Browsing Tag pop
Mell & Vintage Future – Brand New Day
Mell & Vintage Future is a Dutch soul/R&B band, fronted by Melanie Jonk. She emerged after applying for TV talent show The Voice Of Holland. She’s backed by producers duo Vintage Future, consisting of drummer Ton Dijkman (who worked with Marco Borsato, Candy Dulfer a.o.) and Hammond player Nico Brandsen (Ilse DeLange, Anouk, Kane a.o.).
Brand New Day is the first single off the trio’s upcoming sophomore album. With its driving four to the floor beat and rousing organ part, it’s a fresh burst of energy. Mell says about the powerful track: “It deal with this very moment, where we can’t do that much and restrictions are everywhere. But we are still going to live the moment to the max.”
Soul with a capital S!
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 Flowers – You Don’t Say!
Quite honestly, I only discovered upcoming Sydney band The Flowers recently. When I wrote about their collaboration with Sarah Wolfe on the track 100 Times, to be precise. It turned out The Flowers front woman Agnes O’Dwyer, a.k.a. Aggy, is Wolfe’s long-time best friend. However, while 100 Times was a full on pop song, her own band is more of a rock outfit. And a damn fine one, judging from their available tunes so far.
You Don’t Say! is The Flowers’ new single. Produced by Peter Holz (Vance Joy, Peking Duk), it fuses pop-punk sensibilities with a radiant indie presence. Lyrically, it carries a self-love message. As O’Dwyer puts it: “You Don’t Say! is about struggling with body image. It’s essentially me yelling cause I’m kinda mad about how much it has ruined my life.” She adds: “Some of us are our own worst critics. This song is about striking back against self doubt and deciding the love yourself a little more. I don’t want to make self love sound easy, or make it seem like I’ve got it all figured out. The song talks more about taking small steps.”
The Flowers are a band about to bloom. I’m eagerly awaiting the debut EP they’re currently working on.
Recommended as well:
Sarah Wolfe feat. The Flowers – 100 Times
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.
Winnetka Bowling League – Come To The Beach
Matthew Koma worked with a diverse range of artists. Think Bruce Springsteen, Tiësto, Ryan Tedder, RAC, The Knocks, Shania Twain, Kelly Clarkson and more. But since two years, heading Winnetka Bowling League is his main occupation. I’ve written about songs from their first two EP’s Winnetka Bowling League and Cloudy With A Chance Of Sun before.
Now, a third EP is on its way. Entitled Congratulations, it’ll feature the recent tracks CVS and Kangaroo. Come To The Sea is the EP’s third single. A light and playful track, which will bring some relief in these heavier times.
Talking about his inspiration for the new song and forthcoming EP, Koma says: “Congratulations and Come To The Beach are two potentially misunderstood titles to release during a world pandemic that’s encouraging a pause in all traditional social and celebratory normals. But, they were both written pre-pandemic and hopefully they’ll last people through to post-pandemic when we can resume congratulating and going to the beach.”
Recommended as well:
Winnetka Bowling League – Diane
Winnetka Bowling League – Feeling California
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.
Ellie Dixon – Space Out!
Ellie Dixon is a Cambridge-born artist and producer, who names artists like KT Tunstall, Anderson .Paak, Easy Life, Still Woozy and Duckwrth as her influences. She first generated attention with her DIY covers, which often received high praise from the original artists.
These days however, she concentrates on her own songs, which she writes and produces all by herself. She makes all of her music in her bedroom, using everyday objects like clinking glass bottles to microwave door slams and rattling pots. That way, while only in her early twenties, Dixon already created a sound distinctly her own. Funky bass lines and joyous production create great grooves for her witty lyrics and earworm melodies.
Space Out! is her latest quirky single. It combines introspection and fantasy about spending too much time in your head and feeling detached from reality. Just like her songs and the accompanying merchandise, she also made the video herself. Ellie Dixon says this about it: “It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever made and I regret nothing.”
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.
E^ST – I Wanna Be Here
I must have missed this one some time ago, when it was released. Luckily, good music is like good wine: it gets better over time.
Early in her career, the talented Melissa Bester (a.k.a. E^ST; pronounced as ‘east’) was a support act for bands like Twenty One Pilots and Panic! At The Disco. While writing for other artists like Noah Cyrus and Nicole Millar, she also issued out her own tracks.
With over 60 million streams to her name, E^ST put out her debut album I’m Doing It on 31 July. Just ahead of it, I Wanna Be Here came out as the fifth single off the record. A poptastic, energetic song, produced by Jim Eliot (Halsey, Ellie Goulding, Kylie Minogue). It builds from a gentle piano ballad to an epic pop anthem in just under three minutes.
