Dear-God is ready for a fall, Real Kevin make some decent replacements, Mdou Moctar keeps it down, Alfa Mist never sleeps (and is not a soft drink, despite his name) — and let’s not forget about Vanilla Fudge, Bongzilla, Thirdface, Kombi Killers and more treats to come in your Tuesday Roundup. Really, it’s far better than you deserve so early in the week.
1 | Dear-God | Slamdance
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “20-year-old experimental hip-hop and hardcore artist Dear-God (Robert Ortiz) premieres the new video for Slamdance, from his recent debut EP 1-844-4Dear-God. Directed by Rebeca Ortiz, the video is a psych-horror nightmare that picks up the song’s adrenaline into one deathly finale. Dear-God explains, “my generation is facing increasing adversity in this world as we try to live and thrive in a wasteland of an Earth. This song is about watching the world fall down economically, politically, morally, and environmentally. Any hope for a sustainable future for us has been lost.”
2 | Real Kevin | Tired
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Real Kevin have been creating their take on garage-rock, post-punk & grunge while performing throughout southern Ontario for the last two years. They just released their double album Ninety Four, featuring eight tracks pulling from their indie-rock influence on one side (Ninety Four), and eight tracks that drive toward a heavy grunge sound on the other (‘94). “This was originally written from the band perspective of those far, overnight gigs where we’re playing in dives and being apart from everyone. But it has a broader meaning of wondering if what you’re doing with your life is truly worth missing out on being home.”
3 | Mdou Moctar | Tala Tannam
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Mdou Moctar will release his next album Afrique Victime on May 21. With Afrique Victime, the prodigious Tuareg guitarist and songwriter rips a new hole in the sky — boldly reforging contemporary Saharan music and “rock music” by melding guitar pyrotechnics, full-blast noise, and field recordings with poetic meditations on love, religion, women’s rights, inequality, and Western Africa’s exploitation at the hands of colonial powers. Today, watch a video for the song Tala Tannam. While Mdou and his band are renowned for their volume and energy, this song is largely unplugged — tracking a simple melody and a mellow, hypnotic beauty. “Tala Tannam means your tears,” says Mdou. “It is another love song of which I’m very fond.”
4 | Alfa Mist | Organic Rust
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Following the announcement of his upcoming album Bring Backs, London producer, pianist, bandleader and MC Alfa Mist is sharing his new single Organic Rust. The track is the second to emerge from his fourth full-length solo record, out April 23. The album’s closer, Organic Rust illuminates the Newham artist’s skills as a wordsmith and MC, circling back to the classic hip-hop styles that drew him to jazz in the first place. Alfa states: “Organic Rust is a song about being at odds with the idea of success and how that can lead to apathy.”
5 | Kojaque | No Hands
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Kojaque has premiered the single No Hands alongside a video. It’s the latest teaser of his upcoming debut album. The track, writes Kojaque, “is about growing up. I wrote it on my 21st birthday so it’s a couple years old. I think I was just reminiscing on my childhood, trying to recount old memories. There seems to be a pretty universal feeling when you’re young and that’s wanting to make your parents proud. At least that’s what I remember … My childhood wasn’t exactly like everyone else’s, at times I really felt like an alien but it was happy, it’s all I knew. We lost my dad to suicide when I was a child. Although the song is about that loss of potential in my dad’s death, I’ve learned to see the potential in my own life. It’s something I’ve very much come to terms with, for me it’s a very hopeful song.”
6 | Oh No Noh | Where One Begins And The Other Stops
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Where One Begins And The Other Stops is the title track to Oh No Noh’s upcoming album. It shows the more complex, pattern-driven side of the project while at the same time being based on a catchy guitar riff. It comes alongside a live session, making Oh No Noh’s incomparable setup of midi-controlled music robots and guitar loops visible. Oh No Noh comments: “Where One Begins And The Other Stops emerged from an experiment, trying combine odd and recurring musical elements. My hope is that one can get lost in listening to this cycle of chords.”
7 | Doohickey Cubicle | Milano Sport
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Doohickey Cubicle are sharing their Milano Sport video from their upcoming debut LP Don’t Fix Anything 😉, out March 12. It’s a the bizarre miniature swimming pool soirée featuring some eccentric clay characters. Doohickey Cubicle explained: “We were in Milan starting a short tour and our accommodation was a storage unit in an old building (Airbnb trickery!). In a strange and heavy headspace, we set out to find a shower and after being turned down at several gyms, we stumbled upon Milano Sport. Very unprepared, we ended up swimming laps in packed lanes and drying off with our tee shirts. I left with an altered, say lighter, disposition and began jotting down words in my phone notes which became this song. For the video accompaniment, we built a miniature public pool with Sculpey clay, from the buoys to the flutter boards and a handful of fictional characters.”
8 | BruteAllies | Nemesis
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “To celebrate the physical release of their debut album Ash & Nails, BruteAllies are releasing Nemesis into the world! Underneath the attack of thrash guitars, hailstorm like vocals, and solid beats Nemesis follows the spiritual and cultural bridge between thrash and death that the band fully delivers in Ash & Nails: “It’s fast, it’s sharp and it’s deadly!”
9 | Traumatomy | Patterns Of Tyranny
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “It’s been six years since the last album from renowned Russian death squad Traumatomy, but the wait for a fresh assault from these purveyors of gore-soaked, slamming brutality is nearly over. On May 7 they will unleash their colossal new album Extirpation Paradigms — a bone-breaking bombardment of shocking extremity. Today you can get a first taste of the upcoming devastation as first single, Patterns Of Tyranny. The band say: “Our third album Extirpation Paradigms is the hardest and most brutal album to date. We finally got a really sick sound, without the plastic shit. With every song you will understand how slamming brutal death metal should sound: crushing guitars riffs, uncompromising drums and inhuman guttural.”
10 | Zilched | The Knife
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Detroit noise-pop artist Zilched (Chloë Drallos) released her latest video from her momentous debut album Doompop: The thunderous The Knife. She explains: “The Knife is love/hate. I wanted the video, with dancing improvised by Morgan McCaul, to visualize an inner monologue, where those different emotional powers start to take over and ultimately lead to release of that power.”
11 | Defset | Deadlines
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Emerging electronic producer Defset unveils Deadlines, the first cut taken from upcoming album Proximity, due for release on May 28. “Deadlines is about the end of days,” explains Defset. “Writing this in my bunker when the world felt like it was ending, I guess it took on a sombre, dark tone. I was listening to a lot of Trentemøller, Apparat and other artists who lean towards the darker, cinematic, electronic spectrum. It’s dark but not without hope.”
12 | Laurence-Anne | Nyx
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Laurence-Anne presents Nyx, a new song from Musivision, her second album due out on April 23. The funky, disco-inspired second single was written by Laurence-Anne while she was on a creative retreat in before being completely revamped with the help of her musicians. “I’d written a pretty soft version of the song, and then when it came time to record it, we went somewhere else entirely. The previous evening, we had spent the night dancing to the music of Munich Machine. We became fans after just one listen,” she says of Italo disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder’s obscure project. “In the morning it was obvious to everyone that we wanted to make a four-on-the-floor song, and that’s the one we picked.”
13 | Clea Anaïs | Hazy Days
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Calgary musician & Raleigh co-founder Clea Anaïs returns to music with the release of her debut solo single Hazy Days. Anaïs had taken a break to pursue a career in aviation. COVID-19 had other plans. With the world in a pandemic lockdown, Anaïs’s focus returned to her first love. She says, “Hazy Days captures that moment when you meet a new person and know simultaneously you love each other, but that no matter how things play out you won’t move forward in this life together. It is about the practice of really being present with someone, because the second you let go, time will catapult you forward again, and the moment will be lost forever.”
14 | Erike de Casier | Drama
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Erika de Casier serves up another dose of minimalist R&B with second new single Drama. The song, the Copenhagen songwriter and producer says, centres around recognising and acknowledging one’s dramatic tendencies — “you know how sometimes you overthink or misinterpret a situation and act in a less reasonable manner. I wanted to create a sort of evil twin or alter ego of myself because you’re not entirely yourself when you’re in the violence of your own emotions.”
15 | Bess Atwell | Co-op
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Emerging singer and songwriter Bess Atwell returns to deliver the single Co-op. It sees her channel more of the same smooth and enticing direction she has shown on her previous offerings. Besssays, “Flipping between past and present tense, I think of this song the same way I think of a memory that keeps interrupting the current moment. It’s a snapshot of a time of refuge and routine. It’s an illustration of mine and my partner’s life together. The relationship seemed to provide me with some sort of permission to recuperate from family trauma, as if realising for the first time that there was a life outside of that chaos lulled me into an emotional slumber. Through the song I grapple with the desire for, and fear of, comfort. I used references to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway to depict a vivid nostalgia and an affinity for trivialities that serve to calm when darker thoughts set it.”
16 | David Haerle | No More We
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “L.A. singer-songwriter and guitarist David Haerle has released his single and video No More We. The song is inspired by the recent and sudden passing of his brother Christian, who lived an adventurous and spirited life but who suffered from an addiction to alcohol and drugs and a traumatic brain injury: “The song No More We looks back on our childhood together and the summers spent at our grandparent’s farm in Tennessee. Experiencing the wonder of the world through the eyes of two young brothers before there was even a hint of the adult troubles that lay ahead of us. It’s saying goodbye to the brother I loved so much. We shared all these important and exhilarating memories. Now that he’s gone, I alone carry those memories. And in that sense, there is no more we.”
17 | Fya Fox | Body
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ireland’s new alt-pop queen Fya Fox has released her second single Body. Traversing rolling hills of sparse, panoramic songwriting, Fya Fox is the exciting new prospect from Ireland spinning tightly wound yarns of brooding and emotive alt-pop. A classically trained vocalist straying beyond Irelands traditional country/folk scene, Fya’s influences span from Banks, Lana Del Rey and London Grammar.”
18 | Cooper Phillip | Not Perfect
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Russian born L.A. pop-soul artist Cooper Phillip succeeds in capturing the attention of listeners across the globe. With her intense drive, soaring vocals and passionate songwriting, Phillip is elevating herself to the top of her genre. Phillip’s music features an underlying theme of strength, grace and empowerment. “I believe we underestimate ourselves often and our fear takes over. My goal is to show people that they are stronger and can do much more than they think they can.”
19 | Zuli Jr. | Blue Sky
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rising indie R&B-pop artist Zuli Jr. has released his new single Blue Sky, from his forthcoming studio album Stop it God, out May 14. “Blue Sky was written at my breaking point,” shares Zuli. “I was completely lost yet keeping up appearances on social media as if everything was better than ever. Losing my peace of mind, while trying to use likes and comments to fill a hole and reinforce my self-worth. The song and video reflects on this facade we all put on in one way or another. The perception of ourselves we put out into the world and embracing the vulnerability of actually being.”
20 | Ghostly Kisses | J’ai Demandé à La Lune
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Accomplices in life as well as in Ghostly Kisses project, Louis-Étienne Santais and Margaux Sauvé unite once again to move us. Today they deliver a touching cover of the piece J’ai Demandé à La Lune an iconic song by the French group Indochine. The duo, whose musical universe was marked by this classic from the early 2000s, offers a very personal acoustic version, both soft and hushed. Ghostly Kisses thus presents for the first time an interpretation in French, paving the way for the release of several other songs in her native language.”
21 | Maple Glider | Good Thing
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Melbourne singer-songwriter Maple Glider (aka Tori Ziestch) shares a new single and video for Good Thing — a song born of that frozen and fretful time just before you’re going to hurt someone you have loved by leaving them. Ziestch explains: “I wrote this song out of a place of defeat. I was really heartbroken at this point, and very confused. I like the feeling of my independence and I think I was afraid of putting energy into the wrong people. Sometimes we make decisions out of fear and sometimes it’s because we know that it is the best decision to make. Those lines can get very blurry.”
22 | Jon Allen | Hold On
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Acclaimed singer-songwriter Jon Allen releases his first track of 2021 with the uplifting Hold On. The single powerfully communicates a message of hope and renewal against the odds with a driving beat and an urgent lyric. Hold On is featured on Jon’s forthcoming fifth studio album, … meanwhile, available May 21. In the last 10 years, Jon has carved out a niche as a recording artist and live performer supporting such diverse artists as Damien Rice, Brian May, Seal and Dionne Warwick (whom he supported at Albert Hall). His songs and distinctive voice can be heard across films/TV both in the United Kingdom and in America.”
23 | Grimmreaper | Road of Resistance
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The fourth and final single leading up to the full release of Grimmreaper’s debut album The Tragedy of Being is upon us today, as he shares his cover version of Babymetal’s Road of Resistance, which features Dragonforce guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman. Grimmreapear elaborates: “I’ve been a Dragonforce fan forever. I first heard this song by Babymetal and thought ‘That’s Japanese Dragonforce for sure.’ Sure enough, Dragonforce helped write some songs for them, including this one. I’ve been a fan of Babymetal ever since. I re-wrote the lyrics in English in 2018 and recorded the cover in my apartment when I lived in Japan. I lived there for a little over a year. It took almost two years of learning, recording, failing, and trying again before it was done. Dragonforce often writes about the hero’s journey, mountains, dragons and archetypes, and this cover sticks with those themes, but also fits in with the album’s story.”
