Queer artist morgxn has been scheduled to perform at Pride in London this coming weekend, the 6th of July. Ahead of this, he has released the official video for his single, ‘A New Way. The video was directed by Matt Delisi and premiered at GLAAD.org. It features big names in the LGBTQ+ community such as Melissa Befierce, Lori Queen, Sonique, Gracie Cartier, Jeffrey Bertollini, Amber Romero and more.
Pride also will feature artists such as Billy Porter, Becky Hill, Saara Aalto and Heather Peace and over one million people are expected to participate in this year. The festival, starting off with only two thousand people in 1972, will be celebrating its 47th year.
Following Pride, morgxn will make his Good Morning America debut performing ‘A New Way’ for the first time on national TV on July 16th. This won’t be the first time for doing something like this for him – he’s appeared Jimmy Kimmel Live as well as Last Call with Carson Daly.
“‘A New Way’ is calling for us to find a new way of being — one fuelled by childlike wonder and joy. It’s about moving beyond despair and darkness and embracing a wilder, freer sense of self.” – Paper Magazine.
Four-piece UK band, unperfect release new single ‘I’m A Dreamer’ today, alongside an adorable official video via Xenomania. This follows their debut EP ‘Yeah, Why Not’ released earlier this year.
The feel-good, uplifting record arrives in perfect time for the upcoming summer season as this glimmering pop hard-hitter encapsulates a positive, inspirational story into an up-tempo earworm. The vibrancy of the track bursts into a crescendo of a chorus, which exudes an infectious confidence.
“The lyrics of the song came from our experiences of sometimes second-guessing ourselves, or having other people second-guess us. We are only human, it’s natural to worry that things might not work out or feel deflated when other people dont have the same vision we do. But the overall message of the song is about being confident enough to push through it and keep believing in ourselves.” – unperfect on their latest single.
unperfect are collaborating with Robinsons Fruit Shoot on the single campaign, which is their debut brand partnership. Both unperfect and Fruit Shoot share the same ethos of championing the rising generations, fuelling their adventures, encouraging them to step outside of their comfort zone and daring them to dream big. The release of the single marks the launch of Fruit Shoot’s epic summer on-pack promotion, which gives children, whatever interests or hobbies they are into, the chance to win their dream version of it.
The video is adorable, with a child director directing the “shoot” and bold colours that sing of summer.
Roots in Iceland, raised in England, and a resident of France and Germany, ROKKY distills the very best of European pop and club culture. Written in France and a song about submission, ‘deux’ combines ROKKY’s signature tough dance beats with a sensual French lyric, its dizzying sensual video is online now.
“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
If ROKKY has a mantra, this is it.
“I know what I like and I work hard to create the sounds and beats I love,” says this self-taught musician, producer and nomad currently living in Berlin.
ROKKY’s calm, composed exterior belies a driven individual who thrives on challenges. In her teens, she moved to her parents native Iceland, immersing herself in the local music scene.
When she discovered Garageband, at age twelve, making her own music became a reality and she discovered that she could realise the beats and sounds she had in her head. She decided to enroll in a sound engineering course – undeterred at being the only female in the class – and threw herself into her newfound passion.
ROKKY spent the rest of her early childhood in Oxford and moved to Berlin in 2013. “Moving to Berlin and going out definitely opened my eyes to a whole new world of techno, dance music and DJs. It’s helped me get deeper into that world. The city has such a freedom to it, it’s allowed me the confidence to make the music I truly love.” she says.
Meeting Sofi Tukker at their show in Berlin in 2016 “changed everything for me” says ROKKY. Dancing by the stage, singing every word, ROKKY caught Sophie’s eye and she jumped off stage to dance with her. After the show, ROKKY leaped at the opportunity to show the Grammy nominated Dance duo around her city. A night at Berghain with the band ended with a promise to stay in touch, and shortly after ROKKY sent them her music. Sophie and Tucker were so impressed they gave her feedback and started collaborating – “I was in complete shock, I couldn’t believe someone else would believe in my songs as much as they did.”
Being a natural linguist – she speaks six languages – allowed for spontaneous moves to France and Germany and its clear that stints in both countries have played their part in her sound. Her love of French electronic music and pop and her embracing of Berlin’s club and techno scene are evident on her new single ‘deux’ released on +1 Records on May 8th, 2019. Written in France and a song about submission, ‘deux’ combines ROKKY’s signature tough dance beats with a sensual French lyric- – “it’s great synth wave sound and a vocal that is so raw and relaxed.”
