Kimberly Anne, also known as LANTA, is a singer/songwriter from South London and a truly extraordinary talent. You may recognise her voice from Sam Feldt’s hit cover of Show Me Love, but despite her chart-topping success as a vocalist, Kimberly isn’t going to let anyone tell her what music she should be making. Someone who doesn’t need a leg up from anyone, now publishing songs under the pseudonym LANTA, Kimberly continues to create the same remarkable songs she has always done – oh boy you’re in for a treat.
I could talk all day about any of Kimberly’s old tracks back from her days as simply ‘Kimberly Anne’, but let me share the very first song of hears I listened to, one which stopped me dead in my tracks; ‘Bury It There’, released in 2012.
This track is, and I say this with no hesitation, nothing short of genius – a pure blend of acoustic pop with soul, beats inspired by different cultures and powerful lyrics fit for an equally powerful voice… Oh, how I envy you hearing this tune for the very first time.
The release of Bury It There and subsequent 5-track EP deservedly earnt Kimberly Anne much attention from the UK music scene and festival slots alongside the likes of First Aid Kit, Haim and The Rolling Stones.
After discovering Kimberly’s music, it wasn’t long before I began asking people ‘have you heard of Kimberly Anne?’ ‘You must have?’ ‘She’s incredible!’
Brought up on the music of Van Morrison, The Cure and Bloc Party, Kimberly taught herself to play the guitar before studying percussion for a time in West Africa – an experience which has given her tunes some refreshingly unique characteristics.
After the release of her EP Ballads in 2017 and her feature in Sam Feldt’s hit dance track (although house was not really my thing), I eagerly awaited to hear more original work from the songwriter, whose talent can only be truly appreciated by listening to the songs she writes herself.
Years went by and nothing came. I wondered what had happened to Kimberly, as did most of her following at the time. An empty website, all social media channels gone and a youtube comment section begging for more incredible music, it wasn’t easy to track her down. Then in 2019, she relaunched as LANTA – a new name and a statement to the music industry that she wasn’t going to be snatched up by labels looking to ride on the back of her chart success. She wanted to make music that really mattered to her – and that we applaud!
Through her new ’80s soaked soul tracks, LANTA writes about the things that matter in her life, her sexuality, her mental health and her confidence – through this she is slowly becoming a role model for lots of young individuals and a much-needed voice for today’s openly gay black women, a role model she admits she never had growing up.
A new name for her music and newfound confidence, but the same brilliant songwriter. As a former student of The BRIT School who studied there around the same time as Adele, there’s nothing now standing in the way of Kimberly Anne/LANTA becoming just as triumphant. It’s still early days for her new musical persona, but with a voice and talent this big, she surely won’t go unnoticed in times to come.
The music of Lisa Mitchell is perhaps some of the most heart-string tugging stuff around. The self-made singer, born in England and brought up in Australia, topped the iTunes charts in 2007 after appearing on the Australian singing competition ‘Australian Idol’ when she was just 16.
Since the start of her career and the days of live streaming to her MySpace page, Lisa Mitchell’s unusual journey through music has only gone from strength-to-strength. 14 years on and with three astounding studio albums plus four EP’s under her belt, Lisa continues to make us feel our very deepest emotions with her soulful melodies and sincere velvet-like voice.
Although in the past singers who break through on talent shows have maybe been given a bad rep, normally due to a common trait of having an incredible voice but no real songwriting ability, Lisa Mitchell is a welcomed exception to the rule. Her tunes are intelligent, moreish and charming in every sense of the word. You only need to listen to one of her songs to get a sense for her deep feeling, empathetic personality.
A fantastic well-rounded talent; her music and career, built on the foundations of home recording and unique skill, has certainly been inspirational to many young, especially female, songwriters today.
Her astounding debut album ‘Wonder’, released two years after appearing on Australian Idol, certainly delivered on the promises of her perceived talent. Mitchell’s later work sounds much more grown-up and refined, her two follow up albums ‘Bless this mess’ and ‘Warriors’ are a big step up in terms of their production as well as their overall mood.
Each of her albums seemingly has a song for every state of mind – from hope to complete despair, whatever emotions you need to get out, I’ll bet you Lisa has a song written just for you.
