Track Of The Day: King Hannah – ‘Crème Brûlée’

We have actually previously featured this song from Liverpool duo King Hannah as Track Of The Day way back when it was first brought to our attention in July last year, but – with its official release having just been announced on City Slang Records – we felt it only right to sing its praises once again.

In fact, ‘Crème Brûlée’ had me so completely hooked the first time around that the band even featured in my Ones To Watch for 2020 (hate to say I told you so…). It just completely cast me under its spell on first listen.

With a sweeping, ethereal power and the longing, impassioned vocals of Hannah Merrick that flow with a majestic musicality, it’s just utterly compelling; a stunning introduction to the band who I hope to hear a lot more from over the coming months. Although they’re just one single down, with already over 11,000 streams on Spotify and a sound as captivating and original as this, I have a feeling that they’ll be enchanting many more ears.

And now ‘Crème Brûlée’ comes complete with its own beautifully homemade, documentary-style new video. Watch now:

‘Crème Brûlée’ is out now via City Slang. Listen on Spotify.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

Photo Credit: Lucy Mclachlan

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LISTEN: Anna B Savage – ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’

An intense, personal, exquisitely revealing celebration of female pleasure; London-based songwriter Anna B Savage has shared her latest single, ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’. Taken from her upcoming album which is due via City Slang later this year, the track is an affecting, powerful exploration of female desire, and how Savage has learned to dismiss the damaging tropes associated with it.

Fans of Leonard Cohen may be familiar with Savage’s opening lyric – “He was giving me head on my unmade bed” – as it’s paraphrased from Cohen’s track ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’. Over tentative guitar sounds, revealing lyrics, and through her measured, captivating vocals; Savage reveals how she learned to prioritize herself, and how female pleasure is not “secondary”. She subverts Cohen’s storytelling, re-writing the narrative to rid her feelings of shame and confusion.

Savage explores the meaning behind ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ in more details: “‘Wank More’ was my 2016 New Year’s Resolution. It was part of my need to battle all the internalised bullshit I had ingested about women. I’ve spent the last few years actively unlearning things I spent my first twenty years passively being fed. Like how women are sexualised, but never allowed to be sexual, they are the object (sometimes even an object). It took me until 21 to start masturbating, even longer to realise that sex was also for me (groundbreaking, I know) and that I had agency and could and should ask for things. It’s wildly frustrating and sad. Out of these thoughts came ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’.”

“While it’s a naked nod to Cohen’s Janis Joplin in ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’, in my mind it’s an even bigger nod to Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick, a book which prompted me to be able to express myself in this way. The man in ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ is a stand in for all men, and as I’m telling my story, here he plays the role of the passive pawn and “muse”, a like-for-like role reversal of how women have “inspired” men for centuries. The song is a groan of boredom for the role of passive, mute, muse women, and a scream for female autonomy and pleasure.”

Produced by William Doyle (East India Youth), ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ marks the first new music for Savage since her 2015 EP, which caught the attention of Father John Misty and Jenny Hval (both of whom brought Savage out on European tours). Savage defiantly sings on her new track “I will learn to take care of myself”, and we fully believe that she will.

Watch the video for ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ below, and follow Anna B Savage on Facebook & Spotify for more updates.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Noga Erez – ‘Worth None’ (feat. Camerata Orchestra)

If you thought Tel Aviv-based producer Noga Erez could be labelled predictable, think again. After her two knockout releases in 2018 – ‘Bad Habits’ and ‘Cash Out’ – the pop renegade has returned with a reworked version of her acclaimed 2017 album, Off The Radar. Titled RaDaR Reworked, Erez has teamed up with Israel’s esteemed Camerata Orchestra to create classical versions of her contemporary songs, and she’s shared a live video for ‘Worth None’ to celebrate the release (available now via City Slang).

Renowned artist Shlomi Shaban invited Erez to perform a concert with Jerusalem’s Camerata Orchestra in 2018, arranging the tracks with respected orchestrator, Eugene Levitas. The event took place at Tel Aviv’s prestigious Performing Art Center, and was captured on film and recorded for this special release. Together with her partner and co-writer Ori Rousso; Erez’s altruistic vocals are accompanied by exquisite strings and refined, understated percussion on this enigmatic re-working.

Speaking about her new project, Erez explans: “We weren’t looking to change the songs from my debut album, but were seeking to wrap them in a new, brighter gown, that will elevate the existing sounds and give it a shiny and majestic feel.” Listen to ‘Worth None’ below and keep your ears peeled for more new music from Noga Erez later in 2019.

Order Noga Erez’s RADAR Reworked here.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Laura Gibson – ‘Domestication’

Following beautiful tracks such as ‘Empire Builder’ and ‘Damn Sure’, acclaimed artist Laura Gibson is now ready to release her new album Goners later this month. In the meantime she has shared a poignant new single, ‘Domestication’.

Questioning the things we are presumed to desire from womanhood, ‘Domestication’ oozes a delicate emotion as folk-strewn twinkling melodies flow alongside Gibson’s raw, soaring vocals. With the addition of sweeping strings, it’s filled with a rich musicality and subtle passion, creating a sparkling, cinematic splendour that is truly spellbinding.

Of the track, Gibson explains:

“… at times, though I know better, I’ll catch myself thinking in terms of what I should desire of womanhood instead of what I actually desire. I catch myself feeling I am failing at something, at some ideal I was never actually aiming for. I finished these lyrics a year ago. It’s strange to release the song now, when it feels so much is coming to a head. So much has cracked open for women, in the year since writing ‘Domestication.’ So much remains the same… Though I’d meant ‘domestication’ in the animal sense, when it came time to make the video, I liked the idea of using the term in the homemaking sense. I’d been obsessed with this photo I’d found of the pastel women of the FLDS cult, and wanted to build a world and a story around the aesthetic, something like the speculative societies of Margaret Atwood or Ursula Le Guin. At the end of the story, I wanted the women to act like wolves.”

Watch the eerily poignant new video (co-directed by Gibson and Alicia Rose) for ‘Domestication’ here:

Goners, the upcoming album from Laura Gibson, is out 26th October via City Slang.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

 

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