A playlist featuring of some of my favourite tracks of 2016's first half. A mixture of pop, psych, electro pop, gaze, noise, glacial indie, hip hop, soundscapes, folktronica and more besides.

 Its also a mixture of Welsh/lesser known artists that I have enjoyed so far this year alongside some more well known/bigger name acts. I hope you enjoy the playlist and maybe discover something you enjoy!

   Bill Editor of www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk

Bill's Best of 2016's First Half

Forthcoming single // released  18/05/15 

Vocals by Bryony Williams
Lyrics and Music by Rob Glover


Girls

Taken from “Saint Claude EP” out now through Because Music in partnership with Neon Gold Records.

Get Saint Claude EP here: smarturl.it/StClaudeEP
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www.because.tv
www.neongoldrecords.com/

Tilted

Buy on iTunes

Kendrick Lamar - Untitled

‘So Long’ is the new single from Martha Ffion. 
Martha Ffion will be playing the following shows in November.
19th November - The Eagle, Salford
27th November - The Waiting Rooms, London
28th November - The Moon Club, Cardiff

Buy link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/so-long/id1047848923?i=1047848927


So Long

have you seen the disgrace?
the world wears the dawn like a day
like a painting of a face
whose features fade away
puts it's mirrors in the dark
points at your back and starts to laugh

in the meeting of this mire
i awake as if on fire
no my dawn was not put out
by some mistake was not put out
unlike the dawn was not put out
and now it will never be put out
there will be music all around
when they put me in the ground
and the drunk whilst laughing, spoke
these words that i have wrote

'you look like a sad painting' he sighed
'on both sides of the sky'
as the room it roamed a throng
and the piano played a song

outside the world is crucified
you must find something to be sacrificed to
to your love
or to your lie

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have you seen the disgrace?
the world wears the dawn like a day
like a painting of a face
whose features fade away
puts it's mirrors in the dark
points at your back and starts to laugh

in the meeting of this mire
i awake as if on fire
no my dawn was not put out
by some mistake was not put out
unlike the dawn was not put out
and now it will never be put out
there will be music all around
when they put me in the ground
and the drunk whilst laughing, spoke
these words that i have wrote

'you look like a sad painting' he sighed
'on both sides of the sky'
as the room it roamed a throng
and the piano played a song

outside the world is crucified
you must find something to be sacrificed to
to your love
or to your lie


Suicide Songs

You Look Like A Sad Painting On  Both Sides Of The Sky

Taken from the debut album 'Means' out May 20th. Pre-order and get 3 tracks instantly: http://found.ee/meansitunes 

Pre-order on CD: http://found.ee/meanscd

Pre-order on LTD Edition clear vinyl: http://found.ee/meansclearvinyl

Produced by Dan Carey.

Connect with FEWS:
www.facebook.com/fewsmusic
www.twitter.com/fewsmusic

The Zoo

SVIIB. The New Album from School of Seven Bells / Out Now.

Download on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/SVIIB
Store/Vinyl: http://smarturl.it/SVIIBStore
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/SVIIBAmz
Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SVIIBSpotify

Website: http://sviib.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/schoolofsevenbells
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sviib
Instagram: http://instagram.com/schoolofsevenbells
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/schoolofsevenbells

SVIIB

Open Your Eyes

Get it on iTunes

"Too Small For Eyes," available on iTunes, Spotify & Bandcamp 11/30/15.

opening track of Mothers' debut LP, "When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired"
available 2.26.2016 via Grand Jury Music (US )/ Wichita Recordings (ROW)

When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired

Too Small For Eyes

The lead single from the album 'Fall Forever', released June 3rd on Kanine Records.

UK Pre-order: https://www.musicglue.com/fearofmen/
US Pre-order: https://www.kaninerecords.com/product/fear-of-men-fall-forever

Brighton's Fear of Men return on June 3rd with their second full-length album, Fall Forever, via Kanine Records worldwide. Building upon the melodicism and immediacy of their acclaimed debut album, Loom, Fall Forever takes the three-piece - comprised of Jessica Weiss, Daniel Falvey and Michael Miles - in a bold and modern direction, pushing the limits of their instruments to take on new and alien forms.

The news of Fall Forever comes accompanied by the album's first single 'Island': both a perfect stepping stone between Loom and the beguiling new sounds explored on their upcoming album, and a perfect encapsulation of the lyrical themes Weiss navigates across the record as a whole. She describes 'Island' as "an anthem to independence".

