Wild Nothing – Life of Pause

Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck don't just sing about feverish, frayed and  fractured romances – in the three years since forming  Elephant, they've been living one.

Their first recordings, recorded in the strung out early mornings after the night before, were delirious and light-headed. Rivas’ stream of conscious lyricism combined with Pinchbeck’s innate melodic nous to create vignettes of delight and wonder.  A debut single followed, 2011’s woozy Ants, followed by the Assembly EP.   But before they had a chance to capitalise on the growing acclaim around them the duo’s relationship broke down, almost to the point of no return.

That seemed to be Elephant’s graveyard.  Yet an unexpected rapprochement in late 2012, and a renewed musical hunger saw Rivas and Pinchbeck reconcile.  The first fruit was this year’s gauzy single Skyscraper, which announced their return in spectacular fashion, with Rivas’ swooping vocals allied to a spectral chorus creating an eerie, lens-flared 3 minute wonder of song.

Now, new release Shapeshifter provides confirmation that Elephant are truly back as a force to be reckoned with. “I flew to the moon to mirror you and I saw the future” sings Rivas, with a raw melancholy and nostalgic longing. A sumptuous missive of love lost and lessons learned, that sparkles with charm, optimism, and the sort of lush swoonsome string arrangements that reach into your chest and wring your heart dry. 

Backed by the sparse and stretched out Snowday, as icily cool as it sounds, full of chiaroscuro contrasts and flickering atmospherics, it’s a release that suggests their debut album is set to be one of the standout albums of 2014.

ELEPHANT LINKS: 
 
Facebook - www.facebook.com/elephanttheband    
Twitter – www.twitter.com/ElephantTwit  
Label -  www.memphis-industries.com


Elephant - Shapeshifter

Working under the name Craft Spells, Stockton, Calif.'s Justin Vallesteros makes music for bedsitters who dream about being social. Though often addressed to a love interest either real or imagined, Idle Labor is above all a lonely album that rarely betrays its origin as a solo project. Sonically it recalls Wild Nothing it the way it mines a large swath of 1980s synth pop, but its clear emotional tenor gives it a distinguishing perspective and personality.
Idle Labor exists in a time frame best described by the title of its ebullient centerpiece-- "After the Moment". These are sketches of romantic problems and solutions with the wounds still fresh and the thoughts uncensored. Taken as a whole, it could be read as a narrative following Vallesteros from heartbreak to infatuation and back, a few months' worth of romantic uncertainty boiled down to a taut and hooky album.
In a maundering yearn somewhere between Jens Lekman and Ian Curtis, Vallesteros introduces himself as a lovelorn melodramatist over sunstroked, near-Balearic pop. But as the narrative begins to hint at physical contact, the music works in lockstep, and Vallestreros builds tracks more as a dance producer than a singer-songwriter. And that's where he hits his stride-- while his vocals remain a central fixture, the post-punk mordancy is softened by locomotive arrangements that stack synth pads, ringing guitar, and primitive drum programming.
"Party Talk" starts a mid-album mini-suite with Vallesteros as a nebbishy Woody Allen character trying to decode a mutual romantic connection from casual conversation. But he leaps forward during the upbeat "From the Morning Heat", and by the fantastic morning-after celebration "After the Moment", something has apparently clicked; Vallesteros repeats the chorus as if he knows it's the best he's written.
The emotional high is predictably short-lived, and even within its brief half-hour runtime, more than a few of the melodies take detours and left turns. "The Fog Rose High" has the feel of a gothier Beach Fossils, while the anodyne dream-pop scruff of "You Should Close the Door" could have been a Radio Dept. B-side. But as with so many bedroom auteurs' debuts, it's tough to separate the creation from the creator, and Idle Labor shows the promise of a precocious songwriter who isn't claiming to have anything totally figured out just yet.

Craft Spells -  After the Moment

Second single taken from debut EP, available online via Deaf Ambitions.

Buy our debut EP here:
https://deafambitions.bandcamp.com/album/redspencer

Ride It Out

This is the last track on from my new EP which is out now.

