NoNewWaveNoFun

  When Edwin Starr  was passionately decrying the mascinations of armed conflict in his 60s' call-and-response classic ' War', it seemed the whole world was answering back: Warrrrr...huh....good God Y'alll - What is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NUTHHHINN! Of course in those days, the war was in Vietnam, The Cold War in full flow, with the Americans and the Russians engaged in an ominous game of one-upmanship that seemed like it could cause World War III at any given time. Later, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a break up of the state, with countries claiming independence from the Motherland and seemingly creating a new era for Eastern Europe.   A lot of time has passed since then and old resentments have re-surfaced, culminating in Russia invading Ukraine with seemingly no legitimate reason for doing so. Led by Vladimir Putin and his aggressively pro-violence rheotoric, the Russians have brought dangerous times back to Europe. The people of Ukraine have been innocent

What were you doing in your spare time between the ages of 15 and 18? Perhaps you were studiously cramming in revision for those all-important GSCEs or maybe you were going the other way - hanging round outside The Spar with your mates, trying to get someone to buy you a large bottle of cheap, rocket fuel cider. There's no guarantees that the teenage members of Anorak Patch aren't doing those things, they are however, also making some very promising music. Early recordings found their way to the impeccibly nuanced ears of  Nice Swan Records; they were suitably impressed with what they heard. With a roster as impressive as theirs ( Sports Team, Silverbacks, Courting, English Teacher, FUR)  it was akin to a fully-fledged seal of approval from those in the know. Almost immediately, praise was forthcoming from the music press. Last single ' Delilah' gained attention from the likes of DIY and So Young before The Sunday Times made them a Breaking Act, gushing with

                            Crows   (📷 Jamie Noise)  London Four Piece Crows have returned with a new video for single ' Slowly Separate' , their first new music in 3 years. The band's second album ' Beware Believers' is forthcoming. The new album is the follow up to 2019's critically acclaimed debut ' Silver Tongue' and it looks set to add to the band's reputation for raucous and chaotic Post Punk amongst fans and critics alike. Like many bands who were starting to lift off back then, the momentum they were hoping to capatalise on was halted by the world's continued battle with Covid.  2020 was set to be a busy year as the Pandemic hit, with the band set to play SXSW with a U.S tour in place, and starting the process of writing ' Beware Believers'. For a band that prides itself and gained it's reputation on it's live performances, it couldn't have been timed any worse. In hindsight however, Crows frontman James C

                                                                               Hello to the beginning of the end. The end of another year, Christmas came and went and yet more fear lurks around the corner in early 2022. The Omicron variant has entered the country and is spreading quicker than Ian Brown  can click the 'Block' button on Twitter . Thankfully, it seems a much weaker strain than we've experienced previously and *whisper it cautiously*..we may get away relatively unscathed. Happy New Year! We're all sick to the back teeth of talking about that though aren't we? I know I am.  November marked a year since I started NoNewWaveNoFun.  Submissions were slow in the early days, but as the first few trickled in I realised that I needed to be a bit more visible - Instagram changed everything. One of the first submissions to really make me sit up and take notice came from across the pond.                                           Clyde Rosencrance Sleepl

You, Nothing   formed in Verona, Italy in 2019 with a love 80s/90s Shoegaze and Alternative Rock at the core of their ambitions.  Ryan Doyle Elward   listened to new single  'Lullaby'   and summed it up with his usual astuteness.                                        You, Nothing - Lullaby Flowering meadows and impending storms. Watch your life in VHS on an old 80s TV. Rewind it, press play again.Everything goes, everything comes.                                          Like You,                                          Like Nothing                                         Like You, Nothing.  Selective focus is implicit to the formula of a lullaby: drifting scenes, a serene narrative. Different than a daydream, and not a dream at night, either. Previous albums from You,Nothing . like early 2021’s Lonely // Lovely is productively busy and informed by Perfect Pussy , The Joy Formidable , and akin to the kind of far-reaching, varying catalog produced by Sonic Youth . It is a po

  NYC's Momma are the latest to sign for the tastemakers at Lucky Number  ( Dream Wife , Sunflower Bean ,  Jay Som ) and are hotly-tipped to be the next band to break big from the City. Ryan Doyle Elward waded through the hype and gave these  insights.                                                                 Momma puts out their latest single ‘Medicine’ with noticeably new locomotion and a bit more polish. In 2020’s ' Two of Me' , as well as in earlier work, the tracks tend to be bimodal - bouncing between a couple of chords in the background while a perseverative guitar part dwells atop, tied in like a series of knots throughout.  The texture of ‘ Medicine’ is smoothed, shifting to make the lyrics a component of high frequency, where “I’m on a bender and I’ll never stop” and other lines are repeated to the effect of reinforcing their themes.   Momma (📷 Cooper Winterson) In past releases, Momma has remained just above the relatively low-action recordings of m

