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CLIMBO or The Mistake That Make Us by Solemn Golem

I find it very inspiring to come across artists who do it all and yet still come up with an unusual, and professional sound. Solemn Golem is a one-man show with the Finnish singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Pyry Urhonen. The artist has a long career in the music industry working with different groups and recently decided to start his band. In no time he started to realize that he doesn’t need additional band members and decided to go solo for the current time. The artist’s style and inspiration come from 90’s post-rock bands like Radiohead, Godspeed, Black Emperor, Mogwai, and Y-O-U. But also, singers and songwriters like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen, and finally classic progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd followed by Genesis and Camel. With all these inspirations the artist came up with his signature style that mixes theatrical elements, a cinematic vibe, unexpected melodic directions, and an undeniable element of surprise. 

The artist just dropped his debut 10-song album “CLIMBO”, which is a concept album that interprets loss and having a fresh start, it’s a mix of softness and intensity, calm yet dark.  As the artist describes “I wanted to make an album of long expressive takes and lead by a distinct single voice. It’s not just a single-take with no edits by method, but I wanted the core elements to be crude and spontaneous.” Each song in the album is different and has its nature and character, most of them are long and they reach 12 minutes long. Something I’ve noticed while listening to them all is how the piano is a core instrument in the album and how the artist prefers bass sounds and low notes. Most of the melodies are unorthodox and take unexpected turns, even the chord progressions are uncommon in which you will encounter lots of augmented, open, and diminished chords that are so distinguishing in their placement creating a whole new experience and ambiance. Whether the usage of such chords is intentional or not, it sets the music in a completely unexpected and interesting place. The album combines a mix of songs and instrumental tracks that all have the cinematic foundation and the theatrical element in the way the vocal lines are sung and recited. 

“Close Your Eyes” is the first track in the album that is entirely instrumental with the piano being the lead and the occasional powerful bass that strikes like a ticking clock as if it’s giving a warning. Moving to “Are We Dreaming?” which is another instrumental track with significant sound effects that sets you in an actual dream with loops and sounds that mix intense dark tunes along with divine and angelic ones, a struggle ongoing throughout the dream until it fades and ends on a happy note. The entire album was produced at the home studio of Pyry where he did everything himself. An album that is worth checking and listening to all because none of the songs repeat or are even alike.  

Spit Fire by Venior

This review is not solely about music but rather the mindset of a powerful and unique artist, it’s about revolution, change, awareness, and spirituality. Venior is a one-of-a-kind encounter, the Finnish-Berlin-based artist is not just talented but an environmentalist with a powerful character and dedicated soul. The artist first appeared in 2015 with singles that went viral like “Sugar Rush” which has over 830K streams on Spotify and “Na Na Na” which is almost at 1M streams. She has worked with infamous producers like Nova Wav (Beyonce, Rihanna), Zara Larsson, and Kumi Koda. Aside from singing, songwriting, and producing, Venior is also a painter and a “Trashion” designer who recycles trash and creates fashionable, wearable pieces out of it beautifully and artistically. The artist refuses to live the “mass-consumerist Earth destroying lifestyle” as she refers to it and decided to take a different route where she believes to make a change, she must be that change, so she builds her new lifestyle around recycling and recreation which she represents through her music and art combined. 

‘Spit Fire’ Is her latest single released which is part of her upcoming debut album. The pop song is energetic and poetic, it mixes wild beats, poetic lyrics, heavy bass, and her powerful yet soft vocals, a special style she refers to as “Freaky Punky Pop”. The song starts with a poetic spiritual speech where she gives an introduction about her line of thought and tells a story about social ideology and how she believes otherwise and breaks free from it, coming up with her conclusions. She uses a metaphor where she believes that sometimes we need to burn and destroy certain ideologies “by fire” to give birth to new ones. In her music video, the artist is wearing the designs that she recycled from trash, she also produced and mixed the song along with singing and songwriting. We are anticipating the artist’s revolutionary debut album coming out in September. 

Summer Wagon by Alex Kate

Preparing for her upcoming EP “Rebel for Love”, British singer/songwriter Alex Kate decided to give us the new summer anthem “Summer Wagon”. After the success of her cover of “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and her song “One Plus One” spread on TikTok, Alex Kate teamed up with producer Jorgan Manke to record “Summer Wagon” by the sea in Norway with guests Arne Bekkeheien (drums), Orjan Kjos (Bass), and Geir Arne Pedersen (guitars) released as the 2nd single off her upcoming EP that’ll be out on 14th of October, 2022.

“Summer Wagon” is a colorful song that felt like driving toward a lazy sunset with a hot air breeze blowing. Alex Kate’s cheerful warm vocals with overlapping vocal melodies created a bright, colorful mood, and the guitar melody, tone, and drums all matched the song’s playful mood channeling some upbeat high spirits. It has a nice structure with soft dynamics and a classic mid-section that created a resting point before it built up back to its energetic mood. All are produced neatly capturing the most suitable sound.

“Summer Wagon” is the new sweet summer anthem that’ll get you hyped and chilling at the same time this summer. Alex Kate’s vocals will give you the warm breeze needed in this hot summer with some fluid cheerful melodies that’ll boost your spirit. She’ll be hosting an EP launching party at St. Peter’s in Notting Hill, London on the 14th of October, if you’re in London don’t miss this out. Cheers!

 

Dream Away by Chris Considine

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American singer/songwriter Chris Considine unleashed his latest self-recorded, mixed, and produced single “Dream Away”. A beautiful fluid tune about missing something that’s far away that you had to see only in your dreams.

With an open sound and beautiful melodies, Chris Considine opens “Dream Away” with dreamy guitar arpeggios and his deep narrative vocals over it. Considine’s expressive vocals and his warm voice set the mellow mood of “Dream Away” and those vocal harmonies in the chorus spiced it up and gave it diversity and depth. It has a neat production that perfectly captured the fluid easy melodies and simple beautiful strings and the distorted guitar near the end was a nice touch that added a new slightly upbeat texture.

“Dream Away” shows Chris Considine’s songwriting skills and his good knowledge of his talent and capabilities. It’s a simple tune with loads of effort and beautiful arrangements that created a harmonic mellow song that can easily slip into your repeat list. Looking forward to more from Chris Considine, cheers!

Cold Hard Dirt by Dream of a Man in a Top Hat

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With their previous EP and album hailed by a number of reviewers for their psychedelic experimental sound, Dream of a Man in a Top Hat is back and expanding their sound by experimenting with a new country area with their new single “Cold Hard Dirt”.

Trying to mix country with some ambient effects and electronic feel as they create a sonic signature that’s their own. The electronic melodies and beats were on point and surprisingly in harmony with violins (played my favorite parts) and acoustic and slide guitars which were written carefully and so genre-oriented setting the mood for a classic folky country track and this shows clearly on the middle section. On the other hand, the vocal melody – from my humble POV- was a little bit steady and needed to be more dynamic, and needed a more powerful delivery, which would’ve made the song sound more alive. 

“Cold Hard Dirt” is the mix I think you never thought you would hear. Synth and electronic beats side by side with folk and country elements all creating a different, new approach opening the door to new experimentations. It’s well written and arranged with an on-point sound and production. Looking forward to more, cheers!

عمرو دياب واللوك الجديد 

حالة من النشاط الفني يعيشها الهضبة عمرو دياب منذ تعاقده الحصري مع منصة الاستماع الشهيرة أنغامي نهاية فبراير الماضي، وهو المشروع الذي تحمس له دياب لتعزيز علاقته بجمهوره ووصوله لمستمعين جدد حول العالم، وفقًا لبيانه الرسمي بعد إعلان التعاقد الذي جاء عقب أيام من اختفاء أغانيه السابقة إنتاج شركة “ناي فور ميديا” من القناة الرسمية بموقع يوتيوب وباقي تطبيقات الاستماع.