Mitchell’s sweet voice and beautiful acoustic melodies create vivid nostalgic images, but not from your own memory, from hers. Through her music, like light which enters a camera, her songs are a picture of her reflected memories. Listening to her songs reminds you of falling in love with a summer romance; after days spent together in the sun, as the autumn finally comes around, you part ways, but the feelings you have for each other will never be lost.
It’s the very same feeling you get in your chest watching the films of French director Michel Gondry (‘Eternal Sunshine’, ‘The Science of Sleep’).
Over recent months, we’ve seen that despite being locked down in Melbourne, Lisa certainly hasn’t lost touch with her roots as a MySpace celebrity. 14 years on, she still streams original songs to fans on Instagram TV.
With new demo’s being teased on social media, we hope it won’t be long before we hear more from Lisa. As always, we’ll be waiting with eager ears and faithful hearts.
Listen to Lisa’s most recent EP ‘When They Play That Song’, full of brilliant covers of the very people who first inspired her.
Brighton rock duo Royal Blood have released their latest single ‘Trouble’s Coming’ and it’s a blood pumping power anthem to get you in the mood for whatever may head your way during the day. The track is taken from their upcoming third album due out in the spring of next year, with singer and bassist Mike Kerr saying it was a real turning point for the album. ‘Trouble’s Coming’ sets off with a provocative punch, that really gets straight to the point and sets the tone straight away. This is an evolved sound but not lacking the fantastic flairs we’ve grown accustom to from their last 2 albums.
There’s no denying the talent between the two rockers behind the blood, which has been evident since the days of ‘Out of the Black’, but here we really get to see the diversity of their production and writing. A toned down straight to the beat start, not the chaotic reverb soaked drums and deeply dirty bass, but now we’re welcomed by a more rhythmic dance drumbeat, with a more precisely played and rounded bass riff, but still with the distinct growl and bite from Royal Blood songs we’ve known in the past. In fact there’s quite a lot of pop production techniques throughout the mix of the track, synths, claps and piano, perhaps inspired by fellow rock duo Death From Above 1979 or Arctic Monkeys ‘AM’ album, with the added flavour of a Justice track, whatever the story, it’s really helped to mould the new sound that’s so superbly showcased within the song, and to be quite frank, it’s something I am ecstatic about.
You see for me, as much as I love Royal Blood’s work and admire their talents, something I felt was a little lacklustre was the sonic development between their self titled debut album and their 2017 album ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’. If I went blind into both albums, I’m not sure how often I’d be able to tell which tracks came from which album, they were more like two sides to the same coin to me. Now consistency isn’t a bad thing, but I was hoping for something a bit different, more adventurous, but here we are with the lead single for album 3 and they’ve done exactly that.
Kerr described the track as ‘Disco meets AC/DC’ which sums up the sound quite well, explaining that each track from the upcoming album will have it’s own personality, so that alone makes me very hyped up for the music yet to come. Trouble’s Coming offers so much colour than we’re used to, the maturity and the expansion upon the bass and drums linear duo we’ve heard since their inception, it’s like everything’s got bigger, yet instead of surrounding you in sound, it’s as if the track cuts right into you, matching your heart to the beat of the track. Even Kerr’s vocals sound better than ever, the amount of groove you feel with every word is immense, you just want to bob your head and dance, it’s a really nice fresh change of pace for the Brighton bad boys, and I absolutely cannot wait till we get to hear more madness from them.
So whether you’re a fan of Royal Blood’s already, or just in need of some new rock music to tide you by during the impossible year for music, Trouble’s Coming is something you will definitely want to check out. Keep your eyes peeled on Royal Blood’s socials, because their next album is sure to be one to give your turntables a run for the money.
We’re super excited to announce that today a very favourite band of ours is back with a smashing new single. F4ÇADE are an Art-Wave band from London characterised by their psychedelic melodies and bold on-stage performance style. Their new single ‘Look Like Me’ is out right freaking now!
I’m here with the band who have come to tell us a bit about them, their new single and how this all came to be.
J: Hey guys! Great to speak to you, so for those who haven’t heard the music of F4ÇADE, introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about you and your music.
Angel: Hiya, we describe our sound as ‘Art Wave’; New Wave meets the art world meets the future..?
Henri: Yeah, and we’re inspired by lots of things, including romantic poetry, the surrealist art movement, David Sylvian, David Bowie, Dave Gahan – lots of Davids!
