Track Of The Day: Esther Joy – ‘Day 4 (Landing)’

Unusual artist Esther Joy has released the second track from her upcoming record The Acid Caves Vol 1 (released April 27th), and it’s a warped ear-worm which continues to document the story of the character at the centre of the concept record: young alien Silipur.

The London-based producer’s electronic manipulations on new single ‘Day 4 (Landing)’ are mind-bendingly catchy, and Esther has accompanied them with the following explanation:

“This song is the second in the Acid Caves story, following a young alien ‘Silipur’ in a world where all intelligent lifeforms are able to see in a new dimension called ‘The Chaos’. The Chaos gives the ability to see, understand and manipulate emotional energy which is fuelling the universe. Humans are the only beings that lack this ability as a fixation on ego stunted their natural evolution.

‘Day 4 (Landing)’ is based on Silipur’s first day on Earth. She is overwhelmed by the psychological state of the planet and the emotional toxicity of it’s atmosphere. Humans cannot understand ‘The Chaos’ and have therefore left their planet to emotional ruin. I wanted this song to feel violent and intrusive, as if you are experiencing the extremity and destruction of earth for the very first time.”

We’re enthralled by Esther’s narratives and are highly anticipating the next slice. Listen to “Day 4 (Landing)” below, and follow Esther Joy’s alien tales on Facebook.

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Track Of The Day: Girls Names – ’25’

Having just announced the release of their fourth album, Belfast’s Girls Names make a welcome return after a hiatus from music following 2015’s Arms Around A Vision. Recorded in various locations, including Belfast’s esteemed Start Together Studio, Stains Of Silence looks set to be a defiant, and immersive, come back for the band.

Taken from the album, new single ’25’ is a brooding, shoegaze-reminiscent sonic delight. Filled with sweeping, reverb strewn layers of synth-heavy sound and the dark, swooning vocals of Cathal Cully, it oozes a twinkling, ethereal haze alongside eerie undertones. An intensely captivating offering, it’ll have you hooked on first listen, and desperate to hear the album in full.

Stains On Silence, the fourth LP from Girls Names, is out 15th June via Tough Love Records.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

 

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Track Of The Day: Nányë – ‘Hummingbird Part I’

A collaboration between artists Oli Rushen, Roman Banwell, Elliot Hingston and Ella Joy, Nányë create captivating electronic and analogue soundscapes. Based in London, the band are connected by their desire to explore modern progressive living, self exploration and creative expression through sound. On their single ‘Hummingbird Part I’, they achieve this through gentle percussion, beautiful vocals and waves of delicate electronica.

Nányë recently released their first concept EP, exploring the relationship between music, art and mindful conscious living. It makes for a thoughtful, liberating, harmonious listening experience and beautifully showcases the band’s talent.

Watch the mesmerising video for ‘Hummingbird Part I’ below and follow Nányë on Facebook for more updates.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Wendy Rae Fowler – ‘Warped’

For most of us, a musical life spent mixing with the great and good of US alt.rock and British trip-hop might be sufficient. But following a twenty year career of collaborations with Queens Of The Stone Age, Mark Lanegan and UNKLE, Wendy Rae Fowler now brings us her debut solo album: Warped. Now based in the UK, and collaborating with London’s finest (including GIHE fave Jemma Freeman), Fowler has tied together the strands of alternative, experimental rock, from both sides of the Atlantic – and her album has both the cinematic feel of US desert/post-rock and the gloomy clouds of its British cousin.

Opener ‘Hollow’ is an infusion of post-punk and post-rock, with its throbbing electronic motif, aching guitar and vocal distortion in the style of Fever Ray. It’s a style that appears later, on first single ‘Svengali’, although with a darker, fairytale opener, and a move into a trip-hop feel at its close.

 

‘Volcanic’ takes things in a more ethereal direction, still carrying the sense of Bjorkian electronic interference in its spacey heft. Elsewhere, there’s the legacy of other female performers – the goth folk of PJ Harvey’s Is This Desire? and To Bring You My Love on ‘Lying in the Sun’ and ‘Red Dust’; Nina Simone on the cover of ‘Plain Gold Ring’.  

The latter encompasses an element of psych’s dark blues with its multi-percussion particularly reminiscent of GOAT. Second single ‘Run’ and ‘This is Not a Love Song’ take the listener to a twisted version of the old Wild West, with smatterings of twanging guitars and Rawhide cowboy backing vocalists.

Finally, the album concludes with the glistening shine of ‘Hollow Ground’ – a brooding epic instrumental whose electric lights twinkle through a bassy city smog, conjuring a tumble-twist in the mind’s eye of landscapes, both urban and natural. It’s a fitting conclusion to an album of light and shade, of space and density.

A powerful and moreish cocktail of cinematic sounds and bewitching vocals, Warped is a kind of neo-noir soundtrack to a movie that should, but doesn’t yet, exist. Rae Fowler’s sense of narrative is as strong as her musical nous, and her debut is a brilliant continuation of an already storied career.

Warped is out 30th March.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego

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