Browsing Tag rock
The Lottery Winners – Little Things
2019 started with a bang, with The Lottery Winners’ That’s Not Entertainment as a (belated) Carte Blanche Music Wildcard. And now, the band have another go at the top prize. Little Things is the third single to be released ahead of their self-titled debut album, which is due on 13 March 2020.
The Lottery Winners is an album the band have spent the last two years recording tracks for, after being discovered by music industry legend Seymour Stein. You may know some of the other artists he signed, like a certain Madonna, and bands called The Ramones and Talking Heads (to name but a few). The album was produced by Tristem Ivemy (Frank Turner, The Holloways) and mastered at Abbey Road.
“This was a difficult song for me to write. It’s quite a sad one”, reflects frontman Thom Rylance. “It’s amazing how everything changes when you lose someone. Things become a lot more important. It does have a catchy chorus, and some nice ‘heys’ though, so don’t worry.”
This may very well be the track for The Lottery Winners to win them the jackpot. As they predicted themselves: ‘there’s nothing bigger than the little things’.
Recommended as well:
The Lottery Winners – That’s Not Entertainment
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.
Ride – Jump Jet
(Bass) guitarist Andy Bell (not the Erasure singer) has an impressive CV. After his band Ride demised in 1996, he formed the band Hurricane #1, played bass in Oasis and was the guitarist of its successor band Beady Eye. In 2016 however, Ride reunited as a live band. A year after, they released Weather Diaries, their first album in 20 years.
The follow-up This Is Not A Safe Place came out last August. Following Future Love, Repetition and Clouds Of Saint Marie, Jump Jet is the album’s fourth single. After an intro that moves from The Cure into Simple Minds territory, layer after layer it builds into one of the best songs in the Ride repertoire.
Recommended as well:
Ride – Charm Assault / Home Is A Feeling
Ride – All I Want
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.
Werner’s Weekly (week 47)
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:
- The Mowgli’s – Fighting With Yourself (Wildcard this week)
- Halie – Good Kids (Wildcard last week)
- Deva St. John – The Information Age
- Dubioza Kolektiv & Manu Chao – Cross The Line
- Jaguar Jonze – Kill Me With Your Love
- Lauran Hibberd – Sweat Patch
- Vant – Mary Don’t Mind
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: Angèle, Fall Out Boy, Neon Trees, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Pet Shop Boys, Sam Fender, The Veronicas, and many 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.
MarthaGunn – Heaven [2019 Version]
MarthaGunn are a band named after the Brighton folk heroine known as the ‘priestess of the bath’. It features frontwoman Abi Woodman and her close friends Max, Humphrey, Ally and Frankie. They take inspiration from bands ranging from Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles to Mystery Jets and Haim.
Their debut single Heaven has grown into a live favourite since its release in 2016. The band just released a re-recorded version of it, which sounds fresh all over. When sharing the track to the band’s social media, Woodman explained: “When I wrote Heaven, I was playing out a fantasy in my head and exploring a path I could only dream of taking. A few years on and I have stopped living in fantasies. I go after everything my soul desires. Heaven is a song for anyone dreaming of something more.”
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.
Jaguar Jonze – Kill Me With Your Love
Born in Japan to a Taiwanese mother and Australian father, Deena Lynch currently lives in Brisbane. She is an Instagram artist (as Spectator Jonze), a photographer (Dusky Jonze) and a musician (Jaguar Jonze). But before she picked up the guitar herself, she managed other artists, like The Jungle Giants and Confidence Man.
As a musician, Lynch is influenced by the likes of Portishead, The Last Shadow Puppets, Nick Cave and Angel Olsen. Kill Me With Your Love is only her third single. A spacey spaghetti western rock song, which laments the downsides to love.
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.
Lauran Hibberd – Sweat Patch
Hot on the heels of her critically acclaimed debut EP Everything is Dogs, Lauran Hibberd serves a brand new tune. Sweat Patch is another slice of sparkling slacker pop, where she delivers the lyrics in her signature conversational style.
Discussing the tune, Isle Of Wight’s indie darling explains: “Sweat Patch is arguably a song about drugs, but it’s not like I’m trying to be cool about it. I’m pretty much frigid with anything unprescribed. But because of that, this song is based on my idea of that world. There’s loads of songs about getting high, not as many songs about watching and I guess analysing other people do it. I guess this is me, soberly sat in a room watching all of my friends take drugs. I guess there’s also a nod to the elephant in the room, A DUDE. There’s always a dude! And I guess this song stemmed from me being into this guy, but he was pretty much into other things more.”
Recommended as well:
Lauran Hibberd – Hoochie
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.
Sorcha Richardson – High In The Garden
Irish singer-songwriter Sorcha Richardson left home for Brooklyn as a teenager to study creative writing. She’d assumed her background as a drummer would lead to her playing in a college band. Instead however, she ended up recording lo-fi demos in her dorm, which gradually picked up traction on SoundCloud. After living in New York for eight years, she moved back to Dublin, where she wrote many of the songs for her debut album First Prize Bravery.
One of my favourite tracks is High In The Garden, which revisits the bitter sweetness of summer. Its vocal melody, bubbly bassline and rhythm section, make for a toe-tappy earworm of a song.
Recommended as well:
Sorcha Richardson – Don’t Talk About 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.
Dubioza Kolektiv & Manu Chao – Cross The Line
Dubioza Kolektiv are a must-see live act from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their live performances are characterized by power, energy and high-spirited flamboyance. Meanwhile, they balance heavy melodies and important statements.
Their new single Cross The Line is no exception. Musically, it contains their signature blend of traditional Balkan flavours, ska, punk, reggae, electronics, hip hop and rock. Lyrically, it holds an empowering message of freedom. It’s an ode to the determination, courage, and strength needed to leave one’s homeland and face all challenges of an uncertain future. Not for the first time, Dubioza Kolektiv team up with their friend Manu Chao (of Mano Negra fame).
Cross The Line is the band’s first new single ahead of their ninth studio album #fakenews, out in January 2020.
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 46):
The Mowgli’s – Fighting With Yourself
Formed around Venice Beach, California in 2010, The Mowgli’s were named after the dog of one of the band members. Obviously, the animal was named after the main character from the Jungle Book movie. Between 2013 and 2016, The Mowgli’s were a fixture in my Carte Blanche radio show. Their debut single San Francisco was my Record of the Week in early 2013, just like I’m Good, exactly two years later. The reason why? Their songs are ridiculously catchy.
Said radio show may have evolved into this blog, but The Mowgli’s are still around. They left their major label to continue as an independent band. With that in mind, it’s interesting to see the band describe their new single Fighting For Yourself as ‘a self-empowering rock anthem reminding you to get out of your own way and love yourself’.
Following the departure of lead singer Colin Dieden from the band, Katie Jayne Earl is stepping into the spotlight for the first time to provide lead vocals. She does a great job on this single, which is rockier than we’ve come to expect from The Mowgli’s. With Fighting For Yourself, the band secure another Record of the Week spot on Carte Blanche Music. It’s the new Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can 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.
Deva St. John – The Information Age
Deva St. John was born in London to American parents. Likewise, her sound is a bridge between British and American pop culture. She’s a great vocalist with authentic lyrics, set to a lo-fi alt-rock production. A very promising new artist!
The Information Age is only her third single since she made her debut in October 2018. It’s a sarcastic salute to the often oppressive nature of social media, and how it distracts and divides us as quickly as it informs and connects. The song examines the consequences of our internet addictions on our personal wellbeing.
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.