Angel: And David Byrne! Hahaha oh dear…
J: It’s great to hear how your sound has changed and developed since the band began, this new single feels different from your earlier stuff, tell me a bit about how this song came about.
Angel: I wrote this around the time I dropped out of Camberwell Art College. It’s kind of about being an outsider to those who have everything planned out for them and those who do things just because others do – usually my lyric writing is a bit more vague!
Sacha: This was the first song that me and Lani worked on just after we joined nearly a year ago. Our writing process is collaborative and I suppose we just fleshed out the demo in our own individual ways. My background is Jazz music and although you can’t really hear that on the record, my playing has developed through certain influences which has led to the sounds you hear on the track.
J: How have you been experimenting with instruments or your production techniques with this track? Has it been difficult or strange recording during lockdown?
Henri: We actually recorded this track in a studio January before the lockdown! But during lockdown we recorded a cover of ‘Tainted Love’ for fun, which we released a couple of months ago – We all recorded our tracks in our own houses and then sent the files to each other, which I then mixed and mastered. Pretty weird!
Lani: We had a lot of fun experimenting with instruments, especially as playing the fretless bass is relatively new to me so the whole thing was super fun. Once we finished recording all the track we had in mind we realised that we actually had some recording time left so we scrambled around the studio looking for some weird pedals to create a small hidden track for us to release another time. We found a Moogerfooger bass pedal and decided to use that to create some strange sounds. Everyone said ‘Alright Lani just fiddle around and Sacha will mess around with the pedal’. And we ended with this really strange almost robotic bass tone, it was an awesome time.
J: This year has been hard for almost every band, but how has it affected you guys and your creative process? It’s a shame it may be a little while longer before we can see this played live.
Angel: A big part of F4ÇADE is playing live!! We have met so many amazing people through gigs and it felt like we’d really started to progress. We had an ‘arty party’ gig at an amazing private art club called Vout-O-Reenee’s just before lockdown – anyone who remembers would agree that was a crazy night…
Henri: We’ve actually got our first post-lockdown gig coming up really soon! It’s on the 4th of October at Dalston Roof Park and we’re really excited to be able to play live again, it’s going to be so fun!
J: What’s been the most rewarding thing about being in the band together and your music so far?
Angel: Sacha drawing on a Salvador Dali moustache and insisting on a ‘pizza party’ on the night of the video shoot.
Sacha: We recorded this song just before lockdown and it’s been frustrating having to keep music that we’re so proud of under lock and key. It’s a great feeling to be able to release it into the wild.
Lani: The most rewarding thing for me about being in the band so far has been all the awesome opportunities, whether that’s playing gigs or recording music in the studio. Being in the band has also opened my eyes to some different styles of music that prior to being in the band I wouldn’t have listened to. And you also meet a lot of lovely peeps!
J: We loved this track and we’re dead excited to hear more! Can you give us any hints as to anything that may be on the horizon for the band?
Henri: All I’ll say is, we recorded more than one song in the studio in January…
Sitting and listening to Saint Etienne, you may believe you’ve just discovered an exciting 60’s French pop band, but these incredible three with their totally addictive tunes are born and bred Londoners and are still writing fantastic songs today.
Their groovy TR-909 backbeats revive a classic club culture sound from the ’60s which they merge with elements of 80’s dance music and a pinch of rock, soul and whatever they’re listening to at the time to form an extremely energizing and nostalgic mesh of character. Their upbeat tunes certainly bring light to even the gloomiest days, which is why now is a perfect time to let yourself fall deep into their phenomenal back catalogue.
In 1990, childhood friends Bob Stanley, at the time an NME music writer, and Pete Wiggs, a journalist and DJ, set about to create a band which would have no lead singer, but instead a host of guests supplying voices for their club, synthpop and dance tracks.
As children, Bob and Pete together would create mixtapes of the many artists who would later inspire their music.
They moved to Camden and recorded their debut album ‘Foxbase Alpha’ which has since become a hit record in the underground world, featuring tracks such as ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart,’ a house-tinged cover of Neil Young’s classic hit, as well as many original tracks each as great as the next.
Some tracks on the album, especially the trippy ‘Wilson,’ use voice samples in place of a vocalist, looped sentences spoken by older women and children create a slightly eerie but also trance-inducing feel.
