Five Favourites: Barrie

Set to release her upcoming second album later this month, New York artist Barrie Lindsay – aka Barrie – has been charming our ears with her shimmering sounds for some time now. Ahead of the album’s release, she has now shared ‘Jenny‘ – a poignant reflection on falling in love with her wife. Flowing with twinkling melodies as her delicate crystalline vocals emanate a stirring emotion, it’s a beautifully uplifting offering, celebrating the comfort of finding home in another person.

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 her new album, we caught up with Barrie to ask about her “Five Favourites” – five ‘perfect pop songs’ that she loves and have inspired her sound. Check them out below, and listen to ‘Jenny’ at the end of this article!

The La’s – ‘There She Goes’
I first heard this in the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap movie, and I come back to it constantly. It’s such a Motown song with the beat, melody, harmonies and loud, live-sounding production – it makes no sense that it came out in 1988. And it perfectly rides the line of happy and melancholy. It seems so simple but the structure and progressions are really hard to pin down. It’s particularly special to me because my dad and I used to play this song on guitar together — it’s really fun on a 12-string.


Robyn – ‘Call Your Girlfriend’
Robyn is a master of minimal maximalism, like SOPHIE. And she’s so committed to the character of Robyn, it’s really inspiring. The Robyn songs that click for me are the ones that have her special mix of drive and melancholy. She gets the perfect balance of hopeful and desperate. I’ve tried many times to write a Robyn song, and I’ll probably keep trying to for a long time. I love running to this song, and it blows my mind that a song is capable of making you physically stronger.


Alvvays – ‘Dreams Tonite’
Beyond the great songwriting (the anticipated chord change in the chorus!), there’s a lyric in this that I think about a lot when I’m songwriting: “On the turnpike, one of Eisenhower’s.” It feels like they are breaking a rule or something – lyrics in popular music don’t reference mundane parts of history like Eisenhower building the turnpikes; it’s a throwaway line that packs so much. The line makes me rethink the inevitability of the way society operates, how everything in our society was designed by some person- it sends me on an entire other existential thread. And particularly at a point where you’re songwriting and can’t or don’t want to delve into yourself for lyrics, why not poke at the things in the world around us that we take for granted as part of everyday life? And ultimately, they all shed light on human behaviour and therefore lead to human connection, like you hope for in a song.

Billy Preston – ‘Nothing From Nothing’
This song feels like pure joy. Great musicianship, great melodies. It’s playful, and after years of listening to it, I still get the same amount of joy from it; it reminds me of dancing in the kitchen as a kid with my family. He was an incredible pianist, and what a great rag-timey piano sound. I joined my school’s gospel choir in college, and got exposed to contemporary gospel music like Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond, Kurt Carr, and Hezekiah Walker. This song has a lot of the same driving and uplifting qualities as contemporary gospel, which makes sense since Billy Preston came up playing in church. A lot of what I like about this song is the same as what I like about gospel music. So much flair and musicianship from the instrumentalists. They’re so tight.

Britney Spears – ‘How I Roll‘
I first heard this song in 2012 and I was blown away. So many great textures, so chaotic, and also somehow so pure. Underneath the micro beats and totally synthetic, unnatural sounds, it’s just a hand-clapping game song. I like that they threw everything at the song, like a no-bad-ideas session, and then honed every single detail. Everything feels deliberate; it’s experimental but in the name of joy rather than self-indulgence or pretension. How cool that Britney Spears went for this?!


Massive thanks to Barrie for sharing her Five Favourites with us! Barbara, her upcoming new album, is set for release on 25th March via Winspear. Listen to latest single ‘Jenny’ below.

Photo Credit: Alexa Viscius

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Introducing Interview: King Hannah

Having been massive fans of Liverpool duo Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle – aka King Hannah – for a couple of years now, we’re extremely excited to hear about the release of their debut album, I’m Not Sorry I Was Just Being Me, later this month. And, with acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan already under their belts, it seems as though this year is going to see big things for them.And, with their knack for creating a beautifully atmospheric musicality, paired with Merrick’s trademark rich, sultry vocals and a spellbinding, iridescent splendour, the album promises to be a truly compelling listen.

