This is (more) pop...

 Following my look at the Power Pop scene last week, here are a few more gems that have come to my attention.

Inky Nite - The Canyon

Parts of this sounds for all the world like the start of The Smiths ‘Hand in Glove’. Not that that is a bad thing, and the whole jangly guitar 80s feel works for me. There is a universe where this song is number one. Bits of Lloyd Cole, and lots of Bananarama. This can go on the get set for Summer playlist. Follow Inky Nite here.  Not on Bandcamp, but you can find them on Spotify here.

Macca Taylor - How It Goes

A far more 60s vibe. A nice up-tempo groove with a nice Vox organ sound going on behind the acoustic guitar. As Taylor points out a “beautiful bassline from my mate Jamie.” No surprise that he’s from the home of fab sounds – Birkenhead – classic English pop music. The lyrics are an ode to confusion he says, nothing confused about his music though. Follow his Socials here. Find his two releases on Bandcamp here.

Alpha Cat - Pearl Harbor 2020

Much tougher than the previous two songs. This song is updated from a 2001 release. The Original pearl Harbor was produced by Fred Smith of Television, and this has the stamp of professionalism, and a great bassline. I’ve been listening to this album all week and can’t recommend it highly enough. Best of all it’s on Bandcamp. Buy it here.

 

 

Glass Ankle - Super Silkmen

Now I know nothing about football, and this is tribute to Macclesfield Town FC. So, while the lyrics are a little lost on me the music isn’t.  You will listen to a lot of music before you hear a better line than “This is why Macclesfield is so great”. The 70s sound is just brilliant, with bits of Mellotron going on in the background. I still don’t get football, but who cares when the fans produce music this good. Also, on Bandcamp and on the Facebook here.   

So over two weekends we have found that pop, especially that peculiarly English brand of jangly guitar stuff known as Power Pop is alive and well and living just under the radar waiting for you to find it.

Heaven - Olivia Rose

 

A cracking new video from a Bristol girl. Olivia Rose filmed her video in a couple of local locations, and it's as good a piece of modern R&B influenced pop as you will hear. My 22 year old daughter has been playing this on repeat since I showed it to her. Better than most of the charts... 

Find her other music on Soundcloud

The good new stuff playlist #1

Having spent the week listening the artists who have submitted songs to Musosoup, I've learnt something I knew already, that there is so much fab new music about that we can safely live without the harsher end of the music biz. I also discovered something I didn't know; that 80s style synth pop, synthwave or whatever you want to call it is back with a bang. 

I'm not sure what I expected to find by way of genres but this is music you can make in your bedroom so it makes sense that as bands struggle to get together that this would be the music of lockdown. 

Find all the artists featured at their Socials and follow them on Spotify...

 Mantis State  Chris D'lima Karianne Jean Ben Xylo  Nocturnal's The Shop Window  The Woods
Zipten Zelha  Waxworks. Youth Antics Hypheria

Lindsay Ruth Young is the first addition to the playlist, cracking little song called 'Still'. Some Massive Attack stuff going on here...

One song that I selected isn't on Spotify, but as the video for Johnny Cleveland's Order of Courage live beats encapsulates the DIY ethos of much of this fab playlist that I've included it below.

Musosoup - stirring up artist support.

 

So, time has come to put my metaphorical money where my keyboard is, so to speak. Having spent a lot of time complaining about the iniquities of the music biz and its treatment of artists I've found something practical to do to fight back.

I've been talking to Chris Sharpe, founder of Musosoup this week. His plan is to level the playing field for artists, and in a new twist in the plot for those who for the most part write and promote them for free. The truth is that most music writing is done without payment, including magazines you can buy on the shelves at W.H. Smiths.  I've talked about Fireworks Magazine in the past, all volunteer run. It's main competitor, Powerplay - the work of Mark Hoaksey. If you look at the bottom of Americana UK website you will find a button asking for support, that pays for the hosting costs, our editor, Mark Whitfield, works at a University in the daytime and commits huge amounts of time to making a success of the website. Most bloggers, including me, spend their lives with nose applied to grindstone in other parts of the forest. Chris Sharpe was a PR and ran a music venue before the C***d, and like all of us had to find a way to keep the lights on.

What is Musosoup? It's a portal that aims to connect artists with those who canget their music noticed without being taken to the cleaners. £3 for a 48-hour window for bloggers, radio, podcasts to find you is not huge, Submithub. Musosoup's about page says: "Unlike other submission platforms that ask for a payment per submission to each individual curator, we ask for a one-off payment, and just one submission will put your music in front of the right people. No more spending hours researching who to submit to, our curators will come to you if your music suits." What's more the Curator, which is how they are describing the content providers, radio, writing, podcasting, can ask for a little towards the cost of marketing and their time. £5 or so is the average. This is not going to make us give up the day jobs, but it does make it possible to broadcast the world of independent artists to a much bigger audience.

The independent PR stands to gain from this as well. I will certainly be steering the artists I work with at Marketing4Music towards it. There are some committed people, like Katie at From The White House PR, and Continental Record Services in Holland who are not making vast sums of money off the back of their artists and doing great work for them, but if we can slow down the rise of Submithub leaching off the hopes and dreams of singers and bands then so much the better.

Learn about Musosoup HERE, and after a little rejigging of the blog pages there will be an affiliate link that artists can use up by the weekend. My first playlist of new music I've heard will be up at the weekend. yes, it will be on Spotify for all the same reasons I use a Google driven platform for this blog and Facebook for My Musix, everyone else is there and this is about the oxygen of publicity. Don't worry I will be posting links for the places where you can support the artist in a more practical fashion.

Pennan Brae 'Lit' - literally the best album this year so far...

 
The press for Pennan Brae’s 8^th studio album says that it is “influenced by rock & roll of the 1970s & 80s”. And certainly, the opening of lead song ‘Won’t You Come My Way’ has a very Rolling Stones guitar riff, a theme that repeats throughout the record. Following hard on this start is the album’s best song ‘El Camino’ which adds Raspberries style pop to the mix.

You might think that in 2021 the possibilities of the guitar bass drums format had been played out. In fact, there is something highly refreshing about it. In an age where even the simplest album is pro tooled to death, Brae’s clear unadorned guitar sound is the more powerful for simply being simple. There is as much 60s garage in this music as later influence, most of the songs on Lit would have fitted in just fine on ‘Nuggets’. 70s style Power Pop is another good reference point. Ten years ago, Brae would have been snapped up by Bruce Brodeen’s Not Lame label for sure.

Other album highlights are the mid-tempo ‘Sashay’, the only place where Alison Jenkins’ backing vocals have much impact, and singles ‘Passing Fad’ and ‘Tearing my Heart in 2’. And there’s the clue. The best songs are the singles, the album is ten tracks long and under 40 minutes long. In other words, a good old-fashioned album. You know where to buy it by now.

Pennan Brae is also a screenwriter and film maker. His ‘The Astronot’ is on Amazon Prime now, and well worth a watch.

There are changes coming to 160gigblog. More content and different content.  Watch out over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here’s Pennan Brae’s latest video while you wait.