Browsing Tag rock
Ian Brown – Ripples
Ian Brown comes full circle with his new single.
After playing in a few other bands in the early 80’s, he became successful in the late 80’s as the lead singer of The Stone Roses – one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement. Their eponymous 1989 debut album contained the legendary single Fools Gold, a Top 10 hit in Europe and the US. Their follow-up album Second Coming was preceded by the single Love Spreads. A great blues-rock song, that was an ever greater hit in some territories, but eventually turned out to be less legendary.
After The Stone Roses broke up in 1996, Brown started a solo career, best-known for the singles F.E.A.R. and Be There, a collaboration with UNKLE. Last week, he released his new single Ripples, the title track off his upcoming new album (his first solo effort since 2009). Another fine tune, that brings back the Madchester feel musically, but with a vocal melody that mimics Love Spreads. A great way to sum up his musical journey.
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.
Band Of Skulls – Cool Your Battles
Since forming in 2009, Band Of Skulls have released four studio albums, featuring great singles like Death By Diamonds And Pearls, You’re Not Pretty But You Got It Goin’ On, Himalayan en So Good. Two years ago, drummer Matt Hayward left the band, but this hasn’t stopped the remaining duo, Russell Marsden (guitar, vocals) and Emma Richardson (bass, vocals), from recording long-player #5. They enlisted Julian Dorio of Eagles Of Death Metal to play drums on the record.
This album, Love Is All You Love, comes out on 12 April and was produced by Richard X, who worked with everyone from Sugababes to Annie, Pet Shop Boys, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Goldfrapp. This explains the accessible, poppy sound of first single Cool Your Battles. The band call it ‘an anti-war cry for our turbulent times’. They continue: “All the energy we spend fighting amongst ourselves can be used to do something positive, something real. So don’t forget to go out, to fall in love and to feel alive.”
So if you’ll excuse 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.
Nilüfer Yanya – In Your Head
Although she’d been writing songs in her head since she was six, and on the guitar since she was 12, now 23-year-old Nilüfer Yanya only started sharing her tunes with the world in 2016. Since then, the UK-based singer-songwriter of Turkish/Irish/Bajan heritage garnered a loyal mass of followers. After a few EPs, including great tracks like The Florist and Thanks 4 Nothing, she just readied her debut album Miss Universe.
We’ll have to wait until 22 March for it to drop, but in the meantime, we can enjoy the set’s new single. In Your Head is as catchy as ever, but with considerably more guitars and energy.
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.
Piroshka – What’s Next?
Late in 2018, Miki Berenyi, KJ ‘Moose’ McKillop, Mick Conroy and Justin Welch (members of British indie bands Lush, Moose, Modern English and Elastica) launched their first collaborative single as Piroshka. Everlastingly Yours immediately struck a chord. What’s next, you ask? Well, their debut album Brickbat is scheduled for release on 15 February. But first, they put out a new single.
Aptly titled What’s Next?, the track is a euphoric guitar pop song, which recalls The Cranberries, in a good way. Berenyi explains: “The lyrics are inspired by the shock and fallout regarding current political upheavals – how this finger-pointing and rage and blame are so damaging, how we need to get back some kind of solidarity if we possibly can because the divisions between us are playing into certain people’s hands.”
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 5)
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:
- Sigrid – Don’t Feel Like Crying (Wildcard this week)
- Jon Tessier – For A Little Eye Candy (Wildcard last week)
- Alice Merton – Learn To Live
- Ivan & The Parazol – Changin’
- Jealous Of The Birds – Blue Eyes
- Superbird – Cola Bottle Fizz
- The Revivalists – Change
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: Bring Me The Horizon, Danko Jones, Death Cab For Cutie, Dido, Florence & The Machine, Foals, Vampire Weekend, 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.
Blaenavon – Catatonic Skinbag
I first heard Blaenavon (pronounced bline-av-un) play by surprise, during the Eurosonic Noorderslag showcase festival in 2014. In my notes, I describes them as a ‘psychedelic teeny wave band’. By the time they released their debut album That’s Your Lot, in 2017, they sounded much more sophisticated.
Since then, things have gone quiet around the band. Two weeks ago, in a brutally honest note, singer Ben Gregory explained why: he had been hospitalised after incurring a stress-related breakdown. During his recovery, he and the band recorded their second album Everything That Makes You Happy, which Gregory says is ‘about suffering, guilt, love, family and overcoming trauma’.
Catatonic Skinbag is the long-player’s first single. A fierce comeback, that reminds me of Ash (a band I like very much).
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 – Blue Eyes
Judging by the singles off it, Jealous Of The Birds forthcoming EP will be great. Wisdom Teeth (available on 1 February) was preceded by the lovely single Marrow, and now, Blue Eyes is released as the second teaser.
Blue Eyes is a more full-on pop rock song, with funky bass and chunky guitars. On top of this groovy backdrop, Naomi Hamilton a.k.a. Jealous Of The Birds sings of the incomparable rush of a new sexual attraction with the owner of the titular ‘Blue Eyes’. The chorus, especially, is very strong, with it’s repeated ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’.
The singer explains: “There’s something powerful to me about femininity being self-reflexive as opposed to being expressed through the male gaze. I tried to translate that grit and sass by going for heavier instrumentation, funky bass lines and pop vocal melodies. Honestly, I just want to make the listener dance and feel good. Out of all the songs on the Wisdom Teeth EP, this was perhaps the most musically direct and enjoyable to record.”
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.
Ivan & The Parazol – Changin’
For some strange reason, record labels, radio makers, music directors (and as a consequence: consumers) hardly look beyond bands from Great-Britain, the United States and their own country. While there is so much more to enjoy! Take Kelemen Kabátban, Margaret Island, and Punnany Massif for instance. All very different acts, with a few things in common: they make great music, they’re from Hungary, and I featured them here at Carte Blanche Music.
Garage rock band Ivan & The Parazol are another group from Hungary, incorporating the spirit of 70’s glam-rock and modern psych-rock into their music. Their third album Exotic Post-Traumatic will drop in March and was produced by Wil Anspach, who worked with acts like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Muse, Justin Timberlake and Frank Ocean before.
Changin’ is Ivan & The Parazol’s new single. A song with great guitar licks and a groovy bassline. Could have been a Reef track!
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.
Judah & The Lion – Over My Head
In December last year, Nashville-based band Judah & The Lion released their first new music since their latest album Folk Hop n’ Roll. Not one, but two tracks: Quarter-Life Crisis and Pep Talk. Only a month later, they keep the vibe going with yet another new track.
Over My Head is an energetic, synth- and banjo-driven track (but far from country music), which offers a deeply personal look into vocalist Judah Akers’ mindset during a time that was both professionally exciting and personally turbulent. “I was on the road and homesick,” he recalls. “So that feeling’s rushing in, mom’s not doing well, not talking to dad, my sister’s sad. All these thoughts were happening and I was so overwhelmed with life. I was medicating and distracting myself in different ways so I could get 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.
Werner’s Weekly (week 4)
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:
- Jon Tessier – For A Little Eye Candy (Wildcard this week)
- Lizzo – Juice (Wildcard last week)
- American Authors – Stay Around
- Jesse Hite – When It All Comes Down
- Stats – Lose It
- Videoclub – Roi
- whenyoung – Never Let Go
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: The Cranberries, The Dandy Warhols, Hozier, Jade Bird, Joe Jackson, Sigrid, Yungblud 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.
