shout out

Brutal Pop Duo SUN Turns Up The Heat With Metallic Debut Smack ‘HIGHER FIRE’…

Posted on by JL

9 May 2019

Band: SUN

Who: A band “born from the ashes of fate, when effervescent frontwoman, Karoline Rose, had a chance meeting with metronomic metal drummer, Vincent Kreyder, at a festival she was performing at. Hitting it off immediately, the pair combined their love of dark, atmospheric metal music with the bright, shimmering sensibilities of pop music.”

Track: HIGHER FIVE – debut single

Score: Scary. Hellish. Robust. And terrifyingly SCREAMY. Oh my, oh my, singer Karoline Rose‘s vox has an all-destroying range to break all windows in your neighborhood into a thousand pieces. This duo’s metallic smack is a shattering sledgehammer. One minute they sound power poppy, next they act like they wanna tear down all walls coming their way. A power eruption for trained headbangers. Here’s the fire…

SUN: Facebook

Portland’s SOUVENIR DRIVER Impresses With New Album ‘A DANGEROUS CROSSING’…

Posted on by JL

7 May 2019

Sonic daydreamers SOUVENIR DRIVER from Portland, Oregon just released their fourth
LP titled ‘A DANGEROUS CROSSING’. A deeply emotive record influenced by a Friedrich Nietzsche quote ‘Mankind is a dangerous crossing’, current events, and personal lives.

Overall it’s an intensely touching, captivating and soul-stirring piece of work. High-class songwriting from the pensive lifelike reveries ‘Glow (The Empress)’ and ‘Outer Space‘ to the spicier full-sound humdingers ‘Haze‘, ‘Spin’ and ‘Lonesome Prairie‘, the cutting guitar fueled ‘Who Are You‘ and the splendid synths and bass injected swagger of ‘Admire’.

When the more than 8-minute groovy closer Glass Slipper (The Queen) comes to an end you’ll push the repeat button without any hesitation as, just like me, you’ll be tempted to discover every layer, every twist, every hook, every lick, every moment and every line of these terrifically arranged en delightfully orchestrated songs. This band knows exactly what imposing tunes need, how to construct them and how to turn them into appealing aural pearls that impact your hungry ears. ‘A DANGEROUS CROSSING‘ is an arresting achievement! I Discover the splendor here…


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SOUVENIR DRIVER: Facebook

Space Rockers EYEBALL Love Sonic Nightmares – Here’s Their Latest One ‘CRAWLING CREATURES’…

Posted on by JL

16 April 2019

EYEBALL is a collective of beings from Raleigh, North Carolina “who combine their music with effects, noise, and feedback to venture beyond the astral realm of psychedelic neo-space rock. “ Latest single CRAWLING CREATURES will tell all you about their disturbed appetite for scary sonic nightmares.

And then the crawling creatures, paralyzed
Victims of lights illusion, from the sky
Return into the nothing, from far away
All burn in flaming madness, find demise in the light

Expect some mental weirdness balancing between eternal icons Hawkind and the early trips of eccentric sound explorers Flaming Lips. Spooky, otherworldly, enigmatic and deranged. Release the bats here…


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EYEBALL: Facebook

Belgian Synth Pop Outfit TURQUOISE Spreads Sparks On Splendid Self-Titled Debut EP…

Posted on by JL

Making noise for up and coming artists…

10 April 2019

Band: TURQUOISE

Who: Synth pop quartet from Brussels, led by dreamy vox Sarah Boom, producing
music “from 70’s beaches to 80’s shores (Durutti Column, The Chameleons, Cleaners from Venus), through the sirens’ songs, with their ethereal and hazy voices, and hours of listening
to Broadcast, Cocteau Twins or Slowdive as an inspiration.”

Release: self-titled 4-track debut EP – out now and available on Bandcamp
and streamable via Spotify

Score: Four different tracks, four different moods, four different trips. From the bouncy and flourishing opener MIRROIR that will make your heartbeat jump for joy, to the more reflective sentiment of MIRADOR, before getting to the sparkling, yet darksome twilight poppiness of CHAT NOIR and closing with my favorite track PARABOLE, an exhilarating electro pearl fueled with fabulous guitar play that causes goosebumps along its ravishing way. This 4-stage journey is a splendid cocktail of dreamy ingredients, from New Order‘s blue dynamics to Cocteau Twins‘ transcendent melodiousness. And as we all know that French is probably the sexiest language in the world you will be thrilled to start your electronic odyssey right now, right here…


