FIVE FAVOURITES: Ora Cogan

Ora Cogan is not easily categorised. Since releasing her 2007 debut, Tatter, the Canadian artist has continued to evolve in intriguing ways, not only as a musician but as an activist, filmmaker, photographer and writer. Her new EP, Dyed, follows 2020’s shapeshifting album, Bells in the Ruins, and finds her exploring gradations of shoegaze and experimental folk succoured through shadows and light. As well as the high and airy title track, described as “a cryptic rumination on awkward love,” there’s a cloudy, ephemerally anxious mood piece (‘Diver’) and a tantalising cover of PJ Harvey’s ‘To Bring You My Love’, completely reimagined within Ora’s rapt soundworld.

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspires them. To celebrate the release of Dyed, we caught up with Ora to ask about the music that has inspired her the most. See below for their choices of her five favourite albums, and be sure to catch her on tour with Aoife Nessa Frances in November. Full list of headline and support dates here.

 

1. Buffy Sainte-Marie – Coincidence and Likely Stories
One of my favourite memories of this record is from when I was a kid. My mum and I had picked up my godmother on the side of a highway for a roadtrip. I think my godmum had just finished doing some kind of farm work, but I’m not sure. She’d click her rings on the dashboard, singing along to every song on this record at the top of her lungs as we drove through the desert. Buffy Sainte-Marie is a legend, she’s one of the greatest songwriters alive and has many mind-blowing albums of course, but Coincidence and Likely Stories was the first record of hers I heard that I fell in love with. I keep going back to these songs. Her work continues to inspire me to write honestly, to try to use songwriting as a way of finding understanding in life, in politics, in love. She inspires me to write songs that speak truth to power.

2. Fiver – Audible Songs from Rockwood
Audible Songs from Rockwood is a monumental piece of work. This record is comprised of songs Fiver (Simone Schmidt) wrote after of years of research on inmates incarcerated in the Rockwood Asylum for “the criminally insane” in Kingston, Ontario, between 1856 and 1881. The songs speak of these women’s lives and dig into matters of the heart, the justice system, colonialism, ableism. This record is more than a record, with 30 pages of liner notes featuring illustrations, history, and context for the songs. I first heard Fiver when I opened for them at one of the stops on their tour in support of this album, and they had the whole audience spellbound. I look up to them as an artist so much, and this project was such generous work.

3. Marika Papagika – The Further the Flame, The Worse It Burns Me
Marika Papagika moved to New York City from Greece and became a prolific recording artist there. She eventually opened a club with her husband in the ‘20s and had a successful music career, but that ended abruptly with the Wall Street Crash of 1929. I fell in love with Marika Papagika after Eric Isaacson at Mississippi Records introduced me to her work. Rumbetiko feels vital and familiar as I grew up listening to Jewish folk music that can sometimes have similar vocal lines. Marika’s voice felt relatable, and this record will always hold so much magic for me. Marika inspires me endlessly to be a better singer.

4. Nina Simone – Sings the Blues
The opening track, ‘Do I Move You’, kills me every time. You can hear people yelling in the recording, they were feeling it so much. I first heard this album when my friend Jeremy from Shearing Pinx was DJing a bush party a few hours north of Nanaimo. The song was echoing across a lake, and I swear I could feel the whole natural world saying, ‘Yes, Nina Simone, you move us, you move everything. The whole universe bends towards you.’ I might have been high, but it’s still the truth. She was truly the best.

5. White Magic – Through the Sun Door
White Magic (Mira Billotte) has been one of my favorite musicians forever. I first heard her when she was a part of the Washington D.C. group Quix*o*tic; their song ‘The Breeze’ stopped me dead in my tracks. My friends and I used to stay up all night crafting or painting with Through the Sun Door on repeat. For us, I think, this album was our touchstone, like a secret passageway to an alternate reality. Some music opens up entire worlds, and for me this was a teleportation device. This record is intimate but spacious. Some of it feels like tavern music, punk, psychedelic folk and experimental music at the same time. I love the unique arrangements. I don’t know any other music that breathes like this does.

Thanks to Ora Cogan for sharing her Five Favourites with us!

Watch her video for ‘Diver’ below.

Dyed, the new EP from Ora Cogan, is out now via her own label Prism Tongue Records.

