Guest Playlist: Hannah Schneider – ‘Sedated Summer Sounds’

Following the beautiful sounds of singles such as ‘Mirror Sphere’ and having charmed our ears as part of duo AyOwA, Danish artist Hannah Schneider has returned with a sparkling new offering. A glistening celestial soundscape, ‘It’s The Season’ reflects on the high expectations of the summer months and the disappointment this can sometimes bring. As Schneider’s rich crystalline vocals float alongside shimmering keys and a dreamy ethereal haze, a truly blissful soundtrack is created, oozing a euphoric, soothing grace.

To celebrate the release of ‘It’s The Season’, Schneider has put together a little playlist of her favourite summer tunes – ‘Sedated Summer Sounds’. Have a listen on Spotify now, read about her song choices below, and make sure you watch the new video for ‘It’s The Season’ at the bottom of the feature.

Masasolo – ‘Really Thought She Loved Me’
My friend Morten Søgaard made this amazing song a few years ago under his moniker Masasolo. I think it’s an absolute classic, leading your mind towards another of my favourite bands…

Tame Impala – ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’
This song, like so many of Tame Impala’s songs, takes me to this otherworldly place, where the wine is free, the days are long, and the people are all carefree and beautiful!

AyOwA – ‘Sommer’
A song from my band AyOwA, which adresses the longing for a summer that never comes. It’s a slow, sedated summer sensation that lingers on after it’s over.

Josephine Philip – ‘She Said’
My label mate and collaborator Josephine Philip makes music that grips you and holds your attention. This song has a beat to die for!

Vera (feat. Okay Kaya) – ‘Falling’
I bow down to this carefree pop banger. And when Okay Kaya starts singing in Swedish I’m just woooowww!

Hannah Schneider (with Christian Balvig, feat. Goss, Jacob Bellens and Josephine Philip) – ‘It’s The Season’
I made this song ’cause I have mixed feelings about summer. The early summer in Scandinavia is such a giant peak of the year. Sometimes we end up waiting for a summer that just never comes, and when it’s finally there, the expectations are so high that we can only be disappointed. To me, midsommer is a melancholic time where every feeling is exaggerated, and the beauty of it all is so breathtaking that it feels like you have to throw all your guards down and just surrender.

Sylvan Esso – ‘Hey Mami’
It’s all about the beat and the carefree melody.

Soleima (feat. Hoodboi) – ‘Breathe’
Daydreaming my summer days away with this one.

Alina Baraz, Galimatias – ‘Fantasy’
If I lived in L.A. and wasn’t such a Scandi, this would be the music I would make.

Patrick Watson, Safia Nolin – ‘Mélancholie’
But then again I am Scandinavian, and the trees don’t reach the stars… I always carry some serious melancholy with me wherever I go, and this song is perfect for that!

Excelsior – ‘Gold Runs’
One of my favourite Danish artists just released this gem of a song!

Liss, Nilüfer Yania – ‘Boys in Movies’
Love this track and the way the chords change.

Jungle – ‘Cherry’
This beat… I mean !!! Love Jungle, and this track is such a vibe!

Anna Roemer,  Ned Ferm – ‘Azure’
Such a beautiful ambient and soulful piece of music for just when the day breaks! You see the azure blue water quietly moving when you hear this music.

ML Buch – ‘Somewhere’
Such a great new track from one of my favourite Danish artists. ML Buch always grabs my attention, and keeps me listening attentively to her every move. 

Quadron – ‘Herfra Hvor Vi Står’
Love this cover of an old ‘70s Danish song – sung by Coco O of Quadron. Just such a moving, slow, beautiful and soulful piece of music. 

Monica Zetterlund – ‘Come Rain Or Come Shine’
To end up this playlist I look towards one of my favourite singers of all time – Monica Zetterlund – who captures all the Scandinavian melancholy and long summer nights in her voice.

Massive thanks to Hannah for sharing her ‘Sedated Summer Sounds’ playlist with us! Listen here and watch the new lyric video for her latest single ‘It’s The Season’ here:

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Introducing Interview: Raindear

Having previously charmed our ears with the ethereal grace of 2019’s album Skies To My Name, Swedish artist Raindear has returned with an emotive new single. Reflecting on the theme of self-renewal, ‘Howl’ flows with a swirling majestic splendour, as Raindear’s rich, soulful vocals soar alongside glitchy hooks with a driving, impassioned energy.

