Five Favourites: Laura Reznek

Having received much acclaim for her debut and cross-disciplinary stage show Agrimony, and then this year’s innovative album The Sewing Room, Canadian songwriter and composer Laura Reznek interweaves poignant reflections on the struggles of living in a patriarchal society and personal loss, with her glistening folk-tinged melodies and delicate rich vocals.

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspires them. So, ahead of her upcoming UK tour which kicks off next month, we caught up with Laura to find out about the five albums that inspire her the most. Read about their five favourites below, and then make sure you check out her gorgeous album The Sewing Room…

Judee Sill – Judee Sill
Out of all of these, Judee Sill is the newest discovery for me and I don’t really know how it took me so long to find her. I think this record is so incredible – honest, sad, hopeful, beautiful – and when I first heard the opening song ‘Crayon Angels’ it felt like this warm wave washing over me. Every time I put it on – especially when that oboe hits! –  I always breathe a sigh of relief.

Simon & Garfunkel – Bookends
I will love Simon & Garfunkel until the end. This album especially was in my ears a lot while I was writing and recording The Sewing Room. I feel like it’s a really varied record and takes you on a journey. I always love an element of spoken text or conversation woven into music, so love ‘Voices of Old People’ which comes in before ‘Old Friends’ – which has a string arrangement I’m obsessed with. And I think that ‘America’ is the most perfect song ever written.

Madison Cunningham – Revealer
This album blew my mind when it came out. I think Madison Cunningham is one of the best songwriters out there and that this record is pretty much perfect. I heard ‘Life According to Rachael’ in the midst of immense grief and I found it incredibly comforting. I love her use of language and textures in her arrangements.

Anais Mitchell – Anais Mitchell
Another 2022 release, Anais Mitchell’s self-titled record has been a staple in my life. She’s been a longtime inspiration – I saw her play solo in 2016, the day after the US election and the week Leonard Cohen died – and it was the only show I’ve ever openly wept at. ‘Bright Star’ is probably in my ears about ten times a day.

Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters
I will never stop being in awe of Fiona Apple. This album was the soundtrack to my lockdown, and the main reason why I wanted to try my hand at producing The Sewing Room on my own, after I heard she’d made the majority of it in Garage Band. It’s raw, it’s human, and makes me feel empowered, uncomfortable, and elated, which is everything I want from a record.


Huge thanks to Laura for sharing her Five Favourites! Make sure you have a listen to the exquisite The Sewing Room, and then catch her when she’s over in the UK in September and October! Tickets here.


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FIVE FAVOURITES: Vyva Melinkolya

By tethering gauzy reverb and delicate vocals together with her intimate lyrics, American slowcore/shoegaze artist Angel Diaz aka Vyva Melinkolya sculpts emotive soundscapes that explore the awe and sublime terror of the human condition. Her second solo album, Unbecoming (2022), and her collaborative EP Orbweaving – which she co-wrote with multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer Madeline Johnston aka Midwife – both pacify the pain of the past, traversing shadowy territory in both a physical and emotional sense.

This weekend (17th-20th April), Vyva Melinkolya will be performing two sets at Roadburn Festival in Tilburg. Her shows are set to be a highlight of the weekend and we urge you to see her if you are lucky enough to have a ticket for the festival!

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspired them to write in the first place. We caught up with Angel to ask about her “Five Favourites” – and she picked five albums by an eclectic range of artists who have inspired her songwriting techniques. Check out her choices below…

 

1. Grouper – AIA:Dreamloss
There is no single musician as important or influential to me as Grouper. I’ve spent nearly a decade of my life listening to her everyday, especially before sleep. Dreamloss found me in late 2018 during the start an extremely dark period in my life. Earlier in the year, when things were less dire, I was obsessing over the other “half” of the double album – AIA: Alien Observer. Alien Observer, in every sense of the word, is dreamy. It has an effervescent quality to it, it can feel like a collection of “tape-saturated” lullabies. As my life began to change however, and I became more and more honest with myself about the things happening to me and around me, Dreamloss was somewhat of a reality check.

When Brian Eno described the genesis of ambient music, he talked of wanting to create sounds that didn’t impose themselves in a space, that could exist as a backdrop. My experience with Dreamloss, especially those first few lessons, couldn’t have been more different. The album opener ‘Dragging the Streets’ starts with the line “can you hear the sounds they make at night” which, still terrifies me. Speaking of lyrics, the words to ‘Soul Eraser’ are almost all intelligible. I have this fantasy of sorts that if I’m somehow able to figure out what she’s singing, I will disappear. Orbweaving (especially the title track) would not exist without this album.