24 | Thirdface | Buck
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nashville hardcore group Thirdface shared their new single Buck just ahead of the release of their debut full-length. It’s a caustic and innovative approach to hardcore from the quartet made up of members from Yautja, Sallow, Donors, and the DIY collective Drkmttr. Clocking in at just 36 seconds, the explosive track is a burst of maniacal energy but the band remains tightly in the pocket on one of the most ferocious tracks on the record. Do It With A Smile is out this Friday.”
25 | Bongzilla | Free The Weed
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “U.S. sludge behemoths Bongzilla unleash second single Free The Weed, off new album Weedsconsin, out on 4/20. Weedsconsin is Bongzilla’s first recording as a thunderous three-piece — with Mike Makela moving from guitar to bass since Cooter Brown’s departure. Approaching songs as a trio has created more space and allowed the band to showcase their musicianship in a new way, while being sonically clearer and more inclined to mind-expanding jams, setting Weedsconsin apart from earlier material.”
26 | Aziola Cry | …Where Once Bore Wings
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “As Chicago instrumental metal trio Aziola Cry prepare to release their third full-length, The Ironic Divide, they’re premiering the album’s new single …Where Once Bore Wings. Jason Blake offers: “Where our first single Hollow Reflections showed the moody, dark side of the band, …Where Once Bore Wings is the heavy alter ego. With the exception of the short Warr Guitar interlude, this song does not let up. It was written as the conclusion to the story and represents the dismal aftermath.”
27 | Frozen Arch | Hypnotized
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Frozen Arch, one-man band founded by the french singer and multi-instrumentalist Loïc Malassagne (Invading Chapel, Hot Hell RooM) just released his second single Hypnotized.”
https://youtu.be/ZPt2Lh85_dw
28 | The Brother Brothers | The Calla Lily Song
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Brother Brothers are releasing their new single, The Calla Lily Song, today. Opening with the smooth warmth of guitar tones, David Moss contemplates an indescribably special moment, a time at which one can do nothing but breathe deeply, held by the sensation that something essential though utterly unnameable is taking place. He says: “This one is about recognizing that a moment in life is significant in some way. The song opens in contemplation about the beginning of a new love, and follows the walk home that I often took when I first moved to the city. It’s about a feeling we all get at some point, that something special is taking place.”
29 | Vanilla Fudge | Rock and Roll
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Led Zeppelin classic Rock and Roll gets the Vanilla Fudge treatment. Rock and Roll is without doubt one of the greatest rock tracks of all time, performed by one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Vanilla Fudge add their own slant to the track, adding a little soul vibe and some amazing organ interludes. This version definitely has a life and identity of its own.”
30 | Electric Religious | Catherine
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Electric Religious is the project of Edmonton Métis singer-songwriter Brandon Baker. Electric Religious’ debut album Yeah, Yeah, No (2018) featured the single Revolution. Electric Religious is now following up with a new single, Catherine, which exemplifies Baker’s guitar-driven music, full of inspiration and hope. Lyrically the song was inspired by Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers, about a fictional character’s obsession with a historical woman, Catherine Tekawitha.”
31 | Max Foreman | Second Time Around
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Max Foreman is sharing his new single Second Time Around. Foreman’s self-released debut Underground is due out this Friday. Max stated: “Second Time Around is a rumination on repeating the same experience again and again. In this song, the hidden story is that my garage was broken in early in the quarantine era and then broken in a month later. I had a trunk full of musical equipment stolen — then the second time they came back for my girlfriend’s bicycle. I wanted to channel the familiar themes of the Underground EP: when life is temporarily shaken up against the backdrop of more profound changes. Ironically, this has one of the more feel-good instrumentals of the whole record, with a nostalgic Zombies-esque alt rock Mellotron groove.”
32 | Kombi Killers | Don’t Start
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Brisbane’s old-school punks Kombi Killers have released their single Don’t Start. It is a classic punk anthem that delivers just the right amount of original old school attitude and will no doubt satisfy the most rabid punk fan. Influences of Anti-Nowere League, Sex Pistols, GBH and The Misfits echo throughout the track.”
