New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Justice Hill has released the first single, "Outta This", from his forthcoming debut full-length album, Room With A View, which is due out on April 20th.
The single features NYC-based rapper Eshe All Day Hues who plays perfectly off of Hill’s bouncy pop production and deep baritone vocals.
Elizabeth Moen rips into her home state of Iowa on her new single, "Red State Handshake". This is the first new music from Moen since the release of her latest EP "Creature of Habit".
With Moen now based in Chicago she finds herself looking back to Iowa and its Governor, Kim Reynolds, and the way most "Politicians pandering to small-town voters without really caring, hearing, or listening to their needs is one of many issues in this country".
queen mars has released the latest single, "YOU", from her forthcoming EP, "Trust Issues", which is due out on April 9th. Back in January she dropped the EP’s opening track "Boys Like You" and is clearly using a mix of Pop and R&B to explore the ups and downs of relationships.
Floatie has released a second single, "Shiny", from their forthcoming debut album, Voyage Out, which is set to be released via Exploding In Sound on March 26th.
This is the work of Sam Bern, Luc Schutz, Joe Olson, and Will Wisniewski, and you can preorder their debut album here.
Strict Tempo is a weekly Thursday night livestream originating out of Seattle featuring a world-spanning Whitman’s Sampler of live DJs and live electronic music acts in the musical veins of EBM/industrial, acid/electro/techno, minimal wave/darkwave, Italo-disco/hi-NRG and other equally cool sounding slashed and hyphenated genres.
The shows kick off at 7PM PST/10PM EST opening with a DJ set from host and curator Vox Sinistra, followed by 3 or 4 featured performers made up of both live electro-based acts and DJs doing their thing in real time. The show goes out live on Twitch just CLICK HERE.
As reigning queen of dark & danceable and occasionally not so danceable beats, Ms. Sinistra introduces each show with a charmingly low-key informative overview of the acts about to perform backed by green-screened dancing skeletons or infinitely scrolling bondage chains or vintage nightclub footage or surreal film clips and with occasional cameos by her tuxedoed cat. Production values on the show are consistently compelling and sometimes appealing demented eye candy with each DJ/electronic artist bringing their own distinct look and vibe.
Tonight’s installment of Strict Tempo features the return of Xibling, a dynamic synth duo comprised of Moriah West and Julian Thieme. Paraphrasing from Vox Sinistra’s Facebook post for tonight: “I’m hosting the release for Xibling’s Maladjusted EP out tomorrow and if you haven’t listened to Xibling, the Portland ‘post-punk techno fever dream’ wrote/livestreamed new songs every week at the beginning of quarantine last year (!) and are also returning Strict Tempo guests, playing the second show I hosted online last April. Tonight they’re supported by coldwave-y synthesist STACIAN, new PDX dark synth-pop act Pleasure Victim and XOR, the new electronic alias from the bassist/synth player of acclaimed darkwave band Secret Shame.”
And if the lead-off title track single to Xibling’s new EP is any indication, with its stuttering beats and phat electro-bass and ethereal vocals, tonight looks to be a lot of fun. Plus for a further sneak preview you can check out the music vid for “Maladjusted” with its cool Tetsuo-style black-and-white engulfed-by-rampaging-technology visuals in which Julian and Moriah are attacked (or seduced?) by sentient unspooling VHS tapes.
With a stylistic range across an electro-spectrum from the darker reaches of darkwave to the poppier side of New Order-esque electro pop, the upshot is that if Xibling’s electro-oscillations don’t get your body oscillating wildly then you may need to visit your local testing center and make sure your heart is still beating—an effect that’s only heightened when you see Xibling doing their thing live because high energy is too mild a term for their performative posture.
And speaking of high energy you’re also advised to check out two retrospective one-year anniversary broadcasts from Vox Sinistra—one compiling some of the best bits from the various Strict Tempo live acts over the past year, and the other a comp of featured DJ acts coming soon on 3/18. Plus holy Mother of Pearl the live show comp is nearly 10 hours long so settle in for the evening and hit play and I can guarantee you it’ll melt your f’ing face off if taken in one sitting so maybe put on that full plastic face mask before even attempting it.
Not unlike these epically scaled retrospective comps but on a smaller scale each Strict Tempo tends to be an eclectic affair, but overall Vox specializes in a style known as EBM (electronic body music) that’s something like a mutant mashup of industrial, cyberpunk, electropop, and synthwave—different artist highlight different elements of course and throw in their own twists—which is a style of music that’s equally effective whether you’re looking to mosh like a maniac in your bedroom late at night or bop in place equally maniacally like Molly Ringwald on Molly.
Anyways when it comes to the genre of EBM it’s name can be taken pretty literally given that we all inhabit more or less “electronic bodies” by this point living so much of our lives through phones and computers and old BlackBerry Storms (for the iconoclasts among us!) but at least watching a live-streamed set by Xibling or a Thursday night installment of Strict Tempo can make “device life” feel more utopian than dystopian for a few hours. (Jason Lee)
Ryan Sambol has a remarkable and mystical sense of humor. Across barely 23 minutes on his new album, Gestalt, he meanders through his own plucked guitar strings and muddled piano keys to highlight strange observations and theories. The name of the record comes from the German word for “shape” and is often associated with the Gestalt school of psychology, in which the whole is perceived to be far more than the sum of its parts.
