Category: Other

This week, I have been lost in my very own indie movie with the help of the bird and the bee – stylised in lowercase for hipster cool emphasis. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my boyfriend, Scott Rose, for making me aware of this group.

The pair from Los Angeles are notably successful in their own rights but it’s the coming together (right now, over me) that truly makes this project as special as it is. I got the sense that the project is intended to be un, ad that the pair of them take the work they do seriously, and are fantastic at it, but the joy they have for the music they create is clear. A part of this comes down to their Interpreting the Masters series, where they cover the works of unlikely other groups including Van Halen and Hall & Oates.

Outside of their work together, Inara George ha recorded four albums – she’s the bird element of the collaboration by the way. Greg Kurstin – the bee – has worked as a producer and multi-instrumentalist with a range of artists including Sia, Kendrick Lamar and Foo Fighters.

I could happily accept the bird and the bee into the league of music that I regularly keep going. It’s the sound of a beautiful day and a walk with someone you love. It’s ice cream and a coffee. There’s the sound of the holden hour and staying up into the early hours of the morning all at once.

I would thoroughly recommend putting them into your rotation.

This week, I corrected a twenty-five year error on my part by listening to Lauryn Hill. While I may have been exposed to The Fugees in the past, it’s not the same as the might of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Lauryn Hill is credited not just as breaking down barriers for women in music but also for being one of the greatest rappers of all time. Neither of those accolades are to be taken lightly and after listening to an album that hasn’t aged a day and reading up on her journey, I am inclined to agree. There’s something so natural to her flow and such beauty to her voice that there is no question that Lauryn Hill was destined for one thing.
She was even able to recognise what was important and step away from the music industry when the time was right to her.

To produce something so incredible and then choose to stand back is a true reflection of her, and like anyone with only a fraction of their ability at our disposal, is only ever going to leave us wanting more. What a talent.

This week I have mostly been riding my skateboard and drinking orange and cranberry because it has been the turn of Stevie Nicks. We all know Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac but she also wrote a league of stuff herself and in particular, her debut album, Bella Donna, deserves to be heralded as one of the greatest debuts of all time.
Let’s forget about me listening through all of her discography waiting for Holiday Road to come on, only to discover that it’s by Lindsey Buckingham.

Now Stevie Nicks is one of the coolest musicians in the world and has a voice that is so identifiable, and with such a sense of promise and nostalgia for me, that it was clear this was not going to be a tough listen or a tough week to indulge in. From the opening strains of Bella Donna, I knew I was in for a treat and the various feature performances she has made in more recent years are also not to be sniffed at. It speaks volumes that everyone wants to work with her, from Miley Cyrus to Shania Twain to Maroon 5 (but she can’t be held responsible for that last one).

Her thrilling vocal takes, dreamy floating essence and power are not to be overestimated. It’s made me look at Fleetwood Mac in a new way, even if Rumours is always going to be better than Tusk (to me).

It’s songs like Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, Rooms On Fire and Leather and Lace that confirm to me that Stevie Nicks deserves the reverence to which she is held.

This week, I got to listen to Billie Holiday, an artist that everyone knows but I couldn’t have told you much about.
Billie was a jazz singer from Philadelphia who changed the landscape of music as well as what was considered possible as a black woman in the arts, performing in a time of segregation and high racial tension.

What I have discovered is that there are more songs of hers that had cropped up elsewhere than I was aware of. Her version of Strange Fruit is the original – I came to the Nina Simone version via Jeff Buckley – alongside Blue Moon and I’ll Be Seeing You will change the way you hear anything else. There’s such a sumptuous tone to her voice which is why she continues to be celebrated nearly a hundred years after her first performances. It’s a wonderful thing to find something you should have been listening to for a long time and Billie Holiday is right up there for me.

My Spotify playlist of artists for 2022 will be built up here.

This week, I’ve had the joy of listening to Jorja Smith, thanks to Dani Keepings. I wasn’t familiar with Jorja, who is a full decade younger than me and infinitely more talented. Her jazz-club-in-the-early-hours albums have been a beautiful accompaniment to this week.

There’s a lot to be said for artists who are off of my radar because they’re too cool, but elements of her world have crossed over into mine, namely her work with Kendrick on the Black Panther soundtrack as well as being signed by Maverick Sabre. These are both artists I admire and follow so it’s on me that I hadn’t bothered to listen.

Songs like Nobody But You and Blue Lights hit home in a beautiful way and I found myself digging into not just Lost & Found but also the three EPs available.

Go and listen to Jorja Smith!

My Spotify playlist of artists for 2022 will be built up here.