2. Low – Curtain Hits The Cast
If Grouper is the most important solo musician to me, Low is the most important band . First of all, the title is extremely ominous, even kind of “Doomy”. I consider the first four tracks of this album to be one of the strongest side-As in alternative music. ‘The Plan’ is maybe my favorite “Mimi” song, her voice is at its warmest and has a sort of “wisdom” to it, even if the lyrics are mostly questions. Her voice always feels “motherly” to me. This album has just as many “loving” moments as it does “dark”. Two songs later, ‘Mom Says’ (one of my favorite “Alan” songs) is eerie in a way that’s hard to describe. It ends with the line “mom says, we ruined her body”, jeez.

Side B is incredible as well, with ‘Do You Know How To Waltz’ feeling like both an ascent and a descent into the cosmos or the ocean. The album ends with a song called ‘Dark’ which is essentially a children’s song about “how to not be afraid of the dark” – that one makes me tear up the most I think. I was listening to this album a lot in summer 2020, I have a very specific memory of putting it on during a drive to Bloomington, Indiana. Now I can’t do any sort of drive over 3 hours without it. Especially when it’s warm out. Low sounds best in the midwest and pairs best with the sounds of crickets and trucks going by.

3. Nicole Dollanganger – Natural Born Losers
Another album I fell in love with in summer 2020. I had listened before, but that’s when it fully “hit” me. I was spending a lot of time outside, especially at the skate park until the very early hours of the morning. It couldn’t have sound-tracked that time better. If you haven’t heard this album yet and want to (you should) wait till late May or June (it’s to be enjoyed every season though). This album is sensual, it’s yearning, it’s violent, it sinks its claws into you from start to finish. The final chorus of ‘Mean’ makes me feel like I’m being dragged across pavement, while ‘You’re So Cool’ feels absolute soaring and it’s one of the most “devotional” love songs ever.

I’ve truly learned so much from this record – and from Nicole’s music in general – about song writing. Especially how to set a scene and keep that scene in people’s minds. Production wise, the album has my favorite examples of “ebow” (device that vibrates the guitar string using a magnets) use. A lot of times when people record with it (myself included) it sounds harsh and awkward, but it just floats over this album like a cirrus cloud. Track for track, never have “pop” caliber vocals and post-rock instrumentals had a more beautiful marriage.

4. Giles Corey – Giles Corey
I think the term “concept album” is used inappropriately at times, so I shy away from using it. But if you held a gun to my head and asked me my favorite concept album, I would say Giles Corey. First of all, one of my favorite things about the record is the companion book, which I have annotated and dog-eared excessively. I would love to do something like that with a Vyva Melinkolya album one day. I’m a fan of big sounds, and as a musician I sort of default to maximalism. Giles Corey is an absolutely massive album with absolutely titanic sounds. ‘The Haunting Presence’ and ‘Buried Above Ground’ are perfect examples of this, heavily layered but with all sounds 100% essential. The album is also a thorough depiction of depression that feels universal without ever feeling “cliched”. There will definitely be some Giles Corey worship on the next Vyva Melinkokya album.

5. Lisa Germano – In the Maybe World
Though as a listener I have a preference for bigger sounds, Lisa Germano does an incredible job of making superficially “smaller” songs hit like a ton of bricks. If Natural Born Losers is a perfect summer album, In the Maybe World is the perfect winter album, and not just because the cover art is a winter scene. I got into this album in late 2022. I had spent a couple years before that enjoying her earlier albums like Geek The Girl and Slide which are more lively and gritty in comparison to her later work. In the Maybe World is sort of mutable in the respect that, if you’re listening for the textures it reads like an ambient album (I fall asleep to it sometimes), while if you’re giving it your full attention, it’s a body of work that’s deeply confessional and heart wrenching.

Lisa Germano has an honesty to her song writing that’s a lot to reckon with at times, but validating as well. When she says “go to hell, fuck you” on ‘Red Thread’ (a beautiful, almost medieval sounding guitar ballad) I feel so vindicated every time. It’s a perfect album for breakups and troubles of the heart and when I found it back in 2022, it was relatable to a painful degree. To me, it’s also an album about isolation and a fear of the world outside — which I currently relate to, painfully. As a musician, both as a lyricist and a multi-instrumentalist (violin, piano, guitar, accordion, mandolin, other things I’m sure) I look up to her a lot and I feel like she deserves a lot more credit and exposure for decades of amazing albums.