Daughter of Swords, aka Mountain Man’s Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, has shared a video for “Shining Woman,” the latest from her upcoming album, Dawnbreaker.
In 2017, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig began recording a set of songs about a breakup that had yet to happen. Her partnership had drifted into a comfortable state of indecision, stalling when it came time to make big life moves or chase new horizons. She had the sense that she needed to slip the relationship in order to pursue everything else life might have in store -more music, more adventures, a general sense of the unknown. Those feelings drifted steadily into a set of songs that lamented the inevitable loss but, more important, outlined the promise of the future. Recording the ten tracks that became her stunning solo debut, Dawnbreaker, under the new name Daughter of Swords gave Sauser-Monnig permission to go.
Dawnbreaker began as the first phase of Sauser-Monnig’s return to music after stepping to the sidelines for the better part of a decade. Her college trio, Mountain Man, rose to quick acclaim for their peerless harmonies around 2010, but the friends slowly drifted apart, following their own interests to different coasts and concerns. While working on a flower farm as a farmhand, though, Sauser-Monnig realized that she missed the emotional articulation she found in writing songs and singing them and resolved to start again. She pieced together an album just as Mountain Man-now newly gathered in the fertile Piedmont of North Carolina-began to regroup for its second LP, 2018’s aptly named Magic Ship. Working with Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, Sauser-Monnig shaped what began as quiet reflections into confident compositions, crackling with country swagger and a sparkling pop warmth. They were, after all, preemptive odes to the next phase of life.
Calling the ten tunes of Dawnbreaker breakup songs is to hamstring them with elegiac expectations, to paint them as sad-eyed surrenders to loss and grief. Sure, there is the gentle opener “Fellows,” a hushed number that explores the turmoil of being unable to reciprocate the feelings of a wild and shy, tall and fine man. And there’s the blossoming country shuffle of “Easy Is Hard,” where Sauser-Monnig stands in the yard and sees her lover leave, his taillights fading into the night sky; she can’t sleep, so she gets up to turn the lights and stereo on, to “feel my soul coming down.”
Even there, amid the throes of a life convulsion, there is a wisp of hope and possibility, framed by the way “the dim light change[s] into dawn, rosy blue, pink fawn.” The very heart of Dawnbreaker is not the impending breakup that inspired many of its songs but the sense of liberation and breaking out that the breakup inspired. Buoyed by the insistent patter of a drum machine and rich acoustic guitars, Sauser-Monnig finds herself in search of new thrills during “Gem,” whether pondering the fleeting nature of existence at a waterfall’s edge or watching the shapes of mountains seemingly dance beneath her headlights. The muted, harmonica-lined boogie of “Sun” begins with a vulnerable confession, a revelation of loneliness; it is, however, a low-key anthem for the open road, about giving oneself over to the infinity of solitude and an endless strip of asphalt. Sauser-Monnig captures these scenes with a painter’s eye and delivers them with a novelist’s heart.
There’s no better testament than “Shining Woman,” where Sauser-Monnig portrays a ropy woman navigating her “steel steed” up and down the bends and passes of California’s fabled Highway 1. She openly marvels at that spirit and strength, wishing that for her own life. With Dawnbreaker, she has found it in some measure-the joy of something new, the excitement of risk. Though Sauser-Monnig nearly recorded these songs as barebones folk ballads, she reimagined them with Sanborn and a top-tier crew of North Carolina friends, like fellow Mountain Man singers Amelia Meath and Molly Sarlé, bandleader Phil Cook, and guitarist Ryan Gustafson. These vivid settings highlight the emotional contours of these songs, revealing the complexity that comes with knowing that, in order to live, you sometimes have to let something as strong as love go.
At the start of “Human,” the undeniable climax of Dawnbreaker, Sauser-Monnig wakes up early and finds her lover in bed. She slips out of the room, watches the sun rise alone, and has herself a long think amid nature’s frozen splendor. What does it mean to leave? What does it mean to stay? Is she wrong, and is he right? As the piano rises and her voice multiplies, coming in now from all sides, she admits something crucial to herself: “You can’t will a love to life/But you can do the loving thing: Make like a bird and fly.” It is a moment of reckoning with one’s own liberation, of realizing that sometimes a profound loss is the only way to gain something else. That is the lesson of Dawnbreaker, an intimate document of what it means to set oneself free.
