Ishi Vu gives you the big picture, Josh Radnor (yes, Ted Mosby) goes up top, Kalbells picture themselves deaming, Joana Serrat just can’t find the words — and that’ll do it for your Midweek Roundup. See you tomorrow.
31 | Ishi Vu | This is Your Life
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Stockholm artist and producer Ishi Vu has released his brilliant new single This is Your Life, and announced his debut album La Luz, set for release on April 30. Charting a course between electronic experimentation and the dark echoes of ’80s post-rock, Ishi Vu’s music transports the young artist’s philosophical meditations in Gothenburg to imagined dance floors worldwide. His forthcoming project, continuing with This is Your Life, is truly unique: channelling all genres and none into a depiction of some of the most fundamental human feelings. This is Your Life is an empathy bomb of a ‘lost levels’ rave anthem.”
32 | Josh Radnor | The High Road
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On April 16, Josh Radnor will release his debut solo EP One More Then I’ll Let You Go. Today he is presenting first single The High Road. Recorded over 18 months beginning in the fall of 2018, One More Then I’ll Let You Go includes the first of five songs to be released by Radnor as a solo artist. The EP was produced by former Radnor & Lee producer Ryan Dilmore. Dilmore, a composer whose connection to Radnor dates back to the Liberal Arts soundtrack, also appears on several tracks, in addition to violinist Kerenza Peacock.”
33 | Kalbells | Diagram Of Me Sleeping
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Kalbells — the collaborative synth/art-pop project of Kalmia Traver, Angelica Bess, Sarah Pedinotti and Zoë Brecher — shared their dreamy new single Diagram of Me Sleeping, from the upcoming full-length Max Heart, releasing March 26. Each track from Max Heart excavates love and creativity from a new and surprising ventricle of life — and Diagram fits right in as a lofty ode to sleep, brought to reality with jazzy bedroom-pop melodies, swoony sax, and playfully surreal lyricism. Traver explains: “I woke up one morning and my legs felt relaxed and pillowy like two lovers tangled together in mindless warmth and it was pleasant beyond the sensical and I wrote this song. I’ve come to crave sleep almost like love itself. Sleep is where so much of our creativity happens, in dreams & in the spaces between them. I love thinking of my body as a landscape, and sleep is the time I get to roam it freely.”
34 | Joana Serrat | Pictures
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Catalan singer-songwriter Joana Serrat returns with new album Hardcore From The Heart on June 11. The sublime lead single Pictures is available now. “Pictures talks about disillusion and the failure of communication,” comments Serrat. “It’s also a reminder of the amount of time we stupidly waste on trivial details. That idea of ‘perfection never comes’ is that you are better off just living your life because things can always go wrong. Tables turn in the blink of an eye. So putting off things while waiting for the right time to do them kills me. The song takes place in Montréal and it’s about a broken promise. It was inspired by the fact I didn’t let myself be angry with that disappointment. I built a wall and let my frustration and sadness grow in this space but never expressed it. That took a toll on me and by the time I realized it, it was too late.”
35 | Graham Costello | Circularity
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Glasgow drummer and composer Graham Costello has announced his new single Circularity. The single is taken from Graham’s album Second Lives, which features his ensemble Strata and is due out May 7. The new track is a further foray into Graham’s atmospheric minimalism. Circularity sees the group toying with the fragile line between tension and release, with hints of Blackstar-era David Bowie within the track’s calming and almost drone-like hypnotics.”
36 | Robyn Sherwell | To Give Up
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Singer and songwriter Robyn Sherwell shares To Give Up, the first single from her upcoming new album Unfold, due on June 18. Talking about the song, Robyn says it is “a thumping battle song for anyone trying to walk away from a situation or relationship that isn’t working for them. I wrote this song during a time I felt trapped. Promises were broken, truths distorted, hopes undermined, time wasted. It felt like giving up was the only way out, and whilst I wanted freedom, to give up after investing so much also felt like a betrayal to myself. The song is like a plea for the strength to do it.”
37 | Okey Dokey | Delicious (Generationals Remix)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nashville trio Okey Dokey released their third studio album Once Upon One Time at the end of 2020. Today their single Delicious gets reimagined by indie-pop darlings Generationals in a feel-good remix. It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child, so why not let everyone in to help raise Okey Dokey? Once Upon One Time does just that by allowing anyone to send in audio that is featured throughout the record, using submitted videos as promo, adding a third member (Jeremy Clark) and for the first time ever allowing other bands to decide the overall sound of the new album by having six different mixers from six different bands.”
38 | Vanessa Carlton | I Know You Don’t Mean It
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Vanessa Carlton announces that Love Is An Art will be released as a deluxe version on March 26. Fans can get a sneak peek of the demo for her track I Know You Don’t Mean It today. Says Carlton: “Love Is An Art came out the week of our first lockdown. Remember that one? March 2020, the revelatory month where everything as we knew it changed abruptly and (seemingly) indefinitely. My life changed suddenly. Although all my shows were cancelled, I still felt like the record needed to come out. If it brought one person joy, it was worth it. Upon reflection, this album coming out last March may have been a premonition, a musical map of what we were all about to go through.”
39 | Busty & The Bass | ET Part II: Venus
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Canadian soul-jazz collective Busty and the Bass announce their new EP ET Suite. It reworks the track ET from their album Eddie released in August of last year, with the band transforming it into four new, distinct and sonically diverse iterations. “Contrary to how we’ve recorded in the past, every single element of this song was recorded in isolation, including each instrument from the band,” says Chris Vincent (trombone). “There were lots of discussions and listening sessions but as far as the recording process, each instrument was recorded completely independently. There’s an element of this that actually plays into the themes of the music. The ET Suite is really a space traveling journey from one isolated planet / atmosphere to the next and that transportation to isolated spaces is exactly how the creative process worked.”
40 | Ian Janes | Amnesia
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nova Scotia’s Ian Janes has released his new single Amnesia. The song began as Janes scrawled out some lyrical ideas around the theme of ‘trying to forget.’ “I stumbled on the word amnesia,” he says. “It’s such a smooth, musical word; it speaks and sings so well. I soon realized that the whole song should sound like a conversation between the singer and amnesia … that it should refer to ‘amnesia’ in the second person as if it was a character in the story; a friend that I was leaning on for help and heartbreak relief.” Amnesia is the newest single ahead of the release of his upcoming album Episode 5.”
41 | Zenith Volt | Galaxy
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Pulling sounds from retro and futuristic palates, Zenith Volt constructs an ethereal reality, attuned to the openness, enormity and unpredictability of the expanding universe, and the unknown that ever lies ahead. Writing, recording, and broadcasting auditory reverberation across the universe from the island of Maui. Galaxy comes from his album Timekeeper, out March 19.”
42 | Jordi Forniés | Night Watcher
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I’m a visual artist and music composer that has been for many years composing for other people and now releasing my own music. Two years on the making for this new album that I am going to release in singles. This is my first one, simple piano melody with a lot of emotion that hope you will like.”
43 | Carolina East | Until You Are Sorry
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A creation of the Maritime elements, Carolina East is a vibrant, bold, songstress from Newfoundland and Labrador who proudly wears an eclectic tapestry of musical influences, from soul to country to pop. Last November, she released her fourth studio single All The Things, and is following on the momentum of that release with the emotive and vocal-driven single Until You Are Sorry. Her debut album Miss Understood is due out in October. Until You Are Sorry is about a relationship that didn’t end well, and the feeling of frustration which stemmed from that. There was a lot of gift giving and apologizing, but no personable attempt at solving the problem; just bad-aid solutions. The message of the song is that relationships deserve effort, not quick fixes.”
44 | Marbee | Music Box
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Genre exploring Jakarta-born Melbourne musician Marbee introduces an exciting new sound on her latest single Music Box. Self-described as a free-spirited bird with a punk collar around her neck, Marbee’s music twists and bends the musical spectrum in on itself, allowing her to marvel at the new and exciting opportunities that arise from doing so. “I intend to awaken happy and nostalgic feelings from childhood, mixed with shades of ‘rains and thunder’ that even a childlike past cannot escape from. The repetitive melody imitates the cyclical tone of the music box, evoking the protective, albeit fragile, shelter of human relations as well as the enchanting and lulling attraction of music in its simplest mechanical form. I recorded the xylophone in a 100 year-old building to capture its ancient atmospherics.. ‘When I play the music box, it takes me back to home.’ ”
