Emily Jane White, the intriguing Northern California-based songwriter who Pitchfork noted for her ability to pair her “wispy and sweet” vocals with “world-weary” introspection and Brooklyn Vegan has championed for her “gothy, ethereal folk” releases Alluvion on March 25 via Talitres.
“’Show Me the War’ calls attention to the convergence of misogyny and racialized violence as a pervasive worldwide epidemic,” explains White. “During the summer of 2020 in Oakland, California, I wrote this song in response to the many political uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd. ‘Show Me the War’ also highlights more global examples of injustice like femicide in Juarez, Mexico and the near-total abortion ban in Poland. By grieving the many losses resulting from social and ecological injustice, we shed light on these unacceptable epidemics and those deeply affected by them, further enabling change.”
News of the Alluvion’s forthcoming arrival is paired with today’s release of “Show Me The War” and its accompanying, Bobby Cochran-directed video (https://youtu.be/ENrsd0YjjBs). The black and white clip filmed in Oakland features local teen dancers Satya Zamudio, Olivia Wenzler, Dinah Cobb, Kalia Morales, and Lina Santos, displays bold Gen Z women powerfully claiming public spaces with their art form, touching the sacredness of nature, while also contending with current social justice issues and the climate crisis.
Rooted in a moment of catastrophe, Alluvion is an album about personal and collective grief resulting from the loss of human life and the continued loss of our natural world. We live in a moment of merging traumas, of converging environmental, social, and political crises. These crises are exacerbated by our lack of cultural practices for individual and also shared, public grieving–which is not without consequence. Emily’s album offers a space to consider where grieving is absent in our world, and where it is deeply necessary. Grief moves in waves and cycles, and through its flood we can build anew. Alluvion: the gradual addition to the land by the wash of water against a shore.
Alluvion was produced by and arranged by multi-instrumentalist Anton Patzner (Foxtails Brigade, Bright Eyes) and mixed by Alex DeGroot (Zola Jesus).
Fully embracing their love of John Carpenter film scores, and horror movies in general, Boy Harsher‘s newest record is actually the score to an original short horror film written, produced, and directed by them – The Runner.
The album’s first notes on “Tower” immediately set the dark, creepy tone and both unsettle and intrigue you. You don’t know where this is going, but you’re willing to risk the danger to find out where it leads. “Give Me a Reason” brings in a sexy vibe, with smoky vocals by Jae Matthews that have an underlying menace to them. She could very well be singing, “Give me a reason to love you.” or “Give me a reason to kill you.” at any moment.
“Autonomy” is a peppy new wave bright spot on the record, with guest vocals from Cooper B. Handy. “The Ride Home” switches back to giallo film dread and terror as it slithers around the room like some sort of killer dressed in a black trench coat and holding a gleaming straight razor. “Escape” is trippy synthwave made for a nightclub that took over an abandoned arcade.
“Machina” is another sexy number, this one with guest vocals from MS. BOAN, reminiscent of early Human League tracks. An untitled piano / synth track follows, and its lovely and unnerving at the same time. The album closes with “I Understand” – a brief, dritting track that fades away like a last breath.
So, yeah, it’s all perfect for a horror film soundtrack.
Boy Harsher – comprised of vocalist/lyricist Jae Matthews and producer Augustus Muller – present “Machina,” the latest offering from their new album The Runner (Original Soundtrack) out next Friday,January 21st via Nude Club/City Slang. Following singles “Tower” and “Give Me a Reason,” “Machina” continues teasing the cinematic universe of The Runner, the short horror film written and directed by Boy Harsher.
Featuring guest vocalist Mariana Saldaña of BOAN singing in Spanish and English, “Machina” is a playful yet cautionary tale about companionship and dependency. Saldaña describes a cold, sterile entity, the Machine, that is soulless and without a heartbeat. The track blends the bright palette of HI-NRG and Italo with Boy Harsher’s shadowy aesthetic and was sonically inspired by Muller’s time at the renowned Mexico City club Patrick Miller. Muller elaborates: “I was reminiscing about Friday nights at Patrick Miller. I was trying to create an artifact from a club in a far off place and an unknown time.” The electrifying self-directed video produced by Muted Widows comes from the world of The Runner, presented as an exclusive NUDE TV studio performance by Saldaña.