We caught up with Hannah and Craig to find out more about the album, what inspires them and what’s next… Have a read!

Hi King Hannah, welcome to Get Inn Her Ears! Are you able to tell us a bit about how you initially started creating music together?
Craig: We met when working in a bar together, but I had seen Hannah performing at a university band night a few years before and she had blown me away with how good she was. So, we quite quickly got to talking about music and got along really well, then eventually we would meet up before night shifts and play music together. It was a very slow, natural process for us – getting to know each other, figuring out what we liked in music and how we wanted to sound.

I’ve been a big fan of your exquisite, spellbinding sounds for some time, but who would you say are your main musical influences?
Thank you so much! And thank you for being so supportive for so long, longer than anyone else! You were one of the first sites and radio shows to shout about ‘Creme Brulee’, back when we self-released it!! Our influences change a lot from month to month, but our biggest influences at the minute are artists like Bill Callahan, Mazzy Star, Courtney Barnett, PJ Harvey, Silver Jews… People who make honest, real music.

You’ve just announced the release of your debut album I’m Not Sorry I Was Just Being Me – which is so exciting! Are you able to tell us a bit about it? Are there any particular themes running throughout the album?
Yeah, we are super excited! And nervous, but mostly excited. We wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered the record in about eight months, which is really quick for us. It was full on. There are no intentional themes; we didn’t set out to write about anything in particular, but there is a definite feeling of nostalgia and sentiment on the album, and quite a few of the songs tend to be about childhood and memories and the warmth that they bring to us.

Do you have a favourite track on the album? And if so, why?
C: I have a few! I’m really liking one called ‘Go-Kart Kid (HELL NO!)’ at the minute. I remember Hannah showing me this song on her acoustic and being blown away, I felt like I was right there with her during her childhood, her writing is so vivid and personal. I just love it. And then it also has this grungy, sludgy, 90s end that is really loud and aggressive. It has a bit of everything that we like in music.
Hannah: I’m big into that one too but also really like ‘The Moods That I Get In’ and ‘A Well-Made Woman’. When touring the UK last October, we experimented a little with a few of the songs live, ‘The Moods That I Get In’ being one of them and it completely grew into this body of work that no one expected. And I just love ‘A Well-Made Woman’ as it’s so dark and sounds like it’s from the 90s… well it does to me at least! Plus Craig’s guitar work is phenomenal, as always.

How have you found recording and promoting an album during these strange times?
Well, we have nothing to compare it to really! The recording process was probably helped by the fact the world wasn’t fully open – it gave us more time to devote to the writing and making of the album, and we used that as much as we could.

How is the music scene in Liverpool at the moment? Would you say live music has made a full recovery after the last couple of years?
We have weirdly never really felt a big part of the Liverpool music scene. We’ve always just quietly done our own thing, building towards this. I don’t think the music scene has fully recovered – some people are still rightly apprehensive about being in crowded spaces, and gigs can be cancelled at such short notice if cases rise or someone tests positive. We think that uncertainty and apprehension will be lingering for a long time over live music, unfortunately.

As we’re a new music focused site, are there any other upcoming artists or bands you’re loving right now that you’d recommend we check out?
C: I don’t know what the cut-off for ‘new’ music is, but I’m in love with a band called Babehoven at the minute, and their album Nastavi, Calliope. I think they’re based in Portland, and they make this beautiful, lo-fi, intimate music. Their latest single ‘Fugazi’ is on repeat in my bedroom right now.
H: I’m absolutely shocking for discovering new artists… It’s something I really need to get better at!! When I ‘discover’ an artist, I later discover that they’ve been around since the ’90s!

In addition to the album release, what does the rest of the year have in store for King Hannah?
C: We have our first ever EU tour and our first ever US tour coming up! Which is so surreal, it still hasn’t sunk in that we will be playing in all these wonderful places.
H: Totally!! We often get asked how all of this feels, but honestly, it’s all happening so fast that we very rarely actually sit down and chat the whole thing through! It’s a whirlwind and we’re so incredibly grateful. Thank you so much for having us and again, for your continued support!! You guys are the best!!

