Turn Up The Volume wrote about THE CHEFS SONG : “Another astounding
hellraiser swinging your mind from left to right and back, from Samara‘s sort
of vocal broadcasting performance to Manimal‘s death metal snarls and back.
130 seconds of intimidating thunder-and-lighting brouhaha. A merciless
brainbreaker.”
And here’s the razzle-dazzle video. Another visual
tour de force by two formidable sound and vision artists…
Who: London-based duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and
Andrea Papi (Italy) – that fills a gap in music by bringing
literature, art, and history together into a space where
rock and metal meet electronica.
The duo’s sophomore LP lands about 15 months after their remarkable debut
LPFull Spectrum. The best debut album of 2021 in Turn Up The Volume‘s book.
Review and track-by-track breakdown here.
New single: THE CHEFS SONG
The 4th shared piece from the upcoming LP
TCOMAS“The song is a satirical vaudeville that dramatises the pressures of working
in a busy kitchen in order to shed light on the urgency of the issue of inhospitable and exploitative working conditions in the hospitality sector. What the theatrical comedy of
the song belies is a sinister truth, a tragedy that plagues our modern societies — the
prevalence of modern slavery in the 21st century.”
According to a study by the Human Trafficking Foundation (2018): More than 1 in 10 people who work in hospitality in the world are reported to be working under modern slavery conditions. For far too long, this has remained hidden from the public eye — behind the closed doors of some kitchens, hotels, and restaurants.
Turn Up The Volume: Another new cut from the upcoming full length, another astounding hellraiser swinging your mind from left to right and back, from Samara‘s
sort of vocal broadcasting performance to Manimal‘s death metal snarls and back.
130 seconds of intimidating thunder-and-lighting brouhaha. A merciless brainbreaker.
Who: London-based duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and
Andrea Papi (Italy) – that fills a gap in music by bringing
literature, art, and history together into a space where
rock and metal meet electronica.
The duo’s sophomore LP lands about 15 months after their remarkable debut
LPFull Spectrum. The best debut album of 2021 in Turn Up The Volume‘s book.
Review and track-by-track breakdown here.
Singles (so far): Count The Dead / Nothing But Dust / The Prophet
Who: London-based duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and
Andrea Papi (Italy) – that fills a gap in music by bringing
literature, art, and history together into a space where
rock and metal meet electronica.
“‘Nothing but Dust’ revisits the ancient practice of desert hermitage – where men
would spend months in the solitude of desert which they believed to be the pathway
to the soul. Drawing influences from the music of Indo-Persia and of the poems of
the 13th-century mystic, Rumi, the song is about finding inner truth in the ‘desert
of one’s soul’ in the increasingly material world we live in.”
Turn Up The Volume: The innovative duo continues its quest for answers and comparisons for present issues by exploring the past, the distant past. History
repeats itself, as we know. Sonically they follow their by now well-known path,
combining Manimal‘s metallic soundscapes with Samara‘s affective spoken word
dramatization. But, surprise, for the very first time, she sings on a very short
fragment but enough to bring Garbage’s Shirley Manson‘s voice to my mind.
Striking stroke!
As with all their output so far, Samara and Manimal show once more how much
they are committed to their work, not only musically and lyrically, but also by,
always, creating marvelous visuals for their singles’ images and their video clips.
Ounsworth (mastermind): “The songs are politically motivated,
which is unusual for me. It’s about what I think we’re all experiencing
at the moment, certainly here in the United States, anyway, trying
to move forward amidst an almost cruel uncertainty.”
Turn Up The Volume: Riveting tunes, sharp-cutting reflections,
magical sparks, Ounsworth‘s feverish voice, and his glittery guitar
play make this LP the best one since the self-titled 2005 debut.
Bewitching all the way. My 2021 number one
Turn Up The Volume: Finally, Iceage do what they were expected to do for a long
time. Creating a standout album that makes the hair in the back of your neck stand
up. Melodramatic with ardency, impassioned with vigour, emotional with grimness. Charismatic frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt leads the troops as never before.
Turn Up The Volume: From outlandish sonority – think Scott Walker – to
Zappa-esque adventurousness, from a ‘normal’ song (Marlene Dietrich) to
free jazz weirdness. The sonic search of this impressively inventive band is
both inscrutable and intriguing.
Cavalcade confirms the experimental brilliance of their debut LP. Miles Davis going post-punk in the 21st Century.
Turn Up The Volume: The drop-dead gorgeous sisters in rock arms Lindsey Troy
and Julie Edwards celebrate their 10th year of producing high-powered turbulence.
Their bond is tighter than ever and their boogie-woogie more varied than ever.