Boy Harsher’s fifth release is not a traditional album — it’s a soundtrack that balances eerie instrumentals with pop songs that push the boundaries of the duo’s sound. In the midst of last year’s chaos and Matthews’ MS diagnosis, she kept thinking about a sinister character: a woman running through the woods. The duo developed this idea further into The Runner, a film that follows a strange woman as she travels to a secluded, rural town where her violent compulsions are slowly revealed. The story intertwines with Boy Harsher performing on a public access channel. Their music scores the strange woman’s descent deeper into the unknown. The Runner features break-out performances by musician Kris Esfandiari (King Woman), performance artist Sigrid Lauren (FlucT), and musician Cooper B. Handy (Lucy). The Runner and its soundtrack are both a return to form and an evolution for Boy Harsher.
The Runner will begin screening in select theaters this Friday, January 14th and streaming via Shudder (North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) and Mandolin (rest of the world) on Sunday, January 16th. Visit therunner.film for more info on screenings and tickets.
Author & Punisher unveil a second track from the outfit’s highly-anticipated new album, Krüller (Feb. 11, Relapse Records), with today’s release of the drone-drenched love song, “Maiden Star” (https://youtu.be/c52RTO8fvL0).
Tristan Shone offers insight into the track and its place on the album: “’Maiden Star’ continues the trudge of escape and survival from ‘Drone Carrying Dread,’ but with a focus on the vital interpersonal conflicts and triumphs that exist in times of war and peace. This track, my personal favorite from the balance of the heavy and the melodic, is deeply personal and painful at the same time. The first note both lifts me up and beats the shit out of me.”
News of the album’s forthcoming arrival was met with widespread excitement. Revolver, who had placed on the album on their most-anticipated releases of 2022, noted how “shimmering, melodic, and gorgeous” Author & Punisher’s music had become over the years. On the first preview from the 8-song release, “Drone Carrying Dread” (https://youtu.be/5BrAAXCbUXE), Consequence echoed the obvious focus on melody that drives Krüller, saying “The presence of electronic beats, synth flourishes, and a triumphant vocal delivery make it one of the prettiest A&P tracks to date, though no less sonically powerful.
Shone began work on Krüller after returning from his opening slot with Tool across the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, before being cut short due to the March 2020 lockdowns. “Melody has been and is still a part of my sound,” says Shone. “I’ve always bathed them in a lot of reverb, delay, and distortion, though. This time around, I was bothered by the wall of distortion I had created. I wanted a little more clarity. I wanted to refine the sound. I wanted to step back from my own show and analyze it a bit. I had all these competing distortions that I wanted to streamline. I like contrast and wanted the vocals to be immediately noticeable. There’s something about mixing punishing drones and rumble with a mellow thing on top that I really like on Krüller.” Shone’s digitized snarls rightfully had their place on earlier tracks like “Doppler,” “Terrorbird,” and “Nihil Strength,” but contrasting mellow vocals atop Author & Punisher’s unparalleled heft made dynamic sense. Indeed, with Shone’s singing on songs like “Drone Carrying Dread,” “Maiden Star,” and the exceptional translation of Portishead hit “Glory Box,” Author & Punisher have projected an air of uncertainty around the steely, often slow-motion grind.
Part of the Krüller revamp included refining the machines that have become synonymous with Author & Punisher. As a result, Shone is also launching a bespoke audio gear company called Drone Machines to coincide with the release of Krüller. The gear company launch follows nearly two decades of Author & Punisher honing in on his craft – meticulously inventing, machining, experimenting, and creating custom musical instruments for his incredible live performances and recordings.
Krüller pre-orders are available now (https://orcd.co/authorandpunisher-kruller) with the 52-minute collection available on a selection of limited-edition vinyl variants that tie into the color palette of the album artwork, CD, cassette and digitally.
Author & Punisher has announced two rounds of 2022 European tour dates with a pair of North American performances slated for March.
