Browsing Category single track
Marble Waves – Caught In A Current
Marble Waves consists of singer-songwriter Eveline Armina Haverlag, guitarist Frank Geerlings, bass player Amé Staal and drummer Rutger Louwerse. Please note the subtle contradiction in the band’s name. Marble is solid, unmoving and frozen in time and space, whereas waves are always moving and never stay in one shape or one place.
Although Amsterdam-based, Marble Waves draw their influences from all over the world. Basically a folk band, their sound incorporates elements of Americana, indie, and pop as well. They wrap poetic lyrics in layered vocals, underscored by simple but effective violin arrangements and ethereal guitar work. The kind of music that goes down well in a full-band setup, but in an acoustic setting as well.
After releasing their debut single only last April, Caught In A Current is Marble Waves’ third release. It’s a song about the feeling of always working hard and struggling, while staying stuck in the same place, never getting somewhere.
All three songs will be on the band’s upcoming 6-track debut EP, scheduled for release later this year. It was produced by Tom Sikkers. Formerly singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer of bands like Wealthy Beggar and Daybroke, he now specializes in sound design, and music for movies and TV. Which explains the cinematic quality of Marble Waves’ music…
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Delta Spirit – The Pressure
Six years after their latest offering, Delta Spirit come back on 11 September with their new album What Is There. The 10-song set was produced by the band and mixed by Tchad Blake (Crowded House, The Black Keys, U2). It was dedicated to the memory of the band’s friend and musical inspiration, Richard Swift.
The Pressure is the long-player’s fourth single. A driving pop-rock song with a deeper meaning, as frontman Matthew Logan Vasquez detailed in Paste Magazine: “Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. We live in an unmanageable world, with unrealistic expectations of ourselves and each other. We are both the hero and villain of our own story. While our ego is trying to keep us the former, unbeknownst to us everyone around is possibly experiencing the latter. It’s been over a year since I wrote this song, and so much has obviously changed for all of us since then. I can’t help but laugh/cringe when I hear the lyric ‘the masks we made are wearing thin.’ Now in this time of COVID-19, BLM, and this upcoming election, I hope I can learn to share my convictions and experiences with those who disagree with me with the same love and grace that I am learning to offer myself.”
Recommended as well:
Delta Spirit – It Ain’t Easy
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Lucius – Man In My Radio
Lucius may not have released new music for about two years, but they haven’t exactly sat still. Through the month of July, they hosted a four-part livestream series called Turning It Around. It featured musician friends like Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, and Courtney Barnett. These performances raised over $70,000 for a handful of their beloved local small businesses in Los Angeles.
The band just put out a vinyl reissue of their 2013 debut studio album Wildewoman. It comes with a free download of a previously unreleased track, recorded during the sessions for that album. Man In My Radio is brimming with energy, and includes a banjo, frantic guitar lines and fast-paced high hats.
Talking about Man In My Radio, Lucius explain: “We were living in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn and had just built a little studio in our apartment. One that would become the home for the first recordings of Wildewoman. As we started writing and exploring the recording process, every so often we had some powerful radio signals coming through the speakers. Every time we were onto something, the same man’s voice would start speaking through the radio. He started to make it impossible to concentrate on anyone but him. He made it into our daily lives, and eventually, into a song.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Gizmo Varillas – Rise
Gizmo Varillas’ mix of folk and pop with tropical instrumentation, Latin and Afrobeat rhythms never disappoints. His latest album Out Of The Darkness is full of the kind of music we need in the current climate. However, as the title suggests, there’s more to the songs than sunshine and happiness alone.
Take Varillas’ new single for instance, which is about his own personal journey overcoming depression. On the other hand, it’s a song of hope, that can be of comfort to those going through difficult times. And aren’t we all going through difficult times the last few months? Although the track was written at a different time and in a different world, it speaks perfectly to the state of global upheaval and sustained lack of conclusion we are all living right now.
A song called Rise can only be up-beat, positive and uplifting, can it? And indeed, it is. “Perseverance and taking little steps, no matter how small, will help you get to where you want to be”, according to Varillas.
Recommended as well:
Gizmo Varillas – Born Again
Gizmo Varillas – Losing You
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
TESSÆ – Salope
Marseille-based TESSÆ is an upcoming artist on the French music scene. She moves somewhere halfway pop princess Angèle and urban acts like Damso.
Only 19 years old, she deals with a grown-up subject on her new single Salope (French for ‘bitch’). It’s about women being harassed by men in public spaces. Since rejecting the advances might evoke aggressiveness, it’s better not to look around, but to just walk on, TESSÆ pleads.
Salope is the first single off her forthcoming EP Été (‘summer’), which follows the EP Printemps (‘spring’). With a nod to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the singer’s third and fourth EP in this series will be titled Automne (‘autumn’) and Hiver (‘winter’).
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 35):
Sebu with Eraserfase – The Worst That Could Happen To Us
In his band Capital Cities, Sebu specialized in banging pop singles. As a commercial jingle composer, he knew how to write a catchy melody. I bet you’ll recognize their hit Safe And Sound.
