FIVE FAVOURITES: Tallies

Toronto-based four piece Tallies have announced their self-titled debut album will be released on January 11th 2019 via Fear Of Missing Out Records. The band have shared the lead single from the record ‘Beat the Heart’ online – and it’s a dreamy slice of catchy indie-pop.

We caught up with band members Sarah & Dylan to ask about their “Five Favourites” – five artists or albums that have influenced their songwriting technique. Check out their responses below…

1. The Smiths – The Queen is Dead
I heard The Smith’s a few years ago, for the first time at this cafe that I used to work at. It was a sound that was very new to me, and I can only describe it as “the sound that I was looking for”. When I heard Jonny Marr’s guitar playing, I knew that was the sound I wanted to play. There is a 60’s influence in their songwriting which I really appreciate and love the humourous lyrics. The Queen is Dead has a great contrast between harsh lyrics & beautiful melodies. The sample at the beginning of the album sets this odd mood followed by a eerie whistle before the floor tom starts the rhythm. The build up gets me really pumped up. (Dylan)

2. Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas 
When listening to Cocteau Twins, they make you feel like you’re spinning in a room full of dancing light and feeling light-shadows on your skin, without getting dizzy. They have mastered a sound of constant motion that stands still. The production on this record has incredible depth, while having complete focus. It’s surprising how little synths are used on this record that’s so full of dreamy textures. The reverb delays, and chorus used on the guitars makes them sound like completely different instruments and is so intriguing. We first heard Heaven or Las Vegas from friends of ours a couple years ago and haven’t stopped playing it since. (Sarah & Dylan)

3. Aztec Camera – High Land, Hard Rain 
When I came across this album, it sounded so familiar, like it was already a great influence on me. Realizing after talking to my dad, that he used to play this album around the house all the time when I was growing up. That explains the familiarity. He gave me his vinyl form the 80’s to add to my collection which I listen to all the time. I play “Oblivious” at every party I go to. There is no one else that can pull off holding one note for that long in a guitar solo, making for the best air-guitar performance. The instrumentation on this record has a Latin vibe that I really like and is mainly acoustic-guitar driven. (Dylan)

4. The Sundays – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
The sounds created on this album are just heavenly and so easy to listen to. The melodies are unique and graceful. I first heard The Sundays while watching the 90’s flick, “Fear” with young Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. I fell in-love with the crystal sounding jangly guitars and Harriet Wheeler’s voice instantly. The songwriting reminds me of the soft essence and the fragilty of a butterfly. Wheeler’s heartfelt sharing of personal feelings makes me feel like she’s in the room reading from her diary. Reminding us that we’re not alone in sinking emotions. (Sarah)

5. Air – Moon Safari 
I have this album on repeat constantly. It’s the perfect background music to any setting. Each song has so much depth and the lyrics are always stunning. I am quite the late-bloomer on this band. I just heard them for the first time this year after Stephen (bass) bought a bundle of thrift store CD’s to play in our new van. I’ll never forget the first time listening, how each song shocked me, “Woah, there’s so many instruments on this track.” “How did they do that?” I knew that this record was going to be inspiring just 30 seconds in. I want to make music like Air, music that makes your emotions tingle and spiral in so many directions, yet sounding so chill and simple at the same time. (Sarah)

Follow Tallies on Facebook for more updates.

Photo Credit: Alex Gray

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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GUEST BLOG: Grapefruit

In a new guest blog feature, Angela from Maidstone-based, alternative band Grapefruit writes about what it means to take claim of being women in the music industry.

Sometimes I have mixed feelings about describing Grapefruit as a “female fronted band”. As someone who thinks of gender as a needless and suffocating concept, it can feel like we’re highlighting something irrelevant.

But, we can’t escape the fact that the music we create is intrinsically tied to and is product of our identities. And when that identity is female or femme or non-binary, I do think it’s important to highlight in an industry that continues to be dominated by cis-male identities.

You might not be fazed that our band is female-fronted but some young girl interested in the music magazines in the men’s section of the newsagents might be. Growing up I certainly clung to female-fronted bands; Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine was an idol; my girlfriend and our lead guitarist first picked up a guitar and spent hours learning and mastering it so she could play music like Kate Nash, PJ Harvey and Siouxsie Sioux did.

The point is that whilst inspiring female talent certainly exists in the industry, we’re still often the only female-featuring band on the setlist. We still have to assure some sound engineers that we know how to set up our own mic-stands, and have had to shrug it off when they make sex jokes whilst we’re focusing on getting the levels right. We still look at each other confused when we are compared to a bunch of (talented) bands we sound nothing alike except for that rare female voice.

Until it’s not so rare to see a woman in a band at your local pub, we’ll continue to proudly announce our female-ness and to get excited when we get to play alongside other female, femme, and non-binary musicians. It is our responsibility to make ourselves a space and to fill it to the point of overflow; your ownership of your identity and musical mastery is an important “fuck-you” to the “music has gotten too girly” types (thanks for the words of wisdom, Bono).

 

A massive thank you to Grapefruit for this piece. Follow the band on Facebook for more updates.

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Introducing Interview: CHILDCARE

Having received acclaim from the likes of The Line Of Best Fit and BBC Radio 1, softcore-psych group CHILDCARE have returned with the release of their new single ‘Bamboo’.

With Emma Topolski taking the reins as lead vocalist, ‘Bamboo’ is an instant indie-pop anthem, filled with scuzzy hooks, luscious harmonies and an infectious psych-driven haze.

We caught up with the band to find out more…

Hi CHILDCARE, welcome to Get In Her Ears! Can you tell us a bit about the band?
We’re a four piece softcore-psych band from London that are really very good.

How did you initially all get together and start creating music?
I started the band a few years ago when I was working as a nanny, hence the name CHILDCARE. Over time I got these guys involved; Emma the bassist I met at a party, Rich the guitarist I knew from other bands and Glyn the drummer I met on a mini golf course.

Your new single ’Bamboo’ is out very soon – can you tell us what it’s all about?
‘Bamboo’ is a metaphor for ego. It’s about understanding the relevance of it but recognising how it can be limiting and that most of our mental difficulties are as a result of having an ego.

You’ve been compared to the likes of Everything Everything and Our Girl, but who would you say are your main musical influences?
Well loads of stuff, I guess most decent guitar music from the last fifty years, so let’s say Pixies and Radiohead, but melodically and harmonically also R’n’b, Beyonce etc.

How is your local music scene? Do you go to see lots of live music?
Local is a slightly tricky word in London, though obviously we have mates in bands we go and watch. And yeah I go to a fair amount of gigs, last three big ones were Pixies, Kendrick Lamar and LCD Soundsystem.

And what can fans expect from your live shows?
Guided meditation, dangerous guitars, weeping fans and strong poses.

As we’re a new music focused site, are there any new/upcoming bands or artists you’d recommend we check out?
Check out Lazy Day who just supported us on tour, I’d describe them as psych-grunge.

And how do you feel the music industry is for new bands at the moment – would you say it’s difficult to get noticed?
In London it’s pretty difficult, but I used to live in Leeds and it was a lot easier there. You’ll have more luck making a name for yourself somewhere smaller. As to the music industry, well there’s no money for very new acts really, so just be prepared to work on your own and fund everything yourself for a few years.

Finally, what does the rest of 2018 have in store for CHILDCARE?
Finish album, play two gigs in London on 14th and Manchester on the 16th, get better at table-tennis.

Massive thanks to CHILDCARE for answering our questions! 

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Interview: Julie from HAVVK

We’ve been massive fans of HAVVK (previously HAWK) for a good few years now, and every time they release something new we get a massive twinge of excitement. So, we’re extremely happy to hear they’re about to release another poignant new single ‘Always The Same’ ahead of their debut album next year. And we’re particularly honoured to be co-promoting their upcoming London single launch at Servant Jazz Quarters on 6th December.

Combining soaring celestial vocals with a grunge-tinged musicality, activism is at the heart of all HAVVK do, with this new single addressing female objectification and asking men to question their sense of safety and entitlement and imagine what it’s like to walk down the same street in someone else’s shoes.

Ahead of HAVVK’s single launch shows next month, we caught up with front woman Julie to find out more about their forthcoming debut album, working with esteemed producer Rocky O’Reilly and some of the other wonderful projects she’s involved with right now…

Hi Julie, welcome back to Get In her Ears! Your band HAVVK have recently re-branded and re-released your single ‘Glass’, can you tell us a bit about what lead to this decision?
‘Glass’ was re-released out of pure love for the track. We initially put the track out there in support of the Marriage Equality referendum in Ireland in 2015. We never actually gave it an official release back then. Our videographer James Byrne created a beautiful visual of a liquid Pride flag and we uploaded it to YouTube to show our support. It all happened really quickly. We wanted to do something special to go along with the new name so it was the perfect time to add ‘Glass’ to our catalogue. The “re-brand” story is much less romantic. We’ve been hearing for a while now that it’s freaking impossible to find our music online, so we decided to change the name instead of battling through – a lot of bands we know have had the same issue. Can’t really get away from it now that the internet is so crucial to how we consume music.  

HAVVK’s debut album Cause & Effect is out next year – are there any ongoing themes running throughout the collection, and how was the songwriting process?
First of all, it’s so fucking exciting to be finally sharing this with you guys. We’ve been working on these tracks for over a year now, it means so much to unleash them. The album has a two-sided theme and we’re actually releasing it in two parts across next year. It seems to us like we’re living in a culture where news and reaction are so immediate, and only the most extreme voices are the ones that get heard. The album deals with a lot of our own digestion of how the world is looking these days, politically; the people it’s effecting and how we deal with it personally. There’s a lot of personal stuff in there too, to do with identity, relationships, self-expression and mental health. But it’s all framed in this idea of extremes – what we say and what we don’t say, right and wrong, and all the grey space in the middle.

