Track Of The Day: Farao – ‘The Ghost Ship’

“It’s about losing a sense of direction, your fate being driven by something out of your control,” explains Farao about her latest single ‘The Ghost Ship’. With her floaty electronic sounds and magnetic beats, it’s easy to get lost in the multi-instrumentalist’s brand new track.

Originally from Norway but now based in Berlin, Farao has recently signed to Western Vinyl and is currently working on a new album, with more details to be released soon. “‘The Ghost Ship’ is about seeing the end of a relationship as an empty vessel, floating endlessly and eternally into nothingness,” Farao continues. Despite the sad context, the single is a hopeful, upbeat offering.

Listen to the track below and follow Farao on Facebook for more updates.

Photo credit: Kevin Bourland

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: NADINE – ‘Pews’

Following the release of their sophisticated debut album oh my, Minneapolis/New York trio NADINE are fast building a reputation for their unique modern pop songs.

Taken from the album is new single ‘Pews’. Flowing with infectious glitchy beats and whirring hooks, it interweaves rich musical layers, creating an immersive, expansive soundscape. Propelled by the soaring, luscious vocals of Nadia Hullet, it’s an ethereal sonic delight, shimmering in its captivating, dreamy haze. Of her songwriting, Hullet expands:

“My body is filled with melodies and sonic textures, incubating & looping… tunes just come back and I’ll cut them up and place them with something new. Extracted from daydreams past, present & future.”

oh my, the debut album from NADINE, is out now via Father/Daughter and Memphis Industries.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

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ALBUM: Hilary Woods – ‘Colt’

A contemplative, carefully crafted record which schools listeners in how to come undone: Hilary Woods‘ debut album Colt is an exquisitely painful exploration of grief, separation, and abandonment. The Dublin-based artist signed to altruistic label Sacred Bones to release her first full-length record, and the partnership is one we wholly approve of.

Written and recorded at her home in Dublin, Colt was later mixed by and co-produced with James Kelly (WIFE, Altar of Plagues) in Berlin in the winter of 2017. The dynamics of the production and Woods’ layering of multiple elements – including piano, synth, tape machine, field recordings, vocals, and old string instruments – has culminated in a record which comfortably overlaps both the acoustic and electronic genres.

Opening track ‘Inhaler’ is a delicate example of this. It’s a pensive, melancholy song born from Woods’ struggle with homesickness. She explores her grief through tentative electronics and orchestral sounds, with her mysterious vocals floating calmly above. Following track ‘Prodigal Dog’ is a mesmeric examination of emotional claustrophobia: a disarming fusion of strings, understated synths, and hushed vocals.

There is a gentle urgency that permeates each of the eight tracks on Colt, and on ‘Take Him In’ Woods’ reflective lyrics and cautious keys instill this delicate unease further. Poetic track ‘Kith’ bleeds in after, with it’s divine, yet somber themes of “running on empty” in what feels like emotional purgatory. The persistent, steady beats and fluttering keys on the remarkable ‘Jesus Said’ mark a brief change in tempo on the record, as Woods laments a sincere disconnection and a search for absolution for almost six minutes. ‘Sever’ is equally as affecting with its heartbeat-like percussion, and more of Woods’ measured, poignant vocals.

Penultimate track ‘Black Rainbow’ though bleakly named, is an enchanting listen, and closing track ‘Limbs’ is a captivating collection of distant, alluring keys. Under all of the melancholy lurks a quiet power: a power that comes from being open and honest about genuine pain and how to deal with it.

To call Hilary Woods’ work on Colt siren-like is to do her a disservice; her music has a far wider, more disarming reach. Her emotional articulation and manipulation of sounds makes the record a dizzying but rewarding lesson, and we are grateful to have been allowed to endure this aural exploration of grief with her.

Colt is released via Sacred Bones on 8th June. Pre-order your copy here.
Hilary Woods headlines St Pancras Old Church on 11th June. Grab a ticket here.

Photo Credit: Joshua Wright

Kate Crugington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Argonaut – ‘Forever’

Let me posit an idea: The writer asks themselves the questions required for the process of a good album review. Actors do it, why can’t we? My first (and only, to be honest) question would be: what do you think has been lacking from the overall music scene? Aside from estrogen, queerness, and artists of colour, it’s the space for old-school DIY punk rock spirit that is most sorely vacuous.

London-based band Argonaut have that in spades. The card spades, because Wiki told me that one time when I thought it meant the tools you scoop up sand with at the beach. Influenced by bands that make me weak in the knees – Pixies, Sonic Youth, Le Tigre – Argonaut have absolutely nothing to prove when it comes to the art of do-it-yourself no wave art-anarchy.Their third album, Forever, was recorded live over a couple of days in Bally Studios in Tottenham Hale and hits the punk rock spots I sometimes forget still exist.

I remember hearing Dave Grohl talk about his recording process before the Foo Fighters. He’d record the song all the way through, then he’d have to record that tape on another tape to add the next track and so on, so forth. Always thought that was fucking cool.

Recording tracks live and in one piece is a challenge and fifty more, but in listening to tracks like Argonaut’s ‘Zero Said’, ‘Touch Electric’, and the Breeders-like ‘No Song’, you wouldn’t know it. I mean, just listening to the album (which I have been on loop for the last week, battling against the mainstream white-boy snoozy pop music coming from next door’s Sonos), I could hear Argonaut on a line-up with their influences. Or like in a quick cutscene from the (best) documentary (of all time), 1991: The Year Punk Broke. Like there’d be Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. and Babes in Toyland, and then Argonaut. Yeah, I could see that.

Even cooler is the fact that despite the music landscape these days being so openly accessible to anyone with cash or an internet connection, the band are releasing the record as a limited edition of 100 CD copies. I love the fucking up of a corporate future. The limited release will also be available only from former Argonaut bassist, Paul Saiya’s, independent record store.

If there’s anything better in life than from the belly of the beast punk rock, I don’t even want to know about it. I am awash with the joys of a kid who worshipped Kim Gordon, Deal, and Kathleen Hanna, and because of Argonaut’s Forever, I’m reminded once more that punk will never die. Not so long as there are women around.

Now, how fucking cool is that?

Argonaut’s Forever is out now. Order it here.

Em Burfitt
@fenderqueer

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