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TURQUOISE: Facebook

London’s 4-Piece BLACK MIDI First Real Sensation Of 2019…

Posted on by JL

Up and coming…

21 March 2019

BLACK MIDI are four youngsters, not even 21 yet, from London causing sensational waves with their frantic live performances since they hit the live scene of England’s capital only one year ago. They soon became the talk of the town wherever they landed, in and out of the UK. So far they have only recorded two rip-roaring tracks – ‘bmbmbm‘ (pronounced by the band as ‘Boom Boom Boom‘) and ‘Speedway‘ and signed to Rough Trade two months ago. Hype or not? Definitely not. After watching their 5-track – with 4 of them marked as ‘untitled’ – live set (below) played in Iceland last November (recorded for Seattle’s famous KEXP Radio) you’ll understand all the buzz these remarkable, adventurous noisemakers generated so far. Turn it up, folks! Here’s the first real sensation of 2019…

Black Midi played the by now famous alt festival SXSW in Austin, Texas
last week. Music website Stereogum interviewed the band. Read it here.

Here are the two mind-boggling tracks this foursome put online so far…

– bmbmbm –

– SPEEDWAY –

BLACK MIDI: Facebook

(credit photo on top: Iceland Airwaves / KEXP Seattle)

PETE SHELLEY Influenced Many Modern Dance Acts With ‘HOMOSAPIEN’…

Posted on by JL

12 December 2018

The unfortunately late (really weird to use that word all of a sudden) Pete Shelley didn’t only write a ton of razor-sharp sounding punk pop Buzzcocks classics, but as he went his own way for the first time in 1981 he made a surprisingly heavy synths loaded dance pop album, entitled HOMOSAPIEN which inspired many future electronic acts over the years. The utterly catchy and clever title track even inspired LCD Soundsystem‘s maestro James Murphy for his quite similar cutting 2007 soundbite called North American Scum.

Thanks for the music, homosapien…

I don’t wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you’re Homosapien too

Album in full…

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PETE SHELLEY: Discography

London’s NIGHT FLOWERS Cover THE PRETENDERS For Their Late Fan & Friend…

Posted on by JL

London’s indie band NIGHT FLOWERS recorded an intimate version of THE PRETENDERS‘ 1983 Christmas pearl ‘2000 MILES‘ written by frontwoman Chrissie Hynde in memory of the band’s guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, who died of cocaine-induced heart failure the year before. Night Flowers, at their turn, dedicate the song to a personal friend and vivid fan of theirs who passed away recently. All benefits will go to CALM = Campaign Against Living Miserably. An award-winning charity offering support to prevent male suicide, the single biggest killer of men under 45 years in the UK. In 2015, 75% of all UK suicides were male.

Here’s the sad beauty…


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NIGHT FLOWERS: Facebook


You can buy the track and donate to CALM via Bandcamp

To Hell With Halloween – Dance Yourself Dizzy With TINY MAGNETIC PETS To Their New Cut ‘RADIO ON’…

Posted on by JL

Vibes that make us scream…

26 October 2018

If you think Halloween is just a greedy-industry-take-the-money-and-run-affair but you want to move anyway in mysterious ways on that yearly All Hallows’ Eve event with Celtic roots than Irish pop synths force TINY MAGNETIC PETS is definitely what you need to entertain your manic limbs and your fanatical spirit. Their newest single RADIO ON is an infectious electro dance banger that will activate every nerve in your lustful body and will stimulate all of your trick or treat intentions. To hell with Halloween, put on your blue suede shoes and dance til you drop right here, right now…

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TINY MAGNETIC PETS: Facebook

JESUS & THE GROUPIES Boogie-Woogie With ‘HOT CHICKS AND BAD DJS’…

Posted on by JL

Vibes that make us scream…

22 October 2018

Band: JESUS & THE GROUPIES

Who: Wacko duo – Marco Butcher (vocals, guitars & drums) and Luis Tissot (guitars, drums & loops) – from Brazil creating ‘Hot Ass Boogie Blues Scuzz Fried Rock and Roll’ from some time now. They’ve already released three boiling longplayers and their next one will come soon via Killing Moon Presents…

Track: HOT CHICKS AND BAD DJS – new single from upcoming LP

Score: I never heard of this off-centre motherrockers before. It was their hilariously cool name that made me curious when I saw their new single passing by on my Soundcloud page. Expect some steamy boogie-woogie you can go totally apeshit to. Electrical, sultry and madcap riffage that will energize your bloodstream and pump up your adrenalin.
Give your brain a day-off and shake your lazy limbs right here…

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JESUS THE GROUPIES: More on Bandcamp – Facebook