Browsing Tag pop
I Don’t Know How But They Found Me – Razzmatazz
Obviously, it’s important for a band to have good songs. But in order to stand out in a long list (such as a Spotify playlist), it’s equally important to have a good band name. Enter I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.
In the beginning, the band was surrounded by mystery, but by now, we know it’s the new project from former Panic! At The Disco bassist Dallon Weekes and ex-Falling In Reverse drummer Ryan Seaman.
16 October, four years after they started, the duo release their debut album Razzmatazz. The glossy, piano-driven title track is their new single. The use of a multitude of instruments provides the song with a rich, at times jazzy sound. It was inspired by classic rock albums such as The Beatles‘ Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band and David Bowie‘s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. Razzmatazz’ lyrics concern Weekes’ disillusionment with Hollywood.
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.
The Mountain Goats – Get Famous
The Mountain Goats are not exactly a young and emerging band. They’re about to release the 19th album in their almost 30-year career. Getting Into Knives will be out on 23 October. Other than this year’s surprise album Songs For Pierre Chuvin, which was recorded in frontman John Darnielle’s North Carolina home, the upcoming long-player was recorded in the legendary studio Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis. This is the studio Sun Records founder Sam Phillips built when the original Sun Studio was no longer big enough to handle the demand. The album was recorded over a single week with an array of Memphis musicians.
The new single off the record sounds as vintage as the studio it was recorded in. This track, Get Famous, is actually an ‘anti-fame’ song. It’s a soulful rock ‘n’ roll tune with a snappy groove, enhanced by rich horns and a bubbling organ. Darnielle said about the track: “If I told you all how much fun we had making this one you wouldn’t even believe me. But we hope it comes through.”
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.
Liza Owen – Getting Good
Liza Owen is a British singer-songwriter of Cambodian descent. She’s currently residing between London and LA. Earlier in her career, she lent her sharp lyricism to the likes of Selena Gomez and BTS as a songwriter. In recent years however, she stepped out of the shadows, performing her own songs.
Her new single Getting Good starts with a good old triangle, but soon a slick beat drops in. The electric guitar parts are pretty grungy, but so far down in the mix, they’re just enough to give the track an edge. It never becomes a rock song, and that’s exactly how it’s meant to be. The lyrics are pretty grungy as well, by the way. Getting Good tells the story of self-destruction and the lengths we go to leading ourselves down the wrong paths.
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.
Tom Aspaul – Black Country Disco
Tom Aspaul is an artist from The Black Country, an area of the West Midlands in England. Hence the title of debut album: Black Country Disco.
Seven years ago, Aspaul wrote and recorded the track Indiana, which ended up being reimagined by Kylie Minogue as Feels So Good. This kickstarted his career as a songwriter proper. Since then, he also wrote for the likes of AlunaGeorge (Mediator), Little Boots (Working Girl) and Louise (Villain).
Following the end of a long-term relationship, as well as a growing disillusionment with the music industry, Aspaul moved out of London back home to the West Midlands. By writing his debut album, which takes listeners through all of the emotions of a breakup, he found himself again.
The title track, which closes the album, is my favourite song on it. It’s up-beat and uplifting. A happy song with a positive outlook and a clear message: this man is free and he loves it.
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.
Django Django – Spirals
Django Django’s new single Spirals is an up-tempo song right from the start, made for the radio. For adventurous radio stations at least. The tune kicks off with driving drums, a walking bassline and the kind of elegantly circling synths you might know from Sophie B. Hawkins’ Right Beside You, or Grandaddy’s The Crystal Lake. It combines Django Django’s early sound with that on more recent releases (the latest being two years old).
The same idea goes for the kaleidoscopic, Maxim Kelly directed video that comes with the song. It features repeated images of frontman Vincent Neff spiralling as if in a DNA strand. The image of DNA is used to muse on how the connections we have as humans are stronger than the divisions.
Kelly explains: “The approach was to translate the psychedelic trip through The Victorian technique of the phénakisticope. The visual illusion generated by spinning the disks at the correct speed coupled with the shutter of a camera is both confusing and hypnotic. I was drawn to how the animations flow in and out, drifting and duping the mind and then back again. This felt a lot like the psychedelic experience tome. The challenge was to fuse the old with the modern. The analogue and the digital. Updating and modernizing the technique.”
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.
