Archive for the ‘Recommended Streams and Videos’ Category

Hull quintet Low Hummer have shared new single ‘Never Enough’ on Leeds’ label Dance To The Radio.

Offering a first glimpse at the debut album the band are currently working on, Low Hummer have shared ‘Never Enough’, a driving new single that highlight the bands gift for classic indie songwriting with loving nods to bands like The Cure and LCD Soundsystem. Truly coming together in the studio, while the band poured over Joy Division and Cocteau Twins songs, singer Aimee Duncan could deliver her vocals with the cool understatement she does best, free from the noise of the rehearsal room.

Continuing their work digging into themes of social isolation, disinformation and online manipulation, ‘Never Enough’ explores Culture-bound syndromes, ageing and whether we have the ability to truly reframe the situations we find ourselves in.

‘Never Enough’ is accompanied by a new video shot in -5 weather in nearby Flamborough. Following three failed shoots due to positive Covid results, track & trace calls and extreme weather, and with an imminent lockdown in England the band set out with film maker Luke Hallett and documented their assent up Mam Tor creating a beautiful and apt account of the band struggling up a very high hill together…

Dan Mawer: Guitars, vocals:

“I researched culture-bound syndrome’s for ‘Never Enough’ – These are a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms, recognised only within a specific society or culture. Transmission of the disease is determined by cultural reinforcement and person to person interaction, I felt like this was an interesting topic for a song. The subject helped me pull together lines along with my own notes on ageing, self-doubt and the idea of cultural isolation. It all sounds very depressing but I hope there’s still lots of light in the lines, such as when Aimee suggests the idea of reframing the situations you find yourself in when you’re struggling.”

Watch ‘Never Enough’ here:

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Having been extremely excited by the imminent arrival of Gaffa Bandana’s debut album, Fraught in Waves, just the other day, the excitement mounts with the landing of a video to accompany the album’s opening cut, ‘Breakage’, assembled by Gill Dread. Seems only right we should share that excitement, and some cracking visuals and a blistering racket of a tune:

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Chelsea Wolfe has always been a conduit for a powerful energy, and while she has demonstrated a capacity to channel that sombre beauty into a variety of forms, her gift as a songwriter is never more apparent than when she strips her songs down to a few key elements. Today she has released her gripping and reflective new single “Anhedonia”, which features guest vocals and guitar from labelmate Emma Ruth Rundle and was mixed by Ben Chisholm.

Of the single, Wolfe reveals, “I wrote Anhedonia after I experienced it during summer of 2019, then tucked the song away and moved forward with my acoustic album and subsequent North American tour. When COVID-19 hit and stay-at-home orders began in 2020, my European tour was canceled and I had to fly home. Restless, I started listening through my archives of unfinished songs and little unused ideas. When I heard Anhedonia again, it hit me how strangely relevant the lyrics felt to current times. I’d been wanting to work on a song with Emma for a long time, so I recorded it and sent it her way. She graciously added her gorgeous vocals and lead guitar, and then Ben mixed it, adding his signature sound landscape as a fortress around the song. As I listened back to the final version, I was finally able to set free those emotions which I couldn’t feel back in 2019. I had worries around releasing the song, not wanting to romanticize the condition of anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), but I also understood that it could possibly be cathartic for others who are struggling, as it was for me, to sing and dance my way out of a depression.”

Rundle adds, “I was moved to tears when she sent me Anhedonia, which made getting through the tracking very emotional and slow on my end. I love the way the guitars I tracked morphed in Ben’s mix. The whole song swirls in a poignant eddy of sorrowful sound and still takes a hard swing at my heart hearing it now.”

Listen to “Anhedonia” here:

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Ahead of the release of her second album on March 12th, The Anchoress has announced her new single, the title track from ‘The Art of Losing’ out Jan 22nd, following its premiere by Steve Lamacq on BBC 6Music and the NME.

It’s accompanied by a striking video riffing on ‘fake news’ and the role the media play in reporting tragedy. The new single updates the optimistic new wave pop sound of David Bowie, Depeche Mode, and Talk Talk, and is produced by Davies and mixed by Grammy award winning Bowie collaborator Mario McNulty. Watch the video here:

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A Projection are a post-punk/darkwave act from Stockholm, who signed to Metropolis Records in 2019 for the release of their well received third album, ‘Section’. Inspired by dark post-punk/proto-goth acts such as The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy and Joy Division along with the electronica of Depeche Mode, the band are known for their compelling and dynamic live shows.

