Here to make me eat my words about the banality and predictability of summer singles is the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, BREGN, with his latest otherworldly feat of melodious indie-folk, Summertime.
With little more than strings and choral vocals to drive and structure the single, immersing yourself within the all-consuming mellifluous accordance comes with an immediate payoff.
Beyond the production that stands as a testament to BREGN’s creative originality, Summertime refuses to lyrically scratch at the surface. If Dylan Thomas himself rose from the grave and speculated on the season in relation to nature, freedom, past, future and present, I’m not all too sure that he’d be able to implant as much poetry.
After a Cohen-Esque acoustic guitar intro, Henry Liggins’ vocals mellifluously float in with the same captivating ease over his tenderly orchestrated piano and guitar progressions as Glenn Hansard in his latest single, Makeup.
The hopeless romanticism in Makeup is nothing short of breath-taking poetry as Liggins muses on his muse, capturing the fragile beauty within the vulnerability of relationships in our chaotic existence. The amount of sincerity is almost a shock to the system. There’s no doubt that this dreamy serenade came straight from Liggins’ sugared Shakespearean soul.
While staying true to his timelessly intimate style, the Birmingham-based singer-songwriter notably has a tirade of commercial appeal behind his ornately captivating sound.
Makeup will officially release on June 10th. Hear it here.
The same uniquely captivating feeling that confounded in the raw and confessional sound of Frightened Rabbit and Neutral Milk Hotel can be found in the latest release from the UK singer-songwriter Alexander Joseph.
The acoustic version of Summertime Compass starts with a bluegrassy Americana sun-bleached timbre from the acoustic strings before the summertime serenade builds into an upbeat indie earworm with lyrics that can lighten any perspective on the forthcoming months.
The start of Summer is usually when I roll my eyes with all the trite singles that bubble at the surface of the airwaves but Alexander Joseph definitively proved that there’s some room for endearing originality left in that market after all.
The acoustic version of Summertime Compass will officially release on June 3rd. You can hear it for yourselves via Spotify.
Lancashire singer-songwriter Michael R Shaw has teased the humility and ornate originality in his upcoming album by giving us a preview of the short and profound dark-folk single, Lord of All.
Straight away the Nick Cave, Guy Garvey, and Richard Hawley influences start to resound around Shaw’s art-folk ingenuity which carries a touch of tenderness, poetry exhumed from a plaintive soul and a bold alchemic appeal that almost takes this folk track to a celestial level. It certainly wouldn’t be out of place on the Peaky Blinders soundtrack. Lord of All could have been the track to prevent the criminally excessive use of Red Right Hand.
Lord of All is the intro to Shaw’s upcoming album, which is due for release on September 1st, 2022. Check out Michael R Shaw via his website and SoundCloud.
With piano melodies just as haunting as the scores on Westworld, the sombre vibrato vocals, cuttingly atmospheric guitars and the lyrics that tear through the polarity that has distanced and disillusioned us all, Hunter & Girton’s latest single, Fast World, is an evocative masterpiece.
We can be counted as gratified for the band’s step away from the touring circuit and into the studio to release singles such as Fast World, which acts as a harrowing sign of the times. Conceptually, there are a fair few reminiscences to the iconic Mad World, but Hunter & Girton’s cutting dissection of contemporary society is enough to make you long for the Mad World that Tears For Fears warned us about in 1982.
Yet, through the resonance that is delivered hand over metaphorically harbingering fist, it’s hard to find anything but intense satisfaction after hearing the ordinarily-alienating ennui at the centre of this feat of pensive panache.
Naturally, we can’t wait to hear what follows from the rural Indiana-hailing folk-infused alt-rock duo. Fast World is almost enough to make up for Editors giving up the ghost on their latest album.
Welsh singer-songwriter M’ Donwaite has released his achingly beautiful, orchestrally-scored indie folk pop single Watering Can. Its delicate intensity creates a beguiling paradox which may as well be pandora’s box for the way Watering Can unpredictably unravels.
With the naturalistic elements brought up against M’ Donwaite’s Tenor vocal notes and the contrastingly lamenting finger-picked guitar strings that bring a little lo-fi intimacy to the release, it is an artful triumph. Yet, it never dares to come close to the same air of pretension often affixed to the neo-classic Avant-Garde. To say M’ Donwaite is the most exciting act from Wales since the Anchoress wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Watering Can officially released on April 17th; it is now available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp.
After picking up a nomination for the IMPALA Album of the Year and 5 Porin Awards with his 2019 debut LP, Dangerous Waters,the mystically eloquent Croatian singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and composer, J.R. August, has released his sophomore LP, Still Waters.
When we first heard his arresting originality back in 2018, we scarcely imagined room for improvement in his naturalistically narrative style. With Still Waters, he’s moved even more dauntlessly into his expressive diction and sonic depictions of biblical iconography, which intersect with artful constructs, dreamlike epiphany, and profound consideration of the elements of nature that we’ve crawled away from.
Still Waters, which was penned in late 2020, captures our adrift and enraged distrust and disinterest in others, where the most pertinent goal is the next drip of dopamine – by any means necessary. The panic attack-inspired opening single, Dealing with the Pain, achieves what so many of us fail to do. – artistically or otherwise. It digs up the raw emotions that follow the reality-warping panic attacks that draw each breath from the atmosphere with the paralysing spikes of cortisol.
