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MELODIC

Cover of Taking My Time To Be by Strawberry Guy.

Strawberry Guy

Taking My Time To Be

Melodic

    When Alex Stephens (A.K.A. Strawberry Guy) self-released his debut single last year, he was merely doing it out of a love for songwriting. What he wasn't expecting was a million Youtube streams and an avid fanbase. Now, the South-Wales born, Liverpool-based songwriter is ready to release a Mini-Album of his compelling, lushly produced dream-pop.

    Born outside Cardiff, Strawberry Guy moved to Liverpool to study music and grow as a writer. 'I knew that it was a very artistic city with all it’s creative history, it seemed like the perfect place to move to.' he says. Whether it's playing keyboards in The Orielles or just being part of the city's growing musical scene, Alex plays music for the love of music, something that heavily translates into his adept songwriting.

    The intense emotional feel of the tracks he writes is down to Alex's songwriting process, recording the entire MLP in his bedroom & producing it himself. 'I feel that it’s important to me to only write/record when you’re channeling some kind of emotion, so I would only work on it when I was in the right mood to do so.' He answers when asked about the isolated environment into which he put himself for the recording process.

    Much of the inspiration for Alex's work comes from experience rather than other artists. 'When something significant happens to me, all I want to do is make music.' In terms of musical touchstones however, there's the obvious dream-pop contemporaries such as Beach House and Weyes Blood, coupled with great songwriters of old like Nat King Cole or Harry Nillson. Sonically, a blend of orchestral & synthesized melodies layer together to act as a platform for his heartfelt lyrics.

    Opener 'Without You' is a fine example of this, a break-up song of sorts, with an infectious keyboard melody and swirling synths over which Alex contemplates whether it's even possible to find lasting love. The lyrics 'Do you really have to talk about the things you do with him? Do you really have to talk about your love?' hit particulary heavily.

    Contrast this with the final track, the titular 'Taking My Time To Be', a powerful song of self-discovery. Beginning with downtempo piano and drums, the song breaks out into a saxophone and synth solo that wouldn't go amiss on a Badalamenti soundtrack. 'The song is about me learning to be comfortable with myself, but then wondering if I'll be accepted for being myself' Alex imparts. It's a fitting closer to a MLP driven by emotion and experience.

    Currently playing his live shows with a full band of 'berries' he's hoping to get a full tour going, and says this is just the begininng. 'I won’t stop making music, I can’t help but just write, it’s something that I have to do. An album will be coming at some point, I can say that for sure.'


    TRACK LISTING

    1. Without You
    2. Mrs. Magic
    3. Intermission
    4. What Would I Do?
    5. Birch Tree
    6. Taking My Time To Be

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    Cover of Utopia Teased by Stephen Steinbrink.

    Stephen Steinbrink

    Utopia Teased

    Melodic

      Stunned with grief in the months following the Ghost Ship fire, Oakland-based Stephen Steinbrink ate LSD daily, bought a synthesizer, and locked himself in his shipping container studio, refusing to sleep for days as he wrote and recorded what would become Utopia Teased, as a means of working through his overwhelming feelings of cynicism and loss.

      Recorded in between stints touring as a member of Dear Nora, and then as a touring member of Girlpool, Utopia Teased is Stephen Steinbrink's followup to his critically acclaimed 2016 album Anagrams. Unlike the pristine production of Anagrams, on Utopia Teased Steinbrink embraces the rough edges, as he shifts his focus from the craft of production to the art of processing and capturing his experiences with honesty. He explains, “I was driving the preamps a little too hard, mixing down to tape, bouncing back to the computer, and repeating the process over and over again. I wanted it to reflect how fried my brain felt at the time, totally pulverized. The songs just poured out of me, it hardly felt like work to make them up. It was like turing on a spigot. I don’t write often, maybe once or twice a year, but when I do, a lot comes out..”

      “Empty Vessel” and “Maximum Sunlight” both sung from perspective of residents of Tonopah, Nevada, were written to accompany a book about the town, by Steinbrink's friend Meagan Day. The sparse imagery on “Empty Vessel,” ostensibly about a semi-transient lock-picking truck driver, feels at least semi-autobiographical as Steinbrink sings “You're 31, you don't believe in anything…If you don't stop moving you'll never get hurt.” His evocative lyrics continue to intrigue on “Maximum Sunlight” as he sings “Sleeping through the night in the drained pool / I said I love you to a fool” from the perspective of a 30-year-old alcoholic ATV enthusiast.

