Pa Sheehy has released his new single ‘Surrender’ feat. Sinead White. Pa Sheehy paved the way for his debut solo EP ‘The Art of Disappearing’ with the radio hit ‘Róisín’, which received widespread acclaim, and on release, the EP shot to Independent Number 1 in the Irish album charts. To celebrate the release he also took to the road for a sold-out nationwide Irish Tour. Sheehy’s upcoming live dates include Indiependence Festival, Cork on the 29 July as well as a host of European Tour dates.
Featuringcinematic soundscapes and sweet harmonies from Sinead White, ‘Surrender’ is a compelling new tune from Pa Sheehy. Sheehy has a knack for narrating relatable stories through vivid songwriting and emotive musicianship and ‘Surrender’ is a sublime example of this. His warm vocals croon evocative lyrics that ignite the senses and engage the listener’s imagination “now I wait for you with the coffee getting cold” while warm guitars twinkle behind the bittersweet melody before string elements and a gentle piano elevate the track to its hair-raising chorus. ‘Surrender’ is an absolute musical delight from Pa Sheehy. The track is a joy to listen to and beckons repeat plays.
Speaking about the single Pa Sheehy said: ‘This song swivels through childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Contrasting imagery that creates a longing for what was and a sadness for what is. It was written in the middle of nowhere with a few friends this time last year. Some songs are hard to write and some songs just fall on your lap. This song was written so easily. I hope people can connect with it the same way I do.’
You can catch Pa Sheehy Live at Indiependence Festival, Cork on the 29 July as well as a host of European Tour dates.
Emma Hynes has released her new single, ‘The Space Between’.The song is the third and final release in a trilogy of songs written by Emma and recorded at JAM Studios in Kells, Co. Meath. The track was produced by Martin Quinn who also performs on it together with Emma, and Andrew Quin To celebrate the release of all three singles, Emma will host an intimate night in Vintage Room at The Workmans Club on Thursday 28 July at 8.30pm. She will be joined across the evening by three very special guests; Dublin-based psychedelic dream pop artist Keeley; Ray Gilligan, lead singer and songwriter from Dublin power-pop band StereoType; and, Brew, frontman and songwriter from garage rock stalwarts Blue Sun. Tickets are €6 and available on Eventbrite
‘The Space Between’ is an enticing tune that displays the expressive songwriting of Emma Hynes. With warm country tones and indie embellishments wrapped around a smooth melody and gripping storytelling, Hynes creates an intriguing tune that keeps you on the edge of your seat, hanging onto every suspenseful note. Through eloquent lyrics, she narrates a story of frustration and desire “his passion is a battle cry but I can’t win” while the backdrop subtly builds to create an immersive and thrilling listening experience. ‘The Space Between’ highlights Hynes’ profound and thrilling songwriting through poignant musicianship. The track is a fine addition to her catalogue of magnificent tunes.
Jack Woodward has released ‘Every Night’, his first song in over three years. This heartfelt cinematic musical delight showcases the warm and passionate songwriting of Woodward. Doused in soothing guitar melodies, elegant piano and pulsing drums Woodward returns with a song that captures a rushing sense of adrenaline throughout and beckons repeat plays. Filled with a sweet melody, smooth vocals and ethereal tones, ‘Every Night’ is a well-crafted tune from Jack Woodward.
Jim McHugh is set to release his new single ‘On My Life’ on July 1st. The track is the first single from Jim’s upcoming fourth album ‘I Whisper to the Dawn’. ‘On My Life’ was recorded, produced and mixed by Alex Borwick (Niamh Reagan, James Vincent McMorrow) at Transmission Rooms Studios, Drumlish, Longford and The Stables Studio, Castleblayney, Monaghan. It was mastered by Fergal Davis (Sinéad O’Connor/Muse).