Island

Beach Fatigue are ready to release their self-titled debut album - out 4th March 2015 via Kool Girl Records.

Previously known as Heavy Petting Zoo - the band who surprised audiences with their menacing garage rock and lively shows - they changed their name last summer before releasing the single Drunken Grrrls. The album will see Beach Fatigue re-visit their blend of garage-surf rock and riot grrrl vocals - previously heard on their singles Crash (Too Pure Singles Club, 2014), and Isabelle (Joy Formidable split single, 2015) - which saw them gather attention over the last few years.

Throughout the 12 track album you’ll hear the band take on new sounds, with the addition of synths, organs and Kaoss pads helping them explore new musical territories to great effect. The post-punk opener Deathproof is as cruel and urgent as the song title suggests, while the western-style guitar pieces make a firm impression and carry on in To Die For which at times marriages hypnotic rhythms and other-worldly sci-fi noise. Elsewhere live favourites Cut Throat and Who’s Afraid are taken to a new level with the addition of the Hammond organ. The later features Amy in her prime where she is commanding, empowering and confrontational in one, a common theme throughout the album which culminates perfectly in the slowly building blues epic of Shallow Grave.

Formed in Swansea, the band’s members - Amy Zachariah (vocals), Ben Rodway (guitars), and Billy Horwood (drums)- went to the same comprehensive school as the city’s most famous figure - Dylan Thomas, and are joined by Ian on Bass.

Under their previous moniker the band played alongside the likes of Menace Beach, Eagulls, and Evans the Death, and have appeared at Green Man, Reading & Leeds and returned to Swn Festival last November - where they received great reviews from Huw Stephens in his NME blog and were labelled as “the best show in town” by God Is In The TV.

To Die For

Performance day is finally here – and our excitement has amplified tenfold. Tonight beholds the world-first performance between the London Contemporary Orchestra and Actress – which we have had the honour to commission and curate alongside the LCO, and will also broadcast live from the Barbican tonight. Today, we are celebrating with a Debut from notable cellist, composer, producer and LCO soloist, Oliver Coates.

His Upstepping mini-album opus – forthcoming on Moshi Moshi's contemporary classical and experimental label, PRAH Recordings – illustrates Coates' deeply contrasting interests in music. Having formerly collaborated with Jonny Greenwood, Mica Levi and now also Actress, and listing his direct influence from the likes of early Orbital and Photek, electronic reflections can easily be traced in the instrumental lyricism and classically versed composition patterns of each of Upstepping's eight tracks. On being asked about "Timelapse (Walrus)", Coates explained to us: "I was living in a hotel for a month because our flat got flooded, and listening to the chromatic steps of happy / sinister early nineties techno. Then I was taking cello harmonics and cutting off the fronts and making sample keyboards out of them. Everything that sounds like it could be a piano or keys starts from a piece of cello residue. The spoken audio is a small child saying ‘small child gets scared to death’. The body of the cello makes everything woody with the colours. I like techno made out of spruce."

Catch Oliver Coates' Upstepping masterpiece dropping on 13th May. Tune in to the live stream of Coates playing alongside the LCO and Actress tonight at the Barbican (20:30 GMT)

Oliver Coates "Timelapse (Walrus)" - Boiler Room Debuts

Buy Fruit Juice here, Shipping from MAY 12th.
http://nightschoolrecords.bigcartel.com/product/lssn039-happy-meals-fruit-juice-12

Fruit Juice is the first new recorded material from Glasgow-based electronic avant pop duo Happy Meals since the intense aftermath of Apéro, their debut album which garnered a place in the Scottish Album Of The Year final 10. Shorter in scale but sharpened and expanded, Fruit Juice takes the tender experimental beginnings and unabashed pop moments of ther first LP into undiscovered countries glowing with possibility.