      Much of his outlook on life is captured on the elegiac waltz “Zappa Dream,” (originally written and recorded by his friend Rosie Steffy) on which he sings, “Dreams are so fucked up / Even the really good ones…Would it be such a bad thing / To be finished with living?...Everyone preserves a myth / Guards it like a bone / You see it in your lover's eyes / But never in your own…There is a magic on this earth / In cats and clouds and cars / For everything that you call "real" / Was once the dust of stars / Yeah you have been a river rock / And a drop of rain / And with any bit of luck / You'll be those things again / Are you in love with your life or a dream / Or just overwhelmed/ Wondering what this could possibly mean?” At the close of the, too-little-too-late acoustic narrative “Mom”, guest vocalist Melina Duterte of Jay Som joins him in conjuring a memory of listening to extraterrestrial radio, drifting asleep in a suburban Phoenix Wal-Mart parking lot. The album’s heartbreaking closer “I’m Never Changing Who You Are” continues Steinbrink’s recollection of his adolescence, asking an unnamed family member “Will you try to love more than you did?” while soberly accepting his reality.

      In an interview with North of the Internet, Steinbrink recalled a video he came across on his phone, which was taken the day after the fire, “It sent me spiraling and thinking, it’s almost been a year. Nothing really felt actual those weeks, and I could only only react to the future at a remove because the horror of everything was inescapably tying me to the present. The idea of doing laundry or driving across the bridge to San Francisco to work was too abstract, so I just didn’t do it. I hardly did anything. Two days after the fire I woke up, walked to P.’s porch and sat there for hours alone and cried without a jacket on until the sun started going down. Geese were flying across power lines at dusk and I took a video of them on my phone. I imagined one of the birds was my friend.” In the same interview, he goes on to share some insight provided by a friend he reached out to when trying to finalize the album: “Finishing the thing puts a limit around something that comes from an infinite well; this is uncomfortable.” True.


      TRACK LISTING

      1. Bad Love 
      2. I Wanna Be Free 
      3. A Part Of Me Is A Part Of You 
      4. Empty Vessel 
      5. Maximum Sunlight
      6. Zappa Dream
      7. Coming Down
      8. Mom
      9. In Another Kind Of Dream
      10. Become Sphere
      11. You Could Always Leave 
      12. I'm Never Changing Who You Are

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      Cover of Values by Holy Family.

      Holy Family

      Values

      Melodic

        Recorded with Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal) Values is choc full of frenzied percussive grooves, piano led baselines and euphoric melodies. Brings to mind other indie stalwarts like Phoenix, TV On The Radio and even Wolf Parade.

        Incidentally much of the record was written while the band were living in Montreal, maybe the Canadian sound rubbed off on them. Mixed by David Pye who did the first Wild Beasts album too.

        True stories; real life, real people. For Holy Family it’s our human, and at times non-human, experiences which have shaped the sound of brand-new album Values. An upbeat collection of thought-provoking tales reflecting the light and dark sides of life itself, each track is a poignant commentary by a band who have never been ones to stay put for too long.

        Each track on Values sparkles with its own captivating tale that walks the high-wire between ideal and reality, expectation and the values that drive us. ‘In the fall of Jimmy Angel’ and ‘Memory Collector’, talk of the new trend for ‘personal branding’ and how society’s values are affected by social media. “A lot of life is about routines and streaming more bad TV shows than you’re necessarily proud to admit,” Anton says.

        After spending the last 24 months experiencing life in and between their rural hometown on the outskirts of Gothenburg, the Canadian city of Montreal, and sunny climbs of Athens, Georgia, Values also reflects the guilty side to the doors of opportunity brought about by relocation. Showing that where the sun may shine brighter, the grass isn’t always greener, the climactic ‘Empty Gestures’ talks of leaving small town living behind for a new life in the big city. “There was something that felt important about moving back to Sweden and coming to terms with how things are here,” recalls fellow family member Viktor. “When we all moved back we were pretty relieved – it can be hard to shake that sense of being an outsider when you move to a new city… the experience is one of escapism and less about finding a new home.”