Headlining dates:
February 7 Tallin, Estonia Sveta Bar
February 8 Riga, Latvia Melna Piektdiena
February 9 Vilnius, Lithuania XI 20
February 13 Antwerp, Belgium Kavka
February 14 Brighton, UK Patterns
February 15 London, UK The Underworld
February 16 Leeds, UK Brudenell Social Club
February 17 Glasgow, UK Stereo
February 18 Newcastle, UK Cluny
February 19 Birmingham, UK Castle and Falcon
February 20 Bristol, UK Fleece
February 21 Manchester, UK Deaf Institute
March 6 Los Angeles, CA Resident
March 10 Oakland, CA Elbo Room Jack London
w/Perturbator and Health:
October 6 Lille, France Aeronef
October 7 Paris, France L’Olympia
October 12 Bordeaux, France Krakatoa
October 13 Toulouse, France Bikini
October 14 Madrid, Spain La Riviera
October 15 Barcelona, Spain Razzmatazz 2
October 16 Nantes, France Stereolux
October 18 Lyon, France Le Transbordeur
October 19 Strasbourg, France La Laiterie
Oxtober 20 Lausanne, Switzerland Les Docks
October 21 Munich, Germany Freheiz
October 22 Vienna, Austria Arena
October 23 Budapest, Hungary Akvarium Nagyhall
October 25 Prague, Czech Republic Lucerna Music
October 26 Wroclaw, Poland Zaklete Rewiry
October 27 Warsaw, Poland Progresja
October 28 Berlin, Germany Heimathafen
October 29 Goteborg, Sweden Tradgar N
October 30 Stockholm, Sweden Berns
November 1 Helsinki, Finland Tavastia
November 3 Oslo, Norway Vulkan Arena
November 4 Copenhagen, Denmark Pumpehuset
November 5 Hamburg, Germany Uebel & Gefahrlich
November 6 Utrecht, Netherlands Tivoli
November 8 Cologne, Germany Kantine
November 9 Esch-Sur-Alzette, Luxermbourg Rockhall
November 10 Brussels, Belgium Ancienne Belgique
Keep your mind open.
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Anika announces Change: The Remixes, out February 11th on Sacred Bones and Invada, and shares “Planningtochange” (Planningtorock Remix). As an avid fan of dance music and the communal power of the club, Anika wanted to give her 2021 album Change a wider range by entrusting it to some friends in contemporary electronic music – Planningtorock, Dave Clarke, Lauren Flax, Maral, and PDBY. The result is a remix record that illustrates both the underlying compositional depth of the album and its ability to inspire equally exciting new songs.
Anika elaborates: “Change is quite a specific album. It was made in the context of the lockdown, very much a headphones, inside-your-head record. As a big fan of DJing and dancing in dark spaces, I wanted this to go further, keep growing, expanding, so I asked some friends from very different worlds to take it somewhere else, beyond the bird-filled hills of Brandenburg. This is what happened.”
Planningtorock’s Jam Rahuoja Rostron adds: “Anika is a dear old friend of mine and I’ve loved her music right from the beginning. Her latest LP is sooooo good and I really love Change so I was super happy be able to make a remix for this which was also a lot of fun to make.”
Anika will also tour North America in May and June. All dates are below and tickets are on sale now here.
Change: The Remixes Tracklist: 1. Planningtochange (Planningtorock Remix) 2. Never Coming Back (Dave Clarke Remix) 3. Critical (Lauren Flax Remix) 4. Finger Pies (Maral At The Controls Dub Mix) 5. Freedom (PBDY Remix) 6. Change (Lauren Flax Remix – bonus track)
Anika Tour Dates: Feb. 11 – Berlin, DE @ Volksbühne March 9 – Koln, DE @ Bumann & SOHN March 11 – Lille, FR @ L’Aeronef March 12-13 – Saint-Malo, FR @ La Route Du Rock Hiver April 17 – London, UK @ Moth Club April 18 – Manchester, UK @ Yes (Basement) April 19 – Glasgow, UK @ Nice N Sleazy April 20 – Bristol, UK @ Louisiana May 13 – Austin, TX @ Oblivion Access Festival May 15 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah May 16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room May 17 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
May 19 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios May 20 – Seattle, WA @ Vera Project May 21 – Vancouver, BC @ The Fox Cabaret May 23 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle May 25 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison May 26 – Montreal, QC @ Fairmount Theatre May 28 – New York, NY @ Knockdown Center May 29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s May 30 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage
May 31 – Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light June 1 – Nashville, TN @ Third Man Records June 2 – Memphis, TN @ Crosstown Arts June 3 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
New York City’s Shilpa Ray shared “Bootlickers of the Patriarchy,” a scathing new track written about Senator Susan Collins and her infamous press conference after the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford hearings. “It’s about women who succeed from undermining the success of other women or choose to gain success from exploiting the oppression of other women,” says Ray. “This is a character who has taken many forms throughout history, the kind of woman who seems perfectly content playing Gamma to the Alpha male. ‘Bootlicker’ is my direct challenge to the notion of ‘women supporting other women,’ as well as the falsehoods and unrealistic expectations that come with a statement like that.”
