Jaialai try Victor’s belt on for size, Full Tone Generator and Nick Oliveri get in the van, Mystic Peach have daddy issues, Musti pays homage to a king and some queens, Pet Needs ring a bell — and we’re just getting started on your Tuesday Roundup. I’m actually kind of surprised nobody dropped a John Lennon cover today. But I’m also kind of glad, if you know what I’m saying.
ON REPEAT
1 | Jaialai | Victor’s Belt
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Miami’s Jaialai blend dream-pop with shoe-gaze and psych for a captivating intonation. With members hailing from Venezuela, El Salvador, and of Cuban heritage, hints of their respective backgrounds and Miami culture are shined upon in their sound. Today, the quartet announces the March 12 release of As Sweet As I Was, their debut EP. To accompany the announcement, Jaialai shares the video for Victor’s Belt. Vocalist & guitarist Oscar Sardiñas elaborates: “It was shot during a beautiful sunset on a rooftop in Mexico City. Jovi had just recently moved there at the same time as our good friend and cinematographer Fahad Asvat. The building is an old one, full of magic (with tile work done by Diego Rivera). Fahad and Jovi starting talking and got to building this character who ended up being something a bit different from what they planned, but just what they were looking for.”
2 | Full Tone Generator & Nick Oliveri | Without A Sound
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Australia desert rockers Full Tone Generator team with OG Californian desert legend Nick Oliveri (QOTSA, Kyuss, Mondo Generator) for a single that has enough attitude to rip the balls of a low-flying bald eagle. Without A Sound features Nick on lead vocals and was jointly recorded in Melbourne Australia and Joshua Tree, California. Strap yourself in for a ride that will take you right back to ’90s desert rock.”
3 | Mystic Peach | Wanna Be My Daddy?
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Southampton trio Mystic Peach have shared the video for their eerie single Wanna Be My Daddy? It’s a spectral slice of grunge that isn’t afraid to tackle the tough questions and confronts vulnerability head on, with the lyrics acting as glorious juxtaposition against waves of psych and garage-rock. Singer Curtis Gale says: “I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence on what this is about, I’m sure you can read between the lines.”
4 | Musti | Lion King
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “During the process of making my album Qoyskayga, Beyonce had just dropped the album The Lion King: The Gift, and one track on that album that quickly became my favorite was My Power featuring Tierra Whack, Naija, Yemi Alade, Busiswa, MoonChild Sanelly and DJ Lag. After that, I listened to a lot of AfroBeat and Afropop music, which really inspired me and my producers to make this track,” explains 19-year-old Musti (full name: Ugbad Musti). She adds, “Lion King is an homage to every female artist and athlete with African descent. And special shoutout to my mom who came through with the middle eight part of the song.”
5 | Pet Needs | Pavlovian
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Formed in Colchester by brothers Johnny and George Marriott, Pet Needs will unleash the feral thrills of their debut album Fractured Party Music on March 12. Mixed and mastered by friend and fan Frank Turner, the four-piece can reveal the first single to be lifted from the record: Pavlovian. Four minutes of piledriving punk-rock that recalls The Sex Pistols through to Enter Shikari, Pavlovian demonstrates the band’s barbed wit and razored riffs at their sharpest.”
6 | Starified | Cold Sweat
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Before they release their third studio album Fat Hits on Jan. 15, Moscow power rockers Starified deliver a one-shot cover of Thin Lizzy’s rock ‘n’ roll steamroller Cold Sweat. “For all three of us in Starified, classic rock has always been a source of inspiration: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Who … But among these giants, Thin Lizzy has always had a special place. The unmistakable voice and sound of Phil Lynott are simply iconic, and the least we could do to pay homage to his genius was to record this cover.”
ALSO ON THE PLAYLIST
7 | Gates | Threads Bound In Lapis
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Canadian orchestral avant-doom collective Gates — featuring members of Uxvae, Blood Ceremony, Musk Ox and more — will release the song Threads Bound In Lapis on Jan. 15. The track serves as the first single from the full-length Vas, due this Spring. Today the band unveil a stunning Costin Chioreanu-created visual companion to the track. Says guitarist Bryan D. Bray, “In the story of the album, Threads Bound In Lapis, an allusion to the lapis stone of alchemy, the philosopher’s stone, follows from the divine consciousness — ‘the soul.’ ‘Threads Bound In Lapis’ is the awakening of awareness about this form and what may come with it. The stone here represents the knowledge that is acquired in this awakening.”
8 | CrowJane | Circular Valley
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “L.A. experimental post-punk artist CrowJane (real name: Heather Galipo) is premiering her watercolor-animated video for Circular Valley, the latest single from her recent album Mater Dolorosa. “Circular Valley is inspired by a short story written by Paul Bowles,” CrowJane says. “In the Circular Valley lives a spirit, a mute presence, Atlajala. Thirsting for sensation, this spirit enters a moth, a panther, an eel, and feels what they feel — the cool darkness of water, the pleasure of a kill. Centuries old and indifferent to time, it enters man and discovers Obsession for the first time. Yearning to be incarnate as man, it enters priests, soldiers and bandits. When an adulterous couple arrives in the valley, it slips into a woman. Finally, it feels complete. But as it possesses her, she grows restless and extreme and her affair takes a darker, more sinister turn.”
9 | Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno | Will You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Will You, the first video from Portland indie roots duo Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno, shows off the songwriting power of Leva, whose debut record drew acclaim a few years back with songs about lost love that were startling well written for someone still in college. Their upcoming self-titled album features Leva and Calcagno’s new songs made in the age of quarantine, rich with the uncertainty and bittersweet themes of young love and separation.”
10 | Vanessa Carlton | Back To Life
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Vanessa Carlton shares the video for Back To Life, directed by Patrick McPheron. The track is from her latest album Love Is An Art . Says Carlton, “In the transitory chapter between the end of active addiction or abuse and the beginnings of recovery, you have no choice but to deeply feel everything you’ve tried to numb. The song’s layers of piano, synths, background harmonies, and drum machines meld into the feeling of ice water. The song brings to mind the stillness of a frozen lake with undulating currents moving underneath. The music itself is the feeling of a body coming back to life from the inside out.”
11 | Whitney Tai | Incantation
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Incantation is the new video from our recent sophomore album Apogee. For fans of artists like Bjork, Lana Del Rey or Tori Amos, Apogee is a dream-pop healing experience through my own personal battles of anxiety disorder, depression and loss. “The inspiration and concept of Incantation’s filming is the romantic and chaotic alchemy of our existence. That just maybe, the answer to our freedom from human suffering lies beyond what the mind and body can conjure. Beyond the edges of perceived time and space. Where light is more sacred than just a beacon but a language to summon healing.”
12 | Eliza Gilkyson | Promises to Keep
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Eliza Gilkyson, the Grammy-nominated folk singer, songwriter and activist is one of the most respected musicians in roots music. Today she enlists fellow songwriter Antje Duvecot for Promises to Keep, a love letter to our planet and a reminder to keep fighting the good fight. Eliza says: “Promises to Keep was written as an affirmation of my commitment to get involved in the struggle for human decency at a critical time in history, utilizing the imagery of fire to describe our drought-ridden and dangerously polarized world, to inspire like-minded souls into action, to fire ourselves up to form strong bonds and community so that we can resist complacency and demagoguery and rise above the worst aspects of human nature.”
13 | Alex Southey | Caught You On The Throat
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Caught You On The Throat is my second single. It contains beautiful strings and pedal steel, thematically dense lyrics, and a stirring ending. It is meant to provoke deep thought, and to bring up the image of an outsider — what it may feel like for that person. John Critchley, who produced On the Dance Floor, also produced Caught You On The Throat. In addition, the guys in L.A. folk band Water Tower play strings and pedal steel. They were just tapped to play on a Mondo Cozmo–Bruce Springsteen co-written song. If they’re good enough for Springsteen, they’re certainly good enough for me.”
14 | Mike Boguski Trio | King Ramsey
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Earlier this year, Toronto’s Mike Boguski Trio released their debut album Detour digitally. It will be available Dec. 18 on CD, with 10% of all sales donated to the Jazz Foundation Of America. Recently, Boguski was shot a video for the song King Ramsey. The song’s inspiration, Ramsey Lewis, has given it an enthusiastic seal of approval.”
https://youtu.be/G70WkvFoUdU
15 | The Barefoot Movement | I Just Wish It Would Snow
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Barefoot Movement offer their new Christmas single/video I Just Wish It Would Snow! Singer Noah Wall wrote the song about winters in the South or the lack thereof. Formed in North Carolina in 2006, The Barefoot Movement have played a multitude of festivals across the country and have grown a sizable social following. The group strives to inspire audiences with the casual, organic nature of their energetic live shows, but continue to take that same philosophy with them into the recording studio. The Barefoot Movement’s eclectic discography is comprised of lush harmonies, sparkling vocal arrangements, and layered instrumental melodies that are built on each band member’s varied musical background.”
16 | Alexandra Stréliski | Burnout Fugue
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Alexandra Stréliski unveils an immersive 3D video for Burnout Fugue, a track off her latest album Inscape. For director Marcella Grimaux, creating the video was a major undertaking that took up more than six months. Marcella shares her creative process: “Burnout Fugue begins in a dark hallway, with other passageways, other worlds in the distance. This journey inspired by Alexandra’s music is a metaphor for the maze that is our conscience, our emotions, our memories.” Alexandra adds: “The Burnout Fugue video is an essay on confinement. A graphic journey inspired by the internal architecture of a piano, which also symbolically evokes introspection, the need to come out of your shell, to rebel, and to reach for the light during moments of inner darkness.”
17 | Cam M. | All My Friends Are Faded
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “We all love a good story, right? Well, we have one for you — told and sung by talented pop singer/songwriter, Cam M. She just dropped her new single, All My Friends Are Faded, with lyrics of fake and flighty friends and a melody that is dreamy and catchy. Cam says; ” I wrote this song in my room after a lonely day at school after throwing a party over the weekend for the same people who ignored me the next day. It was disappointing, but not surprising. Honestly, my life has been filled with one-sided relationships for as long as I can remember, but I’m not the only one. This song is for everyone else who just doesn’t need that fake energy in their lives anymore.”
18 | Rone | Esperanza
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Esperanza is a luminous and cinematic piece of hope, one of the highlights of Rone’s album Room With A View. This video by young director Virginie Kypriotis is a journey through time, from the birth of the Earth and mumanity to a futuristic society on the verge of collapse. The video lets us relive the mutations of a world in perpetual evolution, sometimes rich and flourishing, sometimes concrete and arid but always animated by the march of man and his rituals.”
19 | Twofew | Dreamin’
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Twofew began as a side project when Michael Lazar, founder of the Phoenix rock outfit Complicate/Simple, picked up the piano again following a 20-year hiatus. After shaking the dust off on his piano licks and working on developing new music, he formed Twofew. Twofew have just released their second single Dreamin’. This song is all about a small-town girl with big city dreams, who realizes that sometimes, some things are not all they’re cracked up to be, especially when you’re with an unfaithful significant other.”
https://youtu.be/OuZ7xbThpwI
20 | Said Sara | I Star As You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I Star As You is the new single from Said Sara, aka moonlighting singer-songwriter and Acephalix and Depressor drummer David Benson. Parlaying on Said Sara’s eponymous EP, the songs dark-folk and alt-pop wavelengths are somehow minimalistic and lavish at the same time. I Star As You has a tragic, vaudevillian theme which David describes thusly:“It’s about something that I’ve done, something that I believe many of us do, where we replace someone who’s passed via self-embodiment. I catch myself mimicking the behavior, or a facial expression, or the walk of someone who was close to me — someone who demonstrated envy-worthy intelligence or confidence, or who seemed to love and to be loved by everyone. The loss hurts so much that you find yourself becoming that person, at least for a moment, to fill that empty space.”
21 | Mister Tracy | A Christmas Song
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Here’s a Christmas song I wrote for you, but the truth is, I don’t care…” Deeply influenced by traditional Christmas music, Mister Tracy’s new song is a typical jazz-swing holiday tune full of surprises and a big sense of humour. “The only true Christmas songs we remember each year are the traditional ones: The ones that came from the Jazz era,” he says. It is no surprise that the majority of listeners nowadays associate swing to Christmas, and Tracy has played his part in achieving this mission. “At the end of the day, my goal as an artist is to create a feeling, and if this feeling causes people to smile, then I have accomplished my mission.”
22 | Dani Kristina | Drift Away
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “My name is Dani Kristina and I’m a singer/songwriter from Toronto. I just released a music video of my newest single Drift Away, off of my debut EP Aura. Drift Away was co-written and produced with Grammy-nominated, Juno-winning Trevor James Anderson. The video features a beautiful yellow 1967 Pontiac Parisienne, and was made by Blake Garbe and Mikey Tachuk!”
23 | Tenant From Zero | The End Away
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Tenant From Zero premiere The End Away, the first video from the forthcoming debut album Flight, out Jan. 22. Tenant From Zero is the recording persona of Brooklyn singer-songwriter Paul Darrah. “The idea for The End Away came to me on a train ride from Philadelphia to New York City, immediately after a romantic breakup,” reveals Darrah. “At one point, a kid threw a rock at one of the train’s windows and it made a loud, startling sound. I remember thinking that no matter what you do or say, you can’t alter the course of certain things like a speeding train or a dying love affair. No matter how hard you throw a rock.”
24 | T1a | I Like It
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “London’s T1a is a promising new talent. A gifted R&B singer-songwriter, T1a’s unique voice and versatility enable her to feature on any style of music. She looks to follow in the famous footsteps of Amy Winehouse, Adele, Jessie J, Leona Lewis and Katie Melua — and she’s well on her way with her first single I Like It! T1a’s smooth voice is featured over an upbeat trackwith a catchy hook and a light-hearted vibe.”
25 | Elizabeth & The Catapult | Pop the Placebo
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Elizabeth & the Catapult share the single Pop the Placebo today to announce the March 5 release of their album Sincerely, E. It’s a song that attempts to square the paradox of a not-quite-healthy wellness industry and the challenges of feeling good during a pandemic. “I noticed when the pandemic hit that there were more wellness gurus advertising online,” Elizabeth says. “At first, in my isolation, I was an eager wellness consumer. I was trying everything possible to stay healthy, as if controlling all the minutiae of my life would ward off any possibility of getting sick or feeling unhappy. I became a science experiment: ‘If I just do this or if I think positively I’ll be fine!’ The practices were all seemingly healthy, but my preoccupation with them was not.”
26 | Soul Saver | House Arrest
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Political turmoil and quarantine have taken a toll on everyone. House Arrest, the first single from Soul Saver, addresses these tensions, stresses and emotions survivors of domestic violence may be experiencing at this moment. Soul Saver is founded by Black 47 bass player Joe Burcaw, Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover and multi-instrumentalist Jaeme Brennan-McDonald. “I was reading in the New York Times about the upswing in domestic violence and sexual abuse under quarantine,” Burcaw said. “It hit a nerve. I began thinking of the people who are affected by this. I approached the guys about writing a song dealing with domestic abuse. We came up with the lyrics and music for House Arrest collectively.”
27 | Blanketman | Harold
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Blanketman’s debut EP National Trust will be released on March 19. Today they share the track Harold. Lead guitarist Daniel Hand says: “Harold is an ode to that crippling fright in the night. To things that don’t go bump, but go ‘aaaargh.’ The song spasmed into existence after a series of unsavoury night terrors that prompted to me don my guitar, tune the strings to a level of arse-clenching tension, screw my eyes shut tight and, like a deranged jet-setter randomly spinning a tiny globe in search of the next destination, I slammed a capo onto the neck in a state of near frenzy. I tentatively opened an eye. Fourth fret. I picked up a pen as ideas began to fizz, but thought better of it, had a beer and wrote it later.”
28 | Moscow Apartment | 18 (Thieves Like Us Remix)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Teens Brighid Fry and Pascale Padilla are Moscow Apartment. The Toronto indie rockers released their self-produced sophomore EP Better Daughter in July. Production duo Thieves Like Us recently remixed 18, a track from the EP. The remix is a downtempo, electro-pop take on the original. The songs on Better Daughter allow for the space and time that delicate melodies require, and this remix accentuates that space utilizing a dreamy soundscape backdrop.”
29 | Chris Garneau | For Celeste
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “N.Y.C. chamber-pop artist Chris Garneau presents For Celeste, a haunting and vulnerable single off his upcoming LP The Kind, out Jan. 29. “This song is about getting the time back that you missed. Knowing that this is an impossible feat, however, what this song is really about is expressing yourself as an adult in such a way that you don’t feel inhibited or insecure. We often start chipping away at our core as we grow older, and the “inner child” becomes a separate, abstract creature. I am asking what that separation really is and if it even exists at all.”
30 | Slowride | I Feel Like You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Slowride is the latest project from long-time collaborators and lifelong friends Ali Epstone and Phil Jones. Drawn together by their love of ’90s indie and punk rock, they produce exuberant anthems accompanied by layers of synth and sun-drenched melodies. The band just released the debut single I Feel Like You. The combination of social commentary and upbeat hooks allow the listener to dance their frustrations out.”
31 | Love Ghost | Closure
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Love clings to you forever whether you’re in it or out of it. Like an apparition you can’t shake, it never leaves. The music of L.A. quintet Love Ghost haunts in a similar fashion. “We’re meshing those two sides,” explains singer-guitarist Finnegan Bell. “It’s not too urban for the suburban kids, and it’s not too suburban for the urban kids. We’re uniting the rap and rock worlds in our own way, adding guitars to hip-hop, bringing beats to rock, and blurring the lines. It materializes between different genres.” Mirroring prolific output more common in hip-hop culture and releasing a steady stream of music and content, they ignite this next chapter with the single Closure, where guttural guitar brushes up against breathless verses before a hard-hitting chant.”
32 | Warped | Raised By Goats
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hailing from Geelong, Australia, Warped are a three-piece band that have been around the traps for 30 years and are highly respect scene veterans. Warped have just released their new single Raised By Goats. Raised By Goats features crunching riffs and bombastic beats that are matched by intense and angsty Rollins-like vocals. It is highlighted by tongue-in-cheek lyrics about cults and urban myth conspiracy theories. What else do you want to go out with a bang for 2020?”
33 | Frosty S.Z.N. | Ice On My Chain
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I have an awesome new track called Ice On My Chain that you should check out! It’s a bling-inspired Christmas song with a ton of analogies and puns that will definitely be something you won’t want to miss!”
