Clockwise from top left: Tom Speight. Pomona Dream, Angelic Milk, Plaza
NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION‘s weekly round-up of new songs, musical discoveries and lovely little gems that definitely didn’t deserve to slip under your radar. This is what last week sounded like.
Plaza – ‘Blood Orange’
Thank god, Britain is not done yet with providing impressive indie rock antems. PLAZA are four late-teens from the Industrial seaside town of Hartlepool and their new single Blood Orange is a powerful anthem, packed with dreamy sounds but also powerful guitar walls. It sounds a bit like a love child between FOALS and MOGWAI and that itself should be enough to get your attention, right?
Tom Speight – ‘Falling’
If the rules of pop music still apply, Falling by TOM SPEIGHT is like to be played pretty much everywhere in the course of the forthcoming summer. Not only does it come with all the sweet weightlessness of the season but also a catchy hook and guest vocals by Rachel Sermanni. Expect a powerful sing-along indie-pop tune and hopefully more from Mr. SPEIGHT in the not so distant future. A debut EP will arrive later this summer.
Ohal – ‘Acid Park’
OHAL Grietzer is an Israel – born musician whose artistic path has seen her make some big life switches. Her career started off with her training to be a concert pianist, when an obsession with Dadaism inspired her to move to Paris before she eventually ended up in Brooklyn (via Nebraska, obviously). Her debut album Acid Park can probably best be described as abstract electronica, a sound palette of experimental noises, blending and swirling together into a coherent whole. But she also makes sure to show off her more traditional songwriting smarts on tracks like Closer, a graceful neon waltz of a song. Acid Park is out now on Styles Upon Styles.
Pomona Dream – Rainbow Milk EP
POMONA DREAM are a Swedish duo, a collaboration between singer and songwriter Sandra Bang and producer Ribbs which apparently started after Soundcloud bots accused them of plagiarising each others music. I guess you can believe that if you really want to, but more importantly you should focus on their music. The Rainbow Milk EP is pretty much what Rainbow Milk would sound like in audio form; smooth, colourful and, um…tasty? Ok, the rainbow-milk-in-real-life-comparison doesn’t really work, so we’ll move onto more traditional music descriptive grounds. Rainbow Milk is full of songs spring-loaded with an absurd amount of groove, slinky basslines underpinning bouncing synthlines over five tracks that are just undeniable fucking jams. It’s out now on Naiv Recordings and Mango Disco Records, listen below.
Era Isabel – ‘Invisible’
A large amount of colours can make everything better. And in the case of ERA ISABEL it makes quite some sense as her exciting lo-fi synthpop is driven by a certain amount of spirituality. The press release states that her ‘path crystallized when she found Other Side Order, a spiritual force, guide and counter movement to today’s modern order.’ Aside from that interesting ‘background’ the song Invisible and his accompanying music video really create a certain hypnotic vibe. Yes, ERA ISABEL is a young talent that deserves your attention.
Night Games – ‘Suffocate’
The stakes are high when a band decides to name itself NIGHT GAMES. Thankfully, this London-based duo can fulfill the expectations by delivering an effortless down-tempo jam that floats along in a nightly feeling of weightlessness. Close your eyes, hit the ‘Play’ button and see for yourself right here.
Angelic Milk – ‘Rebel Black’
ANGELIC MILK are part of Saint Petersburg’s St Brooklynsburg DIY collective, and came to prominence last year with the Pale EP, a collection of songs that ranged from sludgy grunge-rock to mystic, ghostly acoustica. Their new single, Rebel Black however, seems like a hyperleap forward in their songwriting. Everything about it slots perfectly into place, from the guitar growl to the melodic vocal swoop. Anthemic is a word that’s been kinda tainted due to all the mediocre bands that use it to describe their plodding songs, but Rebel Black is the very definition of it as it should be, and if it’s not sung along to by every crowd they play to for the rest of their careers, then there’s something very fucking wrong with this world. It’s out now on PNKSLM, and their new EP Teenage Movie Soundtrack is out on July 15th.
Friends In America – ‘Flat Tire (I Can Cope)’
A good cause always makes a already good pop song even better. Flat Tire (I Can Cope) by FRIENDS IN AMERICA was written and recorded for the Scottish arts project ‘Create. Curate. Relate‘ which is designed to encourage the discussion of mental health free of stigma or judgement. The duo from Glasgow presents a sweet piece of emotional alternative pop which sounds pretty much like RADIOHEAD would sound if they were less abstract. Their new EP with the great title Please Don’t Believe In Me (For I Am Completely Fucked) arrives later this month.
If you want the latest sounds don’t forget to follow NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION‘s ‘New Releases’ playlist on Spotify, featuring the 50 freshest new songs we recently featured on our page. For other more frequent news don’t forget to follow NBHAP on Twitter and Facebook as well.
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