حماس دياب لمشروعه الجديد مع أنغامي أسفر عن غزارة في إنتاجه الفني، بدأت بأغنية “هتدلع” كلمات محمد القاياتي وألحان الفنان محمد يحيى وتوزيع أحمد إبراهيم، التي طرحها قبل عيد الفطر نهاية أبريل الماضي، ثم “اللي يمشي يمشي” بعدها بأقل من شهر وهي من كلمات تامر حسين وألحان مدين وتوزيع توما وميكس وماستر أمير محروس.

إنتاج الهضبة لم يتوقف عند هذا الحد، بـ “اللوك الجديد”، اسمًا على مسمى، يصف دياب الحالة الجديدة التي يعيشها مع أنغامي، ويواصل فيها تحطيم الأرقام القياسية واستحداث ونشر موضة جديدة كعادته بفضل شكله المختلف في “اللوك الجديد” الذي ارتدى فيه ملابس صيفية شبابية لفتت الأنظار إلى شبابه الدائم رغم تجاوزه الستين ربيعًا.

“اللوك الجديد” من كلمات أيمن بهجت قمر، وألحان محمد يحيى، وتوزيع أمير محروس ومحمد حمدي، وفيها يقدم دياب هيت جديدة مناسبة لأجواء الصيف والحفلات.

لوك الهضبة الجديد تواصل من خلال مفاجأته لجمهوره بهدية مختلفة في عيد الأضحى، جرعة مكثفة من الأغاني الحماسية الصيفية في تجربة هي الأولى من نوعها في العالم العربي، عبارة عن ميجا مكس مكون من 3 أغنيات وهي: “ناس حلوة، ب وح وب وك، ووزير السعادة”.

تعاون دياب في أغنيتي “ناس حلوة” و “ب و ح و ب و ك” مع الشاعر أيمن بهجت قمر، والملحن محمد يحيى، والموزع عادل حقي، أما في الأغنية الثالثة والأخيرة في المكس وهي “وزير السعادة” أضفى دياب مود جديد ومنظور مختلف بتعاونه مع شباب جدد هما: هاني رجب في الكلمات، وأحمد زعيم في الألحان، والأغنية من توزيع عادل حقي.

لم يمر أسبوع على طرح الميجا ميكس، ليقدم الهضبة أغنية جديدة هي “زمن المجاملة” من كلمات تامر حسين وألحان عزيز الشافعي وتوزيع رامي سمير، وفيها يشتكي من عدم التقدير وقلة الاهتمام “ده لا حد فاكريني جميل جميل يشكرني عليه ولا حد بيطمر فيه أسف على صراحتي”، وهو ما يخالف ما يناله وزير السعادة من احترام لمشواره الفني الذي يقترب من ٤ عقود حافظ فيها على الصدارة بفضل تجريبه وتجديده طوال الوقت.

ولأن وزير السعادة يؤمن بأن “الحلو يتقله في وشه أنه حلو” يثني جمهور دياب على أعماله الأخيرة ويتمنى مزيدًا منها في القريب العاجل.

Album: Lo-Fi Sensation by V-Train

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It’s an avalanche of Lo-Fi hip-hop and jazz that will plunge you deep into an ocean of dreams, calm sounds, and mature ideas, brought on by V-Train with their third release, “Lo-Fi Sensation”.

This artist based in Lansdale, USA, known for his similar productions, enjoys using instruments such as piano, guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, and other percussion instruments. Of which live release group 7 singles and 3 albums, it can be considered as a Lo-Fi playlist alone.

“Lo-Fi Sensation” immerses us deep into the world of Lo-Fi with all the audible instruments on 10 tracks, beautifully executed by V-Train with powerful and very moving music.

The snorkeling journey begins with the first track “Gone Fishing” which can be considered a perfect prelude to a completely different dimension with soothing melodies that make you feel weightless.

And when “Passing Storm” comes along, you’ll find yourself surrounded by a powerful hurricane of tunes while listening to it. Lo-Fi music is sweetly complex in structure, but this hurricane will calm your soul in a way you can’t imagine.

“Calm Sensation” is the third track on the album and it will certainly complete the journey of calm on a different level. Acoustic pieces with ukulele chords add a strong structure and structure that makes you hear and feel your heartbeat throughout the track.

The fourth path “My Cave” will take you down to the peace of your cave. The tones of the piano keys are very psychedelic, and their gentle sounds create a sweet feeling that makes them a favorite of many.

“Late Night Sensation” is the fifth track on the album and I think it starts a different stage in the “Lo-Fi Sensation” journey, where the drums are louder at night, but it’s also cleverly placed after “My Cave” to start from and maximize impact. This track is perfect, especially the little touch of old-school jazz and hip hop.

The sixth track “Jazzy Nights” and its name and music you will find yourself listening to the fifth track, which has a little jazz. But it also carries a tone of feelings that must make you think of your consciousness on a night like this. And the two paths can be considered as a bridge between the two phases of the journey.

“Wait” is a track that can be considered a new beginning for the second and final phase of the album’s journey. The rhythm throughout the track makes you feel a surreal movement that produces a web of feelings and sensations that assure you that you won’t get out of it easily.

Track 8 “Painful Past” is the track that will announce when you’ll reach the destination of the trip and you’ll start to deal with your heart breaking to the beat. The vocal pieces used in this track are hypnotic and support the track firmly.

“Wishful Thinking” is the ninth route and second leg of the flight objective. It is like advice to wise thinking after what the Eighth Path has done to you. It is suitable for all hip-hop lovers and is one of the most popular tracks on the album.

Block Party is the last track on the album and can be seen as the best way to end the “Lo-Fi Sensation” journey. Heavy piano keys accompany the rhythm and the drum chopping sound makes the track the perfect closing feast.

If you are a fan of Lo-Fi, hip-hop, and jazz, don’t miss out listening to “Lo-Fi Sensations” from V-Train.

No Exit by HVIRESS

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Almost every field in life is open to whoever wants to join, including music. Many are passionate about music and have the talent that makes them good musicians, but not all can present authentic, one-of-a-kind music that has their own flavor and signature. The Deathpop queens, HVIRESS, belong to this type of unique musician, and their latest single, “Not Exit,” manifests it all.

Once I laid my eyes on the single’s title, “No Exit,” I remembered Sartre’s play that has the same title, and its famous line, “Hell is other people,” resonated in my head. Only to find out that it’s not a coincidence! The duo Hana Piranha and Mishkin Fitzgerald (Birdeatsbaby) have made their own treatment of the French playwright Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit Play.

“No Exit” has the duo’s artistic identity of myth, magic, and an edgy blend of Deathpop and Electro Pop. The song starts with peculiar, dark footage and sound, which made me think I was about to hear a hard-sounding song with screaming and growling. Once the vocals hit their mark, I listened to the complete opposite of my speculation. Hana and Mishkin both have aerial, sophisticated vocals with a powerful, passionate attitude and intense performance.

The song is not only intense vocal-wise, but all elements also simulate a vague, gloomy, hill-like version. The lyrics have a psychological and philosophical theme with a cold ambiance. The obscure, solid production of Evan Rodaniche with the bold, spooky instrumentation supports the atmosphere. The killer music video shows the duo as the dominant, and features Simon Field as bravery, who is Garcin in the play. And the band also collaborated with Garry Mitchell to make this genuine work of art.

HVIRESS is a band to seek out if you want to hear a sound you won’t hear anywhere else and songs with a deeper meaning. As in “Not Exit” below.