Thanks to Angel for sharing her favourites with us!
Listen to her album Unbecoming here

Follow Vyva Melinkolya on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Hayden Anhedonia

Kate Crudgington
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Five Favourites: Clara Mann

Having charmed our ears last year with the sparkling emotion-strewn sounds of single ‘Stadiums’, and having previously shared stages with the likes of Bat For Lashes and Bill Ryder-Jones, London-based artist Clara Mann has now announced the release of her debut album, Rift, next month. A poignant exploration of the space between the light and dark, it offers a heartfelt ode to hope; an exquisite rumination that ripples with the stirring grace of Mann’s evocative vocals, alongside twinkling folk-strewn melodies.

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspires them. So, ahead of the release of Rift, we caught up with Clara to find out about the five albums that have inspired her the most. Read about her five favourites, pre-order the album, and watch the beautiful new video for latest single ‘Doubled Over‘ below:

Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All These Years
Some of the best songwriting in the history of ever. One of those writers who makes me pause the track to think “HOW did he do that?” My mum used to play this album in the car on the way to the dentist/big supermarket when we were children, so it’s special to me; and maybe I’m biased, but I think it’s magic. The actual title track makes me cry every time. Paul Simon’s particularly good at metaphor, if I’m being dry about it, but it never feels contrived, just true and poignant.

Mary Margaret O’Hara – Miss America
Mary Margaret O’Hara is my heroine – I love the balance she finds between the strange, the playful, the painful…. Her voice is so clear and true, and her (rather rare) performances that I’ve dug up from YouTube are highly charged; almost difficult to watch, they’re so intense. It’s almost like performance art, but less self-aware than that implies. This is the only full length album she ever recorded, and I’m so glad we have it. 

Blake Mills – Heigh Ho
I remember where I was when I first heard this record; I remember how much it affected me. Again, it’s full of humour, as well as pain, and the production is almost cinematic. Though maybe that word makes it sound less subtle than it is – I just mean it paints colours. 

Les Filles de Illighadad – Les Filles De Illighadad
In the village where I grew up in the south of France, there was a yearly culture festival celebrating North African and Saharan music, literature, and art. I guess it was a celebration of the immigration from Morocco and Algeria, a way of welcoming people and making a start on mending the fraught relations between France and that part of Africa. The village was suddenly full of exhibitions, market stalls and instruments that I’d never seen before, all brought by musicians and artists representing their regions. I remember, as a child, being particularly struck by the indigo robes that the Tuareg people wore – I thought the colour was so beautiful and so striking as they walked around the centre-ville. Even then, I think I was aware that I was lucky to be being exposed to the music they brought with them, music so different to what I heard at home. Fatou Seidi Ghali, the guitarist in Les Filles De Illighadad, is the first female Tuareg guitarist. But, apart from anything else, the music is just so extraordinary, and so feeling, and I listen to this record all the time. I love the agility of her playing and of the voices – it’s magic, and it reminds me of the village in the summer, and the blue robes.

Iris DeMent – My Life
A country classic. Another amazing female voice. Country music is profound and also profoundly silly, sometimes you can hear the laughter in her singing. Iris DeMent is so good at telling stories; stories of home, love, death, landscape… She breaks my heart again and again.

Huge thanks to Clara for sharing her ‘Five Favourites’ us! Watch the beautiful new video for her evocative latest single ‘Doubled Over’ below:


Rift, the upcoming debut album from Clara Mann, is set for release on 7th March via state51. Pre-order here.

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Five Favourites: Sophie Jamieson

Having received acclaim from the likes of Brooklyn Vegan, The Line Of Best Fit and Under The Radar, London-based artist Sophie Jamieson has now shared her exquisite second album, I still want to share, via Bella Union. Reflecting on themes of love and its many meanings, the album showcases Jamieson’s ability to create stirring celestial soundscapes with an added orchestral splendour. Rippling with the soaring raw emotion of her rich, resonant vocals, alongside an immersive shimmering musicality, it’s a beautifully heartfelt collection.

We think one of the best ways to get to know a band is by asking what music inspires them. So, following the release of I still want to share, we caught up with Sophie to find out about the five albums that inspired the writing of the new album the most. Read about her five favourites, listen to the album, get tickets to see her live and watch the beautiful new video for ‘I don’t know what to save‘ below.

