“I was thinking about my own self destructive side, and how you can make something only to tear it down, enjoy/destroy, create/devastate etc. When you’re in that whirlwind, you often end up breaking the thing you love the most”.
The video for “Ship to Wreck” is uniquely set and filmed in Florence’s very own home (watch it below).
The new album How Big How Blue How Beautiful is a collection of songs, written and recorded over the course of 2014. Produced by Markus Dravs (Björk, Arcade Fire, Coldplay) with contributions from Paul Epworth, Kid Harpoon and John Hill, the third album by Florence + The Machine is live-sounding, tune-rich, unhinged in all the right places and powerful in all the best ways. In voice and, ultimately, outlook Florence has never sounded better.
Alt-folk Liverpool five-piece Cavalry have crafted a sound that confidently melds together a mixture of classic and contemporary musical influence, from Paul Simon to The National, Fleetwood Mac to Villagers, The Beatles to Bon Iver. They release their new single “An Understanding” on May 31, 2015.
Since they formed, the band’s music has quickly caught the attention of established and influential musicians, seeing them take on live support slots for British Sea Power, The Antlers and Steve Malkmus.
BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens featured the band as a discovery on ‘BBC Introducing’, with Tom Robinson of BBC 6 Music and Janice Long of BBC Radio 2 both eagerly playing their early tracks. The band have been invited to play at the BBC Music Day on Friday 5 June 2015 and Liverpool Sound City.
It’s hard to believe Cavalry have achieved so much in so short a time, with just two online tracks and a handful of live shows under their belts, but their music strikes a deep chord on first listen.
Previous downloads, “Leaves” has all the dreamy insistence of a long-lost Grant Lee Buffalo gem, while “Lament” hints at the understated anthemic pull of Band Of Horses at their best.
Cavalry are Alan Croft on lead vocals, Austin Logan on guitar, Paul Jones on bass, Steven Taylor on guitar and Gareth Dawson on drums.
Young Buffalo, a five piece rock band from Oxford, Mississippi recently released their debut album, House. They’ll be playing in Pittsburgh at Club Cafe on May 13. Check out this really cute video for “No Idea” below!
Tour dates:
Apr 22 – Crescent Ballroom Phoenix, AZ
Apr 23 – Troubadour Los Angeles, CA
Apr 24 – The Casbah San Diego, CA
Apr 26 – The Independent San Francisco, CA
Apr 30 – Tractor Tavern Seattle, WA
May 01 – Venue Vancouver, Canada
May 02 – Mississippi Studios Portland, OR
May 04 – Velour Provo, UT
May 05 – MARQUIS THEATRE Denver, CO
May 07 – Reverb Lounge Omaha, NE
May 08 – The Duck Room @ Blueberry Hill St Louis, MO
Check out Palaye Royale, a fashion art rock, Las Vegas based band that’s currently unsigned. They won MTV’s Musical March Madness, beating out Coldplay, Linkin Park and U2. Their song “Get Higher” is also featured on a Samsung Galaxy commercial which you can check out below, followed by the music video for the song in it’s entirety.
“If you like Fleetwood Mac, try Kopecky…intelligent and edgy.” – The New York Times
“Quickly fell in love. Kopecky’s sweet rock songs keep blooming into something irresistible.” –NPR
“Melodic three-minute blast with piercing guitar riffs and an adrenaline-pumped chorus.” – SPIN
On May 19, Kopecky will release their sophomore album Drug for the Modern Age via ATO Records. The band has just released a live video for their lead single “Quarterback.” Watch the video below. Singer Kelsey Kopecky says, “Having a new album on the horizon gives us fresh wind in our sails to play live. The new songs are fun and grooving. Our first single, ‘Quarterback,’ is just that – a song that tells a tale of the underdog getting the girl with a simple white lie. An anthem of sorts with a ‘love conquers all’ vibe.”
Kopecky’s new record, Drug for the Modern Age, takes the many shake-ups the band’s endured over the past few years and turns them into inspiration for groove-driven, melody-heavy alt-pop that’s intensely emotional and strangely exhilarating. The album is now available for pre-order on iTunes, Amazon, and Kopecky’s official store.
Formerly known as the Kopecky Family Band, the Nashville based group has had their music appear on a variety of hit television series including Grey’s Anatomy, Parenthood, The Vampire Diaries, and MTV’s Awkward to name a few. One of their new tracks “Real Life” was just featured on the most recent episode of the hit television show Nashville. They’ve also toured all over the world and have played at some of the largest music festivals including Austin City Limits, Bumbershoot, and Lollapalooza. This year they will be performing at SXSW.