Photo Credit: Journey Meyerhoff

Alan Pedder
@alanthology

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Five Favourites: Princess Chelsea

Having been creating her signature dreamy indie-pop for eleven years now, New Zealand artist Princess Chelsea has just released her fifth album Everything Is Going To Be Alright. Tinged with an early noughties shimmering nostalgia, it’s a poignant collection of cinematic soundscapes that twinkle with an ethereal splendour and captivating raw emotion.

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspires them. So, to celebrate the release of Everything Is Going To Be Alright, we caught up with Princess Chelsea to ask about the music that has inspired her the most. See below for their choices of their five favourite songs, and be sure to watch the cute new video for album track ‘Love Is More‘ at the bottom of this feature.

Marianne Faithfull – ‘Morning Sun’
This is from Marianne Faithfull’s early period and it’s an undiscovered gem, I suppose! It sounds very ‘English’ to me in a good way. It’s a beautiful track – the harps and her beautiful slightly monotonous eerie vocals (a little bit reminiscent of Nico). Marianne always was a total queen and her vocals from this early 1960s period of her career are quite different to her later more widely known work. As an artist she is a fascinating character who really got dealt a tough blow by music press and public who were very judgemental of her for any ‘mistakes’ (aka not being perfect) in her private life. After being London’s golden girl for a few years, she disappeared into a world of addiction and complicated experiences only to re-emerge over twenty years later with just as amazing music (Broken English being her comeback album). My track ‘Time‘ is heavily influenced by early Marianne Faithfull and English pop in the way I produced and arranged it – and I actually covered this song on my 2016 album Aftertouch.  

The Bats – ‘Sir Queen’
In the 1980s Flying Nun Records was formed in the South Island of New Zealand in Christchurch by Roger Shepherd, although it is associated more with an even more southern city Dunedin, when somebody coined the term “The Dunedin Sound” to describe the jangly guitar pop style of some of the bands on the label who were heavily influenced by the open chords of the Velvet Underground. Seminal acts The Clean, The Chills, The Verlaines, and The Bats made jangly guitar pop music that proved to be heavily influential internationally and still is. Kaye Woodward from The Bats is one of the most interesting “indie rock” (lol) guitarists I’ve had the pleasure of listening to and her work with The Bats as displayed on ‘Sir Queen’ from their classic album Daddy’s Highway is emotive, particular and loose at the same time. I’ve been a fan of The Bats and many of the early Flying Nun acts since I was a teenager, and any guitar work I do (or make other people do, haha)  is greatly influenced by these bands whose style of playing is far more important than technical prowess. My song ‘Love Is More’ from my new album is definitely influenced by Kaye Woodward’s trademark ‘bendy’ guitar playing.

Jane’s Addiction – ‘Jane Says’ (Live from Kettle Whistle)
Jane’s Addiction are a truly weird band that don’t really fit into any kind of genre. In the 1990s in LA they were junkie surfers that made heavy rock music influenced by Led Zeppelin, but it was also glam, arty and truly ‘alternative’ – influenced by I imagine a whole lot of esoteric music. Frontman Perry Farrell would wail and leap around on the stage like some kind of androgenous mad puppet. While totally unintentional I think my track ‘The Forest‘ certainly reminds me of Jane’s Addiction sometimes which isn’t really surprising seeing as it’s my first truly ‘rock’ song and they were my first favourite ‘rock’ band. The live version of ‘Jane Says’ with its massive drum sound, and Farrell’s vocals sailing over the top – plus the addition of steel drums – make for a truly original yet totally rocking melodic band. I think somehow and always Jane’s Addiction will always influence my live performance.

The Gun Club – ‘Sex Beat’
The Gun Club is a band I discovered as a teenager and their guitar sound in particular is something I’ve always loved – it’s punk, but it’s also got tonality of country music with tremolo, twang and a lot of reverb. Their later albums would sound more shoegazey and shiny (Mother Juno), but the first album is a great example of the county / punk influence of this wonderful band. I think a lot of guitar tones on ‘We Kick Around’ remind me of the Gun Club. The solo on ‘I Don’t Know You‘ is by my friend Vincent HL who plays on this track and is a huge Gun Club fan.

