Gemma Rogers has shared her brand new single ‘My Idea of Fun’ set to be released alongside her new album at the end of July. Written to accompany a David Shillinglaw exhibition in Hoxton, Gemma penned the lyrics whilst nursing a broken heart and staying at a friend’s in Brighton. Her brother, Nick, came up with the guitar riff and Arlen Figgis remixed it, bringing in DJ Fast from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals to play melodica and additional keys. Brimming with raw humour ‘My Idea of Fun’ is a colloquial commentary on the trials of drinking in the afternoon. Gemma’s effortless vocal delivery is matched by her lyrical prowess resulting in a masterful piece of musical comedy. “How do I hope this song will resonate with my listeners? To have a little dance and a lot of laughs. Life can be very serious. I also think it’s wise to go out with a wingwoman so she can keep an eye on you when you’re getting loose. I reckon I’d have avoided lots of madness had I taken my own advice.” Producer Figgis also directed the music video, which features David Shillinglaw painting live throughout the shoot, and additional animation by Alex Burt. “David has also gone on to do the art for the album. He’s been one of my main inspirations. I’ve always thought of his art as the accompanying visual to my music (or vice versa) to be honest. It’s so kaleidoscopically communicative. He’s an artist through and through and is as pure as they come in his drive to explore the honest messy human condition.”
Experimental pop artist ko aka koala – the moniker of multidisciplinary creative KO Lee – has shared the official music video for her single ‘why is everyone so scared of me.’ The song was written from the perspective of a zombie – someone who is doomed to be alone, who can’t help but hurt people around them. The video depicts a classic horror movie aesthetic, and was directed, styled, and edited by ko herself. “It is symbolic of being not seen or understood, and judged by a superficial first impression that you can’t shake off,” says KO. “The video shows the duality between good and bad – as the lyrics state ‘looks can be deceiving,’ so we understand that the two are actually intertwined.”
Kennedy Ashlyn aka SRSQ [pronounced ‘seer-skew’], has shared a captivating new single from her forthcoming album Ever Crashing, which is set for release on August 19 through Dais. The delicate yet crushing ballad ‘Abyss’ sees Ashlyn sing of her bipolar disorder with shattering clarity. Raw and vulnerable, the track embodies her unique ability to masterfully synthesizes her private struggles and sorrows into stirring, redemptive anthems. Her multi-octave range and moodswing songcraft consists of tumult and triumph, darkest night breaking into brightest dawn, proving her a musician of elemental force. The accompanying self-directed video pictures Kennedy submerged in water. She comments: “‘Abyss’ describes my darkest days with the imagery of my skinless body trapped in a riptide, its rawness exacerbated by the rushing saltwater. Suspended above is a glowing orb, the promise of peace, growing fainter and fainter as the tide pulls me down. I watch it disappear in yearning surrender, only to be resurrected by the powerful shine of the sun, which cuts through the water at random, allowing me to ascend if only for a short time. The video was shot almost entirely underwater using a home made periscope.”
Florida-born, LA-based indie-folk performer Johanna Warren has announced the follow-up to her 2020 album, Chaotic Good. Her forthcoming sixth studio album, Lessons For Mutants, will be out October 7 via Wax Nine / Carpark Records. Warren has also shared an uptempo lead single, ‘I’d Be Orange,’ which has a music video co-directed by Warren and Richey Beckett. Warren began working on Lessons For Mutants all the way back in 2018, where she tracked songs in tandem with the material from Chaotic Good. She eventually finished recording her latest in the pastoral UK “surrounded by sheep, cows and a foragerʼs paradise of wild edible plants,” as a press release puts it. Warren describes ‘I’d Be Orange’ as being “about martyrdom and masochism in pop culture and the quest for stardom.” She continues: “The only thing we love more than building up an icon is watching them fall — and yet, as an aspiring icon, even when you know that, thereʼs still this perverse desire to be one of the chosen ones who gets pinned to the cross and set ablaze.” Elaborating on Lessons For Mutants, Warren says: “Thereʼs this unspoken rule in modern music—modern life, really — that everything needs to be Auto-Tuned and ʻon the grid.’ This record is an act of resistance against that. Thereʼs beauty and power in our aberrations, if we can embrace them.” [via Stereogum]