Mind you, don’t expect a jazz record. Deap Vally are still about rocking ‘n rolling
while tackling their demons with vocal bravado and forthright ruminations.
Old skool punk ‘n’ roll? Absolutely. Any good? You betcha!
Amyl and her buddies made another blistering riff-manic-monster of
a hell fucking hell yeah record. Pogo madness is back. Sturm und drang
from start to finish. Holy Moly!
Turn Up The Volume: This black and white pearl is the work of
the romantic Cave crooner meeting the haunting Cave crooner. Idyllic
orchestrations, classical arrangements, and bad seed Warren Ellis
showing, once more, his refined grandeur.
Turn Up The Volume: Manimal and Samara are a poetallica sensation.
A new laser light at the end of a mythical and tenebrous tunnel.
Imagine Sylvia Plath fronting a mind-challenging, noise-exploring band.
Their debut album is a multi-faceted opus in sound and vision. Puzzling poetry
exploring life, death, birth, past, present, and future embedded in titanic thunder
and lighting symphonies going from perplexing metal to chill-out ambient.
Turn Up The Volume: The amplified haziness of Slowdive, the mystifying
soulfulness of Spacemen 3, the multi-layer-constructing skills of My Bloody
Valentine.
Hallucinating soundscapes, synth shadowplays, and guitars dueling with
each other while tireless drums dauntlessly beat, and wailing voices wander
in an enigmatic fog of reverberation.
This is what the (sur)real world of Ghost Patterns sounds like.
Turn Up The Volume: This time the bombastic rockers take another direction
to express their emotiveness. Moody, nostalgic, melancholically romantic with
frontman Brandon Flowers looking back at his teenage years in his hometown
Utah. Think Bruce Springsteen‘s sentimentality on his masterpiece Nebraska.
Overall an emotive and melodramatic
record without going over the top.
For some critics, it’s too mellow.
For me, its gripping mellowness
that works just fine.
Liz Lamere (Vega’s widow) remembers: “Our primary purpose for going into the studio
was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records. I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.’
Turn Up The Volume: Most of the lost albums that eventually came/come to the
surface one day should have stayed lost forever. If they were good enough to be
released the moment they were recorded they would have never ended up in a
smelly cellar or, worst case, in a trash can.
So what about Alan Vega’s lost one? One: it feels special to have the legend back.
Two: the album seems to come from a very dark mind, from the obscure places
of Vega‘s soul, creating a nightmarish and Kafkaesque chill-out atmosphere for
a 30-minute David Lynch film-noir.
Turn Up The Volume: The rap and roll venom of Rage Against The Machine, the
fuck-you-hypocrites grimness of Black Flag, the punky saxophone of X-Ray-Spex,
the sharp poetic spit and sneer anarchy of Mark. E. Smith, the challenging spirit
of open-minded-and-ass-kicking-anti-establishment doom and gloom crusaders.
Sounds like 2021, like the end of the world as we know it.
Turn Up The Volume says: Like Pavement going prog rock with the sound- exploring
state of mind of Mogwai. Jazzy and classical music textures make sure your curious mind
is focused all the time. And singer Isaac Wood‘s voice resonates freakishly identical to the chilling voice of American songwriter Conor Oberst from indie band Bright Eyes.
It’s not a happy record, but who needs a tsunami of cheesy pop tunes in these science-fiction-like times, anyway. I know it’s their first time, but these hungry noise crusaders
will stun us again in the future.
Turn Up The Volume wrote: Gusto, high-spiritedness, and anxiety are the
keywords here. This warm-blooded record is a heart-rending reflection of the
group’s state of 2021 mind. A galvanizing collection of cohesive poignant emo
songs influenced by the disturbing way our troubled world is handling human
issues, once-in-a-lifetime dramas, and the personal turmoil of frontwoman Eline Chavez.
Her soul-stirring and powerful (Aretha Franklin / young Tina Turner) vox, the weeping
guitars, and the electrical intensity are at times overwhelming and heartbreaking. Impressive!
Turn Up The Volume: The essential message of this new powerhouse album is loud and clear: noise-challenging turbo Pink Room is here to stay! Their tsunami energy is beyond any decibel regulation. Again, loudmouth Bart Cocquyt leads the rip-roaring trio.
As I said before his vocal range is out-of-this-world. He easily could front a death metal band (Stay Black/Stay White) or a Nirvana reunion (Losing/Skin) or kick Ozzy Osbourne‘s ass (Hail Satan). Expect ear-shattering jackhammers, over-the-top frenzy, and clamorous lockdown paranoia.
Putain, putain, c’est vachement bien, nous sommes quand même tous des bohemiens.