Fleetwood Mac – ‘What Makes You Think You’re The One’
After years of listening to Fleetwood Mac, I started repetitively listening to deep cuts from the double album Tusk which followed their massive album Rumours and was a critical yet commercial kind of flop (well a flop for Fleetwood Mac – it still sold millions). Lindsay Buckingham was probably doing way too much cocaine during this period and there are a lot of great what I call “weird Lyndsay Buckingham songs” dispersed throughout Tusk. I think he was maybe listening to a lot of punk music at the time and was trying to insert some of that energy into Fleetwood Mac which may have been perceived as soft rock for moms and dads or something by then. And there’s nothing wrong with that haha. His vocal performance on this track and a lot of the backing vocal loops all over Tusk, and also on the album Tango In The Night (‘Family Man’ is a great example of this) definitely influenced my track ‘I Don’t Know You’ and a lot of my backing vocal ideas in general. When I sing “I DONT KNOW!”, I am 100% channeling Lyndsay – intentionally and quite overtly.

Massive thanks to Princess Chelsea for sharing her Five Favourites with us! Watch the video for latest single ‘Love Is More’ here:


Everything Is Going To Be Alright, the fifth album from Princess Chelsea, is out now via Lil Chief Records.

Photo Credit: Frances Carter

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Five Favourites: Maria Uzor

Having recently wowed us with her immersive live show at The Shacklewell Arms, and having received acclaim from the likes of John Kennedy and Amy Lame, we’re excited to hear that Norwich based vocalist and producer Maria Uzor (also half of faves Sink Ya Teeth) has now announced the release of her upcoming new EP in December. Ahead of the EP release, she has now shared captivating new single ‘Solitaire’. Flowing with a luscious, swirling groove and gnarly beats, it builds with a shimmering, pulsating majesty to a gritty slice of euphoric electro-pop. Oozing her distinctive, spellbinding sweeping vocals, it’s a gloriously uplifting synth-soaked soundscape.

We think one of the best ways to get to know an artist is by asking what music inspires them. So, to celebrate the upcoming release of Songs For Luminous Living, we caught up with Maria to ask about the music that has inspired her the most. See below for their choices of their five favourite albums, and be sure to watch the trippy new video for ‘Solitaire’ at the end of this feature.

Tricky – Pre Millenium Tension
I’ve always really admired Tricky as an artist. I’m really drawn to the landscapes he paints with sounds and vocals, and how he doesn’t confine himself to genres. You can hear influences from all over the place. There’s an other-worldly quality to his music too, which I think comes from not putting restrictions on himself. He’s an explorer; I love that. This album also features the superb vocals of Martine Topley Bird. The interplay between their two voices is something magic.


Minnie Ripperton – Come To My Garden
This was Minnie Ripperton’s debut solo album after leaving Rotary Connection, and what an album! That voice is just from another realm – it makes me cry! And such beautiful production too. It’s the kind of album I can play on a summer’s day or late at night and it will just put me in a mood of beauty and possibility. This album has an other-worldly feel to it too; it’s haunting in its beauty.


Sylvester – Stars
I absolutely adore Sylvester. He had such a beautiful voice and presence, and he chose to spend his time on this planet being unapologetically himself, and I really love that. Stars is only a four track EP but every song is special. The title track makes me want to dance whenever I hear it, it’s just life affirming. The EP also features a collaboration with Patrick Cowley on ‘I Need Somebody To Love Tonight’ (Cowley produced it). It definitely grooves hard, but there’s a pensive element there too which gives it a different edge.

David Bowie – Low
Whenever I speak to people who were around when Ziggy Stardust first landed, they always say the same thing; that it was like he came from another planet. So naturally, I love him – haha! When I was a teenager I used to just play all the usual early ’70s classics like ‘Life On Mars’ and ‘Starman’, but then I started loving all eras of Bowie as I got older. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed out on. I’m really into how wise he became in his older years too. There’s some stellar nuggets of wisdom from him in YouTube videos! It was hard to pick just one Bowie album but I settled on Low for the beautiful songwriting and production. I admire Bowie for the same reason that I admire Tricky; they’re both explorers, boldly dancing beyond boundaries in every sense. ‘Sound And Vision’ just reminds me of countless good times I’ve had with friends, late at night in small kitchens!


Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?
To me, no other piece of music comes closer to perfection than this album. I first discovered it at art school and used to play it every day for about two years. The production, the sentiment, the vocals; it’s like it’s a precise moment of expression beamed out to the universe. Or beamed in from the universe. Or both! Flawless and breathtaking in its beauty.