The whole of Sambol’s career is, in fact, far more than the sum of its parts. He’s a well-worn poet and a former garage rocker from the Austin outfits The Strange Boys and Living Grateful and he likes to zig-zag while telling a story. You’d be forgiven for thinking he’s two sheets to the wind, but he’s eerily calm for a storyteller in his element.
Gestalt opens with tender chords that unfold like petals to reveal Sambol’s timid vocals on “You’re Still Lovable To Someone” (but it’s your guess who that ‘someone’ could be). “According to this guy / I haven’t seen the greatest movie of all time / I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was blind,” he exhales in his apathetic warble. Aspirational thinking rather than actionable advice drive his motives, if barely—“Let’s raise money for each other sometime / If the need arose it’d be good to know,” is the half-assed yet whole-hearted sentiment of someone trying to be the lovable type.
The power of quiet records comes from what’s unsaid more than what’s spoken for all to hear. “We met in the comments / Of one of our favorite singer’s songs,” Sambol sings on “Just Like Golden Hours”—not in the stands, not in the audience, but out in the forum where worlds apart are able to come together. The feeling is immediately resonant like a monostitch from the would-be Twitter account of Joni Mitchell; golden hours are prone to fade, YouTube videos queue to the next one and romances slowly die.
If Gestalt is more than the sum of its parts, it surely is a triumph. Its sum is a loosely-hewn batch of emotional country, but what it amounts to is a beautiful and poetic thought catalog of observations too small for the rest of us to catch.
– Mike Floeck
Olivia Flanigan has released the lead single, "Mannequin", from her debut album, Girl, which is set to be released on March 26th via Flood Records.
For the album Flanigan gathered together a group of talented musician including Matt Gold (Guitar), Paul Bedal (Piano/Keys), Mike Harmon (Bass), and Nate Friedman (Drums). Together they have created a sound that is rooted in Jazz and vintage torch singing while remaining fresh and modern.
Worm have released their debut EP which is called "Where Have You Been". This is the solo project of Tom Riordan, formerly of Secret Science, who is bringing a warmer, almost tropical sound to the tail end of this cold Chicago winter.
On this EP, Riordan is finding himself at home with a keyboard and a drum machine and a desire to put something warm and positive in the world.
As anyone who has ever studied singing can tell you, music fans often define stellar singing according to whether they are partial to singers in the big voice belting camp (Pat Benatar, Brittany Howard) or the sweet, feminine, clear as a bell camp (Diana Ross/Emily Blunt/Katy Perry.) Austin favorite Cari Hutson is however a vocalist bridging both preferences, unexpectedly Carrie Underwood-like for someone who once played Janis Joplin for six months in a very credible off-Broadway production.
On her first EP since winning a coveted Black Fret artist’s monetary grant in late 2019, she sings romantically about domestic bliss, finding me-time as a mom of a four-year-old during a pandemic and the callousness and dishonesty of Donald Trump and Governor Abbott in the funk-blues-dance tune, “Blame”, a throwback to the Stevie Wonder/Sly Stone era where a protest song could be funk and blues to which a person could dance. Hutson’s sweet voice and her rocking gritty voice possess so much impact that her few over-the-top wails seem just sort of there.
On her video for “My Breath”, the 42-year-old Hutson, backed by her good-natured band (which includes her husband on guitar), takes the stage with the face of a cherub, softly arranged ginger curls, perfect makeup and a tasteful pantsuit that would be so Hillary Clinton if it weren’t for the shawl with vertical black and white stripes. In true Stevie Nicks fashion, complete with sweet sultry looks, she beckons the audience to come into her spider web. If “My Breath”’s Melissa Etheridge hooks and guitars don’t make it to modern rock radio in 2021, I would be very surprised.
The ironically encouraging thing about the times our society is in is that there is an increased awareness of a seriously flawed America. An EP like Salvation & Soul Restoration, just like a Biden presidency, would be good at any time, but in 2021, the second year of pandemic hell, an artistic AND obviously appealing album release that sounds like the Refinery 29 blog would sound if it was a pop album is going to speak to many, many diverse fans while keeping its integrity and edginess.
– Jill Blardinelli
AZITA is preparing to release her first new album, Glen Echo, since 2012’s Year. The album’s lead single, "Shooting Birds Out of the Sky", was released almost a year ago to much acclaim and found Azita bringing a funky, slowed down groove under her raw and honest lyrics.
She recently released the album’s second single, "If U Die", which is accompanied by the video below. You can preorder Glen Echo, which will be released on March 5th via Drag City, here.
Punk trio Nonagon are set to release their debut full-length album, They Birds, tomorrow, March 3rd, via Controlled Burn Records. The trio of Tony Aimone, Robert Wm. Gomez, and John Hastie have been together for more than decade, releasing their debut EP back in 2008.
The album’s lead single is called "The Family Meal" and can be streamed below.
Thompson Springs has released a new single called "Fayetteville Hotline" via Dropped Beauty Recordings. This is the first new music from the Matt Smith project since the released of his 2020 album, Undertones.
On this single Smith, who plays acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, and sings, is joined by Jake Bicknase, David Thrift, Jeff Sullivan, Bailey Bigger, and John Pirruccello.