Jim McHugh delivers a tender and emotive display with ‘On My Life’. He gracefully blends soulful tones with indie rock to create a compelling soundscape filled with gentle guitar melodies and a beautifully cinematic crescendo. McHugh is an enchanting artist, each note and musical element within his music adds character and richness to each arrangement creating spectacularly emotive songs for listeners to enjoy again and again. ‘On My Life’ is a fine example of this and a mesmerising display of musicianship from Jim McHugh.
Irish indie-pop-rockers modernlove. Have released their new single, ‘Familiar’, taken from the band’s eagerly-awaited upcoming EP ‘Oh My Mind’, which arrives on July 29th through Akira Records (Phoria, Henry Green, Mt. Wolf, Rosie Carney, Shura). modernlove. will also be embarking on their first UK and Ireland tour in November later this year. Demand for these shows has been so overwhelming, the band have added a new date at London’s Camden Assembly on the 8th November, with their Manchester performance now upgraded to YES! (Basement).
‘Familiar’ boasts an intoxicating 80’s-esque soundscape filled with shimmering indie elements, light synths and lush textures. The song broods through thick electronic pulses while delicate guitar embellishments exude ethereal tones. modernlove.’s ability to create emotive melodies is awe-inspiring. ‘Familiar’ is an exquisite example of this. The track beautifully evolves into a musical delight that – with the help of an irresistible groove-laced bass, ventures into funk territory before its euphoric crescendo. Showcasing earnest lyrics, deft musical prowess and a soft falsetto display ‘Familiar’ is an enjoyable indie-pop tune that beckons repeat plays.
Speaking about the new single, the band said, “Familiar is a song about seeing an ex for the first time after breaking up. It’s about seeing them from across a bar with somebody else, having moved on with their life and the feelings that moment can evoke. It also explores the idea that we long for something familiar and comforting when we’re not in a very good place in our lives and that an ex can provide a temporary, albeit unhealthy, escape from that loneliness and anxiety. We wanted to reflect that emotional depth in the sonics as well, this is the closest we’ve come to RnB chords on the keys for example. But also not lose that modernlove. bounce, it’s a pop song at heart.”
modernlove. 2022 UK & Ireland Tour Dates:
November
UK
2 – Birmingham – Hare & Hounds
3 – Manchester – YES! (Basement) ***UPGRADED VENUE***
Irish indie rock band N.O.A.H have released their new single, ‘The Wrong Side Of Town’. N.O.A.H comprises three lifelong friends Ryan Hill, Adam Rooney, and Ronan Hynes. The band formed in January 2020. After spending months writing, recording and developing as a band, N.O.A.H finally released their debut single ‘Shine’ in September 2020. The track picked up a lot of press, N.O.A.H even recorded an exclusive acoustic rendition of ‘Shine’ for radio presenter Laura Whitmore on BBC5 Live in the UK. Further interest was shown from stations such as RTE2 FM, Spin 1038 and Corks Red Fm achieving play-listings and earning various spots as ‘Track of The Week’. With word spreading fast and the ever-growing press, N.O.A.H signed with Natasha Bents’s newly founded Mother Artists Live Agency (Foster The People, Idles, CMAT). The band even made their first TV appearance on RTÉ Six One News to talk about their good news story and journey to date.
‘The Wrong Side of Town’ is a passionate indie rock track. N.O.A.H take a dazzling array of sonic textures and perfectly blends them with intricate, dynamic instrumentation to create a euphoric sound for listeners to immerse themselves in. There is much beauty to appreciate in N.O.A.H’s musicianship and ‘The Wrong Side of Town’ is a fine example of this; the band capture a sense of urgency through the use of driving basslines and dynamic synths while throughout the track smooth emotive vocals croon moving lyrics atop heart-stopping instrumentation. N.O.A.H’s instrumental prowess is becoming more refined and exciting with each release. These guys are ones to keep an eye on, each track they release is unforgettable and a wonderful hair-raising listening experience.