“I wrote the song to be played in two different arrangement styles, the first half being slow and haunting and the second going balls-to-the-wall rage. I was re-exploring a lot of industrial/proto-industrial music I had listened to as a teenager in the 90s and used some elements of synth/drum machine sounds to convey all that anger, panic and darkness.”
“Bootlickers of the Patriarchy” is backed with a cover of Ministry’s “I’m Not An Effigy.” Ray explains: “I was obsessed with the Ministry album With Sympathy when writing tracks for my next full length album. It is the record Al Jourgenson has stated multiple times that he’s ashamed of most, which is saying a lot considering this man’s autobiography. I teamed up with my friend Heather Elle of Flossing, formerly of post punk bands Bodegaand The Wants for this collaboration. It’s my first official recorded track where I’m playing guitar, so as the saying goes, it’s never too late to pick up a new instrument and get totally lost in it.“
The two tracks are on 7” vinyl and is available to order from Northern Spy here.
Shilpa Ray began releasing music in 2006 with her projects Beat The Devil and later Her Happy Hookers. In 2011, she began touring with Nick Cave as a backup singer and supporting act, playing under her own name and going on to release highly lauded works, including Last Year’s Savage (2015) and Door Girl (2017). Bootlickers of the Patriarchy 7” follows 2020’s standalone tracks “Manic Pixie Dream Cunt” and “Heteronomative Horseshit Blues” which earned critical praise from Paste Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan, Louder Than War, MXDWN, FLOOD Magazine, Alt Citizen, American Songwriter and Billboard, among many others.
Darkwave duo Boy Harsher have announced the release of their debut horror film, The Runner, with Shudder – AMC Network’s premium streaming service for horror, thriller, and the supernatural – to stream the film in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand beginning Sunday, January 16th (Mandolin will host the film for the rest of the world).
Written, directed, and produced by Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller of Boy Harsher, The Runner follows a strange woman as she travels to a secluded, rural town where her violent compulsions are slowly revealed. The story intertwines with Boy Harsher performing on a public access channel. Their music scores the strange woman’s descent deeper into the unknown. The Runner features break-out performances by musician Kris Esfandiari (King Woman), performance artist Sigrid Lauren (FlucT), and musician Cooper B. Handy (Lucy).
Last year, in the midst of the obvious chaos, but additionally with Matthews’ MS diagnosis, Muller started working on moody, cinematic sketches. It was uncertain what these pieces would become other than catharsis — the duo were unable to tour and making “club music” did not feel right. In Matthews’ period of convalescence, she kept thinking about a sinister character: a woman running through the woods. Together, the duo developed this idea further into a film that explores lust, compulsion, and the horrific tendencies of seduction. The movie is intercut with a meta-style “documentary” about Boy Harsher’s recording process. Being released alongside the film is Boy Harsher’s new album, The Runner (Original Soundtrack), out January 21st on Nude Club/City Slang. The soundtrack balances eerie instrumentals with pop songs that push the boundaries of the duo’s sound.
With her new album ‘Mutual Dreaming‘ set for release Feb 11th via ShapesRecordings, Norwegian producer and singer Sea Change has shared a new single from the record, “Is There Anybody There“.
Speaking about the track, Sea Change said “‘Is There Anybody There’ came from a very lonely place – it was in the middle of the lockdown and all the streets were empty, and I guess I can say for a lot of people it was quite lonely at times. But then the song developed into this mindset where I tried to put myself into the body of someone who feels this lonely and alienated all the time, who longs for contact and validation, someone that’s outside of the system, living on the fringes of society, longing to be understood.”