Since Apéro’s release at the end of 2014, Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook have toured the globe, from Moscow to Bombay via various European festivals, and have honed their dynamics live, in the moment, improvising and twisting the beat into new forms. As their live show has become more visceral and cinematic, Fruit Juice documents the duo’s new confidence. Run Around opens the E.P., with a sun-soaked tropicalia as conceived by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Rodden’s vocals warped into wordless peons to the rising sun. La Labas reaquaints the listener to Rodden’s Franco-Gallic tendancies, but this time Happy Meals reveal a sparse melancholy, with spacious percussion and synth fragments giving way to one of the group’s most immediate moments to date. If You Want Me Now is pop music, pure and from the source. Alternating between French and English, Rodden recreates the live persona that has emerged since the group’s beginnings; an unrestrained performer bringing the innate sensuality beneath Happy Meals’ surface exploding into the light. Cook’s production work here sounds fresh and classic simultaneously,  a glorious Jacno tribute enthralled to House music and Italo Disco. Fruit Float, opening Side 2, draws us back up into the cosmos, with arpeggiated synths from Cook’s synth arsenal duetting with a flute solo before Suivez Moi delivers another pop song worthy of eternal repeat, a slice of electro not unlike the heights of Dare!-era Human League. Seductive and irresistible, it precedes the biggest step-up in Happy Meals’ recorded output, the acid-fried Now That You Have Me: ostensibly a high-BPM remix of If You Want Me Now that hints at the insanity of the final moments of a Happy Meals live show.

Released as a limited to 500 12” featuring marble-painted artwork hand-made by the band, Fruit Float precedes Happy Meals’ 2nd full length album recorded on the Azores Archipelago. Each Fruit Float sleeve will be different and feature a digital download.


HAPPY MEALS: If You Want Me Now (from FRUIT JUICE LSSN039)

Spotify: hyperurl.co/hsclays
iTunes: hyperurl.co/hsclayit

Follow Hudson Scott:
Facebook: hyperurl.co/hsfacebook
Twitter: hyperurl.co/hstwitter
Instagram: hyperurl.co/hsinsta


Clay

Taken from Kate Jackson's debut solo album, 'British Road Movies', out 20th May 2016 via Hoo Ha Records.
Pre order the album here:
on digital:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/british-road-movies/id1085394690?app=itunes&ls=1
on vinyl:
http://www.roughtrade.com/albums/101470
http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Road-Movies-VINYL-Jackson/dp/B01BVYNKVO/
on CD:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Road-Movies-Kate-Jackson/dp/B01BVYNIVG/
https://www.katejackson.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/katejacksonandthewrongmoves
https://twitter.com/KateJacksonWM



Metropolis

Download the album at https://djshadow.lnk.to/tmwfso

DJ Shadow, widely acknowledged as a crucial figure in the development of experimental, instrumental hip-hop, has returned with ‘The Mountain Will Fall’ via Mass Appeal Records [and Believe Digital in France], his first full length release since 2011. The 12-track album finds DJ Shadow exploring new realms in addition to the deep samples and kinetic soundscapes that helped to launch his career 20 years ago. On ‘The Mountain Will Fall’ he’s shifted further toward original composition, a vast experimentation of beats and textures, synthesizers and live instruments including horns and woodwinds. The album features Run The Jewels, Nils Frahm, Matthew Halsall, Ernie Fresh and more.

"Occasionally, I make a beat that demands a specific vocal treatment and  attitude. In the case of 'Nobody Speak,' I wasn't going to settle for anyone other than Run The Jewels; in my mind, it was them or no one. Fortunately, they  agreed, and they took the track to a place I could never get to on my own. That's the definition of a rewarding collaboration." – DJ Shadow

"Shadow is a legend and a friend. When he makes music he often changes music forever.  When he asked us to jump on the record we didn't blink.” 
– El-P of Run The Jewels 
 
The album is available in all formats with artwork designed by Paul Insect including a gatefold double LP. Order 'The Mountain Will Fall' here: https://DJShadow.lnk.to/TMWFYT
 
ALBUM TRACK LIST:
1. The Mountain Will Fall
2. Nobody Speak feat. Run The Jewels
3. Three Ralphs
4. Bergschrund feat. Nils Frahm
5. The Sideshow feat. Ernie Fresh
6. Depth Charge
7. Mambo
8. Ashes To Oceans feat. Matthew Halsall
9. Pitter Patter feat. G Jones & Bleep Bloop
10. California
11. Ghost Town
12. Suicide Pact
13. Swerve (iTunes Bonus Track)

Pre-order

DJ Shadow - Nobody Speak feat. Run The Jewels

Single released July 22nd via Waco Gwenci.

Interior Design

Anohni - 4 degrees (alternative intro Moss)

Never Enough is the debut single from GRIP TIGHT.

Released 10th June through FEINT Records.

Press contact: stone@stoneimmaculate.co.uk
Label: www.feintrecords.com

Never Enough

Confessions of a Romance Novelist

You and Only You (feat. Paul Draper)

X-Communicate

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