[Weekly Mix] 2022.09 (2)

Whatever The Weather

14°C

Holotropica

Tide Rose

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch returns with a brilliant new album for FatCat’s 130701 imprint. 'Ravage’ is the London-based French pianist / composer’s first standalone album since 2018’s ‘Époques’, following which she has been busy building a name for herself scoring an increasingly high-profile series of films. A powerful, deeply personal album that charts the process of grieving for a parent, Emilie describes ‘Ravage’ as “the most intimate and personal project I've created”.

Recorded largely at home in London over the lockdown winter of 2020/21, the composition process began way back towards the end 2018 with the title track, which Emilie felt compelled to write during a period of intense grief after losing her father. “It was a way for me to express and process the emotions I was going through, especially as I found it impossible to verbalise, or even tell people. It felt a rather solitary experience because we rarely talk about the loss of a parent with whom one had a fraught relationship, and those extremely layered and complex feelings toward that parent can be hard to explain.”

Ravage

Pre-order

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Parting Gift

Gravity

Endless

Release Date - Nov 11, 2022

Originally a working title representing the first letters of the band members’ names (Sean, Cory, Alec, Brandon), S.C.A.B. is an acronym with a shifting meaning – its phonetic double acting as a metaphor for protection and healing for a group that’s always been there for one another.

Following the release of the band’s debut album, 2019’s Beauty & Balance, COVID-19 put the brakes on the Brooklyn-based band’s burgeoning career. Not content with sitting still, the band decided to travel down to Georgia to record their sophomore, self-titled LP (S.C.A.B.), which they engineered and produced themselves. (side note: Brandon, the letter "B" in S.C.A.B., does play on this record, but has since left the group to focus on solo work under the name Hayfitz). Having distance from their beloved city during this unprecedented, tragic time helped them hone a sound that is even more distinctly New York.

Frontman Sean Camargo, whose parents immigrated from Ecuador and Bolivia as teenagers, was born in Elmhurst, Queens. His lyrics are colored with nostalgic memories of 90s Bushwick, where his grandparents later settled, alongside sardonic observations of the contemporary city where he landed again after stops in Maryland and Massachusetts. Each song on S.C.A.B. contains snapshots of New York moments that feel hazy with nostalgia, yet are the result of being present through transformational circumstances, no matter how seemingly small. As a self-titled effort, it solidifies the band’s mastery of balancing raucous, distorted guitars with glimmering spoken word passages and a pop-infused melodic confidence.

The angular guitar passages in lead single “Tuesday” conjure up trains skidding across deteriorated subway platforms, as Camargo declares he's "trying to let go of everyone I’ve ever loved," reflecting a relatable disillusionment with trying to form meaningful connections, and searching aimlessly for something worthwhile. Thematically, S.C.A.B. covers an array of topics ranging from grief (“Small Talk”), as Camargo describes bonding with another band member over the loss of a parent, to infatuation with a partner you know is ultimately bad for you (“Why Do I Dream Of You”).

S.C.A.B. is a result of four musicians, a tight-knit group, best friends: the kind of rare conditions that allow for such raw, emotionally-charged music. When the members of a band are this close, able to protect each other from the world outside it, they are a force to be reckoned with. As Frank Sinatra famously sang about the city, “Green beams of steel, making me feel, like I’m home again”. S.C.A.B. embodies that sentiment and evokes the intangible magic that is New York City.

VINYL 💿

S.C.A.B. - Tuesday

Queasy Pieces - Been So Good To Me

Look Like A Man EP

Look Like A Man (feat. Lias Saoudi)

Cellist/composer Clarice Jensen returns with her third album, ‘Esthesis’, a deep and gorgeous new work conceptually structured around the emotional and harmonic spectrum and the phenomenon of chromesthesia – a condition whereby sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape and movement. Following up her critically-acclaimed 2020 LP ‘The experience of repetition as death’ (a record almost presciently timed to arrive as Covid first hit), ‘Esthesis’ sees Jensen expanding her oeuvre, introducing a wider instrumental range, and reflecting on the effects of isolation. Recorded by Jensen in upstate NY and expertly mixed by Francesco Donadello, the record was mastered by Matthew Agoglia and is released on October 21st, ahead of a UK/EU tour supporting 130701 alumni Dustin O’Halloran.

Esthesis

Joy - Clarice Jensen

Before The Blessing - Yoshiharu Takeda

As we await the follow up to Lazy Queen’s refreshingly impressive EP “A Human Reaction”, the Norwegian-New York bubble punk hybrids are welcoming a new era with their new single “243, New Moon”. 