Stats – Naturalise Me
13 November, only a year and a half after their debut album Other People’s Lives, Stats put out opus #2. The London-based band’s sophomore record is titled Powys 1999. It was recorded in a residential studio close to where frontman Ed Seed grew up in Powys (Wales). On the album, Seed (vocals, guitar) is joined by Nicole Robson (vocals/keyboards), Stu Barter (vocals/bass), John Barrett (drums), Duncan Brown (guitar), Iso Waller-Bridge (vocals/keyboards) and Ant Whiting (keyboards).
Naturalise Me is the long-player’s first single. It’s a funky, danceable pop song with an industrial, Depeche Mode-like feel to it. The track finds Seed questioning his roots. “Growing up I felt like I didn’t fit in or belong where I was born and raised”, he says. “When it comes to the countryside we often talk about the natural – and by implication the unnatural – as if we are talking about the real, and by implication the fake. I felt somehow fake in Powys as a born incomer, un-local, neither Welsh nor English. But by looking at the landscape, I started to realise the construction and extraction behind it, and the myth of its naturalness.”
Recommended as well:
Stats – The Family Business
Stats – Lose It
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.
Miss Machine – Tout Autour
Here’s more proof that the French music scene is full of talent at the moment. Today, I’d like to introduce you to Miss Machine, the alter-ego of young singer-songwriter Éloïse Boisseau. She grew up in a home where music was all around. Apart from the artists she heard via her parents, she discovered her own heroes as well. Arctic Monkeys, for instance, or Metric.
Miss Machine’s first 4-track EP, Tout Autour, comes out on 28 September. Ahead of it, its title track is her debut single. A beautiful song, combining ‘90s rock nostalgia, electronic pop sounds, and French chanson. Highly personal music, with lyrics that are both expressive and impressionistic.
While studying Philosophy, she continues recording new music in her home studio in Nantes. A new EP, or even a full album, will come out in 2021.
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 38):
Penfriend – The Only Way Out Is Through
Penfriend is the solo project of Bristol’s Laura Kidd. She’s not only an upcoming artist, but also a successful podcast maker. In the first series of her podcast Attention Engineer, she interviewed guests like Belly’s Tanya Donelly, Frank Turner, Charlotte Hatherley, Public Service Broadcasting, and Tom Robinson. It shot to #10 in the Apple Podcasts top music shows on launch. Series 2 will launch on 7 October.
Following Everything Looks Normal In The Sunshine, The Only Way Out Is Through is only Penfriend’s second release. Sonically, her new single is a nod to the powerpop that ruled the airwaves in the early 1990s. Its grungy guitars give it a rock touch, but it’s sugar-coated by an icy synth melody. Lyrically, Penfriend delivers the message of hope and determination that we all need after a tough six months.
She says: “The choice to release music in a universally dark time isn’t one I take lightly. The Only Way Out Is Through is the most resonant and useful song I have to offer right now, a rescue raft for whoever needs one. That’s what this song is for me.”
The Only Way Out Is Through by Penfriend is the new Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
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.
Werner’s Weekly (week 38)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- ONR (feat. Nile Rodgers) – Kill TV (Wildcard this week)
- Red Rum Club – Ballerino (Wildcard last week)
- Baxtr – Feathers
- Lova – One Day Left
- Monowhales – All Or Nothing
- San Mei – Midnight
- The Radar Station – Zanzara [2020 Version]
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Bruce Springsteen, Dua Lipa, Janelle Monáe, The Killers feat. k.d. lang, New Order, and more.
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.
Abby J Hall – All I Wanted
Abby J Hall, who turned 21 last month, is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Burlington Ontario. Taylor Swift, Julia Michaels, Alec Benjamin and Maggie Rogers are some of her musical influences. She started writing music when she was 11, and plays the guitar, keys and ukulele.
This year, after spending most of 2019 in the studio, she started releasing the new music she recorded. All I Wanted is her third single of 2020.
Abby describes the song as ‘an emotional plea to go deep and be vulnerable with someone you care about’. She further explains: “Sometimes it’s not the outcome that is the most important, but having the courage to say what needs to be said. All I Wanted encourages rolling your sleeves up and getting to the heart of past issues to rectify a relationship that you feel is worth rectifying. Tough conversations can lead to deeper friendship. (…) Life is short. If you’ve been feeling for a while like you need to tell someone something, tell them. But life is also long enough to spend the time with those who really matter to you. Let your guard down.”
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.
