Andy Stott - Love Nothing

When asked to describe the circumstances that influenced her beautifully fraught new work, Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson—better known simply as Anika—quickly articulates a set of feelings and unpredictable circumstances that are familiar to anyone who tried to make art—or simply tried to live through—the recent global pandemic. “It’s a moment caught in time,” she says of Change, her much-anticipated new record. Given that it has been 11 years since the release of her last solo album, 2010 cult-favorite Anika, the artist suddenly found herself with a lot to say. “This album had been planned for a little while and the circumstances of its inception were quite different to what had been expected. This colored the album quite significantly. The lyrics were all written there on the spot. It’s a vomit of emotions, anxieties, empowerment, and of thoughts like—How can this go on? How can we go on?”

Having worked collaboratively in the past with the likes of BEAK> and Mexico City’s Exploded View, Change was ultimately the product of necessity. “After recording the initial ideas alone at Klangbild studios in Berlin, a few months later and by some stroke of luck, Mr. Martin Thulin of Exploded View, managed to make his way over from Mexico, to co-produce the album with me and play some live drums and bass,” recalls Anika. “Between Reality Baitz and Impression Recordings in Berlin, we managed to get the album together.

The intimacy of its creation and a palpable sense of global anxiety are seemingly baked into the DNA of Change. Spread across nine tracks, the central feeling of the record is one of heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism. The songs offer skittering, austere electronic backdrops reminiscent of classic Broadcast records or High Scores-era Boards of Canada, playing them against Anika’s remarkable voice—Nico-esque, beautifully plaintive, and—in regards to the record’s subject matter—totally resolute. Incantatory tracks like “Naysayer” and “Never Coming Back” are both, as Anika explains them, both a call to arms and a warning. “Never Coming Back” was written after reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring,” she explains. “I was living in the old East countryside outside of Berlin, where there seemed to be no shortage of birds. Apparently their numbers have dropped significantly, but it is one of these changes that we never really stop and notice. We take things for granted, until it’s too late. With all this other noise going on, care for the environment has quickly been moved to the back-burner. So long as we get what we want NOW and on demand, who cares about whether we are taking care of the future?”

Finger Pies

Capitol (Black Marble Remix)

i want to be alone vashti bunyan cover

Them Are Us Too "Us Now"

http://nightschoolrecords.bigcartel.com/artist/molly-nilsson

A sweeping, cinematic, emotional change is in the air. Molly Nilsson’s sixth studio album Zenith begins with clear, wide eyes open to Earth as we would love it to be but seldom is. Recorded in her home of Berlin and whilst touring and, as ever, conceived, produced, written and recorded in solitude, Zenith is Nilsson’s big statement and consequently her most affecting work to date. It sees her reveling in big arrangements, sweeping synth strings, bigger choruses and emotions. Like the rest of us she looks within and to endless sunsets in wonder and puzzlement.

That Molly Nilsson is a DIY cult figure is beyond question; she has always written directly and with wit straight down the line between the universal and the personal. The difference with Zenith, and you can hear it in the opening chords of opener The Only Planet, is that her scope is now much wider and her heart heavier than ever before: over a post-ecstatic dusk, Nilsson serenades the globe in a loving embrace. Following on, 1995 is, arguably, one of Nilsson’s finest songs to date. It’s one of those songs to learn the lyrics to, to listen to on repeat, a reason to wear the grooves down to the bone, it’s why pop music can be one of the greatest art forms we have. It’s an example of how, on this album, Molly draws the listener closer to her heart than ever before. There’s simply no escape from the line “The plans that you made / when you still had the time / I’ve saved all the things that you left behind but by now I guess I’d consider them all mine /Windows 95, is only a metaphor for what I feel inside / Although I’m older now / there’s still an emptiness that’s never letting go somehow.” Show-stopper Mountain Time is the soundtrack to being on the run, from societal conventions, from normative ideas of happiness, from your surroundings. It’s the intoxicating call of the renegade. That’s not to say that Nilsson’s light touch has been forsaken for grandiose statements. Bunny Club begins as a demo-sketch before breaking into a fast-paced tale of doomed romance with big rave synths and Bus 194 (All There Is) sees Molly joyride through a city on a happy hardcore bus. But it’s tracks like Tomorrow and another contender for best-ever-Molly moment, Happyness that the true scale of what she’s accomplished reveals itself. We’re locked in a spiraling orbit, strings and bass whirling, gazing at the spinning planet below us as we contemplate both the ultimate freedom in loneliness and the glimmer of hope in the Other. Can we ever be truly with someone? Are we ever truly alone? 

Over the 13 tracks here we get the impression that Nilsson may always be restless; like anyone else she has conflicting feelings of love and hate. It’s just not many other people can tell you exactly how you feel before you know it yourself.


MOLLY NILSSON: 1995 (from Zenith)

what do i do if i can't take a picture? how will i find love without a mirror? i'm all alone and baby it's clear now, i fell in love with my face

I Fell In Love With My Face (Liquid Cool Demo)

From Sean Nicholas Savage's "Flamingo"
Arbutus Records (2011)

Other Life

Chin Chin

Sean Nicholas Savage - Chin Chin

From 'Mazy Fly' out Feb. 8, 2019
Preorder: https://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/products/sbr221-spellling-mazy-fly

https://spellling.bandcamp.com
http://instagram.com/spellling
https://www.facebook.com/SPELLLING/

Mazy Fly

SPELLLING - Haunted Water

From Moon King's "Voice Of Lovers"
Order & Listen to it here: http://smarturl.it/gejmwh

Moon King - Neon Lights (ft Vespre)

'Are You Still a Lover' by SASSY 009

Out on Luft Recordings (2019)
[www.luftrecordings.com]

Lyrics

Are you still a lover when you're gone? 
When you're gone
One day you will find me 
When you're alone

Do you even remember how we met?
You fill me up with tension under my skin

Don't you forget me 
Don't you forget 
(x2) 

Are you still a lover to be found?
To be found
One day will be different 
I'll wait by the clouds

I'll wait by the clouds

Do you even remember how we met?
You fill me up with tension under my skin

Will you forget me 
Will you forget 
(x2)

Are You Still a Lover

info[a]arbutusrecords.com

Arbutus is an artistic community based in Montréal, where punk ethos and pop music collide. Beginning as a DIY loft space, Arbutus Records developed to cultivate and promote the music associated with the space with a strong emphasis on friendship and collaboration.

Moon King - Neon Lights (ft Vespre)

Arbutus Records

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