Very soon, Sarah Cracknell, who featured as a singer on the bands hit track ‘Nothing Can Stop Us’, became a permanent member and vocalist for the band and went on to sing all of their later releases, touring with them extensively.
Since their debut album first propelled them beyond the success of many artists which Bob and Pete had written about in NME and other papers, they quit their jobs to focus on the band full time and have been extremely prolific in their output. The quality of their tunes has never seemed to falter, with years of experience in their roles as music journalists, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs certainly know a thing or two about how to make a great song, and they keep on amazing us today.
Their recent 8th and 9th studio albums ‘Words and Music by Saint Etienne’ (2012) and ‘Home Counties’ (2017) have started to explore different and more experimental avenues, with new production techniques being implemented, the band are very much starting to play around with their sound.
In an interview on the 25th anniversary of their third studio album ‘Tiger Bay’, songwriter Pete Wiggs said: “Most Saint Etienne albums are a product of whatever we’re listening to at the time.” Commenting on their third album he said, “At the time we were listening to folk music and techno at the same time.” A method which certainly gives each album its own character.
I’ve featured a lot of their music videos in this article because although I discovered them many years ago, Saint Etienne are just one of those bands who simply do not make a bad song.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from the band since their last album in 2017, over lockdown many artists have been writing and writing hard, and we’re super eager for them to spill the beans about anything new they may be working on.
On Twitter last month, the band uploaded a picture of a cassette with ‘Tiger Bay Unreleased’ written on the cover, something which has excited fans intrigued to see what may be around the corner.
It looks as if we may have to wait a while for these three to treat us to new music, but until then we may have some unreleased content to hear!
Something we were also given this year was an awesome mixtape released by the band titled ‘Songs For The Fountain Coffee Room,’ a compilation album by Sarah, Bob and Pete featuring some of their favourite tracks which they describe as “fit for a bar in mid-70;s Los Angeles.”
The mixtape is available now on CD from ACE Records.
It’s great to see them work on a project which echos the roots of founding musicians Bob and Pete, and their days of compiling mixtapes together as children long before the band. This almost seems a special hommage to their long-lasting partnership and a reflection of how far they’ve come.
Listen to Foxbase Alpha now – it’s not an instruction, it’s a demand, thank me later!
Angel Olsen is certainly proficient in her ability to create brilliantly addictive tunes, her albums MY WOMAN and All Mirrors are, in my opinion, possibly two of the best albums of the last decade.
Two months ago, American film director Miranda July released the trailer for her forthcoming film KAJILLIONAIRE, a comedy starring Evan Rachel Wood and Richard Jenkins. In the trailer, we first heard Olsen’s eerie new cover of the 1962 classic by Bobby Vinton – Mr. Lonely.
The track, created especially for the film by Olsen and the film’s composer Emile Mosseri, is a chilling new rendition of this world-renowned classic, and certainly the most cinematic track we’ve ever heard from Olsen.
The films full soundtrack is set to be released soon on the 25th of September, but right now Olsen’s track is available to listen to in full on her Spotify.
The new film follows a family of con-artists training their daughter to pull off a heist to make them “kajillionaire” rich, and is out in cinemas on the 9th of October (UK).
Olsen spoke about how excited she was to be working with the film’s writer and director Miranda July, saying in a statement “Suddenly there she was, THE MIRANDA JULY in my text messages.”
The trailer’s use of modern covers of classic songs isn’t the first time we’ve seen this being done and seems to have become a popular trend amongst filmmakers and film composers since the release of James Mangold’s Logan trailer, starring Hugh Jackman. The trailer used a specially remastered version of Johnny Cash’s classic and deeply moving Hurt.
Warner Brothers added to this trend recently with the trailer for their upcoming film The Batman, which used a newly composed and equally haunting cover of Nirvana’s Something In The Way.
It can often feel brave of artists to cover such well-known songs, but Olsen and Mosseri have certainly pulled this one out of the bag for their new and unsettling interpretation, which they say “represents the feelings behind the film.”
Their single is available to listen to on Spotify now, as well as all of Angel Olsen brilliant solo albums.
It’s rare to find a band who you can say do things truly differently, who create new tracks from chopped up old ones and who utilise comedy throughout their music, but what’s even rarer is finding a band who do that all as superb as The Avalanches – a band who come out with great tune after great tune, even some that are purely hysterical.
The Avalanches have been releasing music since the early 2000s, and their music videos online have drawn in millions of views for their sheer class and creativity.
The Australian electronic music group first became known for their highly creative use of sampling (using snippets of other records), something which was popularised in 80’s hip-hop music.
In recent years, sampling has perhaps been given a bad rep, mainly due to artists blatantly ripping off other songs and claiming it was ‘sampled’ (*cough* Drake *cough* Rizzle Kicks).
Avalanches, on the other hand, have truly brought this type of music back to what it was supposed to be, a band who truly use their brains to create new original songs out of the bits and bobs of other records.
Their debut album Since I Left You is considered by the wider music industry to be one of the best albums of the early 2000s – Robbie Chater, one of the founding members of the band, estimated in an interview with Sound On Sound magazine that the entire album contained around 3,500 samples, all of which were ripped from vinyl records using equipment at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne.
The Avalanches are truly a band that offers something for everyone. Each of their songs seems almost worlds apart from the next, but each still retains that same playfulness we’ve come to love.
Their ever-changing lineup of multi-instrumentalists has changed frequently throughout the years and ensures their music never sounds the same.
Since the rise of YouTube, their viral music videos have seemed to play a more major role in people finding their music. Their mind-boggling video for ‘Frontier Psychiatrist,’ the band’s second-ever release, was the video that first caught my attention. Robbie Chater’s background as a film student at the time of the band’s formation may have been one of the biggest contributing factors to the creation of their now-famous videos. Since then, the band have won many film awards for their humorous, creative and at times positively bewildering concepts.
We’ve seen many bands ‘get big quick’ by releasing music videos which go viral. Today, for a lot of bands, this seems to be an attractive way to getting yourself noticed (if your video concept is good enough that is). Bands like PSY and OKGO are a prime example of artists whose music you probably wouldn’t have heard if it weren’t for their online presence.
Although The Avalanches videos are just as brilliant, they’ve proven that unlike other bands, people come for the videos but stay for the music.
Since the release of their second album in 2016, which followed a long hiatus since the band’s debut in 2001, we’ve seen them to be incredibly active this year; releasing single after single and collaborating with various artists including Denzel Curry.
The Avalanches have often relied on playing with the sounds of other artists, but this is the first time we’ve seen them extensively collaborate with established acts.
We’re very excited to see what lies in wait for this awesome band and hope that their next album lives up to their previous 18-22 track LP’s. The Avalanches music is quite simply a treat, from their lyrics to their videos, their creative, playful personas shine through in almost every aspect of the band, and we’re glad to have them back!
Next year marks the 10th anniversary of Patrick Stump’s first solo album ‘Soul Punk’, released during Fall Out Boy’s hiatus, this record is a favourite of mine and at the time, really showed off Stump’s talent in a way that no one had ever seen before. People knew he was a phenomenal singer, but this album showed off his skills in so many ways. Stump made a soulful, RnB, pop album, and played every instrument, wrote every song and produced every track. After being known as the singer from Fall Out Boy, here we got to see just how much talent was waiting to burst out of just one man. But despite generally positive reviews, the album didn’t do as well as it should have, and to this day is hardly known about unless you’re a pretty die hard Stump or Fall Out Boy fan. Stump commented on the record saying “When it comes to pop music, there’s this perception that all you have to do is press a button on your iPad, but I wanted to make it with love and put a lot into it. A lot of people asked, ‘Where did you get the drum sounds?’ I played them. ‘What synth plug-in was that?’ I played all the synths. ‘How’d you get that bass tone?’ It’s a bass. I really wanted to put in the effort, even if people might not notice.” to the extent of the album art as well, making a point of using real materials and not just photoshopping shapes onto the artwork. The record as a whole talks about greed and paranoia and the effects of which and how they influence each other, as well as dealing with innocence and even death. So on that cheery note, join me as I go through the hidden gem that is Patrick Stump’s Soul Punk.
A complete U-turn from the pop punk roots of Fall Out Boy, now on hiatus, Stump sought out to make an album with a sound he wanted to make, with nothing out of bounds. Citing icons such as Michael Jackson, Prince, David Bowie and Bobby Brown as lifelong inspiration, Soul Punk delves into the thick sounds of the ’80s. After having the album finished, two version of a lead single released, and the album ready for a February release, Stump wrote ‘This City’, which made him decide to completely redo the record, releasing the equally brilliant EP ‘Truant Wave’ in it’s place and leaving the album to be released later on in the year. With this, Stump really outdid himself just with the quality of music we were yet to be teased with. We were teased with a version of ‘This City’ featuring Lupe Fiasco, a love letter to the city of Chicago, where Stump was born and raised. A catchy soulful pop song that talks about the ups and downs of your hometown, but how no matter how hard you try, “you can never take my city away”, giving off similar thematic vibes to the previously released ‘Spotlight’. Although these tracks talk about being yourself and who you are, Stump stated the album was written a lot in character rather than self retrospectives, which is rather a thankful sign when the likes of ‘The “I” in Lie’ is on the album, a song about being unfaithful to your partner, but tracked to a sugary suggestive sounding instrumental.
‘Explode’, the albums opening track goes off with a bang unsurprisingly, an upbeat banger with Stump singing the oh so addictive hook “Clap if you’ve got a ticket to the end of the world”, a song that hints at the issues and pressure of commitment, something no doubt everyone has felt at some point, singing “If I’m never your hero I can never let you down”, metaphors about cutting the red wire to defuse a bomb. A song that definitely speaks volumes about being the lead singer of a band that just went on an indefinite hiatus. But the album is filled with wonderful moments such as ‘Run Dry (X Heart X Fingers)’, a song about drinking, with lyrics being slightly concerning talking about how you know that it’s unhealthy, drinking to forget, making mistakes and by taking “one more shot then I’m quitting forever – cross my heart, cross my fingers”. There’s some, kind of deep stuff sung over beautiful funk songs all across this album, it’s really quite something.
The track ‘Dance Miserable’ is a really solid pop song with a filthy sounding synth-bass riff. Lyrically it’s wonderfully relevant about feeling hard done by, fed up and angry with the world, talking about the issues of climate change, unemployment, depression, government and politics. “The right side’s in the wrong – And what’s left’s just holding on – And the public has been privatised – But I believe in something here on earth” talking about the power of people, despite wanting to “Dance like you’re disappointed in the world” Later in the album we get the bittersweetly uplifting song ‘Coast (It’s Gonna Get Better)’, a brilliant song with the message of not giving up, how things get bad, but no matter how bleak things get, that things will get better.
Track 9 on the album and we’re given the sexy hunk of a song that is ‘Allie’, a funky pop song with a powerful pop punk style riff and killer guitar solo in the later half of the song. In fact this album shows some of Stump’s brilliant guitar work that wasn’t so obvious during the earlier days of Fall Out Boy. Tracks such as previously mentioned ‘Run Dry’ and deluxe bonus track ‘Bad Side Of 25’ shows some stellar solos, something generally missing from mainstream pop songs, especially of the era, yet Soul Punk combines so many genres so fluently, nothing clashes or doesn’t work, it’s ridiculous how well put together this album is from start to finish. The song ‘Everybody Wants Somebody’ showcases some bombastic trumpets, a singalong anthem for anyone going through the motions of liking someone that doesn’t feel the same way. Altogether this album is just an hour of feel good crescendos, almost laughing at the shitty parts of life in defiance whilst you sing along to scenarios from how awful people can be to searching for animals you’re unsure whether they even exist.
‘Run Dry’ encapsulates the hidden/bonus song ‘Cryptozoology’, an interesting song thematically, exclaiming “I don’t have to prove myself to you”, begging the question of is Stump singing from the perspective of the animals whom existence is being examined? There’s a lot of metaphors spilled throughout the record, some even I haven’t figured out yet. This album is a little bit mad but it makes for a very interesting, but mainly fun listening experience. There’s just some things in life that can’t be explained all that well and are better off letting the work speak for itself and sometimes I feel that way about Soul Punk.
I will briefly touch upon ‘Truant Wave’ as well as it’s almost the foreword to Soul Punk, it’s other half if you will. And if you like what you hear across Soul Punk then you should definitely go and check out that EP too because no doubt it’ll quench your thirst for more Stump funk. As stated earlier, before Soul Punk was completed, Stump wrote two versions of his song ‘Spotlight’, and subsequently, one version ended up on the album, with the other on the EP and both songs are brilliant but the slower pace of Truant Wave’s version of the song ‘Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)’ just really melts you to the bone, it’s a really sincere song about how you don’t need something or someone else to prove your worth, and that “You can be your own spotlight”, a message that I think is still relevant today that far too many people don’t think about.