        A former trio including third member Erik, in Canada Holy Family’s ties were cut down to a duo. Anton and Viktor represented the band from their new base abroad, performing at M for Montreal and Toronto Film festivals and toured Europe with Of Montreal whilst their song ‘Airy Jane’ featured on the US version of TV show Shameless. The band received an award from the Swedish Association of Composers (STIM) but time apart only drew Holy Family closer and once the pair returned home, the group doubled in size after reuniting with Erik and calling upon the guitar skills of good friend Petter.

        Written in Gothenburg Values was recorded over just two weeks in Athens, Georgia with Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal). With little time for breaks, the combination of fatigue and time constraints forced the band beyond their comfort zone and into new sonic realms, giving the record it’s eclectic feel recalling the experimentalism of Blur or Grizzly Bear with the technical style of late 60s song-writing. Assisted by Drew Vandenberg and mixed by David Pye (Wild Beasts, 2:54) , before long the tropical temperatures surrounding Kevin’s home took effect on the band. “Just being somewhere that has t-shirt weather in April was impressive, but especially when you’re from Sweden,” says Anton. “Our first recordings in Montreal definitely had more of a second-hand sweater vibe whereas this record has more of a second-hand t-shirt tinge to it.”


        TRACK LISTING

        1. Colobris
        2. There Completely
        3. Carin Karen
        4. Erratic
        5. Empty Gestures
        6. Try Your Luck
        7. Pat On The Back
        8. Memory Collector
        9. Jimmy Angel
        10. What Makes You Tick

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        Cover of Animal Races by Cool Ghouls.

        Cool Ghouls

        Animal Races

        Melodic

        “a SF group riding a timewarp, singing about the tech-driven gentrification of their city in the style of their mid-’60s forebears.... Exceptional tunes” Uncut

        As West-Coast gentrification washes a wave of loud and gritty garage bands away from San Francisco, Cool Ghouls stand strong. Just like the most revered, political records of the 60s and 70s, the third album Animal Races channels the past, the present and the future with an authentically fresh psych-rock take on American society through its own neo-cosmic language.

        “San Francisco has always been great and hopefully always will be but these days there are things we despise,” tells Ghoul guitarist and vocalist Pat McDonald, “the lifestyle The Bay once afforded artists has been decimated. This gold-rush of the tech industry is forcing prices up and it’s been a flood of bullshit. Some people are being forcibly displaced, others are disheartened and leave by choice. Our song ‘Never You Mind’ is a reminder to the creative community not to roll over. San Francisco isn't dead until you let it die in your heart.”

        It’s impossible to separate Cool Ghouls from their adopted hometown. Whether playing dollar dice games and shooting pool or stepping out for a walk through the Californian hills, this is a band who swapped their young lives in stripmall suburbia to settle in the Shaky City of their electric heroes. The place where Gram Parsons’ Flying Burrito Brothers unwittingly inspired lesser-known followers of the Cosmic American gospel to commit readings to tape, Cool Ghouls slot right in the city’s rich musical lineage. Pat M, with Pat Thomas (bass/vocals), Ryan Wong (guitar/vocals), and Alex Fleshman (drums), made their own celestial pilgrimage to their place of worship and have established themselves as one of the city’s brightest young bands playing, against the backdrop of a chaotic big city, a laid-back psych-rock sound for the here and now.

        Those who fell for the raw, primitive sound of the band’s 2014 album A Swirling Fire Burning Through the Rye recorded with local hero Tim Cohen of The Fresh & Onlys, will be pleasantly surprised by the Ghouls’ latest evolution in sound. This time recorded with melodic maestro Kelley Stoltz in his backyard Electric Duck studio, the album was mixed and mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control / Eddy Current Suppression Ring), and features full-colour artwork by Shannon Shaw of Shannon and The Clams.

        “Animal Races is the harvest of work we created between last year’s tours, working in bars, record stores and coffee shops,” says Pat M. “We chose the title because the song’s lyrics are a broad characterization of society. So any track on the album, whether it be about love, personal growth, death or whatever, takes place in the setting of the 'animal races' ".

        Commenting just as much on the individual’s place in society as the San Francisco community itself, the theories of ‘self-actualization’ and ‘anima’ by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung about achieving individual potential pervade ‘If I Can’t Be The Man’ and ‘Material Love’. Whether time-hopping from the summer of love on ‘Sunrise’ or channelling the freewheeling feeling of The Grateful Dead and Canned Heat through loud guitars, acid riffs, party screams, and stacked-as-f*ck three-part vocal harmonies, each of Animal Races’ 11 tracks bring the four-piece’s electrifying live performances to life.