Listen to “Is There Anybody There” here: https://youtu.be/UEZSHX6b8HI Embed code: <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/UEZSHX6b8HI” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>
Music sometimes takes place in a world that’s more emotional than rational, less something you think about and more something you feel. That’s the home turf of the new album from Sea Change – Mutual Dreaming. With inspiration from the world of club music, another dreamspace where reality seems to slip, these songs come from a place where shadows of memories and feelings dance in the listener’s sub-consciousness. With its subtle, infectious sense of rhythm, delivered through fractured, hallucinogenic electronica, the music here moves through your body like a pulse, for a record that manages to be both enigmatic and elusive, and at the same time totally compelling.
Sea Change is the project of Norway’s Ellen A. W. Sunde. From her debut album, 2015’s Breakage, to her music today, her sound has fluctuated and mutated – from airy, atmospheric pop to bubbling, shapeshifting electronica, but her creative vision hasn’t changed. With whatever style she’s working with, she’s on a mission to push and stretch it into new shapes, to explore the fringes of what the music can become. Across three records, it’s made for a musical vision that’s adventurous, hard to pin down, and even harder to predict. And on the latest of those albums, Mutual Dreaming, that’s more the case than ever before, as she follows her feelings in painting an intuitive, impressionistic world that wraps itself around the listener.
Her previous album INSIDE was inspired by club culture in Los Angeles and Berlin – having spent some time exploring the hazy spaces of those clubs, she made her own version of that feeling in sound. In terms of time and place at least, Mutual Dreaming was born somewhere very different. Sunde relocated back to Norway, to the southern coastal town of Kristiansand, and had just started work on the new album when lockdown hit. So instead of the overstimulation of city life, the new album was made with a distinct absence of input from the outside world. Still, Sunde found she enjoyed it. “It was very quiet”, she says. “I could really concentrate on making new music. In a way, it was starting from scratch. The vibe was very explorative, and I had fun making it. It was easier to dive into it when there weren’t any distractions”. Sunde was keen to explore the physical side of music in the songs, the way it interacts with the body: “Music can be very primal. When you are going clubbing and dancing you can lose yourself in your own headspace, and be more in time with your body”.
With her new music, Sunde wanted to make something fresh and fast, even setting herself the challenge of making the album as quickly as possible, so she could follow her ideas without overthinking or over-processing them. The approach to writing and production (with co-producing help on some of the songs from frequent collaborator Andrew Murray Baardsen at Luft Studio) was driven by impulse and instinct rather than planning, something that gave her freedom: “It was liberating for me, to not think things through too much. To be able to just go where the song could take me. I felt more relaxed when making this one. This album is more deconstructed and very intuitive. With INSIDE, the process was more thought-through. This one was more anti-intellectual and also very visual. I often see images when I produce music, like different scenes in movies”. Even the lyrics followed this approach, written first as filler to suit the sound of the track, and then later reworked and remoulded to serve its mood. “It was very intuitive and stream-of-consciousness”, she says. “Visceral and very introspective”.
What emerged from that process is an album of fractured, spectral electronic music. Despite that fracturing, the sense of rhythm remains – the music on Mutual Dreaming is driven by a strange, morphing danceability, a clockwork sense of groove. Beats steer the songs and provide their overarching structure, like on opener “I Put My Hand Into A Fist”, where the other parts of the song, the shivering synths and fluttering snares, swirl like currents around it. “Everything we made is fluid” intones Sunde on that song, and that goes for the whole album, a feeling of nothing being fixed, a constant flux. As you move from song to song, the mood changes slowly, like a sky shifting from light to dark. All the way through, the texture and tone are perfectly engineered, to the point where you almost feel them physically – “Mirages” slowly rises, softly making contact with your senses, like the feeling of gentle waves washing over you, whereas “Night Eyes” pulls you, into murkier, heavier territory. Sunde says she sees the record visually, and it’s one that almost demands you close your eyes when listening to it, to let the music draw its shapes and scenes in your own imagination.
