New rad indie cuts to recharge your batteries with, weekly

18 October 2022

Band: MAUGER
Who: A Belgian singer-songwriter called Mauger Mortier who wrote songs just for himself recorded them on old cassettes, and kept them safe in a box. A trip to Costa Rica, a music studio with jungle view and some lucky shots later, and suddenly a band was shaped and led to their debut album Sunday Competiton in 2019, followed by their 2nd one, the new excellent Shiny. Stream here.

Track: NR 79

“Fall always comes. It gets cold and wet and everything dies. But there’s one last furious burst of colour as the trees go bare. We might not have any control over how things change or how fast they change, but sometimes we can still appreciate the beauty.”

Nr 79 has that jangly guitar resonance of The Velvet Underground‘s hypnotic Run Run Run jam. Expect an ongoing Krautrock-like magnetic flow that gets under your skin from the kick-off while the vocals give this swinger an extra feel of 70s underground psychedelia that sounds as fresh as back then.

Also st(r)eaming on Spotify.

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MAUGER: Facebook
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Band: MODERN STARS
Who: Spacey shoegazers from Italy. Their work is loaded with stringed
and electronic sounds, laid down through a multilayering approach that
has more in common with Indian traditional music and Techno,

Track: DROWNING

The new single from the trio’s upcoming third
album, named Space Trips For The Masses

“Space Trip For The Masses’ is inspired by the recent hype around space tourism projects.
It deals with the theme of inner search for happiness through the story of an amateur astronaut, who sets off towards the sun without returning home. The songs revolve around spiralling drones, evolving from electronic patterns, humming of sitars, noises from the immediate surroundings like the buzzing of a fridge, and guitar layers with unusual tunings. It
is an inverse and deconstructional composition process, where drones become the canvas as the band discover the harmonies from within noises, until the songs take on a life of their own.”

If I tell you that my ears here echoes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre
and The Black Angels on Drowning you know that you’ll enter a dark space
with enigmatic, psychedelic encounters.

Roll the tape and get puzzled…

MODERN STARS: Facebook
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Band: POWERWALK
Who: Three long-time friends and musicians from St. Catharines, Ontario sharing a mutual love of 80s dance music. Finding lyrical inspiration from mundane observation, magazine articles and life experiences. Musical inspiration from acoustic drums, electric bass and synthesizers.

Track: SUMMER’S OVER

Summer’s Over sounds like summer is not over, yet this tune has a melancholic touch, probably because summer is over. Anyway you can move your hips sensually to this
sticky synth daydream in motion.

Here we go…

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Also on Spotify.

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POWERWALK: Facebook
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Artists: ERUPTION ARTISTIQUE
Who: A non-conformist artistic collective from Rotterdam, The Netherlands that
wants to enlighten everyone with pure indie rock ‘n’ roll and absurdist clips. The
group consists of musicians, filmmakers, photographers and actors. They are for love, tolerance and equality and try to fight conservatism, racism and bourgeoisie culturally.

Track: ICON

Haunting mystique swells into an invigorating rock flair, bolstered by brass and
ghostly vocal layers on this new artistique piece. It’s pure pop rapture with playful
twists and turns. Both ingenious and instantly arresting. Top.

Watch the accompanying surrealistic video,
a penchant of the act’s visual-heavy style.

ERUPTION ARTISTIQUE: Facebook
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Artists: THE STRANGE DREAM
Who: Pysch rock duo hailing from the dark corners
of some of Manchester’s dingiest bars, The Strange Dream. .

Debut single: ORANGE

About the writing process: “We wrote the song after attending a happydaze gig.
Inspired by the headline act and the rhythms we had not previously tried to incorporate
into our songwriting. We found it somewhat challenging trying to create something outside
the scope of what we normally would go to. It turned into a fun exercise that allowed us to expand our creative pallets.”

Orange brings 60s sparkling underground guitar psychedelia back.
It’s an almost full instrumental trip, electrifying and mesmerizing.

Pretty special.

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THE STRANGE DREAM: Facebook