Browsing Tag

Folk Pop

Jakob the Liar – H E A R T B E A T: The Only Heartbreak Hit You Need to Hear This Year

Posted on 19 March 2023

Considering that we’re living in a post-truth world, we may as well tune into a reality falsifier, especially if they’re as endearingly magnetic as the alt-indie singer-songwriter Jakob the Liar.

His latest single, H E A R T B E A T, is his first contribution to the airwaves since the successful launch of his 2020 EP, Crystallised in Moonshine, and it is a melodic dream. The concept of running away from your own heartbeat won’t be foreign to anyone that has known heartbreak, but few can bring that world-shattering sensation into poetic motion as well as the Danish London-residing artist.

If The National, Bon Iver and Springsteen had a riff-soaked lovechild, the sonic result would be just as sweet as the anthemic intimacy in H E A R T B E A T.

H E A R T B E A T is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lindsey Sampson – Sand: An Elemental Folk-Pop Triumph.

Posted on 27 January 2023

With frenetic synth sequencing that made us nostalgic for the soundscapes from Alan Vega, the pop singer-songwriter, Lindsey Sampson’s latest single, Sand, is an elemental triumph.

Oceanic momentum flows through progressive rising tides in the un-archetypally structured single that harnesses deep reverence for natural phenomena and articulately observes how nature often works to reflect introspective sensations.

Lindsey Sampson, who spends her time between Nashville and New England, marries the soul of country with a contemporary indie folk pop edge that is definitively hers. We can fully attest to her ability to appeal to the spirituality that lies within us all – regardless of whether we nurture that relationship or not.

Since her humble beginnings, the singer-songwriter has been nominated for the award of Best Female Performer at the New England Music Awards and received many other accolades along the way while performing solo and as part of her folk-rock band, Visiting Wine. 

Sand will officially release on January 27th. Dig your toes in on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

From tragic inevitability, hauntingly filmic beauty is born in Rico Friebe’s single, This Day

Posted on 23 December 2022

Folk singer-songwriter, Rico Friebe, has unveiled the hauntingly filmic second single from his upcoming debut album, Word Value. Born from tragedy and hope, the vividly redolent single, This Day, explores the inevitability of the days we fear the most, alluding to our inability to avert discourses we are compelled to run from.

There is a profound grace in the alchemic vocal layering that spills soul across the stabbing minor piano keys that torridly flurry through the soundscape to reflect the phenomena we have to accept we can’t overcome. In concept and execution alike, This Day is a masterful piece that has left us with plenty of anticipation over the debut album.

Listen to This Day on Spotify from December 23rd. Await the alchemy in the debut album, which is primed for release in early 2023.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Chloe Southern – Naked: Intimately Confessional Neo-Folk-Pop

Posted on 2 December 2022

Taken from her debut EP, Last Man on Earth, Chloe Southern’s indie neo-folk-meets-pop single, Naked, strips emotionally bare. The urgency of the distinctive vocal delivery paired with the intimacy in the confessionalism makes for a powerful listening experience. Anyone that has ever wrestled with entropy to feel viscerally again will be consumed by the conceptual score, which runs through the dim views that get dimmer in the wake of loneliness.

Narrating how she hates coffee because she only makes it for herself and the smell of snow which takes her to places where she finds a lost love’s shadow proves how easily our perceptions of elemental to inane things can change over time and with the absence of the co-creators of our stories before a chapter closes.

Through and through, it is a stunning single from the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter which deserves to complement the next heartbreakingly cinematic Blockbuster.

Naked is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Succumb to the cinematic nostalgia in Molly Murphy’s folk-pop single, I Miss When We Drove Shitty Cars

Posted on 30 November 2022

Taken from her phenomenal EP, Were You Digging for Some Deeper Meaning? Molly Murphy’s nostalgia-soaked folk serenade, I Miss When We Drove Shitty Cars, will drive you right back to the days when it was okay if everything wasn’t Instagram-worthy.

With all the grace and beguile of Joni Mitchell, this sepia-tinged stripped-back single allows Murphy’s celestial vocal timbre to float atop the quiescently cinematic melodies that lull you into a state of calm before the orchestral chamber strings chorally caress the non-lexical harmonies that will make you Dream Baby Dream.

The NYC indie-folk singer-songwriter is a soulful force to be reckoned with. Watch this space. Or better yet, succumb to the choral mesmerism.

I Miss When We Drove Shitty Cars is now available to stream on Spotify and purchase on Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Folk singer-songwriter Steve Andrews reached the pinnacle of feel-good music with ‘Climb Through a Rainbow’

Posted on 14 November 2022
Climb Through A Rainbow by Steve Andrews

When Steve Andrews, AKA the Bard of Ely, isn’t prising our eyes open to the disasters we create in our destructive-by-design lifestyles, playing Glastonbury or being lauded by the NME and Nicky Wire, he’s spilling soul across the airwaves through singles such as Climb Through a Rainbow.

