Elle King - Playing For Keeps

If you think you’ve read about Elle King on Breaking More Waves before then congratulations on your excellent memory, for we briefly mentioned the 22 year old New York dwelling singer-songwriter who comes via Ohio via California via Philadelphia via Copenhagen via Los Angeles via a piece from Camden (here) earlier this year.

Today we’re adding a little more. Playing For Keeps, taken from her debut EP is a bluesy country-pop stomp that rather like Elle’s voice crackles with grit. Her voice evokes images of a whiskey soaked Adele going country or the lesser known Rosie Oddie from BIGkids without the manic bouncing. Get ready to be raped by Elle’s rasping tones as she belts out the words “It’s a lonely road where the forgotten go, where your misery finds its company,” in the irresistibly hooky chorus of the song. The UK’s been well known for its big lunged female singers over the last few years. Now here’s America putting up a fight.

Elle King - Playing For Keeps

A Blogger's Thoughts About Ellie Goulding's Musical Journey As She Releases Album Number 2

It seems a long time since we first wrote about Ellie Goulding as a New Wave on the blog (back in February 2009) and saw her play in front of about 50 people in a more than half empty basement club in Brighton later that year.

For a short while she was the darling of many UK blogs; then the first album came out, a number of critics gave it the thumbs down and quite a few bloggers seemed to distance themselves from their previously excited tips. It seems many of them were expecting something more folky and less pop - her early cover versions of the likes of Bon Iver had thrown them off the scent. For us it was one of those moments when so-called music experts weren’t aligned with our thinking. What we heard was a good pop record full of catchy hooks, modern production and a distinctive feathery vocal – it was one of our ten favourite records of 2010. Thankfully it seemed the public took our view, with the album going on to sell 850,000 copies in the UK and the song Lights has since sold over 2.5 million downloads in the US.

However, further down the road we had to shrug our shoulders and let out a sad sigh when Ellie went for the jugular of the mainstream with her cover version of Your Song. It became her biggest hit and raised her profile further, which is undoubtedly a useful thing to do if you want to sustain a living as a performer in this day and age. It certainly stopped her having to think about a career shelf stacking at Tesco, but the song nearly made us fall out with her – it was too bland, too dull and too sickly.

Tomorrow Ellie releases her second album Halcyon. The single Anything Could Happen, with its slightly odd video is power-pop perfection. So far the record has found critics a little more positive and maybe some of the ‘experts’ who predicted that Goulding’s shelf life was going to be short lived will have to rethink their stance. After all, if there’s one thing that every music expert should know is that nothing in the future of pop music is certain.  

We recommend that if you’re buying Halcyon you get the deluxe version. The reason? It features her collaboration with Calvin Harris called I Need Your Love. In that original 2009 New Waves post we quoted Ellie as saying “electronic music won't leave my brain alone and I have a gravitational pull towards electronic producers.” In 2012 that quote still rings very true.(Insert Skrillex and Ellie Goulding joke here if you must) I Need Your Love is a punchy, bouncy electronic number that works equally well on dance floors as in our headphones at home. 

It would seem that maybe Goulding’s journey hasn’t been very complex after all; she’s largely stuck to her electronic pop map, maybe just critics, bloggers and so called experts just haven’t been able to read it very well.

Ellie Goulding with Calvin Harris - I Need Your Love

Feathers - New Waves

Any band that amongst their number feature members called Destiny Montague and Anastasia Dimou (dream-cartoon space-popstar names if ever there were such things) gets our vote. Add in some confident and dramatic electropop and if Feathers were up for election we’d be ticking the box with their name on it.

Feathers is the brainchild of the aforementioned Dimou who you may remember from New York’s Cruel Black Dove (we don't but that's what Google's for isn't it?). With Cruel Black Dove on hold she moved to Austin in 2011 and funneled her creative juices into writing a collection of new synthtastic songs. Then, rounding up a bunch of friends from other bands a new group was born. Appearances at SXSW and Jeff Mangum’s ATP earlier this year established their credentials and a small number of blogs immediately picked up on them. Amongst those very early on singing their praises was our UK blog brother Just Music I Like as well as one of the powerhouses of American music blogging Brooklyn Vegan. Now we’re adding our seal of approval, because quite simply, Feathers are good. More than good.

There are currently three tracks on the bands Soundcloud and it’s the storming Land Of The Innocent that we’re featuring below. Redolent of the pulse revival sounds of Fischerspooner, we hear I Feel Love dark disco pulses, crashing Depeche Mode style synth stabs and devilish Austra-like looping grooves. If that’s the sort of thing that will send you into ecstasy, then come and join our love in. Feathers sound hypnotically sharp, sexy and just a little bit sinister. Just how we like it.

Feathers - Land Of The Innocent

Misty Miller - The Devil

“I often feel people misconstrue me as a musician because of my previous album.” The words on Misty Miller’s Tumblr say everything that needs to be said. Let’s be clear about this; the sweet 16 year old folky ukulele singer is long gone. The reference points now are something very different. Some of the things we hear when we hear Misty Miller in 2012 are 50’s rock n roll, The Headcoatees, Pulp Fiction, Karen-O, guitars, Patti Smith, Hanging out in garages smoking, PJ Harvey, staying up all night drinking, The Sonics, basement gigs, black leather jackets, lost weekends and David Lynch.

This is Misty Miller version 2.0. Version 1.0 was sweet, clean and nice to take home to the parents. Version 2.0 is raw, rougher, ballsy and far less likely to nauseate you on the fourth listen. Your parents will still like her though because her new music will probably remind them of something they liked in the past.

Yesterday Misty uploaded 5 new songs to the internet under the simple title EP. Our favourite is The Devil. A grainy and nostalgic torch song we visualise Misty playing this at the end of the night, in a darkened room, single spotlight on her before heavy velvet curtains close around her. You can hear the other songs on the EP here.

Misty Miller - The Devil