Who: London-based duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and
Andrea Papi (Italy) – that fills a gap in music by bringing
literature, art, and history together into a space where
rock and metal meet electronica.
About a week ago the ever-compelling tandem impressed
(again) with new single New single: THE PROPHET. A tribute
to Sylvia Plath‘s poem, Lady Lazarus, told through the eyes
of an advanced A.I robot who is “resurrected” with a destructive
super-intelligence.
Turn Up The Volume said: “This is a slow-burning torch with
hellish flare-ups of Rammstein‘s Götterdämmerung hysterics
and roaring rock riffage while Samara‘s spoken-word ode to
the legendary American confessional poet/writer Sylvia Plath
hypnotizes and magnetizes.
Meet The Prophet here…
• Music by The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara
• Video by TCOMAS STUDIO
• Music mixed and mastered by Philip Marsden
Who: London-based duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and
Andrea Papi (Italy) – that fills a gap in music by bringing
literature, art, and history together into a space where
rock and metal meet electronica.
“Our tribute to Sylvia Plath‘s poem, Lady Lazarus. Told through the
eyes of an advanced A.I robot who is “resurrected” with a destructive
super-intelligence, the song petitions for the ethical use of Artificial
Intelligence technologies to remind us that if we are not careful, we
might find ourselves with a technology that destroys the civilisation
that invented it – us.”
Turn Uo The Volume: We know by now that Samara and Manimal’s
musical virtuosity expresses itself in combining in an organically way
their love for poetry and metal helter-skelter in an original way.
The Prophet (remarkable artwork again) is a slow-burning torch with
hellish flare-ups of Rammstein‘s Götterdämmerung hysterics and roaring
rock riffage while Samara‘s spoken-word ode to the legendary American
confessional poet/writerSylvia Plath hypnotizes and magnetizes.
Another capricious corker.
Lyrics
Today is the day
All the world is watching
The greatest show
Ever shown
The crowd is swelling
Barricades are bursting
A great gathering
The big maggot parade
Ladies and lesser men
Seekers of mysteries
You are about to witness
The greatest miracle
Ever performed
Behold
She returns
From the world beyond
Fresh from the crucible
Rise, Lazarus, rise
After 10 years the sisters in arms want to inject their bond with new musical challenges
to keep their marriage alive and kicking (they’ll be always alive and kicking anyway).
Their new LP called, yes, Marriage and lands on 12 November.
The first taster is a slo-mo synth-vaccinated groove with Lindsey Troy‘s fully charged
guitars all over it and Julie Edwards, as usual taking care of the solid backbone drum
beat. Troy‘s vocals and Edwards echoing voice in the back give the song an extra thrill.
Expect a slash and trash jackhammer, an angry
spit and sneer storm, a Sturm und Drang uppercut.
143 seconds of furious frustration is what you get. Retro organs
clatter like if a nightmare is just around the corner, but Domestic
thunders like he’s a determined survivor who will not go down
just like that.
I listened to the title track of this London-based singer/songwriter’s new album
about 50 times, so far. It’s a guitar-driven riff-hook-and-lick standout that cuts like
a new Swiss knife with feverish and heartfelt vocals amplifying the dumbfounded
chorus. Holy smoke.
The rock ‘n roll swagger of Eddie Cochran, the surf guitar electricity
of Link Wray, and the fervent fire of Bo Diddley. Get the punchy
picture? This rollin’ razzle-dazzle riffage will boost your mood.
London’s funk-punk gang is gearing up
for their big breakthrough album.
This first taster is a trippy bass-driven disco groove you can sway
your hips to in the morning while waking up, in the evening while
getting drunk, and during the day when you’re getting bored.
When surreality becomes reality cry outs like these pop up to translate
alienated feelings that dominate your daily life. This club of two decided
to embed their frustration into a swirling dance stunner for our doomed
generation.
Pithy, peppery, and a blacked-out chorus that sticks as primo glue.
Add glamorous vocals and a glittering full-on wall-of-sound and the
final result is a supersonic stunner.
‘It’s Critical’ by SAVING JACKIE (San Antonio, Texas)
The heated rap-rock gang from San Antonio launched
a video for the title track of their debut album.
The clip is a clear-cut message regarding life-threatening diseases.
Flamboyant frontwoman Jenny 4C Ramirez emphasizes the fight
for your life bravery while making your blood stream faster through
your veins.
These young gunslingers rushed to indie stardom with their ace jazz and prog-rock influenced debut LP For The First Time.
Isaac Wood (frontman) about this brand new song: “it’s the best song we’ve ever
written. We threw in every idea anyone had with that song. So the making of it was
a really fast, whimsical approach – like throwing all the shit at the wall and just
letting everything stick.”
A blazing rock slam about the desperate need for stable emotional stimulation.
Blustering guitars, flurried synths, hot-blooded vocals, a discharging chorus, and somewhere in the middle a thunder and lighting guitar solo to electrocute all your
mind-destroying demons. Every time you take this medicine, you’ll get a kick out of it.
If you like British turbo Royal Blood
you’ll go berserk to this cracker too.
Instantly effective pop tunes like these make me smile
from left to right and back. Shiny guitars with shoegazy
sparks, a dizzy-making rhythm, happy-go-lucky sentiments,
and seducing vocals. A song that would turn Taylor Swift
into an indie star.
A crystal-clear structured protest against greedy political sharks and
megalomaniac charlatans oppressing people for their own devastating
agendas. Again Manimal and Samara show how to fuse poignant poetry
and versatile metal genres.
The fab goth-metal gang made an album with goth heroine Chelsea Wolfe
and Cave In‘s Stephen Brodsky. The LP, titled Bloodmoon: I will soundtrack
our nightmares from November 19 on.
Here comes the first piece Blood Moon. A classic mix of deafening bombast,
theatrical doom and gloom, barking voices (except for Chelsea of course), and
hardcore torment. A perfect Halloween monster.
White continues her sound-exploring search. Here she fuses
symphonic instrumentation with deep-bass-resonating synth
turbulence. Trippy, dissonant, and even claustrophobic when
short fragments of White‘s restless breathing emerge somewhere
in there.
The ongoing pizzicato violin play adds both an airy and eerie timbre.
I have no idea what the totally silent outro with some echoes of (what
seems to be) firecrackers in the very end, is about. What I do know is
that the first thought that crossed my mind when hearing this, was: Aphex Twin is back, in disguise.
Pretty quick into the song the early days of electronic
British legends Human League and Baxter Dury‘s synth
pop sensuality (especially the female voices) popped up
on my stereo in my head.
It sounds as if this Boston tandem warns us of Big Brother’s ambition to brainwash humankind with mind-altering chemicals with this darksome, yet instantly striking
electro jam. Haunting, feverish, and gloomy are the keywords here. Best played at
night while being dazed and confused by the surreal times we experience the past
18 months.
It’s been a while since I heard an epic belter that evokes
an image on the screen in my head of a massive stadium
filled with a sea of people holding their phones up with
shining lights and scream at the top of their lungs.
This powerful love ballad will
trigger your romantic side…
Band: THE CHRONICLES OF MANIMAL AND SAMARA Who: London-based duo – Daphne Ang (Singapore) and Andrea Papi (Italy) –
that fills a gap in music by bringing literature, art, and history together into
a space where rock and metal meet electronica.
After the release, last February, of their spectacular debut LP Full Spectrum,
the creative tandem launched new piece Count The Deadtwo weeks ago. A
song composed in protest of governments and world leaders, whose negligence
and recklessness have resulted in one of the largest ‘avoidable’ losses of lives in generations.
Turn Up The Volume wrote: A crystal-clear structured protest against greedy
political sharks and megalomaniac charlatans oppressing people for their own
devastating agendas. Again Manimal and Samara show how to fuse poignant
poetry and versatile metal genres. Manimal and Samara are sonic architects.
And here comes the visualization for the cutting indictment.
Band: THE CHRONICLES OF MANIMAL AND SAMARA Who: London-based duo feat. Daphne Ang (Singapore) and Andrea Papi (Italy).
Drawing inspiration from Tool and Kraftwerk, as well as the poetry of Sylvia Plath,
Virginia Woolf, and Jim Morrison, TCOMAS fills a gap in music by bringing literature,
art, and history together into a space where rock and metal meet electronica.
After the release, last February of Full Spectrum, one of the best and most
adventurous albums of 2021, Manimal and Samara return with a new single.
Count The Death is a song “about the value of human life. We composed this song
in protest of governments and world leaders, whose negligence and recklessness
have resulted in one of the largest ‘avoidable’ losses of lives in generations. The song
raises issues that people need to know and think about, such as the social and economic injustices that plague society and violent health inequalities that have been further
exacerbated by the pandemic”.
An Eddie Van Halen-like intro riff, Samara‘s menacing spoken word rant, feverish
wailing moments, growling Napalm Death eruptions. All in one song? Absolutely.
On paper, it resembles a chaotic piece of doom and gloom anger.
On record, all those elements come together organically resulting in a crystal-clear structured protest against greedy political sharks and megalomaniac charlatans oppressing people for their own devastating agendas. Again Manimal and Samara
show how to fuse poignant poetry and versatile metal genres. Manimal and Samara
are sonic architects.