Set for release on Swedish tastemaker label Icons Creating Evil Art, the new single sees the band reignite their partnership with collaborator Morten Øby at Taakenheimen Lydriket in Oslo. Appearing as a more relaxed version of Lazy Queen, the new single is nevertheless loaded with emotionally-confronting lyrics and earworming guitar melodies from the off. Simmering out the self-antagonistic air evident in the band's previous work, "243, New Moon'' is no less passionate than before as it hints at a new evolutionary stage of Lazy Queen.

“243, New Moon marks the start of a cycle. One that’s unaware of itself; of its own significance as a beginning. It’s feeling like change is the only option, but not knowing where to start. It’s the body leading and the mind following blindly.”

Lazy Queen entered the Norwegian music scene as a blast of fresh air, making the move from New York, where Colombian-Norwegian Henrik García Søberg founded the band. Fast forward to now, the Oslo-based band have embraced the new decade with an ever-evolving attitude of acceptance, perseverance and survival, creating an effervescent soundtrack along their journey. With an instinctive ear for melody and a uniquely intuitive sense of identity, García Søberg effortlessly weaves harmonic and discordant elements together that transform into a rich soundscape of bouncy yet jagged poignancy when the band comes together to complete the jigsaw puzzle of each track. Like CLASH puts it, “their penchant for bouncy, punk-infused electro-pop allows them to deliver poignancy with a sprinkle of sugar”. It’s immediate. It’s urgent. It impatiently demands your attention. 

It’s no surprise then that Lazy Queen’s ingenuity has been praised by fans and music outlets all over the world.  Lazy Queen have three storming EPs under their belt; 2019’s “A Sigh So Deep”,  2021’s “Get Home Or Die Trying”, and 2022's “A Human Reaction” - the latter released on Swedish tastemaker label Icons Creating Evil Art. Beloved singles such as “Bed/Head” and “Alcohol” received spins from Norway’s own P3, UK’s BBC Introducing Networks as well as BBC Radio 1’s Future Alternative show with Jack Saunders, prompting the following response "This band feels like such a rare discovery…it doesn't feel like a carbon copy, it doesn't feel like they're trying to be anyone else but themselves”. The band has received huge praise across the board with press from Kerrang! to CLASH, Rolling Stone France to Rock Sound, Visions (DE) to Louder Than War. On top of this, Lazy Queen have lauded across digital streaming platforms, recognised by Spotify playlists:  Fresh Finds Global, New Music Friday Norway, The Punk List, All New Rock, 100% Rock, Rock idag and Rock ei ole kuollut and many more, as well as Apple Music’s New Music Daily, The New Rock and Flesh Blood.

More from Lazy Queen
Official webpage: https://www.lazyqueenband.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lazyqueenband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lazyqueengang
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LazyQueenBand
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1U9zqBUEcScanms647YanK
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC78ksQbPjwC_3z79_DTwBJw
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/lazyqueenband

243, New Moon

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Lazy Queen - 243, New Moon

ฬเกǥ ༶₊✧˚
The first single from my album 'Mirror'

➤ https://linktr.ee/brambles_

Stay

Wing

Mandrake Handshake return with their brand new single 'Emonzaemon', taken from their brand new EP 'The Triple Point of Water' out on November 18th. 

'Emonzaemon' is a fearless psych-explosion representing the eclectic sound of the hypnotic 9 piece psych-collective, with the main inspiration for the song coming from a ninja from the anime 'Katanagatari'. Indicative of the self-honed style they dub ‘Flowerkraut’, Mandrake unleash a hedonistic brain-frying feast of krautrock, art-pop and psychedelia, spiced with enigmatic grooves and fearless improvisations.

Mandrake Handshake - Emonzaemon

sell you all out
I’ll tell you my secret

not enough love?
how bout a pick-me-up

year of the rooster
forever raw
year of the rat
baby I’m a narc for your love

lean in close
I’ll show you what you wanna see
I’m not pretty
I just know how to work the angles

year of the rooster
cock of the walk
year of the rat
baby I’m a narc for your love

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
coming home
home

Written, recorded and produced by Alex MacKay
Addtl mixing and mastering by Alex Previty

Skinny Salazar - synthesizer, hi hat
Leo Grossman - percussion

Cover image by John MacKay
Cover art by Devika Sen
Snake icon by Astrid Terrazas

Wing

Brambles

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