Subversively, it forces you to consider the paradoxical nature of our fear that cows us into silence on the subject of it. Especially when the disjointed sense of connection is one of the main reasons for our primal fear and despondence. The asphyxiated breath at the outro jaggedly hammers home just how much Dealing with the Pain was a personal reality.
Track 2, I Forgive Her, carries a similar celestial pull that many became enamoured with when J.R. August became the best-selling artist in Croatia with his debut LP. Yet as a contrast to the gospel-Esque timbre, there’s the unremitting turbulence that becomes a signifying shadow across the expanse of the album.
Goddess of The Flame runs through as an impassioned proclamation of the kind of affection and devotion that leaves you pious to the sheer all-encompassing emotional gravity while the instrumentals scintillate on the very same frequency as those unfalteringly unconditional feelings.
Hope acts as a reflective instrumental divide between the preceding singles and the following five that reveal the progressively candid nature of Still Waters. The tender piano score becomes both a testament to the compositional tenacity of J.R. August and the perfect meditative break before you’re thrown into the Radiohead-reminiscent desert folk single, Divine Intervention.
Track 8, Release Me from My Sin, is a sorrowfully profound confession that exposes more of JR August’s soul than you have seen before, but every piece of the portrait draws you in through the urgency in the plea for salvation. If any song can show you the true universality of human suffering and affirm that those shamefully all-encompassing emotions should never be affixed to shame, it’s Release Me From My Sin.
For the concluding single, Lonely, J.R. August leans even deeper into a sense of mysticism while teasing a new salaciously poetic side as he carries the same daringly revealing tone on from Release Me From My Sin. The lyrics are beyond cathartic to hear; I can’t even begin to imagine how it felt to verse them into such a phenomenally ethereal piece.
The most beautiful thing that an artist can do is dare say what creeps around the most private corners of our mind to give that blissful feeling of hearing vocalised what has only been whispered in staunch psychological silence. That’s exactly where J.R August triumphed in Still Waters. Between each of the nine tracks, all the most innately beautiful phenomena in our 21st-century-choked reality appear; it’s enough to restore your faith in humanity.
Still Waters was officially released on April 15th. You can check it out for yourselves on all platforms via this link.
Inspired by tumultuous times and personal emotional upheavals, the acclaimed alt indie-folk singer-songwriter, Shane Cooley, stepped into the metaphysical wild to create his seminal upcoming album, Forest. The first single to be released, Coyote, is a hauntingly euphonic hit that blends tonal palettes of Jack White and Elliott Smith while experimenting with artful simplicity and the dust of desert rock. Vocally, Cooley parallels Grandaddy with his honeyed high timbres that still resonate as organic despite the raised velvety pitches.
With lyrics that run like wild poetry, “A coyote/In grown man’s clothing/Forever lonely/Forever free/Down in the valley/Out on the streets/If you push me/ I’ll show my teeth”, this modernised feat of indie-folk Americana won’t fail to reel you into the themes of isolation and freedom, which are proven to be two of the same.
We can’t wait to hear what the rest of his seminal LP delivers. The Richmond, VA artist may be flying under a lot of people’s radars. Yet, it is only a matter of time before he gets full recognition for his inexplicably honed-in talent and instantly magnetic charisma as a songwriter.
Coyote will officially drop on April 8th, 2022. You can check it out for yourselves by heading over to Bandcamp.
Istanbul-born, London-based folk singer & songwriter, The Guv hasn’t lost sight of the muse since making his debut in 2020 – especially on the basis of his most successful single to date, ‘December in Istanbul’.Today, he’s back with new release ‘Love and Joy’.
A decidedly loving and romantic ode to life, and the potential it gives all of us to truly be happy in our relationships with ourselves, ‘Love & Joy’ was mastered by Andy Baldwin / Metropolis Studios who also worked with The Who, UB40, Pet Shop Boys.
While the classical strings cause a drop in the temperature in December in Istanbul, the easy accordance from the acoustic folk guitar progressions will envelop you in the warmth of the timbre. With a chorus that could rival the euphonically anthemic feel of Mumford and Sons paired with the Eastern folk nuances and roots-deep western folk sensibilities, December in Istanbul is an instant timeless classic.
Fans of Queen, Tori Amos and Tim Buckley will want to pay attention to the modernist multinational spin on folk, as well as lovers of high caliber, Decemberists-leaning sensibilities.
As The Guv will be launching new music twice weekly, the Istanbul-born, London-based artist is well worth a spot on your radar. You can check out December in Istanbul without grabbing your passport by heading over to Spotify, where you will also find The Guv’s already-extensive collection of affable neo-folk.
With caressing crescendos and swells of soul by the smorgasbord, the indie-folk singer-songwriter, John Dhali’s latest release, Taste, definitely isn’t an acquired one.
What starts as a gentle and euphonic offering of indie art-pop bliss transcends into a rock-licked all-consuming aural entity as you’re left to face the untamed passion in the lyrics and vocals and the equally as robust production.
When Taste reaches its anthemic peak, it is enough to rival Mr November by The National. Yet, I’m not sure The National could get away with the sweet and lofty ukulele melodies that John Dhali uses to amplify the high vibe soul. When he says his sound marries the feelgood accessibility of George Ezra with the evocative depth of Buckley, he more than backs it up with his viscerally euphoric discography.
It comes as no surprise that the Northwest, UK-born, London-based artist has already garnered attention from BBC Radio 1 and 2 and won regional awards for the best solo artist. We can’t wait to see his career blow up after the launch of his forthcoming album.
Check out John Dhali’s latest single, Taste, on Spotify.
