FIVE FAVOURITES: My Ugly Clementine

Inspired by a strong commitment to each other as both friends and bandmates, Vienna-based trio My Ugly Clementine are preparing to release their new album, The Good Life, on 11th of August via BMG. Formed of Sophie Lindinger (Leyya), Mira Lu Kovacs and Nastasja Ronck (Sharktank), the band combine playful melodies and feel-good lyrics to create their brand of buoyant, uplifting grunge pop. Following the 2020 release of their debut album, Vitamin C, My Ugly Clementine spent time recording their new album in a remote house somewhere in the Beskid Mountains, far away from civilization. The result is a joyful celebration of friendship and community, with latest single ‘Would Do It Again’ encapsulating these sentiments perfectly.

We think one of the best ways to get to know a band is by asking what music inspired them to write in the first place. We caught up with Mira from My Ugly Clementine to ask about their “Five Favourites” – five songs that have inspired their song-writing techniques. Check out their choices below and scroll down to watch the band’s video for their latest single ‘Would Do It Again’.

 

1. Radiohead – Hail To The Thief
I’d listened to Radiohead already for years until that album came out and I loved them already, but Hail To The Thief just changed my perspective on so many levels concerning what an album can be, how you’re allowed to change as a band, what you can develop and grow into. I know most people got hooked to Radiohead with OK Computer or Kid A, but Hail To The Thief just showed me that I care about sound just as much as I care about songwriting.

2. Ani Difranco – Educated Guess
Ani Difranco is an artist i’ve been listening to since I was 11 years old, so I just grew up with her. All her 17k albums have influenced me deeply, maybe Evolve was even more influential at the time, but I have grown out of that playful guitar picking style a bit. That’s why I chose Educated Guess. It’s more simple and more serious and dark. The acoustic guitar is everything you don’t know about acoustic guitars, everything you wouldn’t expect from them, which I love. Lyrics wise, Ani Difranco will forever hold the reign as queen of complex poetry. I will forever be grateful for what she has opened my eyes to!

3. Arctic Monkeys – AM
I know it’s the hit album, but it must be on this list – also because I am currently revisiting it a lot these days. One of the things that have impressed and shaped me the most is AM’s ability to put more lyrics into one line than the bars have space for. They just completely ignore the laws of time. The rhythmic aspects of their writing seem otherworldly and so confident, they just change the rules to their preference. I am working on that kind of mindset every day.

4. The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers
One of my forever musical crushes is Jack White. I don’t think that I have to explain that. Everything he does makes sense. This album though is a masterpiece, ear worms only. The roughness in the title track ‘Broken Boy Soldiers’ completely breaks me apart. Much like AM, this album showed me to make my own rules about pop music and songwriting. There is never just one way. Jack White is just all about sound, vibes and guitars.

5. Björk – Medúlla
In my opinion, this is the most interesting album Björk made. The collab with rahzel especially (I think he appears on most of the songs) is something I think the world hadn’t heard until then. While beatboxing is something that has definitely no place in my current creating process, I think the way she included it into her musical world was spectacular. There are some forever kinda melodies on this record!

Pre-order My Ugly Clementine’s debut album The Good Life here

Watch the video for My Ugly Clementine’s latest single below.

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NEW TRACK: Coolgirl – ‘Silverlight’

A synth-soaked exploration of the intense, transitory nature of infatuation, Dublin-based artist and producer Lizzie Fitzpatrick aka Coolgirl has shared her latest single ‘Silverlight’. Taken from her upcoming EP, which is set for release later this year via VETA Records (HAVVK, Sive, DYVR, Maria Kelly, St. Bishop), the track is a mesmeric blend of whirring synth textures, glitchy beats and a subtle, jagged vocal.

GIHE fans will recognise Fitzpatrick as the front person of grunge trio Bitch Falcon, but under her new moniker she uses electronics and synths to create vivid, sometimes ambient, sometimes upbeat sounds. After releasing a handful of singles over the past few years and performing live alongside the likes of HAVVK, Alyxis and Plus One, Coolgirl is preparing to share a new EP, with ‘Silverlight’ being the first hint of what listeners can expect from the upcoming release.

“‘Silverlight’ is a deep synth-wave track that encapsulates the feeling of being sucked into another person, another world, completely devoid of outside life,” Fitzpatrick explains. “Heavy synth lines swirl around in a pit of muddy bass and relentless rhythm. I used vocals chopped up in a sequence that portray lost bits of conversations remembered suddenly and swiftly forgotten.” Curious, experimental and ambient are all words that lend themselves to Fitzpatrick’s sound, but ultimately, her new music is as cool as her namesake and we look forward to hearing more of her thrilling creations in the near future.

Catch Coolgirl playing live in Ireland at Limerick City’s annual Feile na Greine music festival on 18th and 19th August.

Listen to ‘Silverlight’ below.

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Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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EP: Circe – ‘Drawing Wings From The Light’

Inspired by the collision of her past and present, Drawing Wings From The Light, the new EP from London-based artist Circe is a passionate, rapturous collection of slickly produced dark pop tracks.