        'Time Capsule’ is about exactly this, explains Pat T; “when you replay a recorded track, that little chunk of time is brought into the current moment. This is especially true of a recording of a live performance. ‘Time Capsule’ was designed to open the door for improvisation and is the encapsulation of just one version of this song, each version specific to the one time we play it. It’s going to change a lot as we play it over the years.”

        For a band who, just like society and the world itself, is constantly evolving, Cool Ghouls are the perfect antidote for San Francisco’s current state of mind, providing the real-life soundtrack whilst not letting the city’s culture be burned to the ground.


        TRACK LISTING

        01. Animal Races
        02. Sundial
        03. Time Capsule
        04. When You Were Gone
        05. Days
        06. Just Like Me
        07. The Man
        08. Brown Bag
        09. Never You Mind
        10. Material Love
        11. Spectator

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        Cover of Anagrams by Stephen Steinbrink.

        Stephen Steinbrink

        Anagrams

        Melodic

        After ten years of touring and secluded home recording, Stephen Steinbrink has cataloged several albums worth of gorgeous melody and quotidian dread in his stark, minimal pop. Yet the songs on his latest, Anagrams, beautiful yet unflinching portraits of addiction and mental illness are captured in his most meticulous and high-fidelity production to date. While one might expect the record to be a final destination, a tidy hi-res apex of all his journeying, the album's particularly varied styles and sincere lyrical uncertainty portray a search that still continues.

        "Lately writing songs almost makes me feel like I'm losing it, like I keep digging up and re-burying the same old bone. I tried to continue unpacking these forgotten images and memories, except this time without placing any subjective meaning on them, or any expectation of personal growth to occur after. Maybe it's silly to expect the process of making art to be a clarifying act."

        Stephen's artistic trajectory can be considered nomadic in the obvious sense: when not incessantly touring Europe and the U.S. in the last two years, he spent his stationary moments writing in California, Arizona and Washington. Most of his previous recordings were the product of self-engineered experiments, culminating in 2014's Arranged Waves, an unabashedly digital tableau of subdued, heartbreaking pop. Now, Anagrams finds him chasing melodies in the polished largesse of a proper studio.

        Anagrams was intensely recorded over 2 years at UNKNOWN, a retrofitted analogue studio in a lofty, de-sanctified church in the secluded island town of Anacortes, Washington. Assisted by engineer Nicholas Wilbur and featuring performances by members of Mt. Eerie, LAKE, and Hungry Cloud Darkening, Steinbrink's songs gracefully inhabit the vastness of the space in which they were recorded, effortlessly gliding between glacial grunge lurches, lush country movements, and succinct power pop.

        The most ambitious of Stephen's pop songcraft, Anagrams is ultimately an unpacking of identity. "I don't care about continuing in a tradition of songwriters, and I rarely intentionally self-identify as one. I always wonder if my most recent song is the last one I'll ever write. I try to be more concerned with being open, to imagine myself as a rock or a wrapper or nothing at all. Whenever I can get close to that state of mind the songs come easy, but it seems arbitrary, almost like they would've existed with or without me. I think it's a noble pursuit, to try to be nothing." An effort, ongoing.


        TRACK LISTING

        1. Absent Mind
        2. Building Machines
        3. Psychic Daydream
        4. Impossible Hand
        5. What Identiy?
        6. Canopy
        7. I'm Turning Inside Out
        8. Dissociative Blues
        9. Anagrams
        10. Black Hole / We Don't Say Anything
        11. Shine A Light On Him
        12. Next New Sun

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        Cover of What Do People Do All Day? by Working For A Nuclear Free City.

        Working For A Nuclear Free City

        What Do People Do All Day?

        Melodic

          Working for a Nuclear Free City have never been too concerned with genre. Since their debut release almost a decade ago they have danced around the constraints of genre, eschewing predictability and expectation in the process by creating a body of work dictated by invention and momentum.

          Their latest release is no exception although, like much of their previous work, whilst it is difficult to pinpoint it is not lacking in stylistic coherence, “When putting the record together I was trying make something cohesive in some way.” Says one of the group’s founding members, Phil Kay.

          The end result is an expansive, pop-tinged, experimental album that can be as propulsive as it can be restrained, bringing to mind artists as diverse and brilliant as Beck and Brian Eno to the Super Furry Animals.

