Pulse: New Music You Need In 2015 #2

Prides


Glaswegian three-piece Prides first started knocking about in 2013, and it’s been a pretty synthpop sounding snowballing since then. The band released their debut EP, The Seeds You Sow, in February and by August they were playing the entirely anthemic and euphoria inducing ‘Messiah’ to the crowd at the Commonwealth Games 2014 Closing Ceremony in Glasgow. That’s not half bad is it?

Well, given what they’ve achieved so far and so quickly, 2015 is set to be wholly up for the grabs by them and it’s hard to not hear why when you take a listen to that debut EP. Each track is just extremely well produced, shimmering even, infectious pop music filled with hooks and huge choruses that already sound ready to get massive festival crowds going.

JUCE


London trio JUCE met at a party a few years back, having not met before they first bonded over liking the same songs that were playing, and the ball got rolling from there. It’s not hard to hear in their debut EP, Taste the JUCE!, that these three got together at a party. The songs on offer here are prime cuts of pop/R&B that could slink their way into any party playlist, and I imagine they’ve been doing just that.

What makes them quite so perfect is the amalgam of sounds they bring together in their songs whether it’s a hint of classic funk, a chunk of old school R&B, a smattering of 90s/00s girl group, a smidgen of straight up soul, a subtle splash of synthpop, and more than a fair share of indie cool. Their singles and EP found their foundation in 2014, but it’ll be 2015 where they really build upon that.

Marika Hackman


I’m going to do my best to avoid my usual rant when I discuss a musician who is both younger and more talented than me, but Marika Hackman is 22 years old, and has released several brilliant EPs. I am 24 and have not done those things, I also didn’t start writing songs at 5 either, but you can guess who did? I won’t get into a contest about what I could do when I was 5 though, because this is not about me, this is about Marika Hackman.

What specifically about Marika Hackman this is, is her absolutely stunning music. As previously said, Hackman has released a few EPs now, 2014 saw her release the sublime Deaf Heat EP, her fourth, and the brilliant single ‘Drown’. Hackman’s music melds everything from alternative folk, choral singing, church music, dark psychedelia, indie, electronics, and a deeply creative sense of experimentalism that makes her music sound completely mystical and almost mythic. Not mythic in an aeons old sense, but in a myths for all time, past, present, and future.

2015 will see her debut album come to life.

Black Honey


There’s not a lot known about Black Honey bar the music and, if the images attached to their songs on SoundCloud are anything to go by, they really like television sets. Each song accompanied by an old-fashioned TV placed in perfectly positioned and precisely painted homes that implies the kind of suburban home that seems artificial and can’t help but be jarred by an underlying creepiness.

Though enough about TVs because whatever Black Honey are besides a relatively unrevealing band of television and pastel colour fanatics, they make exceedingly good music. Their tracks brandish a set of Americana infused influences as they display surf guitar both restrained, haunted, Lynchian and wave-riding rock, not to mention a real garage rock drive and attitude with a slight psych edge but also slight slacker vibe too.

However, that misses out on the cracking melodies, the catchy choruses, and striking vocals. Let’s hope Black Honey let use get to know them a little better through 2015.

The Acid


The Acid are an international electronic three-piece who have been in operation since 2013. The trio are composed of British DJ and producer Adam Freeland, Australian (though L.A. based) singer-songwriter Ry Cuming (better known as RY X), and Californian producer, composer, and music tech professor Steve Nalepa. The trio released a debut EP in 2013, and dropped their debut album, Liminal, in 2014.

The music that The Acid make, which Liminal, is a perfect summation of is a hazy and woozy blend of genres that leaves it definable but not by one singular genre, as the trio breeze through atmospheric and spacious soundscapes that can rumble with bass, slide with synthersizers, hypnotise with loops and sequencers, or twinkle and/or clatter with percussion and instrumentation. All the while carrying breathy lead vocals and backing harmonies.

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