One of the most intriguing trends in UK alternative music in these post-lockdown years, perhaps fuelled by the enforced stop in touring of the early 2020s but growing seemingly ever stronger in the last year or so, has been the presence of a series of independent bands who simply refuse to play by any rules. […]
Fresh from a triumphant London performance and about to embark on their first major headline UK tour, Pyncher have now released their debut EP after having been earmarked as one of the upcoming bands to watch most closely by the likes of NME. Chew is a perfect calling card for Pyncher, both in terms of […]
Sometimes, when you get lucky, you get a band which takes an approach to rock music that takes it completely, almost devotedly seriously as art. And sometimes, when you get very lucky, that art has a brass section. Anyone who is about to listen to the debut EP by Brighton’s own Opus Kink, out on […]
Last year’s Nastavi, Calliope EP from Babehoven was one of 2021’s finest releases, an eclectic collection of heart-on-the-sleeve songs that swept across electronica, country and drone-pop with a singular, leftfield take on introspective songwriting. Nastavi’s dense, often claustrophobic, sound, however, has given way to a very different sonic approach on Sunk, the first Babehoven EP for […]
Heralded by a first single which proudly declared its ambition, this debut EP by Brian Destiny was certainly one of my most eagerly awaited releases of the year. Brian’s Got Talent is a product of the buzzing South London music scene, and is in a sense a perfect calling card for it in the way […]
My first encounter with Jessica Winter’s solo work was at a day festival in London, shortly after the lifting of Covid measures, which turned out, by the way, to be somewhat plagued by organisational woes. In the rather palpable frustration that accompanied said issues, then, it was even more remarkable that her set stood out […]
Our memories are built on shifting sands. They’re not images in our mind conjured by time-travelling back to the original events we’re remembering. We rarely recall an event direct from the source. More often than not, our brains remember instead the last time we remembered it. And each time it’s filtered from a new perspective, a […]
Even from its very first beats, Awake and Hungry, the debut EP by London-based collective Folly Group, sets out to challenge its listeners. Out this June for So Young Records, this is a hugely ambitious work by a group of artists who have a very clear idea of where they’re going and what they want to […]
Some people were simply born to be in the spotlight. Having played bass since she was seven years old, Blu DeTiger recently in 2020 found herself something of a sensation. With the release of her debut EP How Did We Get Here? on 5th March, DeTiger is fully riding the wave of her breakout year.
2021 is already gearing up to be a very interesting year for the British punk scene. While some of the more established names in the genre have been delivering new music at a very high level of quality, it is just as interesting to take a look at the up-and-coming names and what they have […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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.