The music’s deconstructed nature, the way it refuses to slip into any structure for very long, fits into the record’s theme. Sunde sees freedom in Mutual Dreaming, not only for her, in an emotional sense, but also for the outside listener, who is given the interpretive space by the album to follow their own path through it, somewhere in the floating interzone of its sounds. “I prefer a more abstract framework”, she says. “I rarely find it so interesting to write songs with a clear song structure – I’d rather explore a freer form”.
So ultimately, and in a nod to its title, Mutual Dreaming is a record that can draw as much from its listener as from the artist herself. The blurry, murky world these songs inhabit moves restlessly, always dissolving and reforming – leaving it to the observer to find their own meaning in it. It’s a record where Sea Change found her way in fragments, letting her feelings guide her, and then knitted those fragments into a vision of dance music that’s free-floating and immersive, a space where reality’s grip seems to lose its hold. It’s beyond club music, beyond its inspirations, and in the sonic richness and detail you can find the power of something beyond words – put it on, and the normal world feels very far away.
Good heavens…This album is so lush, haunting, and beautiful that it will sweep you away from whatever you’re doing when you play it. Anika’s voice immediately drapes over you like a luxurious robe with a knife hidden in a back pocket.
Seriously, why aren’t more people going nuts over Rochelle Jordan? She mixes soul, house, disco, and trip hop better than most, and Play with the Changes is, if you ask me, the sexiest album of 2021.
This lovely mix of trip hop, dream pop, bossa nova, and house music is a delight from start to finish. It was a much-needed tonic during the crappy 365 days of 2021. It’s a perfect spin for any time of year. Got the winter blues? Play this. Need a fun record for that summer beach trip? Play this. Need a boost to start your garden? Play this. Looking forward to sipping hot cider in the fall? Play this.
This solo record from one of the cats in Durand Jones and The Indications is one of the best soul and R&B records of 2021. Frazer puts down his trademark sharp beats and brings his other trademark, high-end vocals, with him to create a groovy, sexy blend that impressed Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys so much that he produced it.
This album got locked into my number one spot not long after it was released. It’s a sharp post-punk record, and I remember being more and more impressed with it after each listen. It covers everything from Brexit and the pandemic to boredom and hope for the future. It’s snarky, witty, and powerful.
There you have it. I hope 2022 is good to all of us.
Keep your mind open.
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Let’s Eat Grandma – the duo composed of songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, and vocalists Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth – present a new single/video, “Happy New Year,” from their much anticipated third full-length album, Two Ribbons, out April 8th on Transgressive. Following the title track and “Hall Of Mirrors,” “Happy New Year” is a blissful song celebrating friendship. The video features the duo embroiled in a tennis match-turned-party, the fierce to-and-fro between them representing the difficulties their relationship has faced, and the fireworks behind them illuminating a new chapter in their friendship.
Walton elaborates: “I wrote ‘Happy New Year’ after a breakdown between us that lasted for a long period of time, to communicate to her how important she is to me and how our bond and care for each other goes much deeper than this difficult time. I used the setting of New Year as both an opportunity for reflection, looking back nostalgically through childhood memories that we shared, and to represent the beginning of a fresh chapter for us. I’d been struggling to come to terms with the fact that our relationship had changed, but as the song and time progresses I come to accept that it couldn’t stay the way it was when we were kids forever, and start to view it as a positive thing – because now we have been able to grow into our own individual selves.”
Two Ribbons tells the story of the last three years from both Hollingworth and Walton’s points of view. Following the critical acclaim for 2018’s I’m All Ears, for which they won Album of the Year at the Q Awards, the two began to find themselves as individuals, tastes differing here, reactions jarring there. There was a time when both felt a little trapped, and needed to fight to create the space to express themselves as individuals within their relationship. Two Ribbons can be heard as a series of letters between the two of them, taking the place of conversations as they try to make sense of the rift in their relationships.
As a body of work, Two Ribbons is astonishing: a dazzling, heart-breaking, life-affirming and mortality-facing record that reveals the duo’s growing artistry and ability to parse intense feelings into lyrics so memorable you’d scribble them on your backpack. Two Ribbons treads a fine line expressing the most intimate feelings of, whilst making space for, the different perspectives of two women; an album that says this is not the beginning or the end but part of a never-ending circle. It’s cyclical in nature; there is sadness, and pain, and joy, and hope – and knows that no matter what detours we take, we are all connected. Listen to “Happy New Year”
