Post Pulse begin again from scratch, Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains spin out, Treyharsh keep it all inside, Kulick isn’t into you like that — and I haven’t even mentioned new cuts from David Gray and Nathaniel Rateliff in the second stage of your Thursday Roundup. Light it up:
16 | Post Pulse | Fresh Start
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Helsinki-based Post Pulse have released an aggressive new song titled Fresh Start. The band decided mid-2020 to take a new, “No Fucks Given” approach to their music, and that decision comes across clearly in the new song. Says guitarist Antti Karhu: ”Is this song death metal enough? Can we do animated, South Park-like videos? We’re having fun but is it OK if it shows? No. Fucks. Given. Literally, we have absolutely nothing to lose, so why not just do whatever feels good. And we do hope that it shows — the fun we’re having. Is metal serious business? Well, at least for us it’s not a business at all so why be serious, right?”
17 | Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains | Tourne Autour
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “With the approaching release of his new album Banane Bleue on Feb. 26, Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains share a space odyssey video for new track Tourne Autour. The video, directed by Robin Lachenal, features Frànçois Marry on an intergalactic journey through space and time, something of a metaphor for the search of love and emotional connections in life. As Frànçois notes, “This song is about being obsessed with someone. Spinning round and round, your mind goes in circles and you never change your position. The fantasy remains a distant galaxy. Love is a mental projection. Somehow, this vivid tune resonates with our recent lockdown lifestyle. On loop.”
18 | Treyharsh | Hidden Strength
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “French thrash/death combo Treyharsh unleash the lyric video to Hidden Strength, from their upcoming album Eternal Cycles. The band comment: “Here is a song containing a strong message, a theme that concerns those times when our life is plunged into darkness — those times when everything is cold and tasteless but we still have this hint of strength that allows us to overcome these trials. Our instinct drives us to do everything to move forward and survive. Today we are all facing a difficult situation, we as a group and you as the audience. Let’s face this unbearable situation and let’s keep this strength hidden deep inside us in order to fight and keep fighting until the end of this “war” and come out victorious!”
19 | Kulick | Just Be Friends
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Kulick (aka Jacob Kulick) has released a newly recorded live version of Just Be Friends, one of many fan favorites off his latest album Yelling in a Quiet Neighborhood. Kulick says, “Self-filmed, recorded, mixed, and edited. I wanted to film something that feels like a live show until we are back on the road with the whole band. I’m excited to share it with you.”
20 | Pallmer | Bricks
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Bricks is one of the most intimate songs I’ve written,” said Pallmer’s Emily Kennedy. “Although the majority of my writing is very personal, I have a tendency to try to hide behind vagueness and metaphor. Acknowledging this, I wanted to challenge myself — to be open, and to step back from layers of looped strings to something more bareboned and honest.” Kennedy (cello, vocals) and Mark Kleyn (viola) had performed with each other in classical ensembles for several years before delving into their own writing as Pallmer. Bricks hails from their Quiet Clapping EP, out April 9.”
21 | SOM | Youth // Decay
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Atmospheric rock collective SOM — current and former members of Constants, Junius and Caspian — unveil a moving video for Youth // Decay. The hypnotic track comes by way of the band’s Awake EP, set for release next month. Elaborates vocalist/guitarist Will Benoit: “Before the first SOM record was done, [guitarist] Mike [Repasch-Nieves] and I were both feeling creatively and musically adrift. We got together for a couple days, recording ambient guitar and synths over glitchy beats in an attempt to change things up. Two years later when Mike and [guitarist] Joel [M. Reynolds] joined the band, I edited some of Mike’s demo parts from that session to form the main melodies in Youth // Decay. I arranged the chords and vocals and brought it to the group. During quarantine, we all passed the demo back and forth. Slowly, this minimal, sparse piece of music grew into a dynamic, crushing song that is also the first track we finished as a five-piece.”
22 | La Femme | Le Jardin
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Parisian psyche-pop band La Femme released the video for their new single Le Jardin, taken from their highly anticipated third album Paradigmes (out April 2). Out in time for Valentine’s Day, Le Jardin is a tender melancholic ballad, and La Femme’s first song in Spanish. “The lyrics were written during a trip to Spain a few years ago,” the band explains. “This is kind of an old-school slow dance which underlines how fate can be random and fragile. The moments we go through, sometimes very sudden, from shadows to light, and vice-versa. All of this, in a Romanesque scenery of the historic city of Sevilla, where the Holy Virgins are omnipresent on the walls, overlooking at mankind and its madness.”
