Julian Tran is a 23 year-old songwriter from London. He was born and raised in Paris and came to London 6 years ago with the band he was playing in at the time (REV). After 3 years of playing concerts around London, he decided to focus on his solo projects.
From 2018 to 2019 he released several titles under his alias Sonic Eater and even started playing his own shows. From mid-2019 to now, he worked on developing the ‘Misery’ project
The project was delivered in 3 steps: First the ‘Misery’ single, then a Live Performance of the single shot in the 7th Sky Studios in Paris and finally, the ‘Misery’ Album. All this new material has been released under his real name as they no longer wish to use an alias.
Formed in Athens, GA, Easter Island is an ambient dream-pop act fronted by brothers Ethan and Asher Payne (guitar and keys) and Ryan Monahan (guitar). Their sound has been likened to Explosions in The Sky, My Bloody Valentine, DIIV, Pedro the Lion, and more. The band’s falsetto vocals and panoramic guitars are countered by its powerful rhythm section – John Swint (drums), and Justin Ellis (bass) add gravity to an otherwise weightless sound.
Throughout Easter Island’s career the band has had the opportunity to share the stage with David Bazan, Cindy Wilson (of The B52s), The Low Anthem, Bully, Wild Nothing, White Rabbits, Valley Maker, and more. The band’s debut record Frightened (2012), led to a number of television syncs, including ABC’s “Off The Map”, MTV’s “Awkward”, and a recent live appearance on CW’s Dynasty which aired in 