          The situations and inspiration around the record have been rather hodgepodge, “I listen to the radio most of the time, stations that play pretty diverse things, or I put things on shuffle a lot - mainly just trying to take the decision making process out of what I choose to listen too” Kay says, whilst also stating that the environments in which the record were created were just as all over the place, “I move around a lot so all the tracks are from different areas. Some from back in Manchester, a few from here in London, a couple I recorded in LA up in the Hollywood hills in Jennifer Anniston’s old apartment.” This geographically vast record was also done over a period of time too, making it a continent-spanning record that has had years’ worth of thoughts and ideas funnelled into it, “It was recorded over such a long period of time that each track has its own distinct memories for me.” Kay says of the process.

          The title of the album What Do People Do All Day? Has a dual meaning, as Kay points out, “I was writing a kids book at the time so had loads of Richard Scarry books lying around. I think we hit on the title as it of course reminds you of Scarry and puts you in that playful territory but the second meaning of it is about the mundanity and futility of life, so there's that juxtaposition. It was supposed to be this loose concept album about peoples lives or various snapshots of people lives. The songs also all seem to relate to these imagined characters and their lives - perhaps a days in their lives”

          As a result the songs vary enormously and when discussing what some of the individual tracks are about, Kay paints a picture of a little universe of strange tales and stories, one song is about “Media and politics and bullshit and living in a city and everyone wired up and concrete and adverts and too much noise” whilst others are about: “A girl who dreams of killing her boss, quitting her mundane job and living in a magazine”; “The heir to Blackpool Pleasure Beach who turns it into a Vegas-style resort, makes millions, moves to Venice beach and turns it into Blackpool” and “Teenagers getting stoned in a park in suburbia and discovering a secret portal”. As illustrated by these unique and vast narrative situations, it’s an album with huge scope and one that has set out to be as lyrically ambitious as it is sonically. 

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Bottlerocket
          2. Ordinary People
          3. Run
          4. Euphone
          5. Stop Everything
          6. Cassetteboy's Theme
          7. Going Nowhere
          8. New Day
          9. Good As Gold
          10. Lindow
          11. Turned To Tight
          12. Blunderland
          13. What Do People Do All Day
          14. Leaving

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          Cover of 3.5 Degrees by Howes.

          Howes

          3.5 Degrees

          Melodic

          “Howes tips his hat to the likes of Aphex Twin and Delia Derbyshire” - The Guardian

          “The singularity of Howes’ vision is readily apparent in a way that’s both visceral and psychedelic” - Spin

          “Eclectic hiss covered techno which draws as much from afrobeat as 90s electronic experiments” - Dazed

          Having released a more house-oriented 12” on Melodic a couple of years ago, Howes' (the solo project of Manchester-based John Howes) debut album proper is a record that is as expressive as it is cohesive. It’s a release that floats between nocturnal stillness and insomniac driven intensity.

          Howes says “Most of these tracks come from finishing work on Friday, going home and starting a patch, working on it till the sun rises, sleeping a couple of hours, waking up and working on it all day and through the night until Sunday night. By this point you've honed down all the madness into something you understand and control in real time. Then I record live to a cassette machine I've had since I was a kid. There's only two tracks on the record that have any editing and overdubbing, the rest are just recordings of the cassettes.” The referred to patches come from Howes’ experiments with modular synths, “I started making my own software to make tracks on, then I got into modular stuff and building my own bits of proper kit. I wanted to have a setup that works like my head and the only way to do it was to start making these bits myself.“

          Howes’ work method has resulted in a record that feels at times personal and melancholic, charged with emotion and humming with a warmth that comes from such a labour intensive and solitary work routine. There are elements of house, techno and ambience here, but stripped back to the point where they lose resemblance to established music forms


          STAFF COMMENTS

          Patrick says: Howes treats us to an octet of constantly evolving modular jams in the spirit of Border Community or Aphex Twin on this accomplished debut LP.

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Concagnis
          2. Source 000535
          3. Zeroset
          4. OYC
          5. DVR 16
          6. Overveen
          7. Green Lense
          8. MP CD 13

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          Cover of Company by The Drink.

          The Drink

          Company

          Melodic

          Newly signed to Melodic, The Drink are now set to intoxicate further with the arrival of Company; their gloriously inventive debut album.