With Pixies-Esque shimmering reverb and birdsong as the backdrop to his ardently animated acoustic guitar and unlimitedly happy vocals that bring alive the song that was inspired and composed in his friend’s nursery in Cardiff, it is impossible not to get swept up in the euphoric energy of the single.

Climb Through a Rainbow definitively proves you’re never too old to benefit from the simple pleasures of authentically feel-good music, which makes no bones about being on the silly side of wild. Honestly, I’ve got happy tears as I write this review. Nothing has touched my soul this much, ironically, since Nicky Wire’s solo album.

Stream and purchase Climb Through a Rainbow on Bandcamp now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ancestral pain emanates in Million Pebble Beach’s latest beguilingly awakening Witches

Posted on 6 November 2022

In modern culture, witches are often painted with crooked noses and broomsticks beside them; Million Pebble Beach’s latest single, Witches, paints them as what they always were, women powerful enough to evoke enough fear to drive men to burn them at the stake.

That archaic form of misogyny has shifted with the ages but remains just as pertinent in our regression-tainted cultural tapestry. The deep ancestral pain emanates through this sombre yet juxtaposing uplifting single that shimmers with tonal and lyrical beguile as their strength and power is celebrated.

The Hertfordshire-based solo artist has made quite the name for herself with her cinematic and poetic piano oeuvre since 2018, which any fans of Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers will find playlist-worthy,

Witches is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

UK singer-songwriter Kwun has made his spectrally soul-chilling debut with his single, Supernatural

Posted on 1 November 2022

On October 21st, the UK-based singer-songwriter and producer, Kwun made his melodious debut with the soul-chilling single, Supernatural, which fuses the songwriting styles of Nick Drake & John Lennon.

With vocals void of veneer flourishing in their own distinctive timbre instead of forced into assimilation, surrendering to the emotion in Supernatural, especially with the bitter-sweet vibrato, is non-optional.

Atop the trickling upbeat piano keys, shimmering motifs, gentle percussive fills, and orchestral swells, Pang’s spectrally sweet vocals lead you into catharsis; the healing propensities of Supernatural were no mistake. The single was recorded at 432 Hz, the frequency which resonates and harmonises with nature and the human body. While lyrically, Kwun provokes the listener into questioning adages old and new to become the greatest versions of their beings.

Mark Prentice (Johnny Cash & Bruce Springsteen), Sam Wheat (Pharrell Williams & Amy Winehouse) and Tony Cousins (Adele & George Michael) all put their deft finishing touches on this resoundingly promising release. We can’t wait to hear what his forthcoming album, Ancient Ageless & True, has in store.

The Radio Edit of Supernatural is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Gratitude envelopes platonic love in Lizzie Hosking’s latest alt-pop single, Skye

Posted on 29 October 2022

Platonic love may take a backseat on the airwaves for fawning declarations of lust; if anyone can push it to the forefront, it is Lizzie Hosking with her uplifting ballad, Skye which soulfully celebrates the lifelong friendship with the person who has lifted her from every downward trajectory.

After realising that she’d written songs about people that don’t deserve an ounce of her time, Hosking delivered this timeless feat of pop which starts with minimalist ambient production around her soulful vocal timbre before building into an epic outpour of gratitude, soaring electric guitar riffs and all.

Skye, titled after her best friend, is a taste of what is to come on Lizzie Hosking’s upcoming album, which will keep the focus on folky storytelling instead of the punchy upbeat sonic style that she’s become renowned for since making her promising debut in 2020. We wholeheartedly approve of this wholesome move.

Skye was officially released on October 21st. Check it out for yourselves on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Emmett McGrath brought light to the darkened world with his acoustic single, Little Guy

Posted on 16 October 2022

What does it mean to be human in perpetually unprecedented times? You will get a pretty good idea by hitting play on the latest single, Little Guy, by the San Francisco, Bay Area singer-songwriter Emmett McGrath.

The single, inspired by his grandson, captures the necessity and fundamental nature of love as a light in a darkened world. To be honest, I was already tearing up with the single synopsis, when I heard the gentle Cat Stevens-Esque melodicism of the acoustic guitar and his reassuringly gentle vocal timbre, I was emotionally floored.

Emmett McGrath is more than worth his weight in gold in times like these. The pandemic may be behind us, but with the threat of societal precariousness in every news segment, he’s a breath of fresh optimistic air in an atmosphere stifled with anxiety.

Little Guy is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast