Love how thick all the tones are. So atmospheric with the descriptive lyrics. Refreshing. Second listening and adding! Reminds me of a dream or something. 

Tobi's Fresh Net Faves 2022

elkyn has released his debut album, ‘holy spirit social club’, which sees elkyn aka Joey Donnelly put his uncensored inner dialogue on paper, bravely airing the thoughts most wouldn’t dare expose. Whether that’s hurtful messages to one’s self, vague and elusive memories or lingering lessons from childhood, it’s all here on ‘holy spirit social club’, unfiltered and searingly honest. 

This sincerity is matched in the music. While the arrangements on ‘holy spirit social club’ are far more expansive than those heard on 2020 EP ‘beech’, tender finger picks and elkyn’s distinctive half-whisper still remain at its heart. Though the pain is palpable, its impact is meditative, enveloping the listener in a safe haven where you feel free to acknowledge the darker parts of yourself. 

Rainy regret-tinged evenings dominate ‘holy spirit social club’. ‘everything looks darker now’, reflects ruefully on how Donnelly shied away from an old friend who unexpectedly came to a rainy gig in Manchester. While ‘change’ finds him on the streets of Yorkshire, revisiting his family home and wondering whether he had fulfilled his father’s desire for him to ‘become a man’ - a sore point that resurfaces again and again on ‘holy spirit social club’. 

This unflinching honesty has seen elkyn become a streaming success in recent months, with the one-off singles that followed ‘beech’ making it on to a number of Spotify editorial playlists. After a lockdown spent demoing, he entered Nave Studios with producer Mark Gustafson, creating more complete songs than ever before. The process was so cathartic for Donnelly that he went on to name the album after the social club that once existed in the basement below the aforementioned studio. 

Whilst elkyn isn’t exactly kind to himself on ‘holy spirit social club’, it does see him lift a monumental weight from his shoulders. In elkyn’s words, it’s “an interim into writing nicer songs and being nicer to myself”. In creating ‘holy spirit social club’, he has faced demons that he’s shied away from for too long, finding a way back to himself that previously felt impossible. It’s only by sitting with your darkest moments that you can begin to glimpse the light - ‘holy spirit social club’ is proof of that and a whole lot more.

fell

Wow! thrilled to have made Tom Robinson's BBC 6 Music show and Fresh Faves 14.2.22!! This is from my 2nd album The Awakening. Made using loops/samples with love, by Helen Meissner.
How often do we ask ourselves ‘who do we want to be?’ It’s something that gets asked a lot of us when we’re younger isn’t it? But with a twist, everyone wants to know WHAT we want to be.
As an adult, after years of conditioning, we might need to go back to that question, and look behind the masks. It’s difficult because for many we have become the persona we felt society demanded of us. So in a way it’s clean slate time, time to ‘play’ in a way. To really fantasise. And it’s not easy. We’re conditioned to conform and fit into society, seamlessly and obediently.

New roles emerge and old roles change throughout our life. Masks are worn. Pretty much all the time. What’s appropriate in one setting most certainly is not in another. We often learn the hard way. And it’s sometimes toe curlingly embarrassing. And we struggle to forgive ourselves. It’s a real problem. It stops us getting out of the boxes we’ve allowed ourselves to be put in. And gradually saps our energy and joy til we might feel like a 2D version of ourselves.
Am I being too dramatic here? Sorry if this does not resonate. I know it will for a number of people reading. Our fear of doing something which is ‘wrong’ or which makes people think we are a loser, or which makes people talk about us in a way we feel to be disrespectful or unkind is palpable. Which is a million times worse if we find we actually agree with some of it at some level (or would if we’re being honest with ourselves). Being ‘found out’, being called a fraud, a fake... does that strike fear into the heart of you? Make you feel sick? If so we have to go there.  It’s also sometimes called Imposter Syndrome. What if someone realises that I am actually winging it and making it up as I go along? Join the club!
Perhaps we’ve striven to be the child our parents always wanted? The pupil the teachers were proud of? The friend that never let anyone down? The lover who always excited? The star at work? The parent who loved unconditionally and didn’t ‘fuck their children up’? (thanks for that ironic cross to bear, Philip Larkin). And perhaps we’ve not been 100% successful in those quests?
The reality is we cannot please all the people all of the time. And anyway, how people react really does say more about them than about us. We might have inadvertently touched upon one of their red flags, one of their insecurities about themselves and they then overreact to something that really, is NOT a big deal to other people. Ever noticed this?

Well we all have a choice about how we react to someone else’s behaviour towards us. And I have learnt to, in the most part, notice it, assess it and then move on. 
As we can’t guarantee to please others, we might as well please the most important person in your life. You. And as a bonus, if you are comfortable and accepting of yourself, kind and perhaps loving and tolerant(like you would be to a friend?), you will draw people into your life who recognise those qualities. And do yourself a favour. Others, manipulators or narcissists, will be attracted too as they will see that they can have a very nice life with you, thinking you are a pushover. Please always notice your interchanges and exchanges with them. And as soon as something happens which presents a red flag for you, investigate it, discuss it and act on your instinct if you realise this person is not as good for you as they might have appeared early on. People CAN change and you might be the first person to have pointed this unacceptable behaviour out to them. So give them a chance to redeem if that’s what you both want. But just keep an eye out for your own red flags and don’t ignore them. It’s better to be in a good relationship with yourself than a bad relationship with someone else.

So WHO do you wanna be – NOW?

Who Do You Wanna Be

No Photographs of me Exist
Music Written & Performed By Esslemont
Features on the EP 'Never Really, Never Never'.
2021

No Photographs of me Exist

No Photographs Of Me Exist

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now’ (1896) A.E. Housman

The Cherry Now

Awesome sample from Cleo Sol and Lee Hazelwood helped made this track very easy. Nice vibes they say. Who says that anyway? Check out the originals here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IdLgRpa3W0 and Lee Hazelwood - Let's take a walk down Valhallavägen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxkRpW5hqfg

Big Sister

Stream 'Scooters' now: https://listen.hipdozer.com/scooters

Scooters is the second single from the project, and the song explores relationships, the passing of time and the arrival of winter. The self-produced song blends mellow hip-hop & melodic R&B, and it also features Bristol-based artist Slowe, who has received radio support on BBC Radio 1.

Harbours

Scooters

Stream

Webmoms & Ciaran Austin - Scooters (ft. Slowe)

RESET MY PASSWORD

Our first single of 2022, Wash of Light.

Fran Hall - Vocals
Jonny Freeman - Guitar, synths, programming, backing vocals
Jack Moxley - Keyboard, synths, programming

Words by Jonny Freeman, music by Jonny Freeman and Jack Moxley. Cover art by Jonny Freeman. Recorded, produced, and mixed by Spiders Eat Vinyl.

Wash of Light

Peplo is a Glasgow based four-piece that cuts classic pop songcraft with an alternative edge; the band begin '22 with the release of their new single 'Goodnight Maria' on January 28th, and will be performing on the UK's summer festival circuit – with a slot at ButeFest already confirmed.

'Goodnight Maria' is the band’s fourth single. The eponymous Maria is a typical millennial heroine – a displaced and exploited twentysomething, who relies on pretension and pride to remain wilfully oblivious to being the poster girl for a lost generation. The song takes this to be both endearing and pitiable, lending 'Goodnight Maria' an acerbic tone that’s new to Peplo’s palate (this more rock-adjacent track comes hot on the heels of dream-pop jangler, ‘Katarina’s Got My Tongue’, as well as the balladesque ‘Tall’ and ‘Just to Get to You’).

"...a big pop tune with loads of ambition, cloaked in a shy and soft overcoat" - SNACK Magazine

"Vocalist Cit Lennox can hit sky-high notes with ease" - Shereen Cutkelvin, BBC Radio Scotland

"...charming, classic jangle pop" - Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music (of previous single 'Katarina's Got My Tongue')

Highlights from Peplo’s career to date include performing at Last Night From Glasgow’s label showcase at Celtic Connections; being shortlisted for Fresh On The Net’s Listening Post (where the band’s second single, ‘Katarina’s Got My Tongue’, was championed by Tom Robinson - who subsequently played the track on his BBC Radio 6 Music show, ‘BBC Introducing Mixtape’); and playing the forthcoming ButeFest - sharing a bill with Scouting for Girls and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers.

