Pulse: New Music You Need #13

woahnows band live

Simmer


This Cheshire based four piece are not a Cheshire based four piece that mess around, they mean business, and they waste no time waiting for it to be business time – they make it business. Not the sexy kind of business time, though who says ‘ambient punk’ can’t be sexy, but the making a lot of fucking noise and being really fucking good at it kind of business time.

Having formed just a year ago, in fact a year this February, over a mutual appreciation for emo (in-the-original-sense-of-the-word) legends Sunny Day Real Estate emo the band had released their debut EP by May, and are now on EP numero duo. The fucking noise they make that I said they are really fucking good at making? Fits of punk fury, drawn out post rock sprawl, emo passion, and just an ocean of waves of feedback. Awesome.

Blossomer


In this day and age it’s hard not to know everything about everyone, whether you want to know or not. However, in the case of Blossomer, I’d quite like to know more, but they’re a mysterious bunch, keeping things to themselves, with little knowledge floating about on t’interweb about the band. Those secretive sausages! Though, also, the bastards! What is the secret? I want to be mysterious too!

Anyway, whatever, when a band airs on the side of just putting music out there, the tendency is to talk about that (like what I’m doing!) and not the music, which is more than likely the intention. So, the music. Well, it’s just as mysterious as they are with it blend of melancholically soaring vocals, slow building tension to crescendo, sparse synthetic instrumentation that sounds intricate yet vast, haunting melodies in the vocals, the hooks and sequencers, and it is so drenched in atmosphere that their music sounds like what the sensation you feel when alone in a forest at night would make if it was a person and could write music.

OTHERWiSE KNOWN


I love the phrase ‘after hours’. I’m not sure why, I just like it, it looks, sounds, and feels good to me. It’s got a lot of good imagery to it in my brain, you can’t see that, but it’s good. Now say it with me, ‘after hours’. Yeah, feels good don’t it? I have no fucking idea what I’m on about. Anyway, After Hours is also the name of rap duo OTHERWiSE KNOWN’s debut album, and it’s appropriately name. The album’s whole narrative tracks the events of a night out that takes in the club, driving around, the police, drugs, an overdose, and more. You know, typical night out.

This Toronto twosome is Nova Major (or Otto Major) and D-Knight, who handle most of the production themselves as well as providing the rhymes, coming from contrasting backgrounds with Major and D-Knight of Russian and Jamaican heritages respectively. This comes through in their music with twinges of reggae and dub clashing with ice cold beats. It’s the storytelling that shines through though as it the narrative flows through the album as a whole, both lyrically and via skits, to give off a cinematic vibe.

Safari Gold


Sometimes the timing just isn’t right, and that was the case with Safari Gold, or rather Cuba Cuba as they were in a past life. Though things were on the up for the South Wales band, based around Pontypridd and Cardiff, with solid singles and videos under their belt, a really well received debut album, and even a spot playing the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds, the timing just wasn’t right.

Now it is though. Having taken time away to finish university, work jobs, move house, build a studio, and write and produce music in their own time and to their own schedule, the time is right. New name, new band, new start, new sound. Safari Gold offer up a considerably more matured sound, one that broods as much as it grooves; serene and spacious layers of synth and atmosphere meet tight, claustrophobic funk, while dreamy and ethereal vocals meet gruffer and bluesier croons. Who doesn’t like juxtaposition?

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