          Collecting together those now-unavailable EPs, Company has an inimitable, wayward sound drawn from the chaos of real life. “People and places shape the sound - I get ideas from watching people do their thing and also looking at billboards thinking that everything is fucked," says singer and guitarist Dearbhla Minogue. Without clear narratives, the lyrics have a stream-of-consciousness quality, loaded with uncanny imagery. "I try to invoke feelings of familiarity and imagery in songs because that is what I love about hearing good lyrics. For them to invoke something that you recognise and makes you feel a certain way but you're not quite sure why."

          The title Company explores the album’s themes of what it means to be human, and being alone. "The idea of company is really interesting, why is it so important?" asks Dearbhla. "The way people operate in company - and in companies - is so interesting. Groups are formed by individuals but after that they take on a life of their own."

          The Drink came together when Dearbhla moved to London from her hometown of Dublin and overheard drummer Daniel Fordham and bassist David Stewart practising with their former band in the warehouse she shares with other musicians. “I used to listen to Dan and Dave in Fighting Kites and when they disbanded I took them for my own,” says Dearbhla. “They have a way of making an odd song flow really well. It was great to realise that together we had a band sound without having to contrive it.”

          In the way bands such as Deerhoof are revered for their unusual sonic approach, The Drink celebrate beauty in oddness through their use of bold syncopated rhythms, strange time signatures and complex structures, via a love of artists from Joanna Newsom to The Breeders and Captain Beefheart. While many lose their sense of melodic direction labouring to create an intriguing experimental sound, on Company it never wanes through the band’s boundless energy, reverberating basslines and unforgettably spontaneous fusion of American and English indie rock with Irish folk leanings. “We don't set out to write odd songs at all. We just write them as we think they sound interesting and they always turn out to be in bizarre time patterns when it comes to putting them together,”says Dearbhla.

          "Our first rehearsals were fuelled largely by Nigerian Foreign Export Guinness, but we're not specifically referring to alcohol when we say The Drink, it's also a way of describing the sea, or something that's essential to survival."

          “It sounds pretty unique - save for a little like Warpaint with a folkier wash - and is certainly some of the most refreshing music we've heard from a new act these last few months.” The Line Of Best Fit.

          “Dearbhla Minogue is a woman on a mission. The lead singer and primary songwriter for London-based trio The Drink is reassuringly focused on how she wants her band to sound. Since their inception just over a year ago – and rather refreshingly in an era where many artists spend a huge amount of energy exploring the outer edges of genre-splicing experimentation - The Drink have defined themselves as purveyors of ballsy and intelligent indie rock.” - Quietus.

          TRACK LISTING

          Microsleep
          Bantamweight
          Playground
          Dead Ringers
          Fever
          Wicklow
          At The Weekend
          Beasts Are Sleeping
          Demo Love
          Desert
          Junkyard
          Haunted Place

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          Cover of Arranged Waves by Stephen Steinbrink.

          Stephen Steinbrink

          Arranged Waves

          Melodic

            There’s much to be said for solitude. It gives you time to step back and reflect. Self-taught songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and home recordist Stephen Steinbrink has had plenty of time to do that. Having spent the last 13 of his 25 years on this planet travelling solo in Greyhounds, Toyota minivans, and European trains, his wanderlust travels as seen through his Lennon frames have shaped stunning breakthrough album Arranged Waves.

            Escapism can come in many forms. For Steinbrink whether travelling around the world singing to anyone who will listen or simply sat in a road-side diner writing his next set of songs Arranged Waves has provided that much-needed distraction. “Song writing is cheap therapy, and I process much through my music,” he reveals. “I didn't know it at the time; I was just trying to write about how I felt in a way that was real and honest to my melancholy. The album sounds soft and light at times sure, but when you're cold and wet, you don't wrap a freezing towel around your head, right?”

            Screwing with expectations, Arranged Waves goes beyond what you might think. Whilst getting inside its chords by finger-picking counter melodies, Steinbrink’s distinctive falsetto may recall a youthful Neil Young, a one-man Simon & Garfunkel or Nick Drake at his most poignant. Yet for each beautifully understated lament, there are moments where down-shifted synths gleam through 8-bit wobble (‘A Simple Armature of Your Ideal World’) and foggy 80s pop is filtered through gauzy Ariel Pink textures (‘It’s So Pretty What You Did For Me ’) like broken transmissions from a waterlogged radio. “Most folk-revivalist music now discusses topics that are more relevant to past generations,” he says shirking off inevitably lazy ‘folk’ or ‘singer-songwriter’ tags. “I’d hate to be lumped in withthat. I'd much rather hear a folk song about how someone is frustrated at their iPad, because although the subject is banal, the relevancy isn't. That is real folk music.”

