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Music

Nathalie Stern – Ember Child

Nathalie Stern is a Swedish artist now based in Newcastle who served her apprenticeship in guitar-based bands such as Candysuck and Lake Me, before looking to traditional Swedish folk roots and more experimental sounds for her debut solo album Firetales in 2010. Nearly a decade later she released the incredible Nerves & Skin, from which Ember Child is taken: a stripped-down, haunting, electronic-folk ballad consisting of little more than single, lengthy notes and a handful of chords on an especially morose synth and her wonderful vocal. It’s about as minimalist a composition as you’re likely to hear, and one of the most impactful.

https://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/nerves-and-skin

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Henry Blaeser & CoastalDives – Ghost II

Columbus-based electronic artists CoastalDives and Henry Blaeser team up on Ghost II, a haunting, at times unsettling, but ultimately extremely warm slice of electronica landing on Chile’s renowned No Problema Tapes imprint. Dense, dark and intricate, it merges Blaeser’s cold, skeletal rhythmic & textural architecture with CoastalDives’ all-encompassing, haunting synth-scapes to tremendous effect.

https://soundcloud.com/noproblematapes/ghost-ii

https://noproblemasingles.bandcamp.com/album/snp-013-ghost-ii

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Music

Nation of Language – A Different Kind of Life

Nation of Language may well be my favourite musical discovery of 2020. Their album Introduction, Presence is a toweringly brilliant record, and their latest single A Different Kind of Life is equally strong. Like a lot of their music it has a yearning, nostalgic quality to it that gets me right in the feels every time, and reminds me of emotional, synthy 80s bangers like When In Rome’s The Promise. In fact, stick A Different Kind of Life at the end of Napoleon Dynamite when they’re walloping that swingball around, and I’d be a very happy chap indeed.

https://www.nationoflanguage.com

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Music

LOU – Love Is A Lie

LOU is a Greek singer, songwriter and producer who’s latest single is a real hidden gem: dark, brooding bedroom pop with a terrifically haunting vocal and a creeping intensity that builds up beautifully as the track progresses. Also, the video includes burning candyfloss which is something I’ve never seen before. Come for the music, stay for the immolation of confectionary.

https://soundcloud.com/lou2019

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Music

Amaarae – 3AM

It’s been a long old time since I was still up and about at 3AM , but I think I remember it: usually drunk passed wasted and towards a kinda weird sobriety, vaguely thinking about what I have to do the next day, surreptitiously checking to see just how ridiculous the surge prices are at the moment. And while I may be showing my age with a lot of this, and there have been moments I’ve been having the absolute time of my life at 3AM in an ohmygodIcan’tfuckingbelievehowgoodthistuneis way, I definitely don’t remember it being as chill or sexy a time as Amaarae is making it out to be. Maybe I need to get up and wander round the grainily-lit, deserted streets, or be trying to seduce someone (LOL!), but either way, this record is lush and I love it.

http://amaaraemusic.com

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Music

Kimani – Bad News

Emotional R&B for you today courtesy of UK artist Kimani. Bad News is slick and syrupy in the best possible way, and vocally reminds me of DVSN’s Daniel Daley: delicate, heartfelt and seemingly constantly on the verge of breaking down into tears. Backed up by understated background melodies and muted percussion, it’s a real, lovelorn treat of a record.

https://soundcloud.com/kimani_morgan

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Music

Me Lost Me – Nevergreen

Me Lost Me is the music project of Newcastle based musician Jayne Dent, and Nevergreen came out a few months ago as one of the singles from her latest album, The Good Noise, which was released last week. The entire album is brilliant, and ranges from meandering, folky ballads to soaring, ethereal pop, many of which are pinned together with crisp and precise drum programming. Nevergreen itself is a beguiling mix of all of these elements and more: something you could easily imagine soundtracking a hallucinatory scene in whatever mind-bending film Ari Aster currently has in the works.

https://www.melostme.com/

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Music

Infinity Knives – In The Mouth Of Sadness

The big news today is: commas are back. Specifically; commas in album titles, which I am bang into. Earlier I posted a track from Pale Honey’s Some Time, Alone, and now I’m getting all excited about Infinity Knives new album Dear, Sudan, which is so weirdly exquisite I’m not even sure how to describe it. In The Mouth Of Sadness is heavy on both reverb and emotion, and transitions from a gushing electro pop banger into a gently tinkling jazz ballad. And it’s probably one of the more ‘conservative’ records on there.

https://phantomlimblabel.bandcamp.com/album/dear-sudan

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Music

Pale Honey – Heaven Knows How Far I’ve Gone

This rousingly brilliant slice of indie-rock is taken from Some Time, Alone, the third album from Gothenburg band Pale Honey, and their first as a trio, with Anders Lagerfors permanently joining the duo of Tuva Lodmark and Nelly Daltrey after touring and recording with them for some years. I’m not familiar with their previous work so can’t say how much of an influence Lagerfors’ addition has made, but I’m definitely a big fan of the synth work he’s bringing to the table, which is at times wobbly and distant and at others vast, spacious and all-encompassing.

https://www.palehoney.com/

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Music

Reptaliens – Do You Know?

“Inspired by sci-fi art, cult mentality and deep connections, creating low fidelity chameleon dreamscapes somewhere between abstract expressionism and surrealism both sonically and visually” isn’t a sentence I thought I’d be writing today (or more accurately lazily copying and pasting from the bio section of Reptaliens’ Bandcamp page), but listening to Do You Know? I know exactly where they’re coming from. This is from their new EP Wrestling which has a similar dreamy, DIY vibe as Kai Hugo’s I’m Cindy project which I also really like: all crunchy, lo-fi drums and nostalgic, shimmering pads.

https://reptaliens.bandcamp.com/