Their upcoming release, Drug for the Modern Age, explores such life-altering events as the sudden loss of a loved one, divorce, and struggles with addiction, along with more joyful happenings like new love and marriage. “The album was written in this weird time of so much pain but also happiness, and that really informed the writing and recording,” says vocalist/guitarist Gabe Simon, who co-founded the group with vocalist/keyboardist Kelsey Kopecky in 2007. “Our goal was to talk about all these very serious things we were dealing with, but in a way that felt nothing like wallowing and more like standing triumphantly, or even dancing our way through it.”
In achieving that dynamic, Kopecky (whose lineup also includes guitarist Steven Holmes, bassist Corey Oxendine, cellist Markus Midkiff, and drummer David Krohn) offer moments of symphonic grandeur alongside edgy, electronic-leaning innovation. Meanwhile, their daringly intimate lyrics both unsettle and engage, asking questions and encouraging reflection on the part of the listener.
As on their 2012 debut Kids Raising Kids, Kopecky teamed up with Konrad Snyder, but this time around the band took a more slowed-down and deliberate approach. This allowed them to bring new level of sophistication and soulfulness to their songcraft.
Drug for the Modern Age serves up its share of intricately layered love songs as well, revealing Kopecky’s endless grace in merging sweetness and melancholy. With the band forever bound by their shared passion for purposeful songwriting, all that revelation and sometimes-painful truth-telling ultimately fulfills something central to Kopecky’s mission: a deeper and stronger connection with each person listening.
Tour Dates
4/2 at Club Café in Pittsburgh, PA
4/3 at Musica in Akron, OH
4/10 at The Loft in Columbus, GA
4/11 at One Spark Festival in Jacksonville, FL
4/12 at Second Sunday in Macon, GA
4/16 at The Frequency in Madison, WI
4/17 at Redstone Room in Davenport, IA
4/18 at Off Broadway in St. Louis, MO
4/28 at Pour House in Charleston, SC
4/29 at Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, VA
5/4 at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY
5/5 at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, NY
5/8 at Artisphere in Greenville, SC
5/14 at Camp House in Chattanooga, TN
5/15 at Vinyl in Atlanta, GA
5/17 at Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, AL
5/19 at Basement in Nashville, TN
5/22 at Live Oak in Fort Worth, TX
5/25 at The Casbah in San Diego, CA
5/26 at Echo Park in Los Angeles, CA
5/29 at Bottlerock Festival in Napa, CA
5/31 at Sainte Rocke in Hermosa Beach, CA
6/1 at Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix, AZ
6/4 at Wakarusa in Ozark, AR
7/26 at XPoNential Music Festival in Camden, NJ
The Singularity’s first single and video, “Wetter,” from the self-produced/released EP entitled Weta is a sexually cathartic yet visually transfixing representation of the song’s elements of Bowie-glam mixed with the edginess of The Strokes. Additionally, the track just hit #13 on the national specialty radio charts and was named WXRT’s “Song Of The Week.”
Frontman and multi-instrumentalist Julian Shah-Tayler (formerly of the band Whitey)’s childlike fascination with science, space and the big questions that trouble the human condition has fueled the creative output of The Singularity’s electronic rock and roll since the band’s inception in 2012. “Everything burst out of the center of a supermassive black hole,” remarks Julian, “and we are going back there one day, so let’s just enjoy it.”
As for the video, Shah-Tayler explained that he is “huge fan of films such as Linklater’s Waking Life, David Lynch and the styles of Scanner Darkly and Sin City. We wanted to create a dreamlike quality through the ‘animation’ style of the video whilst still maintaining a dark sexuality reflecting the slightly creepy lyrics. It was a real collaboration between the director, editor and artist.”
The single and video eloquently sums up The Singularity’s manifesto and echoes the hedonistic attitude of the band. A Londoner relocated to LA, Julian’s catalog of music prolifically exceeds 300 songs, many of which have been featured in films and hit TV shows including Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and The Newsroom, while also turning up on broadcasts ranging from UK television’s Popstar to NBC Sports.
In 2014, Shah-Tayler won a Golden Trailer award for his work with Lana Del Ray on Disney’s Maleficent trailer. He also performed one of his songs in front of Bill Clinton, Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese for the Unite For Humanity charity at the Oscars.
Three of his songs were the “hits” for the focus band in the music movie Plush, directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Lords Of Dogtown). Additionally, Shah-Tayler did all this while co-founding an LA charity called Art Angeles, teaching music to underprivileged kids in Watts.