Massive thanks to Maria Uzor for sharing her Five Favourites with us! Watch the captivatingly trippy new video for her single ‘Solitaire‘ now:


Songs For Luminous Living, the upcoming EP from Maria Uzor, is set for release on 9th December via Hey Buffalo Records.

Photo Credit: Andi Sapey

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FIVE FAVOURITES: Muna Ileiwat

London-based, New Jersey-born songwriter Muna Ileiwat creates tender indie pop tunes that are a blend of soft vocals, shimmering electronics and steady beats. Her debut EP, Twenty-Seven, released today (19th Aug) via Fear of Missing Out Records, explores the fluctuating nature of relationships in all their forms, and the resilience and freedom that comes with creating art for arts sake.

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 Muna to ask about her “Five Favourites” – five songs that have inspired her song-writing techniques. Check out her choices below and scroll down to watch her video for ‘Pity Party’ at the end of this post.

 

1. Ms. Lauryn Hill – ‘I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)’
This song made me want to learn guitar and start writing my own music. When I started guitar lessons I learned classical music. At the end of each lesson, my teacher and I would spend a bit of time learning a “pop” song. This was the first song I chose. I heard Lauryn Hill’s MTV Unplugged album a lot when I was young (my dad owned it on CD). I’m not really into live albums except this one I love. I’ve come back to this song throughout my life. It’s not a conventional structure and the lyrics are stunning. The song’s nearly 7 minutes long, but every time I listen to it, it feels like half the time, probably because it’s so moving. Lauryn Hill’s performance is so raw. Once I was old enough, I discovered the song was about the murder of Amadou Diallo.

2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – ‘Maps’
An indie gem. I have such a soft spot for Karen O, she’s so badass! Yeah Yeah Yeahs were one my first introductions to indie music (this song in particular). There’s something so understated and vulnerable about the chorus line – “wait, they don’t love you like I love you”. It’s hard to convince me that a guitar solo is ever cool, but Nick Zinner’s solo in this is very cool. I got so wrapped up in the story behind this song. Music is so much about storytelling. You get a unique perspective into the deepest parts of people’s inner emotional states, the things people want to talk about, but just don’t know how. In the music video, Karen O is apparently crying real tears because her boyfriend was hours late to the shoot, right before her tour. There’s speculation that the song title is an acronym for ‘My Angus Please Stay’ and even though Karen O has never confirmed it, this kinda makes me love the song more. It really hurts. You feel her disappointment when the person you love can’t show up for you in the ways you need.

3. Selena – ‘Como La Flor’
I spent my early childhood in the US and Selena was always on the radio. I can’t begin to explain how much I love her and what she represents. Her outfits – incredible. Her voice – flawless. Her stage presence – mesmerising. Her music crossed cultural boundaries. That’s so powerful. Her iconic performance of this song at the Astrodome can bring me to tears. I’ve watched that performance a billion times. She was so talented. Her music is a nostalgic part of my childhood.

4. Solange – ‘Losing You’
The synths, chord progression, harmonies, production, the video – I love this song! It’s so fun! It’s melancholy cloaked in catchy hooks. I love the simplicity of the lyrics. Nothing is hidden under metaphors. I find songwriting like this bold. You can’t disguise your vulnerability under fancy wordplay. It’s direct. I’m a big Dev Hynes fan so the fact that he co-wrote this explains why it’s so goddamn good. I’ve always appreciated Solange’s holistic approach and commitment to her art. The video manifests a sense of community. It reminds me of Curaçao and that island life.

5. Robyn – ‘With Every Heartbeat’
I’ve always admired Robyn’s songwriting. She’s so inspiring and her music is so cathartic. This song has everything you need – a sweeping orchestra and driving beat. The lyrics are a perfect blend of hopefulness and devastation, particularly in the chorus. Robyn is so good at finding that balance, and nothing hits like a pop song about the realisation that you have to leave someone behind even though it hurts. I dream, and will continue to dream of writing a Robyn equivalent one day.

 

Thanks to Muna for sharing her favourites with us! Watch her video for ‘Pity Party’ below.

Pre-order Muna Ileiwat’s debut EP, Twenty-Seven, from Rough Trade here

Follow Muna Ileiwat on Apple Music, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Guy Gotto

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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