Introducing… Silver Moth

Posted on January 19, 2023 by danielle

Silver Moth, a new collective involving Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai and other acclaimedmusicians, today announce their debut album, Black Bay, out 21st April via Bella Union and available to preorder here. To celebrate the announcement Silver Moth have shared a first track titled “Mother Tongue”.

A leap of faith reaps extraordinary rewards on Black Bay, an album of depth, atmosphere and daring from the collective known as Silver Moth. Recorded under unusual circumstances, Black Bay is the sound of seven storied musicians yielding to shared goals; a policy of trust in action. Between hushed incantations and molten guitars, 15-minute noise-rock epics and healing psalms, the record is a testament to connectivity and receptivity: to a union of disparate minds committing to something greater than the sum of its parts.

Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai, Elisabeth Elektra, Evi Vine, Steven Hill, members of Abrasive Trees, Burning House and Prosthetic Head convened to improvise the album in early 2021, following a Twitter exchange between Abrasive Trees guitarist/songwriter Matthew Rochfordand musician Elisabeth Elektra about the Isle of Lewis. A couple of Zoom meetings would subsequently lead to Rochford, Elektra, Vine, Braithwaite, Hill, drummer Ash Babb and cellist Ben Roberts visiting the dramatic location of Great Bernera’s Black Bay Studios on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, where they tracked the songs in just four days: a testament to the musicians’ focused openness to their shared mission and environment.

“Because we didn’t know each other before we went to Black Bay,” says Elisabeth, “we went into a really intense creative mode as soon as we got there. We were in a bubble and there was a lot of collective grief going on, so it was like a pressure cooker, but I think some real beauty came out of it.” As opener ‘Henry’ takes heady shape, that intensity makes its presence felt. Over a stealthy guitar chug, Evi Vine’s crystalline vocal seems to gather the arrangement around her, the players locked together as the song reaches its tempestuous climax: whether you attribute it to the purgative power of loud music, the location or a longed-for sense of communion, something beautiful duly emerges.

A tribute from Elektra to her late friend Alanna, ‘The Eternal’ unfurls with hymnal serenity. The chorus ascends from the plangent verses like a prayer, the players attentive and empathetic. Written by Evi and Elisabeth, the Talk Talk-ish madrigal ‘Mother Tongue’ extends an invitation to “listen” as its paean to female equality unfolds, fuelled by – explains Evi – the “need to reclaim and remember and give voice to those who are silenced”.

Based on a poem by the late Scottish writer Gerard Rochford, ‘Gaelic Psalms’ is a hypnotic spoken-word piece delivered by his son Matthew in fully-felt fashion; samples of lapping water complement the Kelpies and cairns of Gerard’s verse. ‘Hello Doom’ follows, the seven-piece flexing their full reserves of power over 15 minutes of incantatory song and imposing sound-scaping. Finally, ‘Sedna’ extends another tribute to the Outer Hebrides over ambient keys, poised guitar arpeggios and shuddering synths: a song for the sea.

Described by Elisabeth as “the magician who brought it all together,” Pete Fletcher’s production shows great sensitivity to space and mood. The cumulative effect is an album of elemental force and evocative poise, its controlled power focused around the ego-free chemistry between the players. “I knew with everything in me that we could make something powerful, beautiful, celestial and driven,” says Evi, “even though we had never met. We spend our lives in repetition, surrounded by certainty. It’s important to push aside the things we think we understand, because when we least expect it, change comes and we are lost.” By abandoning all certainties, Silver Moth have found something truly special on Black Bay. Matthew Rochford of Silver Moth has written a personal bio with more info about how the project came together which can be read HERE.

Emma Tricca Announces New Album “Aspirin Sun”

Posted on January 17, 2023 by danielle

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Emma Tricca has announced the release of her new album Aspirin Sun due out 7th April via Bella Union and available to preorder here. To celebrate the occasion Tricca has shared a colourful and captivating video for first single “King Blixa” directed by Francesco Cabras. Commenting on the track Tricca says: “Since childhood I have always been fascinated by folk stories. From Italo Calvino to Homer to British and French Troubadour ballads. The magical element of turning the impossible into the possible is what inspired this poem/song – like in the line, I would ask the sailors to break their solitude.”

