Track Of The Day: Aislinn Logan – ‘Never Stay Low’

An atmospheric pop gem that gently dismisses the weight of unfair expectations, Belfast-born, London-based artist Aislinn Logan has shared her latest single ‘Never Stay Low’. Mixed by Kristofer Harris (Ghostpoet, Belle and Sebastian, Emmy The Great), the track is a breezy, melodic offering full of lush vocals and shimmering synth sounds.

“There is so much pressure on us to do things a certain way, from such a young age,” Logan explains about the context of her new single. “Intangible pressure, words that slip into conversation, glances, the atmosphere in a room. There’s a fear that if you don’t conform to expectations you’ll be deficient in some way, when the opposite is true. I wanted to create something about rejecting the fallacy of expectations, and the pitfalls if you don’t.” Through her affirming lyricism and tentative vocal delivery, Logan encourages listeners to “Look the other way / If you have you” when it comes to dealing with those who try to cast a shadow over your creative efforts.

Inspired by the sunny melodies of ABBA and Fleetwood Mac, as well as Phil Collins’ percussion (a favourite in Logan’s childhood), ‘Never Stay Low’ is an encouraging nod to those who need a bit of extra support to be their authentic, carefree selves. Listen to the track below.

 

Follow Aislinn Logan on  bandcamp, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify & Facebook for more updates.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Maria BC – ‘Adelaide’

An ambient reflection on disconnecting from the world before finding your way back to it again, Brooklyn-based musician Maria BC has shared their debut single ‘Adelaide’. Taken from their upcoming EP Devil’s Rain, which is set for release on 5th February 2021 via Fear of Missing Out Records, the track is a blissful, lo-fi meditation on breaking introverted thought cycles.

“A friend of mine used to work as a museum guard,” Maria explains about the inspiration behind their new single. “Guests would almost never ask her questions, so she had a lot of downtime. She would spend hours building ‘memory palaces’ which are a mnemonic device that have helped some people to achieve total autobiographical recall. My friend would spend six, seven hours a day making these palaces. When she told me about this, another friend of mine said, ‘Aren’t you worried about getting lost in your interiority?’ And I thought, ‘damn, that’s so true’. I’ve seen that happen to so many people. It’s happened to me many times — this feeling that I’m stuck in the architecture of my own ego. ‘Adelaide’ isn’t about my museum guard friend — it’s a song addressed to a depressed version of myself, or someone who needs a hand to pull them back into the social world.”

Maria’s metaphorical hand is extended via soft guitar sounds and hushed vocals on the single. “I don’t want to tell you this,” Maria tentatively remarks before carefully unfolding their thoughts over four minutes of ambient sounds. Recorded in Maria’s apartment through April and May of 2020, ‘Adelaide’ is an intimate, soothing offering and a revealing insight into what’s to come from this talented emerging artist in 2021.

Listen to ‘Adelaide’ below.

Follow Maria BC on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter & Facebook for more updates.

Photo Credit: Sergio Gutierrez

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Nuha Ruby Ra – ‘Sparky’

Perhaps it’s the nature of the year that we’ll soon be bidding goodbye to, but it’s seen Nuha Ruby Ra go from a one-time member of an art collective in a warehouse in East London, making confessional songs backed by DIY videos, to being played on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6Music breakfast show, and announcing the cover art of her new EP.  

All of Ra’s singles to date have been confessional, with ‘Cruel‘ also speaking to sexual experience – but ‘Sparky’ takes things up a notch. For starters, there’s that ‘Warm Leatherette’ bass-line, and a sax hook that lingers, off-kilter, but insistent. And then there’s the lyrical content: the chorus of “… run your fingers through my hair / Get your words out my head” – a contradictory summation of the power exchange found in the verses, which see Ra both chiding and encouraging the intended listener. 

“I’m Sparky”, Ra has said in the press for the single, “It’s a name I was given by an old flame”, and that the nickname harks back to a period of “sex and dominance… Restless, irritated and reflective, even while having great sex”.  The song’s lyrics are mostly spoken, giving them an extra sense of honesty and directness, with the dualities of lust and rejection, control and resistance typified by images of spilt, sticky prosecco and long journeys taken for dirty weekends.

Sonically, the song sits somewhere between the post-punk of Ra’s sometime collaborators Warmduscher and the darker side of ’80s synthpop: it’s particularly hard not to make comparisons to Soft Cell’s ‘Sex Dwarf’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Master and Servant’. With Ra’s accent, stance, originality of style and frank talk, there’s a little something of Neneh Cherry, on top there too.  

That combination is one of the key elements to Nuha Ruby Ra’s apparent emergence out of nowhere: her diversity of taste and willingness to take influence from seemingly disparate places at once. On a more practical level, but no less important, is her already well-established connections to alternative music’s best musicians and producers – ‘Sparky’, for example, was developed in a ‘synth cave’ owned by Psychedelic Furs, featuring members of Liars and Insecure Men, whilst its producer and mixer have both worked with such luminaries as Lana Del Rey, Patti Smith and David Bowie. If that’s not enough to tell you that Nuha Ruby Ra’s career is ready to ignite, then  a listen to ‘Sparky’ certainly will.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego

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Track Of The Day: Miss Grit – ‘Dark Side Of The Party’

A genre-defying tune about feeling out of place in a room full of people, multi-instrumentalist Miss Grit has shared her latest single ‘Dark Side Of The Party’. Taken from her upcoming EP Impostor, which is set for release on 5th February, the Korean-American musician has crafted a sound that ricochets between atmospheric, angular and anthemic, hitting the musical sweet spot multiple times in just three and a half minutes.

“I’ve gone my whole life feeling really uncomfortable defining myself,” Miss Grit (aka Margaret Sohn) explains. “I realized that a lot of the time, I’m more comfortable with other people defining me and making up their mind about who I’m supposed to be.” Sohn wanted to shake up these feelings and address the racial impostor syndrome she felt as a half-Korean girl “trying to fit into the white space” of the Michigan suburbs where she grew up. To do this, she took on full production duties for Impostor, and the aptly named EP sees her masterfully deconstruct these feelings of self-doubt.

This is beautifully personified by the record’s first single ‘Dark Side Of The Party’. “I can’t tell hearts apart from spare parts” Sohn admits over striking guitar riffs and shifting melodies, her lyrics confidently exploring the feelings of discomfort she sings of. Her unexpected tempo changes give an edge to her emotional journey, making the single an authentic and exciting anthem for anyone who has struggled on their journey to self acceptance.

Listen to ‘Dark Side Of The Party’ below.

 

Follow Miss Grit on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Natasha Willson

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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