            If it’s not for the album’s field recordings - the bells ringing in ‘Tangerine’ were recorded before a show in Graz, Austria whilst its low frequency hum is the manipulated recording of a bus Steinbrink was riding between Chicago and Ann Arbour - it’s his lyrics that marks Steinbrink out as a true punk troubadour trying to make sense of the world. Beyond apparent stream of consciousness Arranged Waves is an album about lost images with each song an attempt to describe moments of banality without manipulation of their inherent romance. ‘Sand Mandalas’ is about the reconciliation of meaninglessness: “It feels impossible to think the thought / that I’m doomed to make my meaning / in the arbitrary ether”, some songs are about being a child and others about the ability to change our consciousness through sheer effort.

            Now residing amongst the green spaces of Olympia, Washington, the record took shape in a small 12'x20' structure behind his new home. Enlisting friends Andrew Dorsett, Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson (LAKE), guitarist Tom Filardo (Filardo / Bouquet) and cellist Jen Grady (You Are Plural) they set up in his home studio to record the album’s twelve songs, inspired by multi-media artist James Roemer, repressed memories of watching TV, the early 70s work of John Cale and Can, and the underground community of songwriters that live on the western coast of the USA.

            A true passenger of life, Stephen Steinbrink is more cultural observer than 21st century busker with his intelligently cool left-of-centre approach to a sincere pop melody. If you ever come across him be sure to take your chance to say ‘hi’ “I like people, people are comfort, but still, there's something nice about going out into the country and being completely autonomous and free,” he admits.

            “He can do quiet intensity- made possible by his voice, abstract (yet heartfelt) lyrics, innovative arrangements, and top-notch performance- delivered with complete and authentic sincerity. Arranged Waves is a great introduction to the music of Stephen Steinbrink- and it is quickly becoming one of my favourite albums of the year. “ 8.5/10 – Louder Than War.

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            Cover of Grenier Meets Archie Pelago by Grenier, Archie Pelago.

            Grenier, Archie Pelago

            Grenier Meets Archie Pelago

            Melodic

            Talk about a killer collaboration, this combination of Brooklyn art-housers Archie Pelago and San Franciscan experimental titan Dean Grenier is off the scale. Recorded in a sprawling session in an art gallery basement, then expertly assembled by Grenier back at his San Fran HQ, "Grenier Meets Archie Pelago" is brimming with disperate sounds, sonic innovation and canny ideas, but retains its charm as a cohesive long player. Archie Pelago have stolen headlines with their classy release on NYC's party starting Mister Saturday Night, and push limits melding their on-paper incongruous arsenal of woodwind, horn, strings, turntables and digital software. Grenier has been operating outside the constraints of genre as a DJ and producer for years now, weaving a sonic tapestry out of the scraps of techno, dubstep and noise that others have left behind. This long player sees Grenier meld the sketches and skeletons of Archie’s work together, his production work giving the record its intimate, personal feel. Each crackle and creak of instrument can be heard, almost alien on music that, like the liquid grooves and subtle drops of ‘Navigator,’ or the more hard-lined minimal ‘Phosphorent,’ felt like it had been taken off the dancefloor.

            It's a rare collaboration that results in a body of work as rich, varied, dynamic, and as simply beautiful as Grenier Meets Archie Pelago. But perhaps the most stunning element is the singular nature of their combined output. It's a work that began with a chance meeting, and culminated in utter harmony.

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Swoon
            2. Navigator
            3. Hyperion
            4. Jellyfish Supernova
            5. Phosphornet
            6. Classon
            7. Octavia
            8. Tower Of Joined Hands
            9. The Cartographer's Wife
            10. Two If By Sea
            11. Pliny The Elder (CD Only)
            12. Tell Me Eveything
            13. Monolith

            [ + ]
            [ - ]
            Cover of Waking Lines by Patterns.

            Patterns

            Waking Lines

            Melodic

            We never really had Patterns down as masters of Acoustics and Oneirology. Bedroom dreamers maybe, a Mancunian guitar band of course, but with Waking Lines – the eagerly anticipated debut album – this is a band marking themselves out as true scientists of songcraft. With its array of field recordings, samples, original compositions and an epic haze of spellbinding loops, sonic sparks are set to fly from this thoroughly modern shoegaze-pop record.