Tricca has also announced news of a London headline show just after the release of the album, performing at The Grace in Highbury & Islington on Wednesday 19th April. Tickets are available here.

“It felt like I was driving through tunnels,” Emma Tricca says of her fourth album – her first for Bella Union. A phosphorescent panorama of undulating colour, shape and sound.

As with any transformation, it is this sense of movement that underpins Aspirin Sun and its bold new form, ebbing and flowing, continually unfurling. The tunnels led the Italian-born, London-based singer-songwriter towards something expansive and far-reaching: an entirely new and experimental collection of songs. But they also drew her closer to her late father, and her memories of him driving them both in his small white Fiat, darting through the Alps and whizzing through darkened passageways, where shafts of light flickered ahead of them in the distance.

Light and shade; past and future; love and loss. “I was in uncharted territory trying to understand what was happening to me,” Tricca says. In the winter of 2018, only months after her mystical third album St. Peter was released, her father died, submerging her in a subaqueous world of grief. “I think that the loss really informed the tunes a lot,” she muses. And the tunes quickly emerged. Tricca decided to spend a few months in New York during the summer of 2019 – and started recording Aspirin Sun in her long-time collaborator Steve Shelley’s studio.

“With this record, it was very much accepting that one does what they do,” Tricca says philosophically. “Don’t try to be anyone else, you can’t fake what you’re not.” She wanted to venture outside her comfort zone, and the result is a kaleidoscopic exploration of what it means to break free from past constraints. From the supernatural swirling and whorling of ‘Through the Poet’s Eyes’ to the haunting susurration of mariachi brass on ‘Space and Time’, the rhythmic echoes of the Beat poets are never far away – a flame that was lit, aged 9, when Tricca read modernist poet Ungaretti’s ‘Mattina’ and went looking for further avant-garde freethinkers.

Ask Tricca how Aspirin Sun feels to her and she’ll describe it as “a weird germination” of disparate influences. A “Wim-Wenders-meets-Fellini-8 ½” kind of set-up – especially ‘Autumn’s Fiery Tongue’ which swells and amplifies into a pulsating, hallucinatory odyssey that came to her in a dream. “You know when the sun is in the sky and it’s so round it looks like an aspirin? This record very much depicts that kind of sky,” Tricca says. It also depicts the discombobulating nature of grief – as overexposed as a blazing ball of gas and light. “I was blindly finding my way through my grief with music and dreams that I wrote down in the morning.”

This new psychedelic horizon could only be fully brought to life by a band she calls her family. The same musicians she collaborated with on her 2018 outing, St. Peter: Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, Dream Syndicate guitarist Jason Victor, and bass player Pete Galub. All three musicians brought something unique to the record. “Pete comes from more of a traditional songwriting background, Steve and Jason are more experimental, and then there’s me, very much in-between. For me, that was magic,” she says. As an only child, Tricca has always been used to solitude. But when the world shut down, her windows flung open. “On the one hand, I’m a loner; on the other, I get so much excitement when I work with other people. If you grew up in a broken family, like I did, when it comes to work and friendship I’m always looking for the family I never had. That’s why, with these guys, I feel complete.”

After her initial stint in Shelley’s studio, Tricca flew back to London only to return to JFK airport in January 2020: a homecoming that she calls “fate” considering what was set to follow. A few months later, the world would irreparably change. “Hell broke loose with Covid,” she says – which only added to the record’s core theme: its sense of alienation. Back in London, she liaised with her New York band over the summer of 2020, working on overdubs and exchanging ideas, “finding a new way with a renewed confidence.”

Reading Frank O’Hara by day and listening to Can, Neu! and Brian Jonestown Massacre by night, Tricca ventured off the beaten path, extending beyond the softer Greenwich Village sound of her 2009 debut Minor White, keen to expand upon the classical Italian melodies that she’d grown up listening to as a young girl: Morricone, Puccini and Rossini. She carries these strong melodies in her blood just like the rhythms of the beat poets. “That’s my natural state,” she concludes.

Darkness and danger are always there, Tricca muses. But just like those darting beams of light she remembers from her childhood, racing through the Alps with her father, hope is never far from view. It pulsates brightly in the sky. “Time will go / Racing through space and an old fashioned waltz,” she sings on Aspirin Sun’s final track, ‘Space and Time.’ A mariachi trumpet calls us home.

Aspirin Sun tracklist below…

1. Devotion

2. Christodora House

3. Autumn’s Fiery Tongue

4. Leaves

5. King Blixa

6. Rubens’ House

7. Through The Poet’s Eyes

8. Space and Time

New Liela Moss Album “Internal Working Model” Out Today

Posted on January 13, 2023January 12, 2023 by danielle

“I’m trying to find a way to plug myself into a new community,” says Liela Moss of her third solo album. “I am imagining a tribe, navigating away from our very centralised culture, dismantling it and revising the way I think things work.”

After the haunting My Name Is Safe in Your Mouth (2018) and the dramatic, synth-loaded Who the Power (2020), Internal Working Model bristles with frustration at our disconnected culture but also – crucially – burns with a desire to reconnect: “We see the beneficiaries of the status quo suppress realness and wellbeing by selling you a banal alternative that upholds their agenda. I want to add to the firepower to burn that old house down.”

A sense of controlled urgency emerges, fuelled by the force of Moss’ questioning insights. In part, it’s an album about selfhood and certainties unsettled in today’s dystopian theatre, somewhat by the pandemic but also, says Moss, by the “self-seeking, self-protecting culture” of global economics where we have forgotten that “competition is just a construct, co-operation is actually the natural way of being… Lyrically, I’m laughing and yelling at surveillance capitalism, I’m throwing down sentences that reach out to simply feel good on good terrain, to feel safe on planet earth. There is turbulence, but an understanding that the urge to restructure is growing; human goodness cannot truly be suppressed.”

With Moss’ expressive voice leading the way over fractious synth backdrops, the result is at once tense and tender, timeless and timely; determined to plug into positivity wherever it can be found. “It’s like a carnival of good will,” says Moss, “we see the pretence, the masquerade. Then the realness, the love. That’s why the word ‘empathy’ comes up so much and rolls around amongst the most menacing synths. It cannot be kept down, no matter the weight.”

As Liela explains of the album’s relationship to Who the Power, “I wanted a more vigorous pulse, I wanted more movement. I wanted to feel friction and for things to feel emotionally disruptive this time around.” Also at its core sits Moss’ interest in attachment theory, the idea that the ways we are cared for (or not) in childhood forge the neurological pathways that build esteem, that shape us – and perhaps the world. “I started to think about the nefarious characters in globalist culture who have such a hold on what’s going on in terms of big pharma, big tech and big political everything. I was thinking, my God, these manipulative people started life needing to be attended to properly and probably were not! All this desperate greed and corruption winds back to maladapted individuals! Then I began seeing them as tiny, neglected humans with an unhealthy attachment cycle.”

Internal Working Model’s creation evolved organically between Moss and partner/collaborator Toby Butler, who divided their time between work and parenting to make the album. Moss compares the process to a “slow game of cards,” the duo revealing their hands in a playful spirit. The “third brain in the room,” says Moss, was the modular synth: “You tweak it and it changes the energy. There’s nothing new in that technology, but in terms of the way we’ve worked for years, working with an anonymous synth brain was a new kind of freedom.”

In earlier years, Moss’ environs have included The Duke Spirit, the guitar band whose output ranged from brawling alt-rock to more cinematic ventures. Other outlets have included synth-rock project (with Butler) Roman Remains and various collaborative ventures – with UNKLE, Nick Cave, Giorgio Moroder, The Heritage Orchestra and Lost Horizons, among others. She also served as muse for fashion icons Alexander McQueen and Phillip Lim. That combination of self-possession, exploration and receptivity drives Internal Working Model. Personal and expansive, galvanic and inquisitive, it’s an album that sees the modern world’s mess through open eyes but isn’t willing to stop there: it wants to seek out solutions, source the potential in other ways of being and seeing.

