Track Of The Day: The Northern Belle – ‘Kaleidoscope Dream’

Ahead of the release of their collaborative mini-album, The Northern Belle’s uplifting single ‘Kaleidoscope Dream’ brings an exciting sense of adventure and togetherness as we navigate turbulent times.

Led by singer-songwriter Stine Andreassen, The Northern Belle spent the pandemic collaborating with other musicians, including Siv Jakobsen and Mallin Petersen, creating a musical community of Nordicana (Americana-influenced music from Norway). The result, much like a kaleidoscope, is beautiful when all of these fragments come together. 

Fans of Fleetwood Mac will love The Northern Belle. Andreassen’s sweet vocals bring to mind folk and country greats. A wash of luscious harmonies ebb and flow, building a warm and fuzzy sound. The sparkling Americana-style guitar lines weave seamlessly into the vocal textures. Andreassen explains: 

“When I sat down to write ‘Kaleidoscope Dream’, I just felt a sudden urge to flee and run away from all of this madness.  On one hand we are travelling less and are actually taking care of our planet (if we want to or not) – I love that and I wonder if we will take more care of each other and this beautiful planet from now on. Then there is a little devil on my shoulder that wants to fly away from all of our problems and do all the things that you can imagine. Move through space and time and don’t care about any of the consequences of our actions. I needed to feel alive. All of these emotions got poured into these songs and I love the explosive chorus and the whole conversation with myself.” 

Though the ‘Kaleidoscope Dream’ was creating during the pandemic, there is a wonderful lightness and ease to the song – it’s as crisp as a bright summer morning. The production is natural and spacious, highlighting the easy-going feel of the song. It’s easy to get swept up in its immersive charm as it transports you into a deliciously dreamy soundscape.

The Norwegian septet’s mini-album The Women In Me is set for release this Friday, 17th September. Pre-order here.

Jaz Kelly
@surfjaz

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ALBUM: Moor Mother – ‘Black Encyclopedia Of The Air’

Following 2016’s Fetish Bones, Camae Ayewa – aka Moor Mother – has since been wowing fans with 2017’s The Motionless Present and 2020’s innovative project with Swedish musician Olof Melander, Anthologia, which raised money for disability justice. Now, following much critical acclaim, she is set to release a poignant new album – once again recorded with Melander. In short, Black Encyclopedia of the Air is a remarkably unique and absorbing collection, constituting a scattered and beguiling exploration of idiosyncratic ideas and reflections on modern life.

We open in a free-floating sound realm – ‘Temporal Control of Light Echos’ – which immediately lifts us off the sofa into an antigravity dream where space-time operates in an unfamiliar and unsettling manner. This sensation forcibly synchronises our sense of reality with that of Moor Mother, poet/activist/musician/(fortune teller?)/(sorcerer?) and co-founder of Black Quantum Futurism, a collective invested in rethinking our understanding of and interaction with the past and the future…

As soon as we begin to settle into the opener, we are thrust unceremoniously into the next. This album is full of fast cuts between immediate tunes, most of which nestle under the two-and-a-half minute mark. It feels like more of a collection than an album, with threads picked up and dropped with equal vigour. Rather than being an ‘Encyclopedia’ as the title proclaims, it feels like an open notebook; making synaptic flips between ideas, ranging from oblique sketches (see especially ‘Obsidian’) to striking candour (‘Race Function Limited’, ‘Made a Circle’). Where the latter perhaps were more of a feature on Moor Mother’s vitally charged debut Fetish Bones, it is generally the more mysterious elements that impress on Black Encyclopedia Of The Air.

As a whole, the album is possessed by murk – not in a lazily muddy or ‘moody’ way, but with a dedication to explore the world that darkness speaks of. Synth bursts choked by cut-off fall slow and sinuous like blood in water and swirl alongside breathy vocals and distant cries of jazz elements. Moor Mother proclaims the importance of free jazz to her approach as a writer, an influence that makes itself felt across her instinctive writing and disorientating music. This influence makes itself felt in particular on more rhythmically unconventional tracks like ‘Rogue Waves’ and ‘Iso Fonk’, two of the album’s standouts.

It really comes together on its second side, finding cohesion within its chaos. ‘Tarot’ stands out as the longest and most patient track, justified in its length as it stretches into drones and percussive rings backing what seem like oblique prayers to a strange god. From here, the album coalesces, the final three tracks streamlining into a powerful close, centred around ‘Zami’, which drills into your head and spins it like a fairground ride. 

As a whole, Black Encyclopedia Of The Air feels like its own unique universe of strange sounds and intimations. We are left to chase Moor Mother’s philosophy down sonic abysses and lyrical mazes, and if we could only catch them we might just be rewarded.