            Patterns’ fusion of head and heart may well induce a dreamlike state but across Waking Lines’ 10 tracks, every note has been constructed with meticulous focus. This is a band who’ve always known what they wanted to achieve – a group who together and individually, have spent time honing their craft not to mention their spectacularly colourful live performances into an entity that’s indisputably Patterns. “Listening to American bands like Deerhunter and Animal Collective, we learned you can be different and still be a guitar band” Ciaran says. “Once Patterns formed we knew exactly what we wanted to do with it, and recent shows have been a culmination of a lot of things, including the use of visuals and making it a real experience to come and see us play.”

            Made up of foursome Ciaran McAuley (vocals/guitar/keyboards), Alex Hillhouse (bass/samplers), Jamie Lynch (drums) and Laurence Radford (guitar/samplers), the band’s unique approach is what has had DJs from Mary Anne Hobbs and BBC 6music’s Steve Lamacq foaming at the microphone. Upon hearing Patterns’ equally glistening and smouldering wall of noise, Huw Stevens picked the band to perform at Swn Festival, Rob Da Bank chose them to play at Bestival, and there have been shows all over France and Spain, not to mention a scholarly hometown show amongst the book shelves of Manchester’s John Rylands library. Already Waking Lines has been a long time coming, but it’s been well worth the wait.

            Complemented by an array of psychedelic visuals, Patterns’ knack for transcending both time and space can transform even the dingiest back room of a pub into a star-filled galaxy with an array of shimmering, delicately melded guitars and evocative electronica. Take recent single ‘Blood’ which was mainly inspired by the band’s fascination with aesthetics; “it inhabits a fantasy space and was conceived by trying to express through sound how it feels to watch VHS,” Ciaran reveals. Adds Alex, “We bought a load of vintage VHS equipment and experimented with feedback effects to create fractal patterns, which led to the video and the artwork for the single.”

            Abandoning normal recording techniques and expensive producers the band opted instead to record the album themselves. With one good microphone and a laptop they have managed to create an infinitely large imaginary space to express their vision. From ‘This Haze’ which was written eschewing male ‘indie’ singer conventions by thinking of how a woman might sound had she sang instead, right through to ‘Our Ego’, a song about the use of psychedelic drugs in psychotherapy in the 60s, Waking Lines flawlessly depicts that point where dreams and reality meet. ‘Broken Trains’ is an anthemic statement of intent, it’s driven drum sections cutting like razor-sharp shards of light through water, whilst ‘Induction’s ethereal tessellations of sound dance like the Northern Lights through a foggy gauze.

            “The hazy nature of our production and decision to avoid linear story telling in the lyrics is meant to create a similar kind of emotional response to the portrayal of memory and the unconscious within surrealist art like that by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali,” explains Ciaran. “It’s like those weird dreams which feel familiar but quite alien at the same time.” A word to the wise, it’s time to wake up. Patterns are here to open your mind and shape your world.

            TRACK LISTING

            1. This Haze
            2. Blood
            3. Broken Trains
            4. Face Marks
            5. Our Ego
            6. Waking Lines
            7. Street Fires
            8. Wrong Two Words
            9. Induction
            10. Climbing Out

            [ + ]
            [ - ]

            Harrisons

            Monday's Arms

            Melodic

              Eschewing the upstart leanings of previous releases "Blue Note" and "Wishing Well", this latest single finds Harrisons in full-on, floor-filling disco mode, but in a down-to-earth, working class hero kind of way. We ain't talking Scissor Sisters here. Lead track "Monday's Arms" deals with that Monday morning feeling and the overwhelming drudgery of working life. It's something these lads know plenty about - until recently, they laboured as builders by day. Built on a solid disco groove, it brings 90s baggy bang up to date, with a chant-along chorus to boot.

              [ + ]
              [ - ]

              Working For A Nuclear Free City

              Working For A Nuclear Free City

              Melodic

                Epic, intelligent, melodic, groove-based and atmospheric - this is the sound of Working For A Nuclear Free City. Descendents of "Fools Gold" era Roses, Spiritualized and The Beta Band, Working For A Nuclear Free City represent the best of Manchester's new experimental underground.

                [ + ]
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