The Soul Punk era may have only lasted about 2 years in it’s entirety, with Fall Out Boy starting to write music together again just a year after the release of Stump’s solo outing, and for that it’s too bad because it’s a fantastic record with a groovy sound that may have been ahead of it’s time. But in retrospect, it’s wonderful to see and listen to as a gateway to the past, and the one good thing in hindsight of it not being particularly well known is that there’s a whole album (and Extended Play) of music that people can discover and enjoy even 10 years after it’s release.
I shall leave you with the video that started it all, the sneak preview at Stump’s solo work from 2010, that later became ‘As Long As I Know I’m Getting Paid’ from ‘Truant Wave’, which is essentially the genesis to Soul Punk, which features the original version of ‘Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)’ mentioned above. But please make sure you check out this wonderful record that really should have seen the success of it’s emo band cousins. Top tracks here are ‘Explode’, ‘Dance Miserable’, ‘Run Dry X Heart X Fingers’, ‘Greed’, ‘Everybody Wants Somebody’, ‘Allie’ and ‘Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)’. Soulful songs you absolutely cannot go wrong with. Get in touch and be a part of the conversation. What did you think of Soul Punk? Any hidden gems that you think we should know about? Any artists you think we’d love? Let us know.
New Order in more recent years are a bit like Marmite. You either love them or you can’t stand them. Once the pioneers of ’80s dance and club music, now seen more an icon in British music as to what was. But despite members leaving and 2 breakups, the band are still making music, playing to audiences and showing continued success. After 2015’s ‘Music Complete’ with the odd live album released here and there, fans were wondering whether breakup number 3 could be on the way, curious as to whether the ’80s electronica power group would have any sort of real presence in the 2020’s. But here we are with the new single ‘Be A Rebel’.
‘Be A Rebel’, if you’ve been listening to New Order for the last 10 years wont come as any sort of surprise in terms of the sound, in fact I think it sounds like a B-Side to ‘Music Complete’, perhaps the 2015 album wasn’t as complete as we once thought, with Bernard Sumners saying the new single was a “leftover” that “didn’t make the cut” for 2015’s ‘Music Complete’ which you can tell just by listening. This isn’t inherently a bad thing though, I really liked the thematic sounds of the last album, and so hearing ‘Be A Rebel’ after 5 years of radio silence from New Order sparked some joy in my eye. If you liked the sound of the last album then you’ll probably love the new tune just as well. For me? I can appreciate using older work that never saw the light of release for future music, plenty of bands have done that, and done it marvellously well. But here, I don’t know how well it holds up.
Now I’m not suggesting the song should have stayed a leftover, but it’s not the typical boom you get from New Order singles of the past. Tracks like ‘Krafty’, ‘Restless’ and ‘Regret’, they stick out, there’s a real sense of motion within those tracks, whereas here, ‘Be A Rebel’ is more of a quiet, dreamy, foot tapper than what we’ve heard from the band before. And I’m not comparing to the likes of ‘Blue Monday’ because that would be unfair, the band released that almost 40 years ago, and have gone through many musical changes since then, but one consistency I feel is missing here, is the power behind the track. It doesn’t sound too unlike the sounds from their last album and it doesn’t go off with a bang, which after 5 years, you would expect a bit of a rework when it comes to older music that never saw the light of day being released half a decade later.
I’ve heard the comparison to the likes of Sumner and Johnny Marr’s supergroup duo ‘Electronic’ which you could argue the similarities sure, but there were already similarities to New Order back in Electronic’s heyday, so it all comes full circle, so of course work that heavily involves Bernard Sumner, will have sounds that Bernard Sumner is known for using. Perhaps I’m expecting too much from a band with such a high legacy. Perhaps the track is a grower not a shower. All I can say, is that if you’re expecting the next big wave of sound from New Order, then prepare to be disappointed. That being said, if you loved Music Complete, then you’ll probably really enjoy this. It’s by no means a bad single, but definitely feels a tad lacklustre. Opinions can change though, quite drastically, let’s not forget the certain “punch-your-TV-obnoxious” band that a particular music magazine once hated and now absolutely cherish. So in terms of changing tone on something you like or you don’t, I’m not going to be rash here. But I do think if we’re to expect a new record from the Mancunian monsters, I wouldn’t bet any money on ‘Be A Rebel’ being a part of a new and evolved sound.