23 | Nathaniel Rateliff | Redemption
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nathaniel Rateliff’s video for his track Redemption premieres today. It was written for and featured in the film Palmer. On Saturday, Rateliff will make his debut as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.”
24 | Summersets | Afterthought
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Summersets, the duo of Kalle Mattson and Andrew Sowka, are sharing their first new music of 2021. Afterthought is “another new chapter for us as a band, but also for the two fictional characters we chronicled in our debut EP, small town saturday,” says Mattson. “Each verse flips perspective from each character as their relationship seemingly comes to an end, a car crashes, and they both run through their regrets.” Afterthought was once again produced by long time collaborator Jim Bryson (Kathleen Edwards, Weakerthans), mixed by Dan Ledwell (Jenn Grant) and featuring strings from Kinley Dowling (Hey Rosetta).”
25 | Small Sins | I Used To Be A Better Man
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Small Sins, the pet project of writer/performer/producer Thomas D’Arcy, share a sneak preview of the brand new single I Used To Be A Better Man from Volume II, due out Friday. “I Used To Be a Better Man is the first song I wrote for this record. After a long dry spell of writing music for other people, this one just sort of came to me on a walk with my dog Bruno,” shares D’Arcy. “It’s about nostalgia and mid-life crisis, but it actually made me feel the way I was feeling when I wrote the first Small Sins record. Everything is so uneasy at 26. Just old enough that you have to figure out what you want to do with your life, but not old enough to know what that thing is. Looking back it was such a nice place to be, yet caused so much anxiety at the time. I suddenly feel the same way now.”
26 | Ghost Toast | W. A. N. T.
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hungarian experimental progressive rock band Ghost Toast released a new music video W.A.N.T. (We Are Not Them). The track is taken from their fourth studio album Shape Without Form. The band comment: “The samples used in the song are from the film version of George Orwell’s novel 1984, directed by Michael Radford, along with Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now. W.A.N.T. and its video explores the threat of becoming hollow, a thing that is threatening to all human beings, and how to avoid this threat. The video attempts to represent the lines of T.S.Eliot’s poem Hollow Men through the images of a metaphorical journey as displayed in Apocalypse Now, the hollow created by violence in the pictures of 1984, along with loneliness, hopelessness and emptiness portrayed by independent and amateur (nevertheless brillliant) sources of film footage.”
27 | Rioghan | Wither
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Finnish songstress Rioghan is set to release her debut EP Blackened Sky on March 10. The third single and music video Wither is released today. Rioghan Darcy comments: “This song was supposed to become a love song, but somehow it (too) ended up being a sad story. We started making this instruments first and picked a lyric after some of the instrumental visions had already been recorded to the demo. In the lyric the love is obviously present, but also strong feelings about fear of rejection and looking up from depths before surrendering to completely new phases in life. This was also the only lyric where the original poem ended up completely unedited, just a little repetition here and there.”
28 | David Gray | Heart & Soul
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “David Gray will release his 12th studio album, Skellig on Feb. 19. The second LP to be produced by Ben de Vries, the 13-track album departs from the shimmering electronics of 2019’s Gold In A Brass Age and embarks on a sparser, communal soundscape with the atmospheric songs centring themselves around six-part vocals with Gray trading his signature gravel for a softer tone. The news is accompanied by new single Heart & Soul, the second track to be lifted from the album.”
29 | Red Eleven | Before I Fall
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Red Eleven are once again serving a new tasting from their upcoming fourth long play. The song is called Before I Fall and includes all the ingredients required for a melancholic hit song, down to the creamy guitar solo! Vocalist Toni Kaikkonen says: “It is a third single from our upcoming album Handled with Chaos. It’s epic, moody, easy listening song with catchy melodies. A story about regrets, forgiveness and how to cope when things feel out of your control. In the moment before you die, you see your life, a span of film strip … they say.”
30 | Hello Satellites | No Delivery
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hello Satellites summons big energy on new electro-pop number No Delivery, lifted from her forthcoming album There Is A Field. Melbourne artist Eva Popov has been writing, producing and performing adventurous inimitable indie pop as Hello Satellites for over a decade now. No Delivery is a cold plunge into the addictive nature of excessive screen time and a danceable reminder about looking beyond palm-sized validation. Says Popov: “No Delivery is a 2.38 minute electronic pop experiment about being addicted to my phone, dopamine hits and magical thinking. I have watched other people do amazing things and live amazing lives whilst I waited for some sort of love hit to come through the screen and solve everything.”