Los Angeles-based Zella Day has released a brilliant new video, directed by Alex Casnoff, for her song ‘Radio Silence,’ which she released three weeks ago to rapturous response. ‘Radio Silence’ – written in the Autumn of 2021 – details the experience of a young woman forced to reckon with the choices surrounding an unintended pregnancy. Combining sonic elements of college radio-era R.E.M. with haunting synths and drums, as well as some of the most pointed, evocative lyrics Day has ever written, ‘Radio Silence’ is raw, candid, and universally resonant. Says Day about the video, “It was on a Monday that we decided we were going to shoot a music video that was coming Friday before I left for Texas. We ended up shooting until 4AM, I was on a plane two hours later with beach sand in my shoes leftover from the Santa Monica Pier. There was a frantic energy in the air that night as we moved through the city with our shot list, we found some of our best scenes in an In-And-Out bathroom and while running down side streets in Simi Valley. I’ll be keeping the Bunny head as a memento from our iPhone thriller. We really want the viewer to feel the energy that we felt creating this psychological chase through Los Angeles.“
This week, Beach Bunny released their sophomore album, Emotional Creature. And the Chicago band is back with one more single and video. ‘Weeds’ is a likable and hooky one that Lili Trifilio said “felt like I was taking ownership of my emotions instead of letting my emotions drive me into despair.” [via Stereogum]
On her new single, girlpuppy (Becca Harvey) addresses the most excruciating breakups out there: those that occur between friends. The Atlanta-based singer-songwriter channels the pain of going from inseparable best friends to total strangers on ‘Wish.’ The song is the first release from her forthcoming debut album, When I’m Alone, out via Royal Mountain on Oct. 28. Her first venture into shoegaze, girlpuppy swaths her floaty vocals in gauze-like layers of fuzzy guitars and tinkering bells. ‘Wish’ embodies the blur of love, anger, hurt and confusion that comes with someone leaving your life and never giving you a reason why. Still holding out hope for reconciliation, she promises, “I don’t even need an apology,” and confesses, “If you’d call me back / I’d tell you that I love you / and I’ve missed you all this time.” An emotionally raw introduction to her new era, ‘Wish’ sees Harvey shines in her most vulnerable state. “On ‘Wish’ I was thinking about when friends leave your life and you’re not entirely sure why,” Harvey explains. “It’s a pretty universal feeling, I think. And, the thing is—even if you managed to live in the walls of that person’s apartment and were able to figure it out, their reasons might not make total sense. This song is me living with that feeling, when loss just doesn’t quite add up. This is the first shoegaze rock song I’ve made and I did that intentionally—the emotions in the song go from anger to sadness to nostalgia and all the other emotions that you feel when you go through a ‘friend breakup.’ I imagined it being really cathartic to play it live.” Check out the video for ‘Wish’ (dir. Matt Swinsky and Eat Humans) above. [via Paste Magazine]
Phoebe Green has released ‘Just A Game’, the fourth single to be lifted from her upcoming debut album Lucky Me. Following the release of ‘Sweat’, ‘Lucky Me’ and ‘Make It Easy’, Green has unveiled new cut “Just A Game”, which is teamed with a Niall Trask-directed video. “‘Just A Game’ is probably the most obvious pop song on the album, which makes me feel kind of uneasy but excited,” Green says. “I’m still coming to terms with making songs that aren’t entirely alternative because I’m so cautious of my songs making me cringe if they sound too polished, but this one is just a pop bop and I’m here for it.” Green adds, “I wrote it with my friend Jessica Winter who really encouraged me to venture outside of my comfort zone and embrace my newfound willingness to write in a more structured, concise way. It was actually so freeing and I feel like I had opposite inhibitions to what is expected! I love that despite the danceability it’s still a good old heartbreaker, that is one consistent factor that I doubt will ever change.” [via Line Of Best Fit]