Acclaim for Internal Working Model:

“Moss consistently retains her pop power and dazzling songwriting prowess. ‘Internal Working Model’ will crash out of your speakers, a melodic behemoth of industrial-tinted art pop.” Clash – 8/10

“A passionate plea for empathy and reconnection… Striking sonics match her for zeal and daring, gargantuan, sometimes retro-futurist grooves vying with layered vocals and dark soundscapes… A record of rare ambition and thematic complexity.” MOJO – 4 stars ****

“Moss rages at the world’s iniquities over retro-synth grooves on ‘Vanishing Shadows’ with Gary Numan on guest vocals, and sketches an empathetic prescription for our ills on the hauntingly tender ‘New Day’. She’s angry, but she’s trying to offer some answers too: more power to her for such positivity.” Uncut – 7/10

“An impassioned career high from a committed, commanding voice.” Record Collector – 4 stars ****

“Vanishing Shadows finds her silver vocals decisively leading the way over fractious synth backdrops, while more mellow melters like New Day are fuelled by the force of her questioning insights. This is Moss at her most switched-on.” DJ Magazine

Philip Selway Shares Captivating “Picking Up Pieces” Video

Posted on January 11, 2023 by danielle

With his new album Strange Dance due out 24th February via Bella Union, from which he last month shared a video for lead track “Check For Signs Of Life”, today Philip Selway shares a captivating follow-up video for his new single and LP highlight “Picking Up Pieces”. Driven by a motoric pulse alongside the guitar work of Portishead’s Adrian Utley, supplemented by distinctive string arrangements, the track beautifully exemplifies the expansive and cinematic sound that Selway has forged on his new record.

This video is the second in a series for Selway’s forthcoming album and is again directed by William Williamson, with cinematography by award-winning DOP Adric Watson. The video for ‘Picking Up Pieces’ continues the story begun with the video for ‘Check for Signs of Life’ and features the same quartet of iconic dancers – Siobhan Davies, Kenneth OlumuyiwaTharp, Liam Francis and Simone Davies – with the piece also choreographed by Liam and Simone. Produced by Uncommon Creative Studio, ‘Picking Up Pieces’ is filmed as a one shot, on 16mm, and features a spinning camera movement designed to mimic the lyrics. The video takes it’s gorgeous golden brown Autumnal colour palette from one of a collection of paintings made by artist Stewart Geddes in response to the album. Speaking about the video, director William Williamson says: “We all viewed this film as a continuation of the last, with the choreography having echoes of our characters worlds whilst simultaneously unfolding new elements and emotions.”

Commenting on the track Selway says: “Picking Up Pieces is a song about the masking that we do when we’re young adults. It’s a time of life when your sense of identity can feel shaky, you can feel anxious about making the grade, and life can feel that it’s spinning out of control, but you try to hide this from everyone.”

In other news, Selway has added a special London event to his upcoming live schedule, performing with The Elysian Collective at Rough Trade East on Monday 27th February followed by album signing. Selway also recently announced a run of UK and European tour dates for May 2023 including a headline performance at the Union Chapel in London. Upcoming live info below:

Monday 30^th January – Norwich – Arts Centre

Tuesday 31^st January – Cambridge – Junction

Wednesday 1^st February – Hebden Bridge – Trades Club

Thursday 2^nd February – Stockton-On-Tees – Georgian Theatre

Friday 3^rd February – Guildford – The Boileroom

Monday 27^th February – London – Rough Trade East

Thursday 4^th May – Brussels – Ancienne Belgique Club

Friday 5^th May – Paris – Café Del La Danse

Saturday 6^th May – Amsterdam – Melkweg

Sunday 7^th May – Berlin – Columbia Theater

Tuesday 9^th May – Copenhagen – The Koncerthuset Studio 2

Monday 15^th May – Glasgow – Oran Mor

Tuesday 16^th May – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club

Thursday 18^th May – London – Union Chapel

Friday 19^th May – Bristol – Thekla

Saturday 20^th May – Birmingham – Hare & Hounds

Sunday 21^st May – Manchester – Gorilla

When Philip Selway approached some of his favourite musicians to play on his third solo record he said he imagined it as a Carole King record if she collaborated with the pioneering electronic composer Daphne Oram and invited him to drum on it. Unsurprisingly they were all sold, and so began the bringing together of an extraordinary number of gifted people, including Hannah Peel, Adrian Utley, Quinta, Marta Salogni, Valentina Magaletti and Laura Moody.

Foregrounding this remarkable union of musical voices was 10 songs written by Selway at home on piano and guitar that show him at the height of his songwriting powers. From the opening track, Little Things, we immediately hear a new sense of scale. Following the acoustic Familial, his first solo album, then Weatherhouse (slightly more fleshed-out, as he puts it, working with Adem Ilhan and Quinta), Strange Dance sees Selwayusing all the craft and learning he has gathered over the last decade of solo work outside of Radiohead.

This rich sonic broadness is constructed with a blend of strings, brass and synthesised sounds. “The scale of it was very deliberate for me, from the outset,” he says. “I wanted the soundscape to be broad and tall but somehow get it to wrap around this intimate vocal at the heart of it”.This cinematic effect makes sense given Selway’s most recent creative work, including writing scores for the Rambert Dance Company and soundtracks for the films Let Me Go and Carmilla.

The richness of the record is augmented by Selway’s long-time relationships with musicians such as the cellist Laura Moody and Quinta, a central figure in his work, and newer partnerships, such as with Adrian Utley. “There was a really lovely dynamic. Ideas happened easily. It was a really nice rapport between us all. “

The production by Marta Salogni is stunning: both sensitive and gleeful in its celebration of sound. When they were recording at Evolution Studios, the abstract painter Stewart Geddes came down to soak up the atmosphere in the studio, and created a spectacular series of impressionistic paintings in response to the music, one of which is the album artwork.

Selway – known predominantly as one of the most celebrated drummers in the world, playing in Radiohead for decades – actually “sacked” himself from the drums within a couple of hours of recording. Instead, Valentina Magaletti brought her “distinctive voice” to the drums and percussion. Another vital voice is the arrangements by Laura Moody which complement Salogni’s production. On What Keeps You Awake At Night, for example, the strings and synths spool out deliciously, in a meditative loop, taking the listener somewhere far away, and then six minutes in, a new texture appears, staccato-like rain drops adding to the whirl.

This sonic expressiveness is played beautifully by the LCO, conducted by Robert Ames, the Assemble Choir with arrangements by Juliet Russell, and the Elysian Collective.

As Strange Dance unfurls, it takes the listener through different weathers and seasons. Picking Up Pieces is driven by the motorik pulse of Utley’s guitar before bursting into a voluptuous sunlit chorus. The Other Side is a graceful, shiver-giving ballad which melts into a sensuous middle eight. Each song carries varied and diverse shades and textures of emotion. Lyrically, it is artful. Selway has a gift at writing heartfelt lyrics which could relate to any number of human experiences.

“One of the things I’ve liked about this record is it’s me as a 55-year-old not trying to hide that fact,” says Selway. “It feels kind of unguarded rather than seeing that ageing process as something that needs to be hidden.” And there is a buoyancy and warmth to the record; a sense of optimism and hope. “I wanted it to have that space so if you’re listening to it you can lose yourself in it,” he says. “Almost like a refuge.”

A few minutes into the album closer There’ll Be Better Days a new motif appears, as if a rainbow is appearing in the sky: rain and sun, hope and despair, life and death, and, in all of it, a celebration of the power of music, to accompany us all on this strange dance of life on earth.

Complete Mountain Almanac Share “February”

Posted on January 10, 2023 by danielle

With their self-titled debut album due out 27th January via Bella Union, and having previously shared a video for lead track “May”, Complete Mountain Almanac today share a second single, “February”, from this much-anticipated release. Commenting on the track lyricist Jessica Dessner says: “February is a song that began as a reckoning with the profound physical changes wrought by breast cancer and how they threaten to dismantle every aspect of life, and yet, somehow the spirit rises, remains constant, immutable, a force, like nature.” Vocalist Rebekka Karijord adds: “To me, February is like an ancient myth. A roadtrip dance, moving between vulnerability and resilience. It journeys through layers of odd meters, restlessness and mystery, and then lands in a musical landscape of acceptance and clarity.”

Complete Mountain Almanac is the musical collaboration of Norwegian-born, Sweden-based singer and composer Rebekka Karijord and American-born, Italy-based poet, dancer and multimedia artist Jessica Dessner, joined by her brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National. The band have already been the subject of both new artist features and rave reviews in the new issues of MOJO and Uncut:

“A potent rumination on climate change and personal circumstances… Complete Mountain Almanac move through spectral folk and full-bodied orchestrations involving the Malmö Symphony Orchestra…

Delicate yet powerful, and utterly compelling.” MOJO – 4 stars *****

“An intense juxtaposition of the intimate and the universal framed in beguiling chamber-folk arrangements, with Jessica’s twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner co-producing

and adding guitars and exquisite string arrangements to Karijord’s euphonic voice.” Uncut – 8/10

Lowly Debut “Seasons”

Posted on January 10, 2023 by danielle

With their new album Keep Up The Good Work due for release 17th February via Bella Union, and having previously shared the title track and “You Are Good And I Love You”, today Lowly reveal their new single and LP standout “Seasons”. Commenting on the track the Danish quintet say: “Seasons originates from a poem about the sun dragging the seasons over its shoulders as if it were a normal day job, coincidentally influencing all life surrounding it. And as the song progresses and the chorus hits, it turns into an abstract storytelling from a human perspective about time and life’s drifting by. The production is overwhelming and adventurous, with a pulsating bass and dynamic drums creating a spectral and rhythmic framework around the vocal. The song starts out minimalistic and simple but grows into more and more layers, giving the listener a feeling of being thrown in a rocket into space towards the sun.”

The internationally acclaimed quintet from Denmark continue to develop their creative process, embracing other peoples’ affection and letting it blend into their songwriting. The result of this journey: Keep Up The Good Work, the band’s most heartfelt work to date.

Sometimes the support we need doesn’t lie in complex answers. Sometimes it can be found in the most simple encouragement. This reflection is embodied throughout their third album, Keep Up The Good Work. This music has been forged within a maelstrom of lockdown restrictions and critical life events; often working together virtually, and eventually being together physically and writing and recording as a group.

“We know each other really well after 8 years as friends, colleagues and collective creators. We know what we’re each going through in life, and we can hear it in the music we make together; it’s always a personal reflection of us in the given moment. You can hear that we’ve become older, that we have more to tell. During the pandemic we experienced both the joys of having children and the sorrow of losing people we cared for. Life and death struck us, you could say, which maybe seems rather banal or cliché to be writing about. But for that reason, we think this record speaks universally, and has the potential of resonating with many people.”

Lowly have been once again recording in Aarhus with producer and engineer Anders Boll, who also produced their two previous albums Hifalutin (2019) and Heba (2017). Anders has almost become the sixth member of the band, navigating five strong-willed musicians towards a kaleidoscopic and uniquely interwoven sound. It was in the studio that the band dreamt up the idea to ask their followers on social media to become a part of the album:

“We asked people to send us recordings of what they would say to the people they cared for to give encouragement or support. Our DMs were flooded with positive affirmations and personal stories about what people tell their kids, friends and loved ones. Many of them are quite simple, but also effective thoughts to meditate upon, instead of focusing on something destructive you’d otherwise bang your head against” says singer Soffie Viemose.

Many of the affirmations are audible on their first single “Keep Up The Good Work”. It has a warm and gentle production aesthetic, making space for the empathic theme about parenting, and its effect on the body. The chanted message of the chorus becomes the mantra we all (not just parents) need when we doubt ourselves the most; said out loud, clear and repeated, until the body and mind believes and survives from it:

Keep Up The Good Work