    It's a little under a month since Israeli Post Punks SCREENS   released new single 'Lie Lie Lie' and Ryan Doyle Elward has been sharpening up his metaphors to their finest point before telling us about this excellent Single.                                               Tel-Aviv  trio SCREENS  rip into their latest single ' Lie Lie Lie'  with heat and wit, the full warmth of which is not felt until roughly 50 seconds are left in the track, as reverberant tones spread out over chilly aggregates of synth into a desolate space, but whose message hangs about in the air: a big breath into the cold, blooming then becoming vapor.  Lines I wasted my youth, now’s the time to tell the truth  is first an individualised treatise on time and opportunity, but as such it is a cultural coming-to-terms. It is a refusal to be any longer complicit in the great waiting hinged on the precipice of social change. It is a pulling back of the outstretched arm of patien

Irish Singer-Songwriter Patrick Saint James released his first E.P ' Moodswings and Roundabouts' last week.  Andrew Cook  looked deeper into this beguiling and brave debut. Andrew's fantastic debut novel  The Toucan Man  is available now. Patrick Saint James  is making 2021 his year, After an apperance on Manchester Pride's coveted Alan Turing   stage and a sold out headline show at Gullivers, The Manchester-based Irish singer-songwriter has wasted no time in getting his highly-anticipated debut E.P onto shelves and streaming platforms alike. Produced by Joe Cross, who has both The Courteeners and Hurts  on his resume, and released via Lovers Music, ' Moodswings and Roundabouts' highlights the singer's battles with Bipolar Disorder, love, self-acceptance and everything in between. With influences in the vein of Carole King, Adele, Years & Years and Lauv, the self-taught pianist has developed a style that sounds unique and refreshing - one that's been

  O riginally from Essex, but now residing in Liverpool,  Beija Flo   is not your average musical artist.  Ryan Doyle Elward  takes a listen to her current single ' Heads or Tails '  and tells us more.                                    With just a handful of releases from artist Beija Flo to gauge against, ‘ Heads or Tails ’ is by comparison a track-start sprint. At a little over a minute and a half, the single is anatomically simple, oscillating between two notes abreast with fuzz: a landscape which itself seems to say,this or that. Across her musical corpus (since, she has art prints and poems as well) ‘Heads or Tails’ so far makes for one of the first of her songs to be relatively level front-to-back, unlike ‘Why?' -  A beautiful and brilliant demo that intensifies throughout its duration, or ‘One of Those Things’,  which by song’s end becomes absolute theatre; a demonstration of how her  through controlled exasperation and how it can give velocity to whatever the co

                               Zuzu - Queensway Tunnel (Planet Z)   Some of us don't live in the People's Republic of Liverpool , yet we live so close that it's sheer force of personality and history drags us in with an irresistable potency  - basically, we're what proper Scousers would call Wools. I have an infinity with this magnetic attraction, even though my accent suggests otherwise. I've been travelling to Liverpool regularly since I was a kid, mostly to go and watch Everton play, but also later to shop and go to gigs and clubs. I don't think there's any other city that has had such an effect of me. No matter which way I got there, the journey always required a trip through The Queensway Tunnel.  Built in the 1920s to link The Wirral Peninsula to Liverpool, the tunnel was pioneering; once the longest road tunnel in the world. It allowed outsiders to connect back with the city that had inadvertantly pushed people out; the overspill of rapid

  TOKKY HORROR Sometimes, whatever the circumstances are pointing you towards, you just have to rip it up and start again - just ask Orange Juice.  When Queen Zee -  once seen by the NME as one of the most eye-catching and engaging live acts in the UK -  split in 2019, just months after the release of their debut album, it seemed likely that we would see vocalist Zee Davine again.  So it was perhaps no surprise then that TOKKY HORROR was formed shortly afterwards. Comprising of Davine, Ava Akira and Mollie Rush - the trio are based in three different cities - Liverpool, Manchester and London. Working from home has meant the band have already amassed a large selection of tracks over a short period of time.                                                 Home Recordings: 2020 - 2021 (Extended Edition) by Tokky Horror Debut E.P ' I Found The Answers and Now I Want More' was a thrilling introduction to the band that fused aggressive beats, punk guitars and a powerful sense of havin