NoNewWaveNoFun

 Liverpool's art rock trio Eyesore & The Jinx have kept us waiting for their debut album, but the wait has been worth it. Jitterbug was in the process of early planning when that pesky pandemic hit in 2020 and - as you'll read - the unpredictability of life created further obstacles for the production of the album to occur.  The band's early singles and debut E.P were released by Merseyside taste-maker label Eggy Records, and after getting the top score on an edition of 6 Music's Roundtable feature, it seemed their profile could only go in one direction. Their debut EP The Exile Parlour featured the single ' Leisure Time'  which got the accolade of KEXP Song of the Day.  Finally, the band have unleashed incredible new album Jitterbug after a rollercoaster of events in the proceeding years and we got Josh Miller  from the band to give us the inside details on the album track-by-track.  --------------------------------------- 1) Self Improver Despite being dia

   Let's take a little time to consider the humble concept album. We won't take that much time though, not 41 minutes for example, which is the average length of a guitar solo on the archetypal Rock concept album track. I may have made that up. The concept album has had much to deal with since it's heyday and the digital realm has arguably been it's biggest hurdle to jump. Listening habits change, but ever since the invention of a skip button on a CD player, it's got increasingly easier to avoid the full extent of the concept. Having a huge chunk of recorded history available to stream is not going to help either.  There are anomalies that have connected thematically-linked bodies of work in the digital age of course, but not with the regularity they once did. In a list of  Rolling Stone's Top 50 Concept Albums  only six of those named were from the last ten years. Most were from artists at stages of their career where they felt like they needed to make a bolder

Artwork by Maria Tilt  Classically trained electronic producer Freyja Elsy from Cardiff   has been plowing her own furrow for several years. After releasing several independent singles in that time, she took the plunge in 2023 to start bringing her tracks to life in a live setting. Her debut E.P Modern Artifice  was released in late November and shows an artist full of ideas and creative spark that builds on her earlier work with added depth and experimentation.   Freyja took the time to talk us through Modern Artifice track-by-track. __________________________________________ Modern Artifice is my debut EP, self-produced mainly over the past year. It’s a collection of songs describing the bittersweet experience of stepping into a world not made for you. It battles with anger, generational trauma and resentment for centuries of oppression by a patriarchal, capitalist society. Yet the soul of the project is empowerment and determination, and these themes weave their way through the tra

  📷 Sophia Giesecke  Like many of the world's great cities, Berlin has it's claim as a place that inspiries all kinds of artistry; a concrete muse enshrined with history both horrifically dark and elegantly beautiful. Perhaps unlike it's global rivals like London, New York and Paris - that share the same sense of poetic duality - Berlin is the most unique of all of them.  With the global onslaught of Rock n' Roll just a generation after the end of World War II, it's easy to forget that the city was effectively - and symbolically - split in two by this point and would be almost until the end of the 20th Century. Berlin became a melting pot of ideas that attracted deep thinkers. philosphers and musicians alike. It's little wonder that during these years, complex and colourful characters like David Bowie and Iggy Pop were keen to move to Berlin to find an extra edge to their work and remove themselves from the temptations that had began to take their toll elsewher

   There is something about the cleansing power of female vocal harmonies. Not only can they speak from the soul of femininity that resonates so intimately within us all - whatever the gender - but they can lift the mood and make the narrative seem all the more intuitive. I've never quite been able to put my finger on what makes these harmonies so soothing, but when done well, they can really gets the goosebumps on high alert. Manchester's The Deep Blue  are a band that have much to offer. Forming during the Covid Pandemic, the band consist of Georgia, Niamh, Katie and Sophie,  who produce the kind of folk-infused indie pop that fits beautifully into that realm of harmonic bliss. They've been compared to the likes of HAIM  , Prima Queen and  The Staves, which are fair comparisons, but they don't tell the entire story.  Their new E.P arrived with little fanfare and shows a band very much in tune with themselves and each other. It's a series of reflections on the grow

The difficult second album. Never has a music cliche ever been so true. If your first album is succesful then how do you follow it: more of the same or a reaction against? If your first album does modestly but shows promise, then how do you improve it and take it to the next level? Fucked if I know.  Of course, there are no correct answers to this puzzling conundrum that has troubled Pop and Rock stars since the dawn of the album. Just experimentation, gut instinct and whole lot of luck.  For Essex based band  Cross Wires - who have just released their second record Yesterday in Mourning - it's a problem they have spent a couple of years wrestling with. We talked to the band's frontman Jon Chapman about Yesterday in Mourning and he gave us some insights into the album track-by-track.         ALL 📷 BY ILIAS FRAGKOTSIS 1) Drowning  We always knew this would be a single - we pretty much played it through as it is now the first time we attempted it in rehearsal. It came to

  You've got to adapt to survive sometimes; Charles Darwin knew it and so did that guy he ripped off (allegedly). For bands and artists to survive for nearly 20 years in this industry, evolution is a must - especially if you're not playing to thousands of people a night after album 2. Happy Hollows  have been going for almost 2 decades now and can certainly not be considered a household name. Despite that, the band have adjusted their blueprint throughout their career and have never been afraid of experimentation and trying to forge a new sound for themselves. They're  NNWNF  favourites and we think they should be massive.  Based in L.A -  the entertainment capital of the world - and fronted by the eccentric and charismatic guitarist  Sarah Negahdari , the band are completed by multi-instrumentalist  Charlie Mahoney  and another talented guitarist in  Scott Munro ; who originally hails from Northern Ireland. Craver is the band's fourth studio album after 2009's Spel