To celebrate the release of the new single, we caught up with Raindear to find out what inspires her, her honest opinion on the music industry today and her plans for the next few months. Have a read, and the watch the beautiful new live video for ‘Howl’ at the bottom of this feature!

Hi Raindear! Welcome to Get In Her Ears! Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 
I’m a Swedish artist and producer mostly known for making monumental and majestic art pop. I’m a sucker for beautiful and unique melodies, and I also love tasty things and to take a little swim. 

Are you able to tell us a bit about how and why you initially started creating music? 
I have always created things. I guess it’s just a natural instinct for people like me. Some people need to create or else they will not feel that anything is meaningful at all. I was also born in a family of professional musicians, so making music was just a normal thing that everyone did. I never had to “discover” it on my own and for that I’m very grateful. 

I love your glitchy, soulful sounds, but who would you say are your main musical influences?
Thank you! That’s a tricky one. I guess Kate Bush would be one of my main ones through the years. I’ve always listened to her, long before she went viral recently. I’ve also grown up with jazz and impressionism (classical music), so I love that too. Other than that I think influences work in mysterious ways. I get influenced by pretty much everything around me – everything I experience goes through my filter and some things stick with me better than other things. I think when music is your whole life it’s hard to pick specific influences since you get influenced every day by just staying alive; you interpret everything you experience through your musical lens and it’s always possible to make something out of it because art is life and life is art. 

You’ve recently released your latest single ‘Howl’. Are you able to tell us a bit about the single? Are there any particular themes running throughout it?
It’s about massive subconscious feelings that every now and then explode out of my chest. I’ve struggled with many kinds of emotions the last couple of years – ‘Howl’ came out of that and made me feel better briefly. 

How do you feel the industry is for new artists at the moment? And do you feel much has changed over the last few years in its treatment of female and queer/LGBTQ+  artists?
I’ve tried to stay positive for so long but I don’t want to fake it anymore, now I want to be real for once. This industry is just incredibly unreasonable, I actually wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. And don’t even get me started on how the industry looks specifically for female and queer/LGBTQ+ artists. Sometimes labels etc pretend that they care about equality, but they definitely don’t. At least not the ones that sit on the money. They care about money and nothing else. Sorry for not bringing too much hope to the table…!

You’re now based in Stockholm – how is the music scene there? Do you feel that the live music community there has fully recovered since the pandemic? 
I think the Stockholm scene is very boring and mostly focused on mainstream pop. I don’t know if the live music scene is fully recovered. In some ways I feel like it is recovered – at least people are excited and out to gigs again. At the same time, the whole system is so broken and the noise is insane. It’s probably harder for the independent ones to get back into some some kind of normality right now. 

And what can fans expect from a Raindear live show? 
Heavy and colourful stuff in every possible way!

As we’re a new music focused site, are there any other upcoming artists or bands you’re loving right now that you’d recommend we check out?
My friend Bonander is insanely talented and makes very cool music. 

What does the rest of the year have in store for Raindear?
I’m performing at Rough Trade East on August 31st – come!! I’m also releasing a second single in August. And performing in Montreal in Canada October.

Massive thanks to Raindear for answering our questions! Watch the beautiful new live video for ‘Howl’ here:

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Music Production For Women – Free Networking Event and Masterclasses in London on 16th July

If you are a woman, non-binary or gender non-conforming musician who is keen to learn more about how to produce your own music and meet other people who can share their skills with you, then you should register for a free ticket for Music Production For Women’s upcoming event on 16th July at the University of Westminster in London.

The event, titled “Master Your Music – Live”, will feature sessions with MPG award-winning producer Charlie Deakin-Davies, Ableton Certified trainer and Youtuber LNA, MPW’s award-winning founder and CEO Xylo Aria and more. The day will run from 10am to 4:30pm and will feature 7 in-person workshops on a variety of topics that many independent artists today need to know such as the basics of music production, sound-design and mixing, as well as music marketing, PR and songwriting workflow.