Drown With Me by Nate Paladino

Nate Paladino’s latest album, ‘Drown With Me,’ was released this month on July 8. His reputation as a talented songwriter is cemented by a wonderful selection of stories set to music in Nate’s distinct style and elegance.

This album by Nate Paladino is a reminder that life isn’t black and white, with just the perfect amount of conviction paired with just the right amount of sarcasm and a broad range of emotions.

Blues music was the first genre that Nate fell in love with, and it was also one of his earliest musical influences. His debut album, “Like a Nail in Your Head,” introduced his raw, spontaneous, and intimate voice in 2011. Soon after the publication of the record, Jon Hyrkas joined Nate as the band’s drummer, and they forged an unbreakable musical partnership. In 2014, they released their debut EP, titled Good Boy.

In 2019, Nate, Jon, and Darren began recording at MAPS Recording Studio with producer Mike Willson. Darren died unexpectedly during the recording session. It was a tremendous setback. During a tough period of bereavement, the album’s production was halted. Then, COVID hit. Nate describes the event thusly: “It felt as if the entire universe was telling us to stop.” “But, Jon and I realized that we had to finish the album, both for our friend and for ourselves.”

When they revisited the material after a period of time, they were able to view their experiences from a different angle. At one phase, the songs appeared to reflect a never-ending cycle of hopelessness, escape, bitter acceptance, and, finally, resolution through genuine healing. According to Paladino, the title of this album is “an invitation.”

Throughout the recording process, their friend’s memory was honored, and the final product is a collection of songs that is both sentimental and poignant. It embodies Paladino’s musical principles and conjures the beauty and sincerity of musicians like The Mountain Goats and the literary appeal of Leonard Cohen. “

This moody album avoids many Americana clichés while still providing a rewarding listening experience. It is confident and well-formed. In the first track from his second studio album, ‘Problems in Bed,” As if the lyrics weren’t sufficient evidence, Paladino deliberately avoids all the easy, traditional stories in this narrative and instead focuses on the dirty, gritty nuances of a relationship.

Due to his natural Californian accent and barely concealed banter, Palladino’s voice has a vintage and familiar appeal. In ‘A Sad Song,’ Paladino laments about loneliness and betrayal, and things don’t seem much better on the following track when he tackles a traditional love-hate relationship in ‘In The Meantime.” Set to the melodic piano, the song follows the narrator’s inner conflicts as his relationship develops. The narrator of “Nothing Good” laments the loss of a relationship and contends that he should have seen it coming.

“Blue Skies and Mai Tais” is about taking time in the sun to come to terms with the death of a loved one, despite the song’s bright title. ‘Hate You More,’ the album’s most angry breakup song, reveals Paladino at his most acrimonious as he details his personally terrible and hurtful experiences. 

This album has many characteristics of indie rock, but the songs and occasional guitar flare push it into Americana territory. However, if you’re searching for soothing folk, you should look elsewhere, for this album will take you on the most emotionally devastating, introspective, and therapeutic journey of your life.

Flirt With Disaster by Sydney Gordon

Static Impulse Records has just released “Flirt With Disaster,” the fourth song written and performed by Sydney Gordon. Static Impulse Records is the artist’s own independent record label. This new song is a synth-pop-rock tune that has an emotional undercurrent, and it features Sydney’s powerful vocals on full display throughout the entire track.

Sydney Gordon was born and raised in New York City, where she still resides. Her journey as a singer began at the tender age of 7. She later began professional vocal training at the age of 12.

Listeners are immediately drawn in by Sydney’s commanding vocals as well as the off-kilter, rock-influenced sounds of the composition. These tracks exude an undeniable sense of confidence that bodes well for the artist’s career in the years to come. Her songs have the qualities of a future hitmaker: appealing, catchy melodies and accessible lyrics. The audience is left with an everlasting impression because of her exuberant charm and attitude.

The young New York singer-songwriter continues to win fans over with the entrancing quality of her vocals, as well as with her charismatic, one-of-a-kind presence and the energy she exudes.