Each week, I choose an artist at random from a pickle jar and listen to everything they’ve done, hoping to find new favourite artists. This week, it was Jaz’s recommendation – Martha Wainwright.
Now, I was aware of MW because Jaz added possibly her most annoying song to our Road Trip playlist – a 24 hour long playlist we use when we are on, you guessed it, the road. That annoying song is Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole, and even after I listened to, and thoroughly enjoyed, the rest of Martha’s back catalog, I hold this truth to be self evident. I don’t like BMFA. It sounds like a bad Alanis song.

That said, Martha and the whole Wainwright clan are very much up my straße. There’s a lo-fi element to her first couple of albums and a sad longing that was only ever going to make this Sad Boi blush. With each album, there’s an iteration and a change that I am completely on board with. Even the French albums had something for me.

I think it’s fair to say that I judged this particular book by its cover and had been missing out on a league of other stuff as a result.

Sorry Martha. Sorry Jaz.

If there is one thing I have been missing in my life, it’s knowing who the cool, new bands are. That’s why I felt really lucky that I got to spend the week listening to Wet Leg.

Wet Leg are a British indie band formed by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers and hailing from the Isle of Wight. You may know them from their 6Music rotation, on songs like Wet Dream and Chaise Longue.

There’s a certain Courtney Barnett coolness to their approach that resonates in laisez-faire and explicit lyrics on sex and relationships. It speaks of ownership and real-life scenarios which bring a smirk as well as cementing a melody in the frontal cortex. They are not only a band I’ll be looking out for but one who are yet to release an album. (Research shows it’s due out next month on Domino Records).

What I have found with Wet Leg is the idea that there is hope out there, in guitar and pithy double-entendre and with women.

Long live Wet Leg.

My Spotify playlist of artists for 2022 will be built up here.

This week, I have mostly been listening to Halsey.
Now, unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s likely you’re familiar with Halsey’s music, activism and bold (and wonderful) statements about her sexuality and mental health.

I wasn’t familiar. I do live under a rock. I am glad I have corrected that now.

Halsey has released four albums to date, which have an increasing development and tone. Her latest, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, produced by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, is particularly adventurous. There are such a wider range of influences to her music which makes it dynamic and different, like it’s being pulled in a number of directions. I state that as a positive, by the way.

It was only in the depths of my Halsey week that I discovered I had heard her before, as part of the cast of Sing 2.
But the less said about why I have heard that, the better.

My Spotify playlist of artists for 2022 will be built up here.

This week I had the pleasure of listening to American singer-songwriter, Phoebe Bridgers. It would have been impossible for me to get to this point in my life without being aware of some of her incredible music, notably her work alongside my dreamboat Conor Oberst with Better Oblivion Community Center, but it was another matter altogether to recognise what she has already contributed to the world of music.

Phoebe Bridgers has, to date, released two albums. 2017’s Stranger in the Alps and 2020’s Punisher. Both of them bring an absolute sucker punch of acoustic songs into being and demand attention. It is clear why she has become the indie darling that she deserves to be, and is continuously heralded for the music she creates. That said, I couldn’t write up my thoughts on her two albums without acknowledging her performance on SNL where she smashed her guitar and everyone got mad about it as if it didn’t fit in with the ethos of the show or her music or she didn’t do it properly or whatever. None of that matters when it’s her performance and as such, she can do whatever she likes. Watching that clip back again with the effect her music has had on me this week makes it all the more poignant.
It got more people talking about her music, and if you’re able to get people talking without being a dick, then you deserve all the praise.

Whether it is on Didn’t Know What I Was In For from BOOC, Motion Sickness from SITA or Kyoto from Punisher, there are elements of Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, Camera Obscura, Elliot Smith and any number of other beautiful influences that to me it feels are on display and make her work as special as it is.

Long may Phoebe Bridgers share this with us all.

My Spotify playlist of artists for 2022 will be built up here.

This week, I have mostly been listening to American-British singer-songwriter Celeste. I’ll lay it down now, as I had to check… No relation to Daphne & Celeste.

As Celeste only has one album, 2021’s Not Your Muse (which debuted at number one in the UK Album charts), it was a deep-dive into that offering, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was also great to discover a new artist, someone I was tangentially aware of but had not heard. Boy, it was a real treat.

This is one of those wonderful examples of also finding out that someone who is already so accomplished is a good seven years younger than me. What. a 2021 Celeste Epiphany Waite had. Nominated for several Brit awards, the Mercury Prize and an Academy Award for co-writing Hear My Voice from The Trial of the Chicago 7.

The joy of Not Your Muse is in Celeste’s powerful smokey vocal, which I’ve seen compared to Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse by writers far finer than me. There is something truly wonderful to songs like Ideal Woman, Love Is Back and The Promise that kept me circling the album whenever I got the chance to listen to it.

She’s definitely one to look out for.

My Spotify playlist of artists for 2022 will be built up here.