“I’m hoping we can inspire any attendees who may have wanted to produce but felt intimidated by it, to take their first steps in the field”, explains Music Production For Women’s founder Xylo. “I know having an event like this available when I first started would have made production feel a lot more accessible to me!”

Backed by Sonnox, Distrokid, Ableton, Session and Songtrust, the event will be free for anyone who register for a ticket in advance – which you can do by clicking the link below.

Register for your FREE ticket here: http://musicproductionforwomen.com/master-your-music

 

Follow Music Production For Women on:
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and their Official Website

 

More information about Music Production For Women (MPW)
Music Production For Women is an organisation that began three and a half years ago, and has since been included on the Top 50 Innovators of East London list in 2020 and earned founder Xylo Aria a place on the She Said So Alt Power List. It has run workshops and courses to over 6,000 musicians from over 120 countries and continues to grow steadily.

The organisation was created with the aim of empowering women in music technology and prides itself on not only providing practical and actionable educational content, but also on harbouring a safe and encouraging space to learn in.

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Five Favourites: Sound Of Ceres

New York-based audiovisual project Sound of Ceres create otherworldly, immersive visuals to accompany their celestial soundscapes. With new album, Emerald Sea, shimmering dreamscapes tell the story of how the universe comes to know itself. Written in three acts, it follows two deities who trail each other through the furthest reaches of experience, featuring poignant narration from Marina Abramović throughout. A truly captivating experience that’ll enliven the senses with its majestic cinematic splendour and orchestral grandeur.

We spoke to Sound Of Ceres – vocalist, lyricist and costumer K, songwriter and producer Ryan, songwriter and musician Derrick and costumer and light designer Jacob – about the five videos that have inspired their visuals and fed into their unique, innovative ideas for Emerald Sea. Have a read about their choices below and then watch the beautifully haunting video for album track ‘Arm Of Golden Flame‘ at the bottom of this feature.

The Smashing Pumpkins – ‘Tonight, Tonight’
This video, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, takes me into my own early 1900s Lumière brothers fantasy. Turn of the century times when La Fée Electricité (Loïe Fuller) wore handmade dresses, seen dancing in light projections when harnessable electricity first presented itself. The handmade set pieces, opacity fades, physical world one can immerse themselves into makes this video transportive to me.
– K

Björk – ‘Hidden Place’
The visuals for ‘Hidden Place’, directed by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin and M/M (Paris), made me realise that a music video doesn’t need a million cuts to be interesting. This is one entrancing camera shot the whole time, and has been the single biggest influence on my own video/visualiser work, which usually features a simple visual composition that moves or changes slowly over the entire length of the song.
– Ryan

Björk – ‘Isobel’
Directed by Michel Gondry, this is a synesthetic masterpiece. In my opinion, Gondry pulled off one of the most ambitious things a music video director can do: create a true visual parallel to the music that is equally dynamic and agile as their imagination. I love the surreal compositions (and visual effects) that blend nature and flowing water with Björk. I also love the black and white noir texture throughout.
– Derrick

Smoke City – ‘Underwater Love‘
Directed by Tim Macmillan and John Lynch, this is one of my favourites. The colours and contrast are perfect in a way that you can only get from actual film stock. The whole video is essentially just playing with time: a lot of delightful water shots played in reverse, and just when you start to wonder if all this backwards, Jean Cocteau-like stuff is able to carry a whole video, they throw in some really stunning, ghostly ‘time slice photography’. This video came out two years before everyone would see this method used in the first Matrix movie, and IMO, ‘Underwater Love’ uses it to much prettier effect. The whole thing is just sparkling and sexy and fun. Serious eye candy!
– Jacob

Virgina Astley – ‘Waiting To Fall’
Here, Virginia Astley performs ‘Waiting to Fall’ for an appearance on BBC2. This was filmed at the Coventry Electric Wharf in 1982, where the beautifully weightless song somehow fits perfectly into the backdrop of gleaming industrial (moving!) machinery.
– Ryan

Massive thanks to Sound Of Ceres for sharing their Five Favourites with us!

Emerald Sea, the immersive new album from Sound Of Ceres, is out now via Joyful Noise Watch the beautifully haunting video for ‘Arm Of Golden Flame’ here:

Photo Credit: Todd Eckert

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