You know we love you, don’t you? You complete us. I know sometimes it might not seem like it, and sure we might fight, and you may even doubt the intentions of us showering you with gift after gift of amazing article after amazing article – like we’ve got something to make up for or distract you from. We don’t though, and we’re not, we just love you goddamn it and we will love you for as long as you let us. We do it all for you.
So, it’s almost Valentine’s Day and we know it’s all a sham, but we’re suckers for romance and have compiled a bonafied bonanza of treats for you this Valentine’s Day. Eight treats of which are astonishingly good eight artists included in this edition of PULSE.
WUV YEW.
Nick Edward Harris
Nick Edward Harris started life as a primary school teacher in inner city London. Well, I mean, he didn’t start life as a primary school teacher, because that would just be ridiculous, but he did start his career as one then. However, this wasn’t the life for Nick and he soon made his escape from teaching and inner city London. Finding himself in solitude in the remotest regions of New Zealand, Nick focussed is all into music.
Having spent some time hauled away developing his technical abilities and evolving songwriting, Nick returned to London ready to release his debut album Chimera. Unlike the image of the mythical creature adorning its cover, the music within was not that of ferocity and fear, but it was that of myth. The beautiful acoustic songs within reigned in folk, traditional music, blues, lush vocal harmonies, and technical finger picking, then delivered it all in sublime sounds equally sombre as they were emphatically uplifting.
The Lucid Dream
Now, I’m prone to exponentially vivid dreams, and I lucid dream a whole bunch of a lot of those. Sure, shit gets fucked up, but it’s the trip maaaaaan. Wouldn’t have it any other way. However, it would be nice if those lucid dreams were in fact soundtracked by Carlisle’s The Lucid Dream. I mean, it’s not likely to help the fucked up quotient, but it’d be grand.
This four piece stir up a storm of fuzz, noise, haze, and mix it all together a special kind of hypnotism and hallucinogenics. Think Sonic Youth, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and the Stooges running amok in your subconscious while your slumber. It’s a hell of a ride.
Natalie McCool
Natalie McCool. Well, that’s just an unforgivingly cool name isn’t it? That’s not where the coolness stops with McCool though, her music just emits cool and is cool through and through. Now, that isn’t some derogatory ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ labelling of her music, like it’s some sort of shallow surface level aesthetic. No, it is just cool. Cool with the lack of pretence and baggage that that word now holds. Just cool. Cool as fuck, even.
Her music falls in the genre resistant mould of being indefinable and therefore unmoulded. There are very clear ingredients at work here, whether it be electronica, folk, indie, synthpop, lo-fi, down-tempo, rock, and I could go on. However, none of these ever takes control or overpowers the other parts at play, they all remain very clear and distinct from one anotherr whilst also working in tandem with to make up the mechanics of something very unique.
Man Made
This Manchester trio finished off last year with the revelation that TV broke their brains, and I’d have to agree. Well, it’s either that or complete lack of use except for staring sorrowfully and vicariously into other people’s lives or the attention depleting permanence of a smart phone at hand. I suppose it could have something to do with the excessive consumption of alcohol and/or drugs combined with my hermit-like lifestyle, but I don’t like to think about that…
Anyhow, Man Made have been rapidly rising through the ranks of independent music, riding shotgun on the rocket shop that is their contrarily contagious concoction (too much?) of guitar-driven indie, euphoric power pop, and melodious punk rock. Having already shared the stage with some big names (Jake Bugg, Broken Social Scene, Superfood, and Honeyblood), as well as festival slots, Man Made are massive in the making.
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