As a solo artist however, Sebu makes music that impacts on a more emotional level. Both musically, lyrically and visually. His earlier singles The Secret Is Out and Have You Ever Hurt Somebody are great examples of how minimal music can be meaningful music. And his new song takes this concept to the next level.
The Worst That Could Happen To Us, a collaboration with Los Angeles-based producer Eraserfase, is based around a beautiful piano melody, prominent drums and lots of subtle electronic elements. Its lyrics are more in your face though, and so is the video. The clip is entirely made using the famous, 29 seconds short video of a Lebanese bride in Beirut, filmed at the exact moment an explosion destroyed most of the town. Talk about making an impact…
You can stream the song everywhere, obviously. But if you still like to extend your MP3 library, Sebu offers the track for free (and legally) in high quality via his website.
The Worst That Could Happen To Us is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
Recommended as well:
Sebu feat. Sirusho – Have You Ever Hurt Somebody
Sebu – The Secret Is Out [Lucas Vidal Arrangement]
In the Wildcards 2020 playlist you’ll find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Felix Riebl – White Walls
The Cat Empire frontman Felix Riebl’s new solo EP is titled Black Room White Walls. No wonder, then, that its first single Black Room is now followed by the track White Walls.
The five-track EP was recorded over several years between New York and Melbourne. But due to an intense touring schedule with The Cat Empire and the release of their latest album he hadn’t had the opportunity to put it out yet. Then, COVID-19 struck and only four shows into their European tour, The Cat Empire rushed home. Just in time to escape the European lock-down. This gave Riebl enough time to prepare the EP’s release.
Don’t expect anything near the Cat Empire sound though. Other than his band’s fusion of latin, ska and funk, his solo tracks are darker and guitar-based with big choruses. The banging rockers combine elements of New Order and Coldplay, while Russian composer Rachmaninoff and Pink Floyd were influences as well.
“There’s an angst to it”, Felix Riebl says about White Walls. “A real dark energy in there, but in the anthemic chorus I feel that it is positive.”
The EP is set to be followed with a full-length album next year.
Recommended as well:
Felix Riebl – Black Room
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Alex The Astronaut – Caught In The Middle
Since her early EP’s To Whom It May Concern and See You Soon, Alex The Astronaut released more than a handful of songs. All of them can now be found on her debut album The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing. As a consequence, you could already have known 7 of the album’s 10 songs (not counting the outro).
While many radio makers are only just discovering January’s joyous Wildcard I Think You’re Great, Alex hasn’t sat still. The upcoming Aussie singer-songwriter celebrates the release of her album with yet another happy single. Produced by Ball Park Music’s Sam Cromack, Caught In The Middle features all the elements we’ve come to love her for. It’s upbeat, folky, has relatable lyrics and obviously features Alex’s unmistakable voice.
In the video, she hits the tennis court with Australian music legend and drummer from the influential band The Go-Betweens, Lindy Morrison.
Recommended as well:
Banksia
Split The Sky
I Think You’re Great
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Dancer – Dreamer
Chris Quinton (CQ), Ben Graham, Bryce Crocombe and Josh Rea are Dancer. A brand-new band from the industrial beach town of Newcastle, Australia. They met in their younger years and even spent five years writing, recording and experimenting with songs, without even forming a band. But that’s a thing of the past. Earlier this year, amidst the chaos and the shut down of the music industry, the four decided to formally start a musical outfit, and named it Dancer.
The first song they put out was Fever, but Dreamer is their first proper single. A euphoric and uplifting song that sounds like a mix of The Killers and early Everything Everything. Think punchy indie-pop with huge choruses minus the falsetto. In other words: an epic radio song, that’s already been picked up by Australia’s alternative radio station Triple J Unearthed.
A friend of the band described listening to Dreamer as “…like riding down a giant hill without a helmet!” I’m already curious what else we’ll find underneath that hill. Hint: Dancer will release their first EP in the last quarter of the year.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Jealous Of The Birds – Something Holy
18 September, Belfast-based Naomi Hamilton, a.k.a. Jealous Of The Birds, releases her second album Peninsula. In addition to recent single Young Neanderthal, she now serves up a second track ahead of the long-player.
Something Holy is a timeless tune with the freshness of a sea breeze. It’s got acoustic guitars, a tambourine, soft drums, a walking bassline and a gentle guitar melody.
Hamilton says of the new track: “Something Holy was written on a trip I took to Lisbon, Portugal after a burnout. My perception of things had become pretty stale, so the song articulates grappling with one’s artistic practice and trying to see the innate sanctity of simple images in all their concreteness. The particularity of things and the sheer marvel that they even exist is very grounding to me. Being present and paying attention to all of that brought me back around.”
Peninsula was produced by Marta Salogni (Björk, M.I.A.) and David Wrench (Jaime xx, David Byrne). The songs mark Jealous Of The Birds’ continuing progression from bedroom recordings to more expansive and inventive use of the studio.
Recommended as well:
Ode To Fire
Blue Eyes
Marrow
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