‘Darwin’s Eden’ is a brand new single by the quartet and sees them more fully embracing the electronic realm, placing themselves in the intersection between the ‘80s synth pop and the darkwave hit lists of 2021.

Watch the video here:

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Liquid Tension Experiment, the legendary supergroup comprised of Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, Sons of Apollo), John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), and Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) recently announced their return with a new album titled ‘LTE3’, due to be released March 26th, 2021 via InsideOutMusic, twenty-two years after the bands’ last studio album.

Today, the band are pleased to share the first video from the album for the single “The Passage of Time.”  You can watch the video, created by Christian Rios, here:

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Since forming in 2013 UK label Blackbow Records has continued to release music created and appreciated by those who worship tone and riffs. Now in 2021 they are set to continue this trend with a new split LP of pure heaviness from Belfast based, sludge-juggernauts Slomatics alongside the blistering and crushing sounds of Ungraven. With 3 new tracks from each band the split is set for release on 5th March.

Formed in 2019 by Conan frontman Jon Davis and featuring Fudge Tunnel bassist David Ryley and drummer Tyler Hodges (Tuskar), Ungraven pay homage to the 90s heavy and industrial sounds of the likes of Ministry, Godflesh, Sepultura and Nailbomb. On the split with Slomatics Jon states,

‘As the world groans and creaks and crawls forward in slow motion we chose to release three tracks with our brothers in Slomatics, our first on vinyl. Ungraven was an idea that started in my head as I drove into Richmond Virginia in 2017, on tour with Conan. It was originally intended as a solo act. Blackened Gates and Onwards She Rides were initially written to be performed with a drum machine, while Defeat The Object came along during rehearsal with Tyler before we toured early March 2020, before the earth stood still. Enjoy.’

Listen to the new Ungraven track ‘Onwards She Rides To A Certain Death’ here:

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Anneke van Giersbergen announced the release of her new solo album The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest last year.  Today sees the release of the second single and video of said album, called “Hurricane”.

Anneke comments on the single as follows: “For the new album I wrote a lot of songs filled with messages of love and heartache, but I also went on a more propulsive journey, with darker storytelling. The percussive opening groove of ‘Hurricane’ is maintained until a slightly ominous middle section. The track closes with heavy drums and a glorious trumpet solo.”

You can watch the video here:

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Ahead of the release of their towering new album I’ve Seen All I Need To See at the end of the month, The Body have shared a pummelling new single ‘Tied Up and Locked In’.

Capturing the astounding weight of the duo’s live sound in stunning detail, ‘Tied Up and Locked In’ is as bludgeoning and corrosive as it is ecstatic – a cathartic eruption of energy delivered with incisive measure.

I’ve Seen All I Need To See demonstrates not only The Body’s fearless spirit and vicious edge, but their intellectual musical heft through its explorations of distorted sound and the power of distorted sounds’ interplay. Composer Roger Johnson said “Noise is power, but is generally represented as negative, chaotic, dangerous, violent, when it comes… from those marginalized from power. Noise is also an expression of freedom, a ‘liberation of sound.’” The Body are sound liberators capable of mining and extracting remarkable details from the most manipulated and distorted sound sources.

I’ve Seen All I Need To See is a groundbreaking work and an ecstatic listen, whether seen as a testament to catharsis in oblivion, an opus of inexorable dread or a wholly liberating adventure.

Listen to The Body’s I’ve Seen All I Need To See single ‘Tied Up and Locked In’ here:

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Norwegian grindcore innovators Beaten to Death have just unleashed a music video for a new song off their new album “Laat maar, ik verhuis naar het bos”, now available only on vinyl. 
Titled “Melankolske Oppstøt”, this new track is also featured on the EP “Laat maar, deel vier: ik verhuis naar Endor”, the last of a series of four EPS containing different versions of album’s tracks that are now available as name your price at Bandcamp.
Watch the video here: