Browsing Tag

Cocteau Twins

Shackles Unbind in Ellery Twining’s Experimentally Liberating Single, WHAT’S GONNA SET YOU FREE

Posted on 24 June 2023

If Sonic Youth prolonged Kim Gordon’s spoken word verse in Kool Thing and played with post-pop and post-punk sensibilities, the result would be as coldly electrifying as the standout single, WHAT’S GONNA SET YOU FREE from Ellery Twining’s 2023 LP, RESULTS.

With a Joy Division-esque atmosphere ringing in the background of the stellar production by Eric Lichter of Dirt Floor Recording Studio, all the right motifs are in place to bring a tonal sense of familiarity, while Ellery uses his distinctively exasperated devil-may-care vocal energy to set the listener free from sonic monotony.

The soundscapes were compiled to reflect the childhood and coming-of-age experiences of Gen X kids, with themes of popular culture, childhood survival tactics and the ramifications of living in an era when divorce became socially acceptable at its core. Forget the Coupland novel, for nostalgically vindicating resonance, delve right into RESULTS.

Stream WHAT’S GONNA SET YOU FREE with the rest of Ellery Twining’s LP, RESULTS via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Moon Museum show us all the ‘Pleasures Of Peace’

Posted on 6 March 2021

In a time where gender seems to have become more politicised and polemic than ever before, ‘Pleasures Of Peace’, the first single from San Franciscan shoegaze quartet Moon Museum, is that sought-after magical spread of masculine and feminine, yin and yang perfectly balanced between Olivia Barchard’s epic, soaring vocals and Ryan Joseph’s wash of swooping guitars. Swathes of dreamy psychrock, awash in Gretschy 12-string and echo sit atop reverb-soaked pushing drums and driving melodic bass. There’s obvious Slowdive influences, but Lush and Belly too, Swallow, the softer parts of My Bloody Valentine, and, of course, the all-straddling Cocteau Twins Liz Fraser, and gentler elements of Curve’s Toni Halliday in the vocal mix too, alongside the Doves and Chameleons guitars.

It’s a delicious, heady, atmospheric mix of dreamrock, arcing back to the 4AD shoegaze heyday of the late ‘80s and 1990s; hypnotic and entrancing, energetic and yet calming, all at once.

Moon Museum have two further singles slated for release in 2021; on the basis of ‘Pleasures Of Peace’, we can’t wait to hear them, too.

Hear ‘Pleasures Of Peace’ on Soundcloud; check out Moon Museum on Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Alex Holmes

A&R Factory Present: Volkova Sisters

Posted on 17 May 2016

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Borrowing their name from characters in William Gibson’s cyperpunk masterpiece, Pattern Recognition, the London based Volkova Sisters was formed in 2009 in Budapest. The “sisters”Gergely Kovacs, Daniel Sandor and Dalma Berger found each other through a shared passion for dark and melancholic 80’s new-wave music. They vowed to create their own visions, inspired by the shimmering distortions of My Bloody Valentine, combined with the dreamy landscapes of Cocteau Twins or European cold-wave, but with a sharper emphasis on industrial pop – and adding their own unique twists of depth, breath, beauty and dynamism. In Volkova Sisters, European East and West meet and merge in moving sonic trips to the North…

In 2011, Volkova Sisters went off to tour the US with their first EP, Venus Robot – they performed at SXSW, Whiskey Go Go, the Viper Room and illegal warehouse parties in LA. They had their EP debut show in East London’s The Drop, opened for Lamb in Budapest and had gigs at some of the coolest music festivals in the East Block.

Their second EP, Hope (2012), was conceived during the time when the band’s native Hungary started making international headlines for the wrong reasons – unrest, poverty, radicalization… Overcoming the challenges of the world by creating something new from nothing was and is always the greatest source for hope.
Hope –which premiered online on Electronic Beats- was supported by a number of signature videos. Many of the songs from this record were featured in the 2014 Cannes “Un Certain Regard Prize”-winning Hungarian film White God.

Their third EP, Holiday came out in the summer of 2015 with 4 brand new songs, putting down a signpost about what to expect from their first upcoming album.

Volkova Sister’s debut album, Blood Shapes This Faith ( Due summer / autumn 2016 ) is a summary of their 4 year journey together as a band and songwriter commune. The soundscape is lush, organic, noisy with dark and drifty melodies and guitars, guiding the listener through their twisted picturesque world of melancholic landscapes. Bianco is taken from the forthcoming album.

Release party gig – The Macbeth, Hoxton, London, 18th May.