Kenzie TTH is serene and silky on ‘Driveway (Credits)’, the ‘glue’ of her upcoming EP, which will arrive in August. The movie-soundtrack magic of ‘Driveway (Credits)’ draws on Kenzie TTH’s (pronounced Kenzie Teeth) myriad talents. Across design, editorial, fashion, music, running a label, and working with numerous other creatives, it’s no surprise that ‘Driveway’ is a fully-fleshed musical tale with artistry on every level, and arriving alongside a stunning coming-of-age-film toned music video, Kenzie creates a whole world for this story. Packed with swirling synth textures and understated vocal dexterity, Kenzie TTH pulls together all her influences and emotions on the latest release. Both fit for a contemplative nighttime drive under the wide-open skies and the moment when you pull into the driveway quietly and leave your thoughts in the car, Kenzie’s songwriting is airy and melancholy. Bringing all the emotional layers together to form a quiet sense of acceptance, ‘Driveway (Credits)’ is a perfect cinematic closer. “It was the first time we stood back and felt like we actually knew where we were going,” Kenzie explains of the track. “’Driveway (Credits)’ is the blueprint, the sort of glue of the record, that informed the rest of the tracks on We Stayed Too Long sonically and conceptually. It’s a song about closure, and in writing it, I started imagining the final scene of a film — how it all ends: the what-ifs and second-guessing that comes with choosing to close the door on a relationship, but ultimately being resolute in the decision for two people to part ways and accepting that there is no driving off into the sunset together.” [via Line Of Best Fit]
After a pair of EPs, Skullcrusher — the quietly appealing and not particularly skull-crushing musical project of Helen Ballentine — is finally releasing a debut album. It’s called Quiet The Room, and it’s dropping in October on Secretly Canadian. The strummy, shimmery, sighingly spectral lead single ‘Whatever Fits Together’ is out now with a video by Silken Weinberg. Here’s what Ballentine has to say about it: “I wrote ‘Whatever Fits Together’ while reflecting on my past and wondering how I might begin to explain it to someone. I viewed my younger self through a wash of emotions: anger, sadness, pity, confusion, all reaching for a kind of compassion. I tried to capture the contradictions that comprise my past and define who I am now. As I looked back, I saw my life in pieces: some moments blacked out, some extremely vivid, some leading nowhere. Through the song I attempt to piece it together in some non-linear form and accept my disparate story.” [via Stereogum]
London based project Pretty Sick will release their debut album later this year. The band is driven forwards by Sabrina Fuentes, marking out their sound with excellent EPs Come Down and Deep Divine. Debut album Makes Me Sick Makes Me Smile is out on September 30, a 12 track statement that traces their tangled trans-Atlantic roots, while touching upon family, mental health, love, and more. Ahead of the release – and it’s accompanying UK tour – Pretty Sick have shared biting new single ‘Human Condition’, a punchy punk-edged statement that operates on its own terms.
Indie Brooklynite Scout Gillett has announced her debut album, no roof no floor, out October 28 via Captured Tracks. She also released lead single, ‘signal,’ a bass-heavy, lightly screamy song that comes with a tongue-in-cheek music video directed by Scout herself. Of the inspiration for the video, she says, “I chose to make the object of desire a sandwich rather than a lover…I wanted to channel the slapstick work of Charlie Chaplin. I never end up finding the sandwich, just the mime pretending to chow down. I think lightness is achieved by letting go and embracing uncertainty. As in the video, which ends in laughter and acceptance, there is joy in surrender.” no roof no floor was produced by Nick Kinsey and features contributions from Ellen Kempner of Palehound, David Lizmi of MS MR, and Kevin Copeland of The Big Net. The album was inspired in large part by the changing meaning of home for Scout, as her home state of Missouri had become a place she didn’t recognize when she returned in 2020. She recorded the album in a barn in upstate New York, blending her southern upbringing with her DIY indie sensibilities. [via Brooklyn Vegan]
Powerhouse vocalist Reneé Rapp returns with her new single ‘In The Kitchen.’ The 22-year-old delivers a poignant piano ballad that highlights her knack for penning devastating lyrics and shows off her towering vocal range. Currently winning over viewers and critics alike with her starring role as ‘Leighton’ in the HBO Max/ ITV series The Sex Lives of College Girls, this track proves that Rapp has equally developed gifts as a musician. On ‘In The Kitchen,’ Rapp hones in on a simple memory from a relationship — to convey how alone she feels. “I walk in the kitchen, my heart hits the floor,” she sings sweetly over gentle chords. “It’s you that I’m missing, just had a vision of us cooking dinner, and you’re holding me from behind.” Co-written by Reneé alongside Monsters & Strangerz (Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, Maroon 5), Tommy Brown (Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Blackpink), and Michael Pollack (Lizzo, Becky G, Justin Bieber), the song draws on personal moments of Reneé’s, creating an emotional and raw experience for her listeners, almost enduring the pain alongside her as she sings. [via Total Entertainment]
