On Saturday, I spent two hours musing about the people milling around the town outside, with the Lady Luck EP in the background. I never thought to turn it off for my window-watching. They must have got something right. Released last week, Nature TV is back in an all new series of that hit serial […]
EP
EP REVIEW: Rosehip Teahouse – ‘Chillin in the Void’
A lot of art has been made since the start of global lockdown, some in spite of it, and some directly because of it. Chillin in the Void feels very much the latter. Even the title recalls the cheerful nihilism characterizing lockdown memes on the Internet. It’s a situation of “imagine Sisyphus happy,” or at […]
EP REVIEW: Grizzly Coast – ‘Party of One’
Released on 17th July, Party of One is the debut EP for the indie rock project Grizzly Coast, aka Alannah Kavanagh, an acoustic singer-songwriter turned rock frontwoman, and it’s a great one. At first it may seem like an eerily prescient lockdown EP (it was recorded in 2018), but its treatment of alienation will serve you […]
EP REVIEW: Montrell – ‘The Lemon’
Instantly falling in love with music gets harder and harder. At least for me. When you listen to music as a job, it can get more difficult to hear something and like it from the get go. But sometimes, just sometimes, there’s an exception. And in my case, it was when I first heard the […]
EP REVIEW: YOWL – ‘Atrophy’
YOWL are out with a new EP, and it’s a lush, multi-layered record crafted with a certain ingeniousness and a wise attitude to production, which requires more than one listen to fully catch all that it has to offer. The band has created a deep, rich texture of sound that is best enjoyed slowly and […]
EP REVIEW: The Elephant Trees – ‘Monachopsis’
It is a busy moment for The Elephant Trees. The Manchester-based band has just embarked on a tour (under the emblematic title of ‘Depressed Kids Disco’), they are now out with their debut EP, quite possibly marking the beginning of a new phase in their production and bringing to the studio some of the immersive […]
EP REVIEW: Cruel World – ‘Cruel World’
For some outfits, the perception of productivity is paramount to their success, the ability to appear as if they are on a creative hot streak and can do no wrong. As is all too often the case, however, this overconfidence can in fact paper over the reality, that a lot of the time their material […]
EP REVIEW: Galli – ‘In The Roundhouse There’s Hornets’
Some bands defy easy classification, eschewing genre stereotypes in order to dig deep into what their music is about and what they stand for. Galli is such an outfit. Hailing from Norwich, the four-piece gained plaudits earlier this year off the back of their debut single ‘Sabika,’ with airplay and support from 6Music and BBC […]
EP REVIEW: PIXEY – ‘Colours’
It’s a shame really. It’s September. I wish that this EP had come out three months ago, because I’m sure it would have been my soundtrack to summer. PIXEY released her new EP, Colours on Friday (6th September), so it looks like I’ve got some tunes lined up for next June.
EP REVIEW: Dead Nature – ‘Taking My Shadow’
As a Spring King fan, I’m used to the brash, fast, upbeat rhythms of their sound, yet Dead Nature (aka. Tarek Musa) creates an EP that transports you into a nostalgic, synth bubble of euphoria. I’d recommend listening to this EP with headphones in to truly feel and listen to the sounds and lyrics.
EP REVIEW: L. Norton – ‘Skin’
Electro pop has grown out of favour in the alternative scene, a gradual shift in tastes and convenience has seen us streaming less and less genre music with song classification adopting a more mood-based, representative format in which the listener assumes an active role in the process. Artists are responding and the result is a […]
EP REVIEW: Maguire – ‘Préludes’
London-based artist Gillian Maguire, or to give her stage name, MAGUIRE, follows up two impressive single releases so far in 2019 (‘Behind the Screen’ and ‘Fallible’) with her debut five track EP, Préludes. A classically trained instrumentalist from the age of sixteen, her calling card is her line in dexterous, instantly memorable piano lines that […]
EP REVIEW: THUMPER – ‘Out of Body Auto-Message’
There’s something interesting happening in Ireland. Here’s another music scene that seems to have picked up pace in the last couple years, with a number of young bands emerging, and to some extent establishing themselves, with a clear intention to try and do something different and find their own voice. This is also the intention […]
EP REVIEW: Nature TV – ‘Ep2’
I can see VCR lines. I can see polaroid photographs. I can hear ridiculous amounts of chorus. I hear Nature TV’s new EP. Ep2 releases on 10th May, and I’ve been getting lost in the sound of my mum’s vinyl collection. And I’m okay with this.
EP REVIEW: Seatbelts – ‘Please Slow Down’
With their new EP, Seatbelts (formerly of Hooton Tennis Club) offer a short but ambitious record with a quirky mood, some rather distinct and challenging ideas, and a sound that manages to call back to the greatest glories of past British rock without falling into the trap of easy nostalgia.
EP REVIEW: The King’s Parade – ‘Mad’
There’s nothing like a surprise. I hadn’t heard of the King’s Parade before last week, when I was told their Mad EP was coming on April 5th. I was taken completely off-guard. Now, I’ve got a new contender for favourite band of 2019. I haven’t heard this much vigour and character from a band in a […]
EP REVIEW: Chandler Juliet – ‘Elements’
One might say that the “four elements/earth-wind-fire-and-water” route is overdone, especially for a four-song EP, but young Los Angeles native Chandler Juliet manages to make it new and interesting for her Elements, a vague format for her work rather than a cheap gimmick. This would be impossible without her unpretentiously poetic lyrics, containing all the […]
EP REVIEW: Green Dolphin – ‘Bedtime Stories’
If one word must be found to describe this first EP by Essex band Green Dolphin, the word should probably be ‘promise’. The embryos of many an interesting idea are found disseminated all over the record, though after listening one is left with the impression that none of them is yet fully formed. This is […]
EP REVIEW: roves – ‘A Strung Out Pilot’
Nestled in the Thames Valley – in Reading more precisely – a band has quietly grown from the roving countryside and confluence of rivers. A tidy four-piece comprised of lifelong friends Ethan Morgan (Vocals/Guitar) and Connor Coutts (Guitar), along with Ellis Morgan (Bass/Vocals) and Matt Jamieson (Drums) make up the musical enterprise of roves. With […]
EP REVIEW: Too Cool Kid – ‘The Candidate’
Ambition is always something to be admired in a young, up-and-coming band, and this new EP from Manchester-based trio Too Cool Kid is nothing but ambitious. It comes as close to a concept album as an EP can, and it is accompanied by a series of connecting videos, directed by Ola El Awadly, adding another […]