Available now via iTunes: http://smarturl.it/BeautifulWordsiTunes
Available now via the Wichita webstore – http://smarturl.it/oscarBWEP

Mojo "chocolatey rich baritone...jangly guitar-pop redemption"
NME - 8/10 - "a sublte layer of melancholy...rich in melodies... just you try to forget him"
DIY "Oscar's take on pop is anything but nostalgic"

See me live:
18th July - Latitude Festival, Suffolk, UK
22nd July - Valkhof Festival, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
23rd July - Lucky Number 10th Birthday Party, Village Underground, London, UK
8th August - Visions Festival, London, UK
22nd August - Obstwiesen Festival, Dornstadt, Germany
4th Sept - End Of The Road Festival, Salisbury, UK
26th Sept - Independent Night, various venues, Berlin, Germany


Beautiful Words

Oscar - Stay

Released on February 19th, 2016.

Digital: smarturl.it/lifeofpause
Physical: http://www.omnianmusicgroup.com/products/life-of-pause



Wild Nothing // TV Queen

Wild Nothing // To Know You

“I want to go anywhere and dream away” singer Karolien Van Ransbeeck whispers in ‘Summer Sun’, Few Bits’ luscious new single, taken from their sophomore album ‘Big Sparks’.  A pitch-perfect mix of  shimmering guitars, hazy vocals and loose but galloping grooves. Imagine Real Estate tackling Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’ at 45rpm instead of 33 1/3rpm and you get the picture. But there’s a lot more to this Antwerp based band. 

Debuting in 2013 with a self-titled debut album ‘Few Bits’ they immediately stole hearts of music lovers in Belgium and beyond. The band got invited to support the likes of Vampire Weekend and The War On Drugs and went on a UK tour with The Lemonheads. Gaining confidence on stage night after night is clearly reflected in the dynamic and full dreampop sound of ‘Summer Sun’ and the themes explored on the new album. 

Karolien’s songs about the shadow side of love, about longing for something that ultimately always remains just out of reach, and about finally having the courage to relinquish control come from a deeply personal place. “I always write autobiographically", she explains, "I'm not really interested in writing from someone else's perspective. A song doesn't just have to sound good, it also has to express exactly what I feel. Otherwise I'd rather throw it away. I don't come up with fiction. Every word, every comma, has to fit my head and my heart." 
Fresh from making their US debut at this year’s SXSW Festival, and just in time for the Canadian Music Week and The Great Escape, Few Bits is ready to win over hearts and ears all over the world with their new single ‘Summer Sun’

Join us on their trip and dream away.


FEW BITS - Summer Sun

Life of Pause

Japanese Alice

Adore

Reichpop

Twinsmith - Matters
from the album Stay Cool - Out 7/14/17
Pre-order here: https://saddle-creek.com/products/stay-cool

Stay Cool

Twinsmith - Matters

Just Visiting

From the upcoming album 'Something Familiar' out on March 2nd, 2018.

Follow Hibou at the links below.
https://www.facebook.com/hibouband/
https://twitter.com/hibouband/
https://hiboumichel.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hibouband/

Fall Into

The 6th track from Porcelain Raft's debut album, "Strange Weekend"

Unless You Speak From Your Heart b/w Something In Between

Unless You Speak From Your Heart

Porcelain Raft - "Unless You Speak From Your Heart"

Chain Wallet is the sound of dreamy mythologies presented in widescreen, while simultaneously nodding back to an era where everything was in four-by-three. Picking up where the hazy, melancholic and undeniably catchy debut left off, the band now returns with a lusher – and at the same time, more eerie – sound.

While Chain Wallet’s first album was dreamed up in their rainy hometown of Bergen, the sophomore effort No Ritual found them emerging to a small cabin on a remote beach in the southwest of Norway. Here, among surfers – and while walking the beaches – they found out what kind of album they were going to make. 

While you still can catch a glimpse of Mary Chain here or Johnny Marr there, Chain Wallet are really establishing their own musical identity with No Ritual. Playing an important part in expanding the band’s sound on this record is Chiara Cavallari of the psychedelic shoegaze band FOAMMM. The guys say: “We had been wanting to collaborate with Chiara for a long time, and her ethereal presence is fortunately scattered all over the album.”

Both of Chain Wallet’s albums have followed loose and murky storylines about a conflicted protagonist. Where the first album revolved around themes like unresolved ambition and attempts of letting go of the past, No Ritual finds our anti-hero in state of spiritual limbo, while reaching out and trying to establish new symbolic meanings. The album is a post-apocalyptic dive into the mythical life of the millennial mind.

Wild Nothing // TV Queen

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