“I wrote this song at a really difficult time in my life, and it’s almost like I wrote the song that I needed to hear”, said E^ST. “This song is about realising that just because life feels impossible, that doesn’t mean that it is impossible… And that as long as you’re trying something, there’s always hope.”
Recommended as well:
E^ST – Maybe It’s Me
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 33):
Town Of Cats – Lemons
There are pop songs, rock tracks, dance tunes, etc. And then there are the ditties that are impossible to categorize. These are ‘genre defying’, as they say. Musical melting pots, as it were. This is one in the latter category.
But how about a short introduction to start with? Town Of Cats are from Brighton, a town that is slowly taking over from London as the musical capital of Great-Britain. Other Carte Blanche Music favourites from Brighton are Black Honey, The Magic Gang, Lime, MarthaGunn and Yonaka. As well as Fatboy Slim, The Kooks and Royal Blood, of course.
The last few years, Town Of Cats built themselves a solid reputation by ripping up festivals around their home town with their explosive cocktail of styles. Hip hop, jazz, punk, afro-beat, (prog) rock, funk … it’s all there, and more. The best reference I can think of, is a cross between Dog Eat Dog and Fishbone. Remember them? They were fantastic as well!
Lemons is Town Of Cats’ new single. With its lively rhythms, blasts of brass and guitar, a good old-fashioned sax solo, and sing-along vocals, it bursts with energy. Not the music you’re likely to hear on the radio (which is plain stupid, if you’d ask me), but you can easily imagine this band to grow into one of the huge future live bands. Can’t wait for the festival season to re-open. But way ahead of that, on 28 August, Town Of Cats release their sophomore album The Elephant’s Room.
This whole week, Carte Blanche Music combines the sweet and the sour, as Lemons is the new Wildcard. They don’t come any wilder than this!
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 33)
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:
- Altered By Mom – Walking With The Enemy (Wildcard this week)
- The Magic Gang – Make Time For Change (Wildcard last week)
- Badflower – 30
- Black Honey – Beaches
- Leoniden – L.O.V.E.
- Lola Lennox – Back At Wrong
- Sycco – Dribble
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: Midnight Oil, Saint Raymond, Yello, 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.
Altered By Mom – Better On The Page
Setting yourself a task to release a new song every week for a whole year, doesn’t leave much room to dwell on each individual track. Not even when it’s such a great tune as last weeks Carte Blanche Music Wildcard: Altered By Mom’s Walking With The Enemy. But as predicted: the band already moved on.
This week, the Canadian duo share new song Better On The Page. And guess what? It isn’t some kind of filler, but another top track. An up-tempo song with staccato beats. The verses feature alternating vocals of Devon Lougheed and Gina Kennedy, whose voices blend beautifully in the choruses.
A project very much worth following, and you’ll end up with a great (and comprehensive) collection of songs by the end of the year.
Recommended as well:
Altered By Mom – Walking With The Enemy
Altered By Mom – Hear That Sound
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.
Oscar Lang – Get Out
20-year-old London singer-songwriter and producer Oscar Lang is on a roll. After his EP Overthunk from earlier this year, a new EP is already on its way. Entitled Hand Over Your Head, this new 7-track effort will be out on 11 September.
Following the great track Apple Juice, Get Out is the EP’s second single, with verses that bring Oasis to mind. Musically, it’s a happy song with bombastic beats, bright guitars and electronic elements. A timeless tune, in part thanks to co-producer Rich Turvey, who previously worked with Blossoms and The Coral.
Lang says about his new song: “Get Out was written in January but since then it’s taken on a whole new meaning. Originally I wrote it as a song to myself, to try and get myself outside a bit more. But now because of COVID-19, I guess the song actually applies to everyone!”
Recommended as well:
Oscar Lang – Apple Juice
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.
Päter – Sleep
Päter (which, as she explains herself, rhymes with later) is a Canadian artist, who records and produces her own music in true DIY spirit. She started her career impressively with her debut single Dam, Damn. This track, which collected almost 200.000 Spotify streams in only two months, is also included on her first EP SOLE. She describes the EP as ‘a six-song inquiry into the self’. “SOLE stands for solitude, isolation, and, well, the soul.”
Sleep is Päter’s new single. It’s an indie-rock song with beautiful vocals and an irresistibly catchy chorus. In her own words: “This is a song about feeling powerless in turbulent circumstances. Right now feels like a transitional period where the past isn’t worth returning to, and the future is full of uncertainty. Sleep grapples with that collective feeling of limbo. I wrote it on an afternoon in isolation when I gave up on using this time to be productive, and just took a long nap.”
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.