Massive thanks to Hannah and Craig for answering our questions!

King Hannah’s debut album I’m Not Sorry I Was Just Being Me is out this Friday, 25th February via City Slang. And, for a taster, watch their latest video for spellbinding single ‘All Being Fine’ here:

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Track Of The Day: Amaroun – ‘Floating’

Having previously received acclaim from the likes of BBC 6Music and BBC Music Introducing, and having charmed our ears with luscious offerings such as ‘Rise’ and ‘Scarlet‘, GIHE fave Amaroun has now announced the release of her upcoming debut album, and we could not be more excited!

Taken from the album, latest single ‘Floating‘ flows with the effervescent emotion of Amaroun’s vocals alongside twinkling keys to create an utterly euphoric soundscape. Floating into the ears with a soothing, stirring splendour, it offers a short – but exceedingly sweet – taste of what’s to come from the upcoming album. If you need a blissful interlude to the stresses of every day life, then look no further; immerse yourself in the shimmering, soulful sounds of this truly heavenly creation.

‘Floating’ will be followed by three more singles before Amaroun’s debut album, Mars, is released on 3rd June. Of the album, Amaroun explains: “Mars is a trip into my experience navigating this mad world as a black queer woman, it’s about feeling down, getting up and coming out.“

Mari Lane
@marimindles

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ALBUM: Boy Harsher – ‘The Runner’

On their new album The Runner, Boy Harsher expand the remit of their work, situating their signature dark electro-pop amid a set of alternative avenues implied, but unexplored in their earlier offerings. It comes in part as a response to the domestic setting imposed over the Covid years, which took away the natural context for the creation of what they refer to as “club music”. The process going into the project also served as a form of catharsis for the duo in the face of their own personal struggles, with Jae Matthews’ MS diagnosis in particular being cited by the group in discussing the release.

The 28-minute album is framed as a soundtrack to an accompanying short film created by the band. Under the proudly displayed banner of an Official Soundtrack, the duo lean into the sense of drama and shadow created by their music. Opener ‘Tower’ sets out the stall, with ribbons of synth pulse, heartbreakingly unravelling around the mantra ‘you don’t want to know me,’ before eventually exploding into an epic, howling climax. Other tracks like the closing pair ‘Untitled’ and ‘I Understand’ offer time for the listener to breathe and create a sense of narrative within the music, even in isolation from its intended visual accompaniment.

The form also provides a context for excursions into a range of genres, which gives the album the pace of jukebox soundtracks like Morvern Callar and Jubilee (the latter evidently a key influence on the film itself, as the recently released ‘Machina’ section shows.) This effect is heightened by the inclusion of other voices to Matthews on the album, which furthers its dynamic range. Alongside alternately danceable and ambient tracks credited solely to Boy Harsher are features from Mariana Saldaña on ‘Machina’, a robot rock floor-filler, and Cooper B. Handy (aka Lucy) on the antiheroic anthem ‘Autonomy’, a great would-be retro-futuristic pop tune made unique by their distinctive voice and its spartan production treatment.

The unusual conceptual approach to this album makes for a compelling and refreshingly various collection of songs. In spite of its brevity, we find ourselves on a genuinely cinematic journey across these 8 tracks. Perhaps what is most impressive is its assimilation of this new range of sounds and the voices of other artists into something that still feels distinctively like a Boy Harsher release, an impressive feat given the difference in approach and context for its creation. In creating The Runner universe, complete with the motion picture, the duo have managed to craft a world for their music to inhabit in the absence of its natural real-life context.

Boy Harsher’s new album The Runner is released on 21st Jan via Nude Club/City Slang

Follow Boy Harsher on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter & Facebook

Photo Credit: Jordan Hemmingway

Lloyd Bolton

@franklloydwleft
@lloyd_bolton

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