I'm sure Kanye would love to be able to make music like this, But he caint

Walkabout Set

Belfast-based four-piece Girls Names are a singular proposition, both geographically and psychically removed from their contemporaries at home and abroad. Released in February 2013, their second album 'The New Life' is the sound of a band on the fringes striving to forge their own path, purposefully out of step - and time - with their surroundings. Weighed heavy with the grey landscapes of their hometown, 'The New Life' is isolation laid bare, shot through with an undeterred sense of purpose and individuality.

Having released a series of singles and EPs on various independent labels, Girls Names made their first significant impression on the wider world in 2011 with their debut album, 'Dead To Me,' earning plaudits from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and Loud & Quiet amongst a host of others. And yet, despite all the praise heaped on it, as soon as that record was released Girls Names were already moving into a different headspace. 

The band’s performance at this year Primavera festival provided them with their first real opportunity to showcase the songs that were to comprise 'The New Life.' The sunshine backdrop of the Spanish coastline offered a somewhat incongruous setting to the eerie dissonance of the new material, a kind of trial by fire metamorphosis rapturously received. Following a tour of Europe, the band returned home to record the album over a series of months. Having been produced by singer and songwriter, Cathal Cully, they’ve managed to capture that sense of otherness the performances at Primavera hinted at. The expansion to a four piece means the garage-clatter of the spritely pop songs of their debut have been replaced by a deeper, shadowy exercise in catharsis, driven by repetition, psychedelia and Dionysian crisis. And the record was born of a weighty concept too, as Cully explains: 

“'The New Life' is not an over night change for Girls Names - just over two years in fact. 'Dead to Me' literally was dead to us by the time it was committed to wax. But it's a learning curve. We started moving on as artists the moment we finished that recording session, maybe even before. Not to dwell on the past, 'The New Life' is what happens when you reset everything back to zero and start again, but try to perfect. It starts back at zero the minute the needle hits the groove but we're also starting back from zero once the needle lifts at the end of the record. Ad infinitum. 'The New Life' is what follows now.”

The album’s title track, and the first single to be taken from the album, is an ideal entry point. Just shy of 8 minutes long, it rotates around a hypnotic bass line, and in Cully’s evocation of renaissance, offers a perfect metaphor for the album as a whole. New single ‘Hypnotic Regression’ - available to stream today - reflects another side to the record. The reverb-heavy guitars and compelling melody are immediately memorable, but there are signs of experimentation, too; the white squall of the lead break; the uneasiness in the vocal echoes that furnish the verses. As such, 'The New Life,' stands as a brave statement; the mark of the band untying themselves from the past and easing forth into the unknown.

"The New Life" will be released on February 18th, 2013 on Tough Love (UK) and February 26th, 2013 on Slumberland Records (US).


Girls Names - Pittura Infamante

Living With You is the third track to be aired from John Cale’s Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood (released October 2012). Its craftsmanship and artfulness belied the unparalleled career experience of John Cale, and many heard it as rock music at its most sublime.

Living With You is built on Cale’s trademark viola drone with some of the most delicate nylon guitar picking he claims to have ever heard. He also says that here he ‘found a way to write a nice feeling and not be terribly sappy about it. I do have an occasional moment of happiness, but they never last too long!’ he laughs. 

The single bundle comes with an ‘Organic Mix’ of the track, which is a more stripped down version made by Cale that revels in the stark and nakedly emotional nature of the song and a Laurel Halo Remix. This remix comes after a defining year for Laurel who was awarded Wire’s album of the year in 2012 after the release of her critically lauded debut full length ‘Quarantine’.

Out Now on iTunes: http://bit.ly/13IwP3v and all good digital retailers.

Living With You

John Cale - Living With You (Laurel Halo Remix)

Written by Kieran Hebden, Ben Page and Tom Page
Recorded and mixed by Sam Shepherd on 15th July 2012

From TEXT023
Roseland/Metropolis 12"

RocketNumberNine and Four Tet - Roseland

RocketNumberNine and Four Tet - Metropolis

Artwork by Keffer

The new album Love + Light is out now on Phantasy and Mute – http://smarturl.it/DA_LL

Love + Light

Download + LP

Into The Arms Of Stillness

The First demo of the First song Ellery James Roberts wrote after the end of LYF.

Self produced on Ableton Live between February & May 2013, Caledonian Road 2013. 

Lament (V01/2013)

Ebony Hoorn & Ellery Jucifer James
Making luh since 2012

Lament (V01/2013)

Lost Under Heaven

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