Browsing Tag

massive attack

Dissolved Girl syncopated 90s trip-hop into mechanised alt-rock mesmerism with ‘Silt’

Posted on 6 February 2024

After a ground-breaking debut that set the bar obscenely high, the London-based fourpiece, Dissolved Girl, obliterated it with the mechanised mesmerism within their sophomore release, Silt.

Sonic odes have been paid to the trip-hop pioneers countless times before, but few outfits have what it takes to take the alt-90s aural aesthetics and syncopate them into a soundscape that sits ahead of the contemporary curve. Dissolved Girl’s success in this arena is just one testament to their commercial appeal.

Mastered by Matt Colton (Arctic Monkeys, Royal Blood), the production of Silt resounds with cavernous reverberations within the industrially-tinged indietronic alt-rock hit as the glassy lead vocals provide a vulnerable juxtaposition to the abrasively immersive instrumentals that will course through your rhythmic pulses and pull you into the centre of gravity, strong enough to send the airwaves out of kilter.

Seductive and ensnaring in equal measure, Dissolved Girl and their commitment to exhibiting raw emotion through sophisticated aural expositions are set to become one of the most promising up-and-coming outfits of 2024, especially with the imminence of their debut LP, which has been four years in the making.

Silt was officially released on February 2nd; stream the single on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Freyja Elsy embodied the sentiment that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned in her single, Over It

Posted on 23 November 2023

Freyja Elsy’s latest single, Over It, from her upcoming EP, Modern Artifice, is a mesmerising blend of trip-hop, dark pop, and innovative electronica that resonates with the chillingly arcane Southern Gothic air of Chelsea Wolfe.

The single, which premiered on BBC Radio Wales on Adam Walton’s Introducing show, has been aptly compared to the likes of Massive Attack and Portishead, with a nod to the acid house genre in its production. The multi-layered auditory journey reflects the despondency of being cast into the harsh realities of adulthood and forced to contend with the seemingly arbitrary monotony which stretches for decades before those coming of age. Elsy’s voice, both haunting and commanding, unravels this narrative against a backdrop of spiky dream pop and leftfield electronica, creating a sound that is as visionary as it is haunting as it oozes the divinity of female power.

Elsy, who has had a remarkable year, opening for acts like Death & Vanilla and Welsh artists Eädyth, Ani Glass, and Small Miracles, never fails to showcase her ability to create a cohesive and clear vision in her music. Her previous singles, Lungs, Requiem, and Golden Hour, have already garnered international attention and BBC recognition, setting a high bar for her upcoming EP.

Over It hit the airwaves on November 17; stream it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mike and Mandy – Caught the Bug: PJ Who?

Posted on 1 November 2023

He was a (ska) punk (singer), she didn’t do ballet but came damn close with her time spent singing with an Opera Children’s Chorus and featuring in musicals before the duo, Mike and Mandy, met professionally in LA while working in Shakespeare play and married three years later.

Notably, the duo didn’t let their time spent in the theatrical trenches go to waste, going by their latest poetically magnetic leftfield trip-hop track, Caught the Bug, which takes the iconic styles of PJ Harvey and Massive Attack and the edge of She Drew the Gun and Black Honey and entwines the two sonically delicious facets to deliver a cinematically immersive hit that will entice you with the force of a tornado.

With both sides of the power couple bringing swathes of influence to the table, their genre-bending tracks don’t discriminate where they pull motifs from. Between them, Mike and Mandy have an affinity in everything from acid-jazz to funk to alt-country to rock n roll to art rock; listen closely when you tune into Caught the Bug and you’ll hear signatures in all that and more around the hypnotically demure vocals which will give you a lesson in demure vindication.

Catch the fever by streaming Caught the Bug via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

heyiloveyou penned a monochromatically dark love letter to the trip-hop pioneers with ‘Never massivehead)’.

Posted on 30 September 2023

By imagining the atmosphere that trip-hop pioneers would create if they rose from the underground today, the Croatian solo artist, heyiloveyou, who has been demonstrating their imperviousness to genre and style constraints since 2020, unleashed their monochromatically dark single, Never (massivehead).

The quite genius titular portmanteau of Portishead and Massive Attack is far from where the ingenuity ends with this torridly electrifying release, which melds dark and caustic iconography with the stylistic catharsis to drench the airwaves in cinematically luxe gravitas.

In spite of the amalgam of the past and present day, the duality easily gave way to the synergy that floods the track through the guitars, drums, synths and beats. Get drenched by heading over to Spotify.

 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Tontine releases new alt-pop single “If I Could”

Posted on 10 December 2022

Tontine is a musician based in South East London. Their focus is incredibly diverse, and being an independent artist allows him to explore different ideas and expand their creative portfolio pretty much without restrictions. Tontine’s upcoming release happens to be their debut EP, which stands out as a good indication of what it means to make music with no compromise but still keeping the audience’s flow at the core of its vision. People who enjoy the sound of artists as diverse as The 1975, Francis Moon, London Grammar, Bonobo and Massive Attack should definitely check this out. The UK-based artist is onto great things, and this release is a huge accomplishment and an outstanding debut in its own right.

Find out more about Tontine, and do not miss out on the artist’s debut EP, which is going to be available on some of the best streaming services on the web from December 9th, 2022.

Up and coming electronic pop Lara offers us a lifejacket with her latest single, ‘Drifting’.

Posted on 20 February 2021
Lara

After spending a year torn between countries and familiar faces, Australia’s up and coming alt-pop artist and producer, Lara, penned and produced her latest single, ‘Drifting’.

If you’ve been feeling like sentient flotsam and jetsam recently, you’re sure to find resonance and catharsis in the hauntingly ethereal mix which pulls in nuances of RnB, pop, trip-hop and alt-electronica.

Lara may lend from an eclectic array of genres, which for many artists results in an inaccessible smorgasbord of mismatched textures thrown together for the sake of ‘innovation’, but at the heart of her transcendentally melodic sound is accessibility. Drifting is the perfect testament to her ability to ooze commercial potential while avoiding assimilation.

Under the tutorage of Berklee Music college, Lara became adept in the art of bringing her sonic visions to life. Any fans of Portishead, Massive Attack and Hooverphonic will want to pay this release some serious attention.

Drifting will be available to stream on Spotify from March 5th. In the meantime, you can check out her earlier releases and connect via Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Dark Electro Pop duo Anaté have debuted their emboldening single ‘Confusion’

Posted on 19 December 2020

‘Confusion’ is the darkly beguiling standout single from lockdown-born multi-national alt-electro-pop duo, Anaté’s forthcoming debut album, ‘Confessions’. It serves as the perfect introduction to the European artist’s empoweringly soulful style. Given the state of collective uncertainty which 2021 has instilled in psyches across the globe, it has ‘playlist staple’ written all over it.

Confusion opens up the conversation about duality and the conflict which courses between our intrinsic desire and the desires we sate because of societal expectation. There’s been plenty of talk in recent years about ‘living your best life’, Anaté put the emphasis on *your* with their exhilaratingly polished track which allows layers of overlapping vocals to trip over themselves, illustrating the essence of the track.

Confusion also lingers in the trippy downtempo production which mimics the disjointing nature of doubt and uncertainty. The glitchy beats are efficacious enough to resonate with your own experiences of confusion and offer consoling validation by the affirmation that the rest of the world feels exactly the same, despite pretences of togetherness.

With their ability to paint a picture of agitation while also allowing the listener to indulge a track which is powerful enough to remove the shackles of societal pressure, we’re all too eager to hear what the rest of the Trip-Hop-inspired album delivers.

Any fans of Hooverphonic, Morcheeba and Massive Attack will undoubtedly want this trailblazingly emboldening artist on their radar.

Anaté’s single, Confusion, is available to stream via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Make room for GelaX’s Avant-Garde Electronic Rock earworm ‘Voodoo’ to creep in.  

Posted on 5 December 2020
GelaX

There was no forgetting Toronto-based artist GelaX after getting acquainted with the Alt-Rock outfit through their single, Mr. Square, now, they’re set to drop their debut EP ‘Dreamsonic’, any fans of alluringly scathing Dark Electro-Rock are going to want to hear it.

The standout track ‘Voodoo’ exhibits the best of GelaX’s signature empowering sound, this time, they’re making no bones about humiliating and eviscerating gas lighters and people who need to crush the sanity of others to feel like they’ve won. I’m sure we all know PLENTY of those.

While GelaX exude all of the commercial potential and accessibility of artists such as Massive Attack and Garbage, there is a darker Avant Garde edge to their tracks in the same vein of Industrial artists such as Angelspit and Emilie Autumn. Yet, Voodoo retains its rhythmic melodicism with the indulgent bends of the bass notes sitting alongside bluesy rock textures which come with a kick of kaleidoscopic Psych.

Voodoo is due for release along with the rest of GelaX’s debut EP on January 8th, 2021. In the meantime, you can check out their earlier releases via Bandcamp.

Keep up to date with their latest releases via Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Toronto’s The Silk Demise stalk in with seductively haunting single ‘’Professor’s Lake’’

Posted on 22 May 2020

Wrapped in a promise, under stars. I set our feet as we melt in the dark.

Founded in 2006, this is the ultimately dark ambient electronic, trip-hop, and chillout music for the soul- to be enjoyed with the lights ideally off. 

‘The Silk Demise’ are highly influenced by trip-hop legends Massive Attack and Portishead and they expertly conjure their own smooth brand of the genre, relying on samples, synths, and melodic drones. Their music is a bit scary but enjoyable and this is a quality outfit.

Let’s enjoy this top act from Toronto, Canada and hope for more quality release while they create that one massive hit to propel them to the front of the queue. 

Stream more from ‘The Silk Demise’ here on YouTube.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Get Naked with Katie Bates

Posted on 24 November 2017

If you remove the urgency out of the modern dance floor template, slow things down and chill things out and replace it with a rolling and hypnotic groove yet retain a sultry grace and understatement you arrive at a musical place where Katie Bates’ Naked is the leader of the pack. Employing the same downtempo minimalism as the likes of such alt-dance pioneers Portishead or Massive Attack, this is a sassy and sashaying piece of music, one which thinks very differently from the by-numbers pop and dance set which it will find itself competing with.

Aloofness, elegance and charm are threaded through shimmering beats, plaintive electronica washes through vocal delicacy, dance floor culture is turned into smoke and anagrams and dream-pop vibes soak into a wholly new sensual and understated EDM sound. It wanders the fringes of so many musical styles it is difficult to pin down, but rather than being a detraction it is actually its strongest selling point.