Choices Of The Grasshopper January 2021

Look Me Up When You Get There

Over And Again

No One is Missing is taken from the upcoming Valley Maker album "When The Day Leaves" out on Frenchkiss Records on February 19th, 2021. Preorder the album here: https://orcd.co/whenthedayleaves

Valley Maker - No One Is Missing

Atlantic

Uppers

Press Gang

Fragments

Everything I had

Miracles

Miracles (feat. Ty Segall)

Emotion feat. Wild Nothing

Vanguards of the Dawn Wall

The meaning behind this song is something I've chosen to remain a mystery. Being a music artist in 2021, we’re encouraged to share every little detail about our lives with our audience. While this has opened up many opportunities for artists to have unique and personal interactions with fans - something which we encourage and take full advantage of in Crystal Cities - there are some things that perhaps should be kept to ourselves in order to set boundaries and protect and respect the privacy of other people... In this instance, I want the context of this song to be left up to the listener’s own interpretation.

- Geoff

Hold Me Close Hold Me Tight

Jenny, How Were We to Know?

Jenny, How Were We To Know?

Romeo and Juliet

Born Stupid

Lantern

Pre-Order the new album Californian Soil: https://LondonGrammar.lnk.to/CSPresd

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Lose Your Head

Kalamazoo Knabino

https://kaitak.bandcamp.com
https://draagdraag.bandcamp.com

Jalen Rose (feat. Draag) - Demo

Taken from the Boiling Point/Promise Land 12", out 5th Feb 2021. Pre-order here - https://smarturl.it/BadwanCoxon

A collaboration between Faris Badwan (The Horrors / Cat’s Eyes) & renowned guitarist John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack / Spiritualized / Treader), Boiling Point/Promise Land is the first release of an ongoing collaborative series between Faris and other artists, details of which will be subsequently announced.

Badwan & Coxon met some years ago when Faris was looking for producers to work with on his solo material and their working relationship evolved beyond the existing songs into something more improvisational and instinctive. As Faris explains:

The new songs we ended up working on were largely spontaneous and cut together from early takes with minimal overdubbing. The lyrics were improvised and the focus was placed more on creating atmosphere and keeping things fairly raw and expressive. I guess I found it rewarding particularly with the guitar playing because it was so intuitive and completely free from any expectations of how a song should be constructed. There are hooks and repetitive sections but fewer traditional structures.

We tried to avoid doing any planning beforehand and focussed more on responding to what was happening in the moment. I guess the sessions were kind of a constant dialogue where we would each respond to the other's improvisation.

With Promise Land I began by improvising lyrics over a drone track John and I created. Some time later I came across “To Our Land” by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, and was struck by the similarities - there are a few lines that match really closely. Despite being half-palestinian myself this was a total accident and I know for sure I hadn’t seen Darwish’s piece before.

With Boiling Point the lyrics are almost the ghost of a narrative rather than an explicit story. I’m interested in the subconscious and how the hidden parts of your brain express themselves when given the opportunity. Looking back it was almost more about creating the right conditions for the subconscious to come out.

Boiling Point / Promise Land is out on Tough Love Records on Friday 5th February 2021 on DL and as a limited edition (500) 12” which includes a very limited run of 100 copies with hand painted sleeves by Faris which are available via Bandcamp. In keeping with the approach of the music, each design was improvised and instinctive. Faris added about the artwork:

What was interesting about it was the way the style of the designs naturally evolved as a result of having so many blank squares to fill - there's a really clear development from start to finish - beginning with angular lines filling the sleeve and ending with smoother, more minimal abstract shapes responding to the existing sleeve design. It ended up almost like a process-based art project where you work repetitively within really strict confines and let the results emerge organically.

Promise Land/Boiling Point (MP3)

Badwan/Coxon - Boiling Point

from the forthcoming album 'SECONDS'.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-pbWM5UOoE

Bandcamp - https://thedeathofpop.bandcamp.com/

The Death Of Pop - Miles


The Death of Pop are Angus James and Oliver James

Produced by: The Death of Pop - Mastered by Rik Dowding 
Drums: Thom James

Miles

Moment Passed is the second single from Scottish folk-pop collective Randolph’s Leap’s forthcoming album Spirit Level.

“Moment Passed is basically about stress. I wasn't taking proper care of my physical or mental health and the lyrics are a mixture of wanting to change things in my life but simultaneously worrying I was too late. The original demo had deliberately over-the-top autotune on my voice which didn't go down well with the rest of the band [but it did prove the catalyst for my A.R. Pinewood robo-country spinoff album]! We threw a lot at the mix on this one. Pete played glass bottle percussion and everything. Oh, and there's nothing cooler than a cha-cha-cha ending.”

Spirit Level is an upbeat, melodic indie-pop album full of personality, catchy hooks and memorable lyrics, rich in textural, polyphonic arrangements, and capturing the infinite charm of Adam Ross, the leader of this 8-piece band.

As a core songwriter with a large ensemble, Adam Ross may draw comparison with Stephin Merritt or Neil Hannon, while mining the rich Scottish seam of Postcard Records and C86. And as with contemporaries King Creosote or Withered Hand, is unafraid of drawing on folk music’s story telling tradition, detailing the minutiae of life’s fluctuations, here packaged up in glorious, anthemic and energetic pop.

The titular ‘spirit level’ is a steady reference point over what had been an unsettled spell writing the album, with Adam Ross uprooting from a decade in Glasgow to a tauntingly lopsided house in rural Aberdeenshire, navigating his way through shifting phases in his well-being and happiness, and reflecting on the untimely death of two greatly admired acquaintances. That balancing act came in the form of music, in an optimistic, even celebratory, collection of songs.

Recorded over a period of a year in Glasgow with keyboard player Pete MacDonald engineering, mixing and producing the sessions at home, the album went off to mastering in the nick of time: the following night Pete’s flat went Up In Smoke in a massive fire, taking everything bar Pete (and his pet hedgehog, Frida) with it.

“The next generation of witty Scottish indie pop” The Quietus

“A band deserving of every shred of love and success which came Belle & Sebastian's way” The Scotsman

"The Jonathan Richman of Scottish indie" The Herald

Randolph’s Leap started out as a pseudonym for the solo output of Adam Ross, and now includes up to 8 people in the full live band. The debut Randolph’s Leap album, Clumsy Knot, came out in 2014, with another four live and studio albums and a handful of singles across labels Fence Collective, Olive Grove Records and Lost Map. In 2018 a touring theatre show called The Isle of Love was devised around the songs of Randolph’s Leap.

They’ve recorded several Marc Riley sessions, performed at Green Man, T in the Park, Indietracks, and The Edinburgh Fringe, and have toured with The Burning Hell and James Yorkston. 
The Randolph’s Leap name is taken from a scenic location on the River Findhorn.

Randolph’s Leap are Adam Ross (songs, vocals, guitar), Adam Armour-Florence (drums), Ali Hendry (trumpet), Andrew MacLellan (guitar), Fraser Gibson (trombone) Heather Fox (violin), Pete MacDonald (keyboards) and Vicki Cole (bass).

Moment Passed

Randolph's Leap - Moment Passed

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Choices Of The Grasshopper January 2021

The Grasshopper 💚