audiobooks – Gothenburg
Dark, throbbing and ominous, audiobooks’ debut single ‘Gothenburg’ is a masterclass in sinister electronic music that skirts the lines between industrial clatter and the ghostly hauntings of early Portishead, it’s a snapshot of an unlikely but burgeoning creative partnership between North Walian mastermind David Wrench and London student Evangeline Ling. They’ve also announced their first headline performance will be at the Sebright Arms in London on 19th June.
audiobooks released their debut EP last month on Heavenly Recordings. “The Gothenburg EP brings together some of the different elements that make up what audiobooks is,” the pair explain.“Taking 4 tracks from the already large body of work we have recorded over the last year.” (BC)
Anna Calvi – Don’t Beat the Girl out of My Boy
Anna Calvi is back. Five years after the release of her last album, One Breath, the English musician has just announced details of its follow-up Hunter (due out 31st August 2018 on Domino Record Co.). And in making this eagerly-awaited return, she is determined to move way beyond the confines of mere gender. She speaks of “wanting to explore how to be something other than just what I’ve been assigned to be. And wanting to explore a more subversive sexuality, which goes further than what is expected of a woman in our patriarchal heteronormative society.”
And ‘Don’t Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy’, the first single to be taken from the new album along with its accompanying video – directed by recent Kendrick Lamar collaborator, William Kennedy, and choreographed by Aaron Sillis – serves powerful graphic notice of her intentions. It is an intuitive, abrasive and spectacularly nuanced slice of throbbing art-pop that grabs societal norms by the scruff of its scrawny traditional neck and gives it one good God Almighty shake. (SG)
Anna Calvi’s forthcoming UK tour dates:
June 19th – LONDON Heaven
September 27th – BELFAST Empire
September 28th – DUBLIN Tivoli Theatre
September 30th – GLASGOW St Lukes
October 1st – MANCHESTER O2 Ritz
October 3rd – NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Boiler Shop
October 4th – BIRMINGHAM Town Hall
October 5th – HOVE All Saints Church
October 6th – BRISTOL SWX
February 7th 2019 – LONDON Roundhouse
Her’s – Low Beam
Her’s is the Merseyside duo of Audun Laading and Stephen Fitzpatrick. One of them plays the bass guitar whilst the other sings and plays the guitar and together they create some really quite glorious off-kilter pastiche pop stitching together all sorts of jingles, jangles, synthetics and a shared love of Scritti Politti, The Smiths and the drum machine.
Last year they knocked out a nine-track compilation that went by the name of Songs of Her’s and now they have unveiled details of their debut album. Invitation to Her’s will be upon us on the 24th of August, courtesy of Heist or Hit Records, and to get us right in the mood for it Her’s have released the record’s second single. ‘Low Beam’ is “a commentary on toxic masculinity, viewed through the eyes of a biker who feels alienated by the gangs in the scene, without feeling any weaker”. Check it out here, but please be careful to mind your head. (SG)
Her’s live dates for 2018:
JULY
15th – LONDON, Citadel Festival
22nd – SHEFFIELD, Tramlines Festival
28th – BUDE, Leopallooza Festival
AUGUST
27th – NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, Greenbelt Festival
OCTOBER
6th – Manchester, Neighbourhood Festival
10th – Berlin, Maze
11th – Cologne, Acephale
13th – Paris, Le Point Ephémère
17th – Liverpool, Arts Club Loft
18th – Reading, South Street Arts Centre
19th – Brighton, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar
24th – LONDON, Tufnell Park Dome
25th – Cambridge, Portland Arms
26th – Leicester, The Cookie
27th – Dublin, Whelans Upstairs
30th – Newcastle, Think Tank
NOVEMBER
1st – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club (Community Room)
2nd – Glasgow, The Great Eastern
KIN – Treeline
London based 3-piece KIN released their new single ‘Treeline’ on 6th June, the second in a run of releases every month until the end of the year; all written in a wind and rain-swept cottage in Wales in 2017, without ‘phones, internet, noise or other distractions and no predetermined plan about what they would write. Their own sanctuary city, the only place compositions like this could emerge.
Comparisons are being made with Sigur Rós for the atmosphere they create but what attracts me more is contemplative words like “If the dreamer dies then tell me, does the dream live on?” But then I always liked Butler and Chassagne’s “When love has gone, where does it go?”– possibly the most meditative lyric they ever wrote. There’s a lot going on in this track, the abstract rhythms alone deserve close study and the piano is gloriously at odds with everything else in the closing section.
Live shows will be announced shortly. (DB)
https://soundcloud.com/musicofkin/treeline
Mikaela Davies – Other Lover
It’s unusual to hear a harp being wielded like a lead guitar but the folk-meets-funk American Mikaela Davis has the ability to pull it off. Unlike Emilie’s “Ogden”, we don’t know if it has a name. It’s another relationship-gone-wrong song but wrapped up in a little psych while the fault lines are examined in minute detail. She’s quite clever with words, red flags turning to white and being too friendly to be friends and the hook is strong enough to get airplay.
Written in the space of a few hours four years ago in Nashville, Davies wasn’t sure she could “pull off” singing the song, but it has been a staple in her set ever since and will feature on forthcoming album ‘Delivery’ (Rounder Records, 13th July). ‘Delivery’ was produced by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Future Islands, and Angel Olsen). The UK and European tour will follow later in the year. (DB).
Everything by Electricity – Place to Call My Own
One of my tips for 2018, Everything by Electricity return with their sprawling new single Place To Call My Own. Simmering somewhere between the electro-tinged dream pop of Chromatics and the expansive majesty of M83, it’s an evolution for EbE that meditates upon singer Yulia’s relationship with home and transition from a Siberia she fled to London. EbE eschews synth/dream-pop cliches with Yulia’s wistful vocals anchored snugly in a sonic texture of synths, drum machines, twitching instrumental parts and flickering guitars, subtle yet expansive, intimate yet universal this is very affecting work.
Here’s what Yulia had to say about the track:
“I wrote this song a long time ago in Siberia before I moved to London. Initially, I didn’t intend for it to be a track I’d record and ultimately finish – it had just been sitting incomplete in an old lyric book for years. I recently came across the same book and found this unfinished song; it haunted me for days, I couldn’t take my mind off it, so dropped what I was currently working on and brought ‘Place To Call My Own’ to life.” (BC)
Our Girl – I Really Like It
Brighton’s very promising Our Girl recently announced their eagerly awaited debut album Stranger Today. The album will be released on August 17th via Cannibal Hymns. As a teaser Our Girl also shared the music video to their single ‘I Really Like It’. A hooky yet direct cut it’s imbued with Soph Nathan’s knack for emotional confession, declarations of affection are given a platform a by forgiving tremulous guitars and studied percussion, it’s rather splendid and very catchy indeed. They filmed the video in their living room, they go on to explain, “given how close to home the lyrics are, we wanted the sentiment of the song to speak for itself, so we shot somewhere personal and familiar – it would seem strange to have it set anywhere else than in our home.”
They first emerged with a debut EP in November 2016, they now surface with Stranger Today, a debut album that could have only been made by these three people: Guitarist/vocalist Soph Nathan, bassist Josh Tyler and drummer Lauren Wilson.
