Caro♡ takes a deep dive, Golgotha go to waste, Nick Waterhouse names names, Glitterer decline your offer — and there’s still more to come in the back half of your weird Wednesday Roundup. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And I hope you like cover tunes.
22 | Caro♡ | Sad Song 77
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “French-born, London-based vocalist and producer Caro♡ shares her new single Sad Song 77. It comes from a forthcoming, as-yet-unannounced project that explores her deep and unwavering connection to the sea. Says Caro: “For me, this song is about accepting to dive into the unknown, being aware that you might never get what you want but knowing that your heart is true and that it is the most important in the end, that being true is the only thing that will always push you back to the surface.”
23 | Golgotha | Don’t Waste Your Life
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Spanish doom metallers Golgotha just released a video for Don’t Waste Your Life, from their upcoming EP Remembering the Past – Writing the Future, to be released on March 2. It’s the band’s first release after the new addition of Samuel Morales on second guitar and features Don’t Waste Your Life along with four re-recorded tracks from previous works which have been given a more current touch.”
24 | Nick Waterhouse | Place Names
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby came to represent the Roaring ’20s, an era of decadence and spiritual vacuousness, using the color green to represent longing and hope for the future. A century later but once again in the ’20s, Nick Waterhouse takes the color blue as his hue of choice as he takes a spiritual look to the past on new album Promenade Blue, due April 9. The new collection sparkles beatifically, reverberating with energy, heart, creativity, and vibe from start to finish. Nowhere is this more evident than on opening track Place Names, bringing teenaged memories to the forefront, pondering the pride he takes in his hometown and the distinct life that he has made (or that has made him).”
25 | Glitterer | Didn’t Want It
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hand drawn and animated by Rob Fidel, Glitterer has released an animated lyric video for the new track Didn’t Want It. “Didn’t Want It was the first song I wrote for the new record,” Glitterer‘s Ned Russin explained. “Despite having no road map for how the rest of the songs would turn out, this track established a lot of the qualities that would be further explored as I continued to write — more present and fuzzed-out guitars, minimalistic chord changes, and uncertain, longing lyrics.”
26 | Still Corners | White Sands
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Still Corners share White Sands, from their fifth album The Last Exit, out on Jan. 22. A desert-noir soundtrack in miniature, White Sands tells a classic ghost story of a phantom who roams the dunes and highways scaring travellers as they cross the land. On The Last Exit, Still Corners return with a sweeping album about the open road. Consisting of 11 beautifully crafted songs with organic instrumentation, romantic guitar lines, spacious drums and the wistful melancholy voice of Tessa Murray, The Last Exit evokes the vast space of the desert and rolling unconcerned skies.”
27 | Cellar Twins | $olace
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Belgian melodic rockers Cellar Twins are sharing the single $olace in support of the re-release of Duality, their compelling 2019 full length returning on Jan. 29. $olace is a heavy prog-metal oriented song that conveys a reflection on materialism and the ephemerality of physical possessions. It asks the question of wanting versus needs, knowing that in the end, all will be equal. Depiction of life itself with all its uplifting and crushing moments, expressed with anger, fear, joy, and doubts, Duality is a deep internal exploration where two messages arise. The first one being that each story always has two sides and the second one being, that even when going through hell, hope must always prevail.”
28 | Camera Obscura Two | Stalked By The Eye Of No God
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Polish/Italian grindcore/thrash/crossover faction Camera Obscura Two — with current and former members of Schizo, Cripple Bastards, Hour Of Penance, Novembre, The Foreshadowing, Pestem and many others — will release their debut album D.Ö.D. on Feb. 12. Offers leader Alberto Penzin: “If I had to sum up CO2 in a phrase, I would say something like this: have your daily dose of Crowley, a lifelong listening to Venom’s Welcome To Hell, Discharge’s Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, and Repulsion’s Horrified, 1/4 of tongue-in-cheek, grate over some battered Boss HM-2 pedal et voilà, that’s the kind of place we like to hang out at. Roughly. Heavy music has to be pretty simple. This new take of Stalked By The Eye Of No God adheres to the principle.”
29 | Convulse | Whirlwind
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Finnish progressive death metal pioneers Convulse unveil a new lyric video for the track Whirlwind. The track comes by way of the band’s critically lauded Deathstar full-length. Fusing the prime tenets of death metal, heavy rock, and prog into something innovative and enticing, the near 41-minute masterwork presents nine tracks that transcend the boundaries of standard death metal. Arguably picking up where the band’s underrated 1994 Reflections left off, Deathstar adopts a similar genre-bending approach and modernizes it.”
30 | Don Cherry | The Ambassador from Greenland
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Next month brings the release of Cherry Jam, featuring rare material from the legendary trumpeter and cornet-player Don Cherry. Taken from a 1965 pre-record for Danish national radio, the line-up consists of Cherry on cornet, Mogens Bollerup on tenor saxophone, Atli Bjørn on piano, Benny Nielsen on double bass and Simon Koppel on drums. The record features three new original compositions of Cherry’s, as well as a classic standard. Alongside the announcement of the release, here’s the new original The Ambassador from Greenland.”
31 | A.A. Williams | Nights In White Satin
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With her new album of cover versions Songs From Isolation due out March 19, A.A. Williams has shared Nights In White Satin, a beautiful piano and vocal reimagining of The Moody Blues classic from 1967. Williams says: “I’ve always been drawn to the vintage textures and beautiful melodies of Nights In White Satin. A simple cover for solo piano and voice, this version focuses a little more on extended harmonic suspensions and on the text, a heartfelt reinterpretation of a ’60s classic.”
32 | Renée Reed | Fast One
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Renée Reed, a new folk artist from Louisiana, released Fast One, the third single from her debut self-titled album due March 26. “Fast One is full of anger over the shallow, shitty behavior of certain acquaintances I’ve had over the last few years, people who assume they know more about me than I do. But I leave things open to change and growth, and that maybe one day we’ll all smoke together and things will be cool.”, she explains. Renée describes her music as dream-fi folk from the Cajun prairies, and her debut album, as “a whole document of me coming to terms with myself and embracing who I am without reserve.”
33 | Mensa Deathsquad | Nothing Is Ever Enough
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Brandon Phillips laid in a Kansas City hospital through the winter of 2019-2020 as his own album release (the unintentionally but appropriately named Patient Zero by his alt-synthwave band Mensa Deathsquad) passed by in the outside world. And then came COVID-19, like a rogue wave, to finish off the aimless Mensa Deathsquad sailboat. But Brandon didn’t die and the boat didn’t sink. As the squall receded and the wanton eye of cruel gods passed over him, Brandon clung to the boat and swore revenge… As the aphorism goes, “revenge is sweet” and thus Brandon and his Mensa Deathsquad will have the triumphant last laugh. Holed up in the spare bedroom of his apartment with an open wound in his abdomen, two surgical drains, and a severely compromised immune system, Brandon slipped back into his Mensa Deathsquad persona and began working on what would become his newest album Cyclist, due Feb. 23.”
34 | Tokyo Police Club | Gone (Matt And Kim Remix)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Tokyo Police Club released a new remix of the Champ album cut Gone by Matt and Kim. Guitarist/keyboardist Graham Wright stated, “Matt and Kim were one of the first ‘band friendships’ we ever made, way back at our first SXSW when we were all just kids with busted gear and more energy than sense (that last part might still be true). Every time our paths have crossed since I’ve been blown away by how they manage to, like, bottle their exuberance and joy, and even though sharing a stage with them is incredibly intimidating, our 2018 tour with them was one of the most fun we’ve ever been on. So we figured that, as long as we’re looking back fondly on the last 10 years, we might as well invite them to get in on the action!”
35 | Jo Below | Ms. Death
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Helsinki rock group Jo Below have released the first single from their upcoming second EP No Control, due on April 16. The EP opener Ms. Death is an anthemic, arena-ready hard rock song that will make your head bang and feet move. Formed in 2017, Jo Below are a four-piece melodic hard rock group consisting of frontwoman Johanna Kari, guitarist Roni Seppänen, bassist Jonne Lindqvist and drummer Olli Vartiainen. The group combines traditional hard rock sounds with modern influences, calling their style of music modern classic rock.”
36 | Sykes | We And Us
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rotterdam singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Sykes unveils We And Us, the first offering and title track from the upcoming EP of the same name, set for release Feb. 10. Sykes wrote We And Us after a long conversation with a friend about religion, race and the systemic racism embedded as normal practice within our society. Reflecting on the meaning behind the song the talented artist says: “It’s about the deep divisions in modern society. A lot of tensions between people of all kinds of beliefs and political affiliations were surfacing at the time I was writing the song. I really wanted to write something that could resonate with hope. We have to respect each other and listen to each other based on trusting our good intentions.”
37 | The Neighbourhood Watch | Focus Up
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Whether it was learning to play their instruments while writing their first album Community Protected, or stumbling through the production of their second record Goodbye Childhood, Toronto’s The Neighbourhood Watch loves to grow alongside their music. Focus Up, the first single to be shared from their forthcoming new record, Lost in Bloom, is about how it can be hard to keep friendships intact as you grow up and need to make selfish decisions more often.”
38 | The Magician | One Vibration
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Shape-shifting DJ / producer The Magician (Stephen Fasano) kickstarts the new year with an effervescent, infectious bass-line led new single One Vibration, lifted from his new mix album Magic Tape 100, due Jan. 27. He says: “I made this track on a flight to Mexico back in Feb 2020 and tested it over there and the reactions were immediate. So I decided to add a vocal line to make it more unique and Clypso made it.”
39 | Adeline Hotel | Photographic Memory
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Adeline Hotel, the psych-folk project led by Dan Knishkowy, have announced their fifth album Good Timing, the followup to last year’s Solid Love. Due out Feb. 19, Good Timing is Knishkowy’s most experimental release yet, and also the most personal, a guitar record that shades the edges between ambient and American Primitive. Photographic Memory is streaming today on all platforms. Layers of improvised guitar unfurl and bloom, like the sound of chasing down disparate trains of thought.”
40 | Ian Janes | Shouldn’t Be Calling You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ian Janes is an artist, songwriter and producer from Nova Scotia. He makes pop songs that are deeply influenced by soul, R&B and jazz. Ian’s music is compelling and irresistible, sophisticated yet simple. “I wrote Shouldn’t Be Calling You on this trashy little guitar that has since fallen apart,” said Janes. “I guess it just happened to be close by when the idea came to me. It never fails to fascinate me how often we self-sabotage; romantically or otherwise. This song has some fun examining how, sometimes, we just can’t help ourselves.”
41 | Joshua Henry | Stand Up
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Joshua Henry has shared Stand Up, a cover of The O’Jays’ 2019 song that calls for love, unity and to “stand up.” It feels more relevant than ever. The track is the second single from his upcoming debut EP Guarantee, produced by close collaborator Theron “Neff-U” Feemster. Joshua notes: “The sentiment of Stand Up is what I try to keep in the front of my mind: love, service, trying to make a change for good. This is my way of trying to inspire everyone (especially young people) to stand up, use your voice, and find your lane to serve. 2020 taught me we can’t sit back waiting for the world to change.”
42 | Chastity | Losing A Whole Year
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Whitby, Ont.’s Chastity (real name Brandon Williams) releases a cover of aptly titled Losing a Whole Year by Third Eye Blind. Of the musical choice, Williams shares that “although Third Eye Blind released this song in 1997, it was somehow 2020’s theme song. It was rough for every single person I know … maybe it’s best that we all forget it, and just lose the whole year.”