Dublin band KLDD have released their new single,‘Tastes Like Tragedy’.KLDD wrote the song during the lockdown of 2021, born from a spontaneous jam session and recorded at Bluebird Studios in January 2022, the track was produced and engineered by frequent collaborator Declan Lonergan. KLDD will play their debut headline show on July 10th at The Grand Social Dublin, alongside Cork band The Drive on support duties.
‘Tastes Like Tragedy’ displays KLDD’s mature and tight sound through an impressive blend of spacious musicianship and a taut vocal delivery. The song pivots around this laid-back and at times nonchalant vocal delivery however, it’s the sweet meanderings on guitar that ignite passion and emotion within the song. The guitar boasts expressive soaring melodies between rumbling bass embellishments creating a soft tone and a sense of innocence throughout. ‘Tastes Like Tragedy’ is a joy to listen to. KLDD’s ability to slowly unleash their indie-rock vigour without overpowering the track’s airy vibe is impressive and showcases the talent of this band. Throughout the song the listener is treated to wonderful textures, emotive undertones and deft musicianship – the result is a sound that is both exhilarating and timeless.
Singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin has returned with the release of her new single ‘Call Me’.Throughout her career so far Aplin achieved a UK #1 smash hit with her cover of ‘The Power of Love’ which launched her career, as well as a further four international #1 singles, a Gold-certified debut album ‘English Rain’ plus her most recent album, 2020’s ‘Dear Happy’, has now exceeded 200 million streams on Spotify alone. I spoke to Aplin about her new single ‘Call Me’, releasing music on her own label, touring and if ‘Call Me’ is a taster of a new collection of songs to come.
‘Call Me’ is an exciting glimpse into Gabrielle Aplin’s approach to writing and recording new material. Having moved back to Somerset late in 2020, she began to write alone at home and ‘Call Me’ is the mesmerising result of this writing process. It’s a wonderfully cinematic tune, however, at the heart of this beautifully vibrant track is a delicate piano melody.
“I’m so glad you said it was cinematic. That’s exactly what I was going for. I actually wrote just on piano on my own in lockdown at the start of last year, and it was really loose, and quite old-sounding in a way. We just put the whole band in the studio and we all played it and recorded it and that was it, you know. But I didn’t really want to make a retro-sounding album. I wanted it to be inspired by all the things I love and some of those things happen to be, retro, but I still wanted to make a modern record. I came in one day and Mike [Spencer] the producer had told me to sit down he was like the song’s not on rails. There’s nothing railing it everything’s just floating all over the place. So he put in the sawtooth synth part and then it suddenly made sense and I was like, oh my god this is it. So yeah, it kind of came about from Mike.”
How to introduce a song is a tricky decision because it’s those few seconds at the beginning of a song that captures the listener’s imagination. Aplin creates a unique and refreshing intro to ‘Call Me’ through the use of droning synths that chop and drag before the softer elements of the song are introduced.
“ I did imagine it as this pretty piano intro and Mike just came up with that. It sounded so gnarly when I first heard it because the rest of it was just piano and strings and whatever. When that happened, it suddenly made more sense. But yeah, it kind of scared me because the song was so delicate before that synth came in. I respect that feeling when I get it because it’s usually a good one you know?”
Aplin has proven herself as a diverse artist who isn’t defined by a genre and ‘Call Me’ showcases this superbly. Within the track, cinematic pop elements blend with warm country tones on guitar, indie embellishments, synths and almost gospel choir vibes in the backing vocals. The track is simply a musical delight to listener’s ears.
“ I didn’t want to adhere to a trend that was happening now because I wanted it to feel timeless. So we had our pillars and one of them was that it had to be very human and have loads of real musicians. Everything had to have a space so any kind of non-acoustic instrument, any of the synths and whatever all had to have a space so we weren’t plugging them into the computer. My producer Mike had a Fairchild machine built so everything can pass through all these valves and pass through air and the same with the synth on ‘Call Me’, he went and found some man on eBay who had a certain speaker that we could run it through in a hall. It was just so important that everything had space, was human and true [and] organic. We didn’t really listen to anything trying to steer us any way. We genuinely made it as if we were artists not trying to make anything for anything other than to create something good.”