Goodnight Maria

Misericorde, a song about self-serving leaders who deem themselves above the rules they set for others. Written a while ago though so of the zeitgeist we wanted to release it now!

Digital release on 11th Feb 2022,  part of the upcoming album, Universe Arrangements. 

Bledig, a mix of Trip Hop, Prog and Contemporary Jazz, which the trio describe as “Prog Hop”

Sax by Nick Gibson

Artwork By Richard Miles 'Steve Plays Flute' https://www.flickr.com/photos/richard--miles/

Mastered and drum recording by Paul Win-Stanley https://paulwinaudio.com/

Mixed and produced by Richard Brincklow

Bledig are:

Hannah Boulton: Vocals
James Purvis: Drums
Richard Brincklow: Keys

Misericorde

LET LOVE
(Music: Roberts/Read / Lyrics: Nagel)

the woman in my dream stands barefoot in the garden / her auburn hair as wild as horse-clouds racing overhead / she doesn’t see me there / she’s looking in the water / at the wings of dragonflies flashing blue against the light / and i can hear her laugh though she makes no sound / and i can feel her touch through air / i want to take her hand and make her proud / of who i will become / so she will stay a little longer // “let love,” she speaks – / “let love be your blood / let love fly free / let love heal” // the drops against the window start to blur my image of her / like the shimmering of runes on a timeless wall of sleep / or the flickering of wings as blue becomes a rainstorm / and i turn away to find the softest chord shapes in her name / and i can hear her laugh though she makes no sound / and i can feel her touch through pain / i want to take her hand and make her proud / of who i will become / so she will stay a little longer //
“let love,” she speaks – / “let love be your blood / let love fly free / let love heal me”

MING NAGEL – vocals / JON READ – keyboards, flugelhorn, backing vocals / ALAN ROBERTS – guitars / JAMIE VARLEY – bass guitar, backing vocals / DAVE TIDMARSH – drums / SU ROBINSON – clarinet / RUSS COLEMAN - trombone

Track 13 from the album, "If This Is the End" (2021)

Let love

Woman That I Know

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3oBVotmaud13Tgdkvc3eZZ

Everywhere Else: https://fanlink.tv/BCALWAYS

Cholly: https://soundcloud.com/chollyhappymusic

Always (feat. Cholly)

Ushanka

TRUE LOVE is the 1st release of CEITHRE CINN. In the height of lockdown '21, a small window opened for 4 incredible musical artists to meet up at the legendary Black Mountain Studios in Ireland for 3 days. 

Funded by First Contact Music and their much needed Music Industry Stimulus Package, Suzanne Savage, Matt McGinn, Ciaran Lavery & Finnian Kelleher were allowed some time and a beautiful space to write and record together. 

It was not known what would come out of the writing retreat, but the results were astonishing. 

This first release is called 'TRUE LOVE' and was written by all four members of Ceithre Cinn, and recorded live later that day. The song was created while the members reflected over loved ones lost, through the pandemic and before. It soon became clear that it was not the massive moments shared that they missed the most, but the simple ones...like sitting on the sofa, cuddled up...watching TV. 

TRUE LOVE is released on all download and streaming platforms on April 25th 2022

WATCH OFFICIAL VIDEO OF 'TRUE LOVE'
https://youtu.be/p8Dt13eNd00

TRUE LOVE

Project Blackbird consists of five UK-based musicians: vocalist Ming Nagel (originally from the USA), guitarist Alan Roberts, multi-instrumentalist Jamie Varley, drummer Eddie Dublin, and multi-instrumentalist Jon Read, former trumpet player for The Specials. This "extraordinary" band, as BBC's Tom Robinson has described them, is rich with atmospheric groove stories that draw equally upon intellect and emotion. "Imagine a party at Ronnie Scott’s," one fan suggests, "where Sade, Björk, Jeff Beck, and David Byrne meet Portishead and then go for a late night curry to exchange ideas…sublime”. The band's third full-length album, True Names, has just been released as a CD, 12" double gatefold vinyl, and digital recording via Bandcamp.

See also BLUEBIRD PARADE.

Powerfully uncool electronic pop grooves for sarcastic introverts.
Working the Recovery Chronic Depression/Anxiety
Trekkie 🖖

Let love

Project Blackbird

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