On her debut record, She’s Made Of Saints (2020), Circe lingered in the shadowy, dystopian ether of cult leaders (‘Dancer’), Stranger Things (‘Steve Harrington’) and The Handmaid’s Tale (‘Ten Girls’), but on her latest offering, she willingly shares personal epiphanies, unfiltered heartbreaks, precious teenage secrets and cell-shaping theatrical experiences with her listeners.

Circe celebrates the lust, frustration and chaos that comes with being a woman who refuses to be scorned, blending pop melodies with poetic lyrics, seraphic vocals and cinematic synths to celebrate the power of these unfiltered feelings. “Take my blood instead of wine” she offers on opening track ‘Riot Of Sunlight’, a disorientating blend of reverb-heavy riffs and dizzying electronics. Originally written when she was a teenager after she saw Jez Butterworth and Mark Rylance’s critically acclaimed play Jerusalem at the theatre, the song has evolved into a euphoric rush of atmospheric sound that becomes more addictive each time it’s listened to.

Whether Circe is finding inspiration in essays titles like Femininity Weaponised: A History Of Women With Swords In Art on the sensational ‘Undone’, vehemently celebrating female sexuality and romantic infatuation on ‘Going Down’, or ruminating on what happens when you surrender to lust on the glistening ‘Mess With Your Head’ – each track on Drawing Wings From The Light feels like a sonic manifestation of power.

She provides her listeners with a delicious head rush that feels akin to taking a bite of forbidden fruit. Her playful exploration of desire and experimentation with gender boundaries on ‘My Boy Aphrodite’ is equally as charming, underscored by her sultry vocals, dazzling electronics and a deeply relatable sense of longing for love and acceptance.

On first listen, ‘Glow (You Always Tell Me I Have This Glow)’ appears more subdued than her other vivid offerings, but it showcases the effervescent side of her song-writing superbly. Circe’s quiet anger smoulders across three minutes: “Move away / so I don’t tear you down too” she sings, her warnings enhanced by the Mach Richter-inspired ‘Nature of Daylight‘ violin parts (which Circe played herself) as well as the sampled sounds of scissors snipping through her own hair.

Blending the biblical story of Samson and Delilah with her own experiences of casual misogyny to create the narrative for ‘Glow’, Circe blurs the lines between myth and reality, exploring the murky territory that sits in between. Her hushed threat of “I am a hurricane” sees her defiantly reclaim her self autonomy in the face of this adversity.

Drawing Wings From The Light ends on a distinctively melancholic note in the form of ‘I’m Still Not Sorry For What I Said’. Unexpectedly recorded in one take in the studio whilst she was confiding in friend and producer Steven Ansell, it feels like a poetic voicenote from a lover intoxicated by heartbreak. It’s a glitchy, down-tempo confession that captures the raw truth of a moment of desire that still manages to retain Circe’s idiosyncratic charm.

Like her mythical Greek namesake – who was described as “a sorceress…able by means of drugs and incantations to change humans into wolves, lions, and swine” – Circe is a captivating force of nature who finds power and comfort in her dark pop fantasies. Drawing Wings From The Light is a total euphoric delight that highlights her potent, impressive songwriting talents.

Listen to Drawing Wings From The Light here

Follow Circe on Spotify, bandcamp, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter & Instagram

Photo Credit: Zak Watson

Kate Crudgington
@kate_crudge

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NEW TRACK: wormboys – ‘Mostly Still’

A light-hearted, endearing grunge-pop tune that acknowledges the awkwardness of social interactions, wormboys have shared their latest single ‘Mostly Still’. Released via non-profit Leeds-based label Come Play With Me, the Leeds four piece deliver their self described “queer moody creepy noise-pop” with joyful flair on this new offering, which forms part of a series of digital releases that Come Play With Me are supporting in order to showcase queer artists in the North.

Formed of vocalists and guitarists Sop Satchwell and Harry Tunnicliffe, bassist Ruth Pearce and drummer Jake Maiden, wormboys make fun, fuzzy, melodic tunes about the realities of everyday existence. On ‘Mostly Still’, the band gently explore the anxieties around interacting with others again in a post-lockdown world, and being unable to react spontaneously in the moment.

“We started collaborating on this song together just before the pandemic hit,” explains bassist Ruth about the track, “so this release has been a long while coming. The feel of the song is reflected somewhat in the story of its writing.” Guitarist Sop adds more: “It feels a little different to our previous releases, more tender and a bit more poppy. I brought the bones of this song to a practice and we worked out the rest together, it has something of all of us in it.”

You can catch wormboys live in London when they play for us at The Shacklewell Arms on Friday 8th September. They’ll be supporting Welsh rockers CHROMA, alongside new Brighton band UrgentSea. Tickets are cheaper in advance and available to buy on DICE here.

Listen to ‘Mostly Still’ below.

 

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Photo Credit: Sam Joyce

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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