Check out the latest video from The Offspring, “Coming For You”
Head to store.offspring.com to pick up a digital copy of the single. The song is also available via iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and other digital services.
Catch the band on the road in the coming months and stay tuned for additional US tour dates.
Grammy award winning Reggae superstar Shaggy, is showing no signs of slowing down or taking a break. Last year we saw Shaggy tour his album “Out of Many, One Music”, which received 2014 Grammy nomination for Reggae album of the year. Some may have asked, ‘What’s next for Shaggy’? Well, “I Need Your Love” is whats next. Released September 2014 “I Need Your Love”, featuring Mohombi, Faydee and Costi, immediately gained global notoriety with over 800,000 YouTube views in less than one week. Its no surprise that this single is currently in the Pop Top 40.
“I Need Your Love” is truly a global collaboration, featuring Afro-pop star Mohombi, Australian singer Faydee, Romanian producer Costi and Shaggy whose dancehall mix brings something extra special to the track. Currently playing on mainstream radio, “I Need Your Love” commanded over 750 spins in one week resulting in a 7 place jump from 46 to 39, entering Shaggy on the top 40 pop chart. This is Shaggy’s 9th hit on the billboard charts.
“The success of the single is not solely on me, I must thank my team as it is definitely a team effort to reach where we are right now. So much more to do but definitely pleased with the success” says Shaggy.
Shaggy recently premiered a video for a new single “Picture” featuring Melissa Musique, exclusively via the leading music identification app Shazam. While “I Need Your Love” continues to excel on social media, on the air waves, in the clubs and currently over 20 million views on YouTube, it is evident “I Need Your Love” will be a hit for 2015.
Los Angeles alternative pop maverick Dylan Kelly unveils the lyric video for his debut single “All My Friends” today.
Written and produced by the artist, “All My Friends” struts along with bright snappy guitars, a reggae rhythm, and a delightfully inebriating refrain carried by Dylan’s dynamic voice. It properly introduces the world to this singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist [guitars, bass, and keyboards!].
Coming home from a vacation in the Dominican Republic, Dylan went to the studio early one morning and wrote “All My Friends” from scratch in less than two hours. The woozy guitars, sunny production, confessional lyrics, and instantly chant able chorus “All my friends are high” simply intoxicate. Republic Records fell under the track’s spell, and Dylan landed a deal with the label.
About the song, he explains, “I have a bunch of fun friends but it’s hard to get them to go out and do anything but hang. I wrote this song about those times when you just can’t get your friends to leave the house.”
“All My Friends” shows just one side of this dynamic talent though. His music encompasses a diverse array of styles from pop and reggae to indie and alternative. “It’s representative of L.A.,” he says. “The city is such a melting pot so my music is like a melting pot of all those influences.”
Ultimately, Dylan’s own versatility will captivate anybody within earshot. “I want people to feel emotion,” he leaves off. “What else is the point of art? I hope they can relate and say, ‘Me too man. Me too!’”
This dark and haunting video focuses around a young boy holding onto a single seashell with loss in his eyes. Jumping from dark images of a man in a gas mask and images of the boy and his friend full of youth running free, it soon becomes apparent that this loss was his innocence. At the end of the video the boy places the shell, a symbol of simpler times, in the hand of his friend lying on the beach and walks away. This broken tale fully embodies the feeling of a blissful solitude and ties beautifully into the orchestral electronic sound of the track.
About Jasia:
Jasia is a 23 year old producer who was born in Jamaica, raised in the US and then moved to Australia at the age of 18. Having studied violin, guitar and voice classically while playing in variations of rock bands the style/genre henceforth is one of contrastingly minimal/maximal beat driven, melodic soundscape production utilising a range of electronic/synthesised, acoustic and traditional band instrumentation present in the forms of popular song and instrumental/experimental works accompanied with a visual interpretation by the artist.
The first single “Inverbatim” is a strings and synthesis heavy production that received acclaim and radio airplay by FBi, Triple J in Australia and overseas critically on a range of musical blogs. It was selected as a winner of Triple J Unearthed’s NIDA competition who also named it as one of “Five new genres created this year” styling as ‘orchestral dream-pop.’ Inverbatim is followed by “Safety”, a single utilising a contrastingly bass-heavy/ambient variation of traditional rock instrumentation and synthesisers over a cyclical vocal motif leading into a pseudo-electronic arena rock finale. The song was produced over the span of six months spent between London and Montana in the Rocky Mountains of the US. It is accompanied by an experimental electronic B-side entitled Lowlife. The release will be supported by debut live touring engagements across Australia.
Musically Amusing 