It’s an honest track with clear and emotional lyrics and Aplin explained to me how the lyrics developed.
“Most of it was like a stream of consciousness and then I flesh it out. The idea was there you know, I don’t really know what I’m writing about. I just, like you say stream of consciousness, kind of blurting stuff out and record it. Any that stand out to me, I’ll finish them and with that one [Call Me] it just felt like I had to do that one. But it’s like filling in the gaps when I work out what the song is, then I can finish it, you know? And for me, it was that feeling that I had where I was quite isolated in the second lockdown and was just writing because I had nothing else to do. That’s where I was like, Oh God, now that I’m sitting here and I can’t go out and I literally can’t do anything and I can’t see anyone I wish I didn’t bail on all those times I could have had human interaction. It was a longing for human connection, I guess.”
“I think most of my favourite songs come from little streams of consciousness. I just sit there and start singing any random stuff, sometimes a chord pattern or you know, something I’m playing might spark a melody and I might just do a little scatter of something. Then that scatter, I might listen to it back and it might sound like a certain word. So then I start with that word and you know, it will stem from there. I literally am just going somewhere meditative when I’m doing it and, I pick out the bits that stand out to me.”
‘Call Me’ marks a new era in Aplin’s career, one which has seen her hit a massive landmark of one billion streams.
“Yeah, I feel so lucky and as an independent artist, it’s just really nice to know that people care. Yeah, it’s mad.”
“It’s nice to know that artists can own their work and still have a career and not feel they have to sign their masters away. Apart from that, for me, it was also really important to work with a team who really cared and were really enthusiastic about what I wanted to create and what I wanted to achieve. So keeping it close to me, and just having people come into our team that want to work on it is really nice. It also means we’re not tied to anything”
Aplin’s last release ‘Dear Happy’ was released independently on her own label, Fade Records, in January 2020 and ‘Call Me’ follows in its footsteps. We discussed how the freedom of releasing music on her own label gave the singer-songwriter more confidence in her work to do what felt right for her.
“Absolutely. This is the most confident I’ve actually ever felt as an artist. I’ve been left to just become who I am and make what I make where I’m at now. No one wanted to hear it until it was finished and when it is done, you know, I will go into people in the label and I will tell them all my ideas and they don’t want to start working on anything until they’ve got my ideas because they want it to be based on everything that I’m creating. Everything has to be real, and they really care about making sure that artists are looked after and treated like artists. It’s really nice to be working with a really supportive group of people. It definitely helps to be left [to] yourself to make something because that’s what your job is essentially. I’m here to create something, just leave me to it and I’ll come back [with] something. I think it does show when artists are nurtured in that way they create really good work.”
A striking and instantly recognisable aspect of Aplin as an artist is her effortless vocals and sweet emotive vocal tone. Within ‘Call Me’ we see Aplin command an eloquent vocal delivery that exudes passion and charm over a bittersweet melody.
“Even now, I get really nervous performing. I find it quite daunting, but in a studio, I’m much more confident maybe it’s because I feel a bit more free and more private. I haven’t always been confident. I really have to gear myself up, especially when I’m performing in front of people. I have to really get pumped up. I find it really scary. I do enjoy it though, once I get going.”
In March Aplin finally got to finish her ‘Dear Happy’ tour that initially started in March 2020. Aplin told me how surreal it was to sing the songs from the album as they were no longer new to her.
“It was so bizarre. But it was amazing though. So much time [has] passed since. I had different people on the road with me and that was weird, but then also at the same time we just stepped back into it like there was no time at all gone. It was bizarre, but it was amazing to finish it. It’s just mad though because when I started that tour, that setlist you know, those songs were brand new and when I finished the tour, I’d made a whole new body of work and I was playing ‘Call Me’ at the shows. I did that to honour who I am now because I felt, [people] myself included, are not the same people they were a few years ago. It’s been a mad few years so I really wanted to honour those things with those shows but yeah, it’s amazing to have it done.”
‘Call Me’ is a teaser for a new collection of work to come. I wondered how soon fans could experience the artist’s music in a live setting. Aplin explained the pandemic gave her time to re-evaluate the tiring manner in which gigging used to be approached by artists.
“Definitely yeah, I’ve made a body of work. I made a load of songs and they were all part of one project. I think it’s really exciting how there are so many ways in which artists can release music now. So I really like the idea of coming up with a cool way of releasing it but I don’t know if it’s an album or not. But there’s a collection of songs that will come out together at some point. I just don’t know in what format”
“ I’m really excited to play new songs but I haven’t got any festivals planned this year. I’m looking forward to going to shows as well and I’m going to a few festivals and stuff.”
“With touring I always found this is not normal…a lot of stuff was just not sustainable. For me, I’m much happier when I have a very solid routine. Everything’s planned well in advance, having nice people around you and looking after yourself. My whole band and crew you know, want to be comfortable and happy and not you know, ruin themselves over something that should be fun and should bring joy to people. We shouldn’t be feeling awful about ourselves after doing something like that. So, yeah, it’s more important for us to take care of ourselves and not overdo it now.”
Before we ended the interview Aplin bestowed some solid advice for any budding artist looking to start a career in music
“I would advise [you] to just do whatever [you] want and make the most of all the resources that are available to you to get your music out there. There are so many, try them all and use the one that sticks or what works for you. Also, I think it’s really important to read up on music law, rights, ownerships, and publishing royalties, and make yourself really familiar with all of those things so you don’t get messed over.”
Gabrielle Aplin is a passionate and dedicated songwriter who clearly pours all she has into her art and the result is compelling, emotive music that is a delight to listen to. Her dedication to creating sincere first-rate quality songs makes her a timeless songwriter and a musical treasure to cherish. ‘Call Me’ is a glorious addition to her sparkling repertoire.
Midlands-based band, Black Cats and Magpies are back with their new single ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Live For’. Written in 2019 and recorded in 2020, the track speaks of coming to terms with unexpected changes and trying to become a better person as a result of them.
‘I’ve Got Nothing to Live For’ is an ethereal indie tune that displays the charming sound of Black Cats and Magpies. The band create a subtle and riveting push-pull effect through the use of buoyant guitar which adds an airy tone while punchy drums and driving basslines ground the track. The song is a cohesive and passionate display of musicianship and boasts emotive vocals, a bittersweet melody and exquisite moments of movement throughout. Filled with upbeat vibes and a wonderfully bright indie aesthetic ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Live For’ is an easy-on-the-ears gem from Black Cats and Magpies.
Ham Sandwich have released their new single ‘Le Soleil’. The song is the second single to be taken from the band’s new album due for release at the end of the summer. The song also features a brand new animated video by long-time collaborator Marc Corrigan.
Pulling in elements of pop alongside irresistible tropical undertones, ‘Le Soleil’ is a charming musical delight from Ham Sandwich. Intricate rhythms bubble beneath biting guitars, spiralling synth embellishments and warm acoustic strums to create a hypnotic soundscape that is simply joy to the ears. The band layer the song wonderfully creating moments of psychedelia through subtle rock and indie-pop melodies while a cheery clap-along feature keeps the song in an upbeat tone. Ham Sandwich are constantly evolving their sound and creating new tantalizing tunes for listeners to indulge in and ‘Le Soleil’ is a fine example of this. It’s a well-crafted little ditty filled to the brim with clever musicianship and sublime melodies. Looking forward to the new album.
Watch the video for ‘Le Soleil’ below
Author: Danu
Indie: (n) an obscure form of rock which you only learn about from someone slightly more hip than yourself.