Lyrically the song comes across as pretty relevant, perhaps the recent Black Lives Matter protests are what sparked Bernard and company to revisit the track. The song talks about how the world can be a “dangerous place” but it’s “all we’ve got”, referring to people being “different” and that being okay. “Be a rebel, not a devil”. Clearly there’s a key element to rebelling against what we know is wrong, but doing so peacefully. Echoing terms we’re all grown up with like ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. It’s a clear outlook on the world from Sumner’s eyes, and from that regard is a very welcome conversation. Allies and Rebels are what the world needs right now to really make a change, so it’s a particularly prevalent topic that we should all take on board.
If you want to hear a modern and more evolved take on the alternative dance, techno and club sound, I highly recommend listening to artists such as fellow Manchester band ‘Everything, Everything’, the Scottish trio ‘Chvrches’, London’s own ‘Georgia’ or simply go back and listen to New Order’s older material. Music has no expiry date, and it’s never the wrong time to stick on a classic, or discover a band that you don’t know much of the deeper cuts of their discography.
The good news to take away from ‘Be A Rebel’ is that New Order have not slithered away into nothingness, and there’s hope for more music still to come. You can see New Order on tour in 2021 across the pond with the Pet Shop Boys, and a special one off UK show at London’s 02 Arena in November next year. Until then, let’s hope our Monday’s aren’t so blue.
Just when you thought Dublin couldn’t possibly produce any more incredible bands, you suddenly discover the music of Inhaler. This four-piece rock band, fronted by son of U2’s Bono, have a more unusual beginning than most. They met and first began playing together in 2012 while still at school in Ireland. Their first ever gig together was the school’s talent contest, where they performed a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’
In 2015, they became Inhaler after being given the nickname by their school friends due to lead singer Elijah Hewson’s struggles with Asthma. Three years later, the band released their debut single ‘I Want You’ and the boys quickly gained popularity, becoming known for their dirty bass lines, heavy rhythms and psychedelic melodies which are highly reminiscent of early 2000s bands like The Killers. Despite this relation in sound, the boys dress sense and album artwork actually bare a strong resemblance to an early version of The Smiths.
Hailing from a regular Irish college rather than one that specialises in music, the band have said their ‘weird’ style and music taste was ‘poles apart’ from their fellow peers, which naturally meant the boys had to stick together.
After recording a demo of their single ‘Ice Cream Sundae,’ they quickly gained the attention of none other than Antony Genn, producer and former member of Pulp, who nurtured the band, giving them the studio space they needed and forcing them to practice harder. This school talent show band soon began playing sold-out venues in and around Dublin, and after releasing six more singles, have become the fully-fledged band-on-tour they are today.
Inspired by their parents vinyl collections, which included bands such as The Stone Roses, Depeche Mode and New Order, they’ve managed to produce a sound of their very own including the best bits of all these inspirations. They possess a psychedelic structure similar to Interpol, a drop of New Order’s synthesizer experimentation and a splash of Sonic Youth’s kick.
Robert Keating (Bass), Ryan McMahon (Drums), Josh Jenkinson (Guitar) and Elijah Hewson (Vocals) together have gained industry-wide attention, being featured in The NME 100 and finishing 5th in The BBC’s Sound of 2020 vote, incredible achievements for such a young band.
As the son on music legend and U2 frontman Bono, lead singer Elijah Hewson has clearly learnt from the best. For the sons and daughters of established musicians, there always comes a certain amount of pressure, but it seems Elijah and his band have managed to pioneer something new and blow those expectations out the water.
Inhaler have now gigged with the likes of Noel Gallagher on their first American tour. They began this year with the release of their single ‘We Have To Move On’ a song I haven’t stopped listening to since it’s release. Later, they released the double-sided single ‘Falling In’ in the build-up to the launch of their debut album which is yet to be announced. The band released this awesome video filmed during isolation of 2020, a time where they should have been gigging:
This is a band we can’t stop listening to, a true must-have on the playlists of fans of The Killers, The Smiths, Oasis, Pulp or any of the other bands mentioned above.
We look forward to the release of their album, but until then, indulge yourself in one of their fantastic singles.