Anna B Savage – in|FLUX
It’s hard to overstate the impact this album and this artist have had on me. Sometimes you hear a voice or a song that sounds familiar in a bodily way, but that also opens a door into more daring territory. Everything Anna does feels so… physical. Tangible, clutchable. There’s so much life bubbling through this record, so many sounds, such a sense of play, but with direction, earnestness, confidence, heart. It came out just after we’d begun recording. Something about its attitude crept into ideas I brought into the studio. One day we were working on ‘Baby’ – I said to Guy, I want some weird, bending sound here. Something loose – I found myself playing him ‘Crown Shyness’ which has this roar bubbling away through it, unsettling you. Inspired by that we detuned the guitar from note to note with some effects to create a similar sense of elasticity. We actually managed to put some kind of bending note into almost every song. I think a lot of Anna also crept into ‘How do you want to be loved?’ The moments of strangeness and grittiness amongst warmth and rich melody in this record played a big part in what I felt able to want from my own music.

Angel Olsen – Big Time
I’ve hammered this album pretty hard. It’s definitely one of my favourites of all time. I’m finding it hard to pin a finger on what has been most inspirational, because my album was written over four years and recorded over one. I’ve taken in a LOT of music over that time. But looking back, this record sank deep into my consciousness about six months before I went into the studio. The simplicity, the imperfections, the space. It’s epic, and intimate, also light, full of love, and full of tears. Angel sounds like she’s crying most of the time. I think the albums I love and learn from span the full breadth of the human heart and capacity within whatever they are exploring. That means touching upon highs as well as lows, and leaving space for hope. There’s a drum part I find sooooo satisfying and bouncy in ‘All The Good Times’ and I think that might have crept into the drums for ‘I don’t know what to save’. This record set a beautiful example for me that songwriting doesn’t have to reinvent any wheels or say anything other than what is. It also showed me the power of what a voice can do, when you let it come out as raw as this.

Daughter – Stereo Mind Game
A theme is emerging – the albums that came out during recording time couldn’t avoid coming into the studio with me. I’ve been a huge Daughter fan as long as they’ve been going. Elena’s understated vocals and gut-punch lyrics have driven me since my earliest songs. I couldn’t say what exactly fed into my album from this one but I know it’s there. This is a perfect record. I believe Elena worked almost obsessively on it for years, and scrapped some or all of it and started again… Perhaps just knowing that I feel deep love and appreciation for the level of attention to detail, the crafting of energy, push, drive, space. I think Daughter have always tickled the part of me that wants to be overwhelmed by music, and overwhelm a listener myself. If I had to find a detail that inspired me, it would be a part of ‘Dandelion’ where there’s another bendy note (!) which is a guitar in reverse reverb with loads of gain I think, it sounds like a revving engine. I was obsessed with it. I think it fed into a sound in ‘Welcome’ that revs up an octave between the verses. 

Hannah Cohen – Pleasure Boy 
This is the odd one out choice for me. My only one here not released in 2023 (it’s from 2015), Hannah’s 3rd album, Welcome Home is actually in probably my top three albums of all time. Though I wouldn’t quote its influence here as much as this one. I don’t find myself listening to this album much because it feels lonely, and I guess it reminds me of a particularly painful time I was going through when it was released. But I brought this record into the studio as a reference, because there is a spikiness and a fragility about it, as well as a hard kind of strength. It’s a contradictory combination that I guess I recognise in myself. It’s also just full of what feels like unrequited longing. I think it’s stayed with me, quietly, over the years, in my bones somewhere. I’m listening to it now, and it actually hurts. Like when you stick a finger somewhere really tender. I guess that’s what I’d love to do with my music.

Feist – Multitudes 
This was released around halfway through recording, shortly after I broke up with the person who has loved me best in my life, which plays out in ‘Your love is a mirror’ and ‘I’d take you’. This record really made me look at myself. I’m not sure why. There’s a line in ‘Hiding Out In The Open’ which echoed the song I’d already written: “the mirror in another’s eyes / that’ll get you every time / there are a thousand different ways to hide”. I was absolutely grabbed by this song, and the other stripped back ones on the record (‘Redwing’, ‘Love Who We Are Meant To”) in which the arrangement is so intimate and touchable, the recording is so alive. It really raised the stakes for how close you could get to the listener’s ears, and with those uncomfortable truths. I think it fed into “I’d take you”, which I wrote and recorded at home over a weekend that summer. This album really feels like a reckoning with something foundational and elemental. It does that with very little and also a lot, the dynamic range is enormous, and the sense of space is constantly morphing and bewildering. I love that.


Huge thanks to Sophie for sharing her Five Favourites with us! Watch the beautiful video for ‘I don’t know what to save’ below.


I still want to share, the new album from Sophie Jamieson, is out now via Bella Union. To celebrate, catch Sophie live this month – all dates and tickets here.

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