Black Encyclopedia Of The Air, the new album from Moor Mother, is set for release on 27th September via ANTI-. Pre-order here.

Lloyd Bolton
@lloyd_bolton

Photo Credit: Bob Sweeney

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Track Of The Day: Lunar Vacation – ‘Gears’

With acclaim from the likes of The Fader and Clash, and having previously charmed our ears with the luscious sounds of previous single ‘Mold‘, Atlanta-based Lunar Vacation are now set to release their debut album, Inside Every Fig Is A Dead Wasp, next month. Ahead of the album’s release, the band have shared a poignant new single.

Reflecting on the deterioration of a relationship, ‘Gears‘ oozes a dreamy, shimmering allure. Against the backdrop of a scuzzy, whirring musicality, Grace Repasky’s honey-sweet crystalline vocals float seamlessly with an ethereal splendour – bringing to mind favourites such as Best Coast or Alvvays. Building with a sweeping, sparkling emotion to a heartfelt slice of irresistibly effervescent indie-pop, ‘Gears’ flows with a glistening, cinematic grace as droplets of stirring melancholy ripple on the seemingly serene surface. Of the track, Repasky comments:

“When I look back on any kind of relationship, it’s usually through rose-coloured glasses. I guess this song tells me that although this happened, you just gotta keep going because this isn’t the end of the world. But the last lines are a reflection of how inner-me feels… I’ll probably always be a little sad about the loss. I feel like most, if not all, of my songs are future-me giving past-me advice and insight on specific situations that evoked heavy feelings.”

The stark sentiment of ‘Gears’ is captured perfectly in the dark beauty of its Nosferatu-inspired new video. Watch it here:

Produced by Daniel Gleason of Grouplove, Inside Every Fig Is A Dead Wasp – the upcoming debut album from Lunar Vacation – is set for release on 29th October via Keeled Scales. Pre-order here.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

Photo Credit: Hudson McNeese

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ALBUM: God Damn – ‘Raw Coward’

Hailing from the haunted Black Country, God Damn have mutated their uncompromising, genre-bending sound to conjure up something brutally ambitious. The resulting concoction, Raw Coward, is relentlessly noisy, unapologetic rock and roll – a collection of tracks working its cynical black magic until the feedback fades out.

Following the release of 2020’s self-titled third LP, God Damn have been working in the shadows – moulding, shaping, crafting a hyper-intense album that sinks its fangs into social issues; tearing into nationalism, capitalism, and the music industry with venom. After introducing their fuzz-drenched LP with ‘English Slaughterhouse Blues’, God Damn dive headfirst into ‘Yout’, an abrasive sludge anthem that foreshadows a repeated theme… A false sense of pride. “When he was just a baby / His mother told him, son / Be a good English boy / And sell the world their guns.” Only personal growth will lead to true identity: “Hey, youth / Thank fuck for attitude / When will you find yourself?”

The attack continues with ‘Radiation Acid Queen’ and ‘Cowkaine’; drummer Ash Weaver’s relentless big brash strikes piercing through the distorted chaos created by the disquiet quartet. Quickly try to catch your breath! ‘Shit Guitar’ is easily the heaviest track on an LP already threatening to buckle from its own weight – unleashing doom-laden hooks (courtesy of frontman Thomas Edwards and Rob Graham) and Vantablack humour on a canvas of deadened self-awareness. Lamenting capitalist slave drivers, Edwards’ voice becomes strained under the ferocity of his raw delivery: “There’s no such thing as rock and roll / There’s no such thing as god / So climb down from your crucifix and play it like guitar / Your idols are all paedophiles who sold you who you are.”

The hypnotic ‘Little Dead Souls’ (Pt.1) and its equally addictive sequel (Pt.2) are complemented by Hannah Al-Shemmeri’s spooky, aberrant key tones, which when listened to as a singular soundscape, becomes a behemoth pairing; monstrous, sinister and unabating. ‘Drop Me Off Where They Clean The Dead Up’ follows with an equally irresistible progressive groove before the title track, ‘Raw Coward’, rips open the fabric of space with obnoxious guitar riffs and visceral lyricism.

Closing with the revolting ‘Dogshit In The Autumn Leaves’, God Damn leave their shit-stained footprint on the DIY music scene. Breathe it in! After wanting to “do away with all the dick-swinging gear wankery elitism”, Edwards engineered and produced Raw Coward himself through lessons learned from working with the legendary Sylvia Massy. Raw, explicit, experimental and intelligent, the end result is a crucial album of rock and roll rebellion; a melding of ’70s/’80s doom metal with ’90s grunge and other off-kilter influences that both disturb and inspire.

Raw Coward is out now through One Little Independent Records, with art and design from Hannah Al-Shemmeri.

God Damn - Raw Coward - One Little Independent Records

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

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