You’ve been working with esteemed Belfast-based producer Rocky O’Reilly for the last couple of years and on production for this album, how has this experience been? How do you feel he’s helped develop your sound?
Rocky’s been an absolute force to work with and has also been super patient with us and our occasional studio cabin fever. His space in Start Together Studio is part of Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast, which is like the musical heart of the city, and an extremely supportive space for artists. When you go there, you get a sense of people who really care about their local scene but are also making music that could tour the world. We had already worked with Rocky on a few of our earlier singles, ‘Can’t Explain’ and ‘Below’, and we were so happy with the track. He and Matt co-produce alongside each other, and it’s like they each challenge and bring out the best in each other. Rocky’s got so much experience of producing very dynamic post-rock music, with a lot of heavy and quiet moments – I think you can hear this on the album.

You’re celebrating the launch of the first single from the album, ‘Always the Same’, with a couple of very special gigs in Berlin and London. We’re very excited about your return to London on 6th December! How are you feeling about the shows? Have you got something special lined up for us?
We’ve been fairly cloistered away this year, so these are kind of like home-coming shows. We’re so excited for the line-ups we’re playing with – Rookes and After London will join us at Servant Jazz Quarters, and they’re both doing amazing things. And in Berlin, we’re playing with two bands we’ve fallen in love with since moving there, Leoprrrds and Pearly. In terms of ‘something special’ we just cannot wait to play some of the album material. And we may do a giveaway of the remaining ‘HAWK’ t-shirts – never know, they might be worth a lot of money someday!

The shows are being promoted in conjunction with Veta Records, the indie label you run. Have Veta got any more gigs planned for the new year?
This is such an exciting time of year for us right now. We had put our live nights on hold for a while, after moving to Berlin, but it was always a really important part of what we did in London, and really gave us a sense of community. We’ve always been keen to showcase women in music – the majority of the acts on our label are women, and this is something we want to do our bit to address in the industry. Since we moved to Berlin, we’ve actually made more and more connections with the Irish music scene – there’s a huge creative diaspora out there. One of the reasons we are kick-starting Veta Records nights again is to build more connections across our various home countries. Part of this is co-promoting with established music supporters like your wonderful selves and the awesome women running Bang On back in Berlin. Next year, we’re planning more co-promoted gigs in Ireland, Germany and the UK, as well series of living-room shows.

As well as being in a band, running a record label and putting on gigs, you’ve also recently co-founded SelfMade – a platform to explore DIY music in Ireland through performance, discussion, and art. How did this come about, and can you tell us a bit more about the project?
This has been the most unexpected and rewarding thing to happen to me this year. Joanna Bain is an artist from Scotland, and wanted to launch an art project celebrating DIY Irish musicians last year. When she asked me to get involved, I suggest we add a discussion element, as it had been really on my mind how little transparency there is around the day-to-day of making music. What transpired was this amazing event last February where we exhibited portraits and heard performances and panel discussions from nine Irish women in music. The feedback was really positive and before we knew it we were booking our second, and third event. The last one was last Monday in Belfast at the Oh Yeah Music Centre, and we explored the ins-and-outs of releasing music. The interesting thing is that there are rarely ‘right’ answers to these things, but it’s so valuable as an artist, to get a sense that you’re not the only one with these questions and to know you can look to fellow artists for support.

You also launched ‘Female Fronted Drawn Together’ last year – a project through which you created a playlist of admirable female bands/musicians and created an illustration to accompany each song. We thought this was a wonderful idea, especially as it included some of our favourites! Are you planning on continuing this project, or do you have any more art-related ideas up your sleeve for the new year?
At the moment, my illustration energies are being put into SelfMade – you can check out some of our portraits and zines to see what we’ve been up to. I’m also doing a lot of digital design for Veta and the branding work for SelfMade. I feel like every time I commit to a new project, I’m back on the Adobe Illustrator tutorials – and I love it!

Finally, as we’re a new music focused site, and we trust you have great taste, are there any upcoming bands/artists you’d recommend we check out?
Yes! My current album obsession is Dilly Dally – their latest record is infectiously good. Thinking more locally, please check out the bands we’re playing with in Berlin and London, as well as (off the top of my head!) Just Mustard, Oh Joy, Girlfriend, and our label buddies, Sive, Dyvr, and Maria Kelly.

Huge thanks for answering our questions! Can’t wait to see you on 6th December at Servant Jazz Quarters!
Thank YOU ❤

Pre-save ‘Always The Same’ now from Spotify. Cause And Effect, the upcoming debut album from HAVVK is out in 2019. Catch HAVVK live in Berlin and London:

30th November – Loophole, Berlin (with Leoprrrds and Pearly)
6th December – Servant Jazz Quarters, London (with After London and Rookes). Event info & tickets here.

 

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