and the powerless feeling it entails. Wood confides, “I couldn’t face leaving my flat, let alone go to work or see my friends and I just felt so powerless. So the song is about that feeling and in many ways accepting it as a way to move on through it, I do believe that you have to face your fears to overcome them.”


19 | Neaera | Deathless

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Neaera are launching a brand new video (directed by Ben Liepelt for Port Royal Films) for the album track Deathless. Comments singer Benjamin Hilleke: “One of the songs on our current album is called Deathless which deals with the topic of sexualised violence. According to UNIFEM it is estimated that 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner (not including sexual harassment) at some point in their lives.”


20 | The Texas Gentlemen | Train To Avesta

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:The Texas Gentlemen will release Floor It!!! on July 17. The band’s sound is steeped in ‘60s and ‘70s rock & pop with elements of funk, soul, country, R&B, southern rock and gospel (just about all of them played in churches early on). The album includes woozy, brass-fueled Dixieland-style jazz, to slinky, chicken-scratch country funk to lushly orchestrated pop-soul balladry all within its first 10 minutes. There’s a dreamy, spacey, and occasionally progressive element to what they do that seems to detach the music from belonging to any particular place and time. It’s a rich and righteous ride. Today, they premiered the song Train To Avesta.”


21 | Thumper | Topher Grace

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Thumper release Topher Grace, their second single of 2020. Inspired by everything from “songwriters like Courtney Barnett and James Murphy, to Mark E. Smith and Nick Cave, with the latter especially influencing the bridge between lyrical sentiment and true performance”, the track sees the band follow in the footsteps of fellow Dubliners Fontaines D.C. and The Murder Capital. Frontman Oisin Furlong explains, “The song is about going out on the rip as an act of self-destruction, thinly disguised as a voyage of self-reflection. It swings from sincerity to hyperbole and back again, in the voice of someone who’s too deep in it to see the wood for the trees. Honesty and braggadocio form a potent cocktail, as the narrative is bent to breaking point.”


22 | The Rentals | Shake Your Diamonds

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:The Rentals’ new single and TNT-charged double-album opener Shake Your Diamonds has just been dropped alongside possibly the most eye-popping music video since Peter Gabriel threw down the seizure-inducing Sledgehammer at the zenith of MTV. The viscerally bombastic pop song is a call to arms in class-warfare during a science-fiction clusterf%*k called the last day on Earth. Shake’s series of synthetic, sonic explosions never relents from the first downbeat through to the very last. Break down the palace gates and dance tonight! The group’s lyricist and lead vocalist Matt Sharp explains the song’s origins: “I was born into a napalm-soaked world of ultra-violence in the midst of a meaningless war where, between all sides, over 1,350,000 murders took place. That’s where Shake Your Diamonds begins.”


23 | Haley Blais | On A Weekend

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Vancouver-based singer-songwriter and musician Haley Blais shares new single On a Weekend. The lyric video for this summer tune features the album artwork for Blais’ debut studio LP, Below the Salt, which will be released on Aug. 25. “Originally, this song is about FOMO due to social anxiety or lack of a social life. When I first wrote it, it was really slow, dreamy and somber,” Blais explains. “Then one of my bandmates added organ and insane vocoder and I was like ‘okay, this song is funny and pathetic now!’ Recently, it inadvertently turned into a sort of quarantine anthem. So when I say, ‘do what you wanna do without me there with you,’ I really mean it.”


24 | Whales | Fade Away

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Rising bass producer Whales throws down a transfixing hybrid of emo, trap and dubstep on his ground-shaking release Fade Away. It follows his recent single Save You (feat. Megan Stokes) alongside Riot Ten and is part of a heavy string of releases. Since breaking out at the young age of 15 under the Sex Whales moniker, Israeli producer Tal Rochman has become known for his high quality bass-led productions. His songs and collaborations have gathered well over 500 million plays and he’s performed around the globe, spreading his sounds across North America, Canada, Europe and even China. Unbound by genres and rebranded as Whales, the 20 year old looks to make a lasting impact on the electronic music industry.”


25 | Market Junction | Out Of Love

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Market Junction has released Out Of Love, the second from their forthcoming album Burning Bridges, due out Aug. 7. Market Junction frontman Matt Parrish says “We see it all around us: nice family/home/job, little league, carpools, Sunday school, yet, another marriage eaten by the system. They pretend. It’s easier that way.” Parrish and Market Junction co-founder Justin Lofton, both award-winning songwriters, set out on a journey to create the kind of music they not only loved to listen to but music that they loved to play.”


26 | Dana Gavanski | I Talk To The Wind

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “The ethereal tones of Serbian-Canadian musician Dana Gavanski can stir a breeze and destroy like a storm. With her new covers EP, Wind Songs, Dana complements her debut album from her temporary new home in London across both sides of enforced isolation, to show an artist making the best of unfortunate circumstances and seeking comfort in the familiar strangers of her musical heroes. The full Wind Songs track list will be made available over the course of the coming weeks. For now, listen to Dana’s take on I Talk to the Wind by King Crimson.”


27 | Collapse Under The Empire | A New Beginning

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Only with united forces and global solidarity is it possible to curb the uninhibited spread of Corona. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, the German Red Cross supports other national societies in protecting particularly vulnerable people in crisis regions from the virus. Essential instrumental post-rock duo Collapse Under the Empire supports this campagin in the fight against the epidemic with a brand new charity single, A New Beginning!”


28 | Alcoves | I Find

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Alcoves, the latest project from Canadian singer/songwriter Garrett Olson, establishes its lo-fi brand of rousing melodies, lush guitar, and warbly synths that leaves audiences in a daze of nostalgia. Olson’s conversational lyrics and urgent post-punk energy capture a raw and tangible sense of vulnerability uniquely packaged in warm falsettos and dynamic composition. Alcoves have just unveiled the debut single I Find.”


29 | Lammping | Greater Good

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Greater Good is the second single off Lammping’s forthcoming debut LP Bad Boys of Comedy, out July 2020. The drum-heavy, riff-driven exploration of working class paranoia is side A of this preview release, with the introspective, psychedelic Within You on side B. Lammping is a new psych-rock outfit from Toronto, formed by multi-instrumentalist Mikhail Galkin and drummer Jay Anderson. The album incorporates a wide range of influences that Jay and Mikhail bonded over, from Tropicalia and Turkish psych to classic NY boom-bap drum patterns and CSNY-style vocal harmonies.”


30 | Less Bells | Mourning Jewelry

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “The sophomore offering by Julie Carpenter’s textural orchestral entity Less Bells takes its title from a storied strain of decorative objects worn in remembrance of lost loved ones: Mourning Jewelry. The album shares a similar mood of devotional pageantry, stirring ornamental laments born from a need to “create beauty out of grief.” Utilizing an amalgam of strings, synthesizers, and choirs, the pieces ascend and descend in grand, glimmering arcs, ebbing from passages of “baroque complexity” to expanses of haunting emptiness. Certain songs also skew more overtly western than ever before, deeply reverbed plucks of banjo refracted against glowing horizons of sunrise drone: Americana gone ambient.”


31 | Erich Mrak | Girls

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Toronto-based artist Erich Mrak is back with a new single Girls, off his upcoming album Glimpse. Speaking of the influences behind the single, Mrak said: “The influences behind Girls lie somewhere between Post Malone, Tame Impala, and The 1975. With the guitar-heavy production, processed vocals, and content derived from interpersonal relations. While the context of Girls centres around a recent heartbreak, the core message of the song lies in the supportive dynamic friendship plays in encouraging someone they can do better.”


32 | Anteloper | Bubble Under

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:Anteloper, the duo of psychedelic sonic compatriots and raggedy celestial sound warriors Jaimie Branch (trumpet) and Jason Nazary (drums), announce Tour Beats Vol. 1, out July 1. Today, in conjunction with the announcement, they release its first taste, Bubble Under. These longtime friends and collaborators met as young explorers and consider this electrified duo a continuous experiment into the unknown sonic abyss. Improvised organisms, abstract bangers, and mind-bending head boppers are guided by a unique desire to hear what hasn’t been heard before. This is music made of and for the moment, tipping towards the future, moving feet to the new-new beat.”


33 | Lauren Lakis | We’ll Be Fine

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “The new single from shoegaze dream pop artist Lauren Lakis, We’ll Be Fine was written about a romantic relationship, but came to encompass so much more. Lakis shares, “As we’ve gone through this pandemic, it’s become a sort of love song to humanity, a ballad of hope. We’ve been given a unique opportunity to pause and go inward, where shadow exists alongside light. There is fear and grief and uncertainty, but ultimately I have faith that we will be fine, maybe better than “fine” if we choose.”


34 | The Cradle | End of The Day

SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE:The Cradle — the solo project of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Paco Cathcart (Big Neck Police, Eyes of Love, Shimmer) — shared his second single End of the Day from his upcoming album, Laughing In My Sleep, releasing Aug. 21. A staple in The Cradle’s acoustic live sets over the past couple years, End of the Day is a song that bucks easy categorization: a repetitious lullaby, a series of images at greater or lesser distance, an ode-poem to Brooklyn and the daily splendid and heartbreaking minutia of city life, a first-person account of events of questionable significance, a dream that goes both in towards nostalgia and out towards adventure.”