New Music: Stereo Honey - The Bay

Over the last few weeks the ‘UK indie guitar music is dead’ argument has been cropping up in various places on the web again. Right here, right now, I’d like to suggest that this argument itself is dead. It’s like music journalists have run out of ideas to discuss so they’re just recirculating the ones that we all talked about 8 or 9 years ago. 

When we have bands like Wolf Alice striding boldly forward with a highly accomplished, often adventurous and never dull second album, together with exciting new bands like Pink Kink (featured earlier today) appearing with regularity, the only thing I can imagine is that the people writing these articles have lost their way with music. Maybe guitar based music isn’t lighting up the singles charts in the UK, but ignoring the excitement, creativity and energy that exists out in the pubs and clubs of live music venues across the country where indie bands are playing is to ignore a lot of great stuff. 

So, here’s another very good indie guitar band. Stereo Honey’s The Bay starts with some moody synths and glam rock drums (dare I mention Gary Glitter’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Part 1 – it feels wrong to reference him given his crimes, but the musical similarity is there) but it’s when the chiming guitars kick in that things really take off. Add in lead singer Peter Restrick’s absolutely gorgeous falsetto, where he sings of a love storey formed from tragedy and death and what you have is a band creating atmospheric arching guitar pop that sounds, to my ears at least, wonderfully alive, despite what certain journalists say.

Stereo Honey - The Bay

New Music: Introducing - Pink Kink

A name that I’ve seen generating a lot of interest with music fans out of the Liverpool area over the last year or so is Pink Kink. If memory serves me correctly I first found out about them via Andy from the VPME, but until now the excitement has all been about the groups somewhat deranged and all over the place gigs, with no recordings being available.

Now it’s all systems go with the short sharp punch of Bubblebutt, a song that takes on the issue of being able to dress the way you want without receiving sexist comments. Clocking in at less than two fiery minutes I love the shouty gothabilly punk stylings of this song complete with its barbed twangy guitars and garage noir keyboards. Imagine Scottish kandy-pop kids Bis covering The Cramps and you might be getting somewhere close to what this trashy and cartoonish punch of power sounds like. 

However, let’s not be too hasty in slotting this band under one label yet. From the reports I’ve seen they are in some ways a similar proposition to the much hyped HMLTD, in that they have a range of different styles and tempos leading to several 'WTF' moments in audiences, possibly born out of the fact that they all originally hail from very different places; Germany, Spain, Norway, America and the UK. As more music gets released we’ll probably all see the bigger picture – but this is a fine start that strikes close to the bullseye.

Pink Kink are out on tour soon with Dead Pretties and play the discovery day at Swn Festival in Cardiff.

Pink Kink - Bubblebutt

New Music: Liv - Hurts To Liv

A conversation in the Breaking More Waves household:

“This song sounds a hell of a lot like Lykke Li.”

“It does, but it isn’t, it’s someone called liv.”

“That name rings a bell as well, but I can’t think why.”

*Google search*

“Oh, hold on. It is Lykke Li. In some sort of Swedish/American supergroup. Oh, yes, I featured them before on Breaking More Waves last year. I’d forgotten”

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and the memory is failing (yes, I have used Shazam to identify songs only to then realise the reason I like the song is because it’s on a record I already own…am I the only person to do this or is it a common thing?), or maybe it’s just that there’s so much new music out there that it’s impossible to keep up. But either way liv is a name that I should have remembered.

Either way, Hurts to Liv, a personal tribute to deceased parents, is a beautiful, restful and sad sounding piece of work. Lykke Li has always been the princess of sad-pop and now this song elevates her to queen. You can imagine the band playing this in some half empty downtown bar in the mid-west of America, as a few folk pass the time staring out of the window as the sun goes down. 

liv - Hurts to Liv

New Music: Emma Jensen - Make You Mine

In terms of very cool pop music, Scandinavia has always done very well, but arguably Sweden has been leading the way for a very long time. However, now it seems that Norway has fully thrown off its infamous ‘nil points’ tag from a few years ago and is showing that it has far more to offer than just A-Ha. What with Aurora, Sigrid, Dagny and Anna Of The North leading the charge, there’s quite a few more just behind them. One of those just behind the leading pack is Emma Jensen, who grabbed attention in February with a song called Closer, which I described as sounding a tiny bit like Grimes on downers. This week Emma released her second song.

Make You Mine adopts a similar template to Closer; it’s a slow sleek electronic jam formed from melodic minimalism and Emma’s near childlike vocal which bears a lot of similarity to Megan James of Purity Ring.  It’s maybe not quite as instant as Closer, but sits in the same grounds of internet-ready-pop rather than a radio hit. Make You Mine is all about subtle intimacies; it’s the sort of music that sounds like it’s isolated itself in a quiet space, content with what it is, never wishing to be anything more. Lyrically though it isn’t perhaps as content, dealing with ideas of relationships and not making a move or saying what you want at the time.

File this one under the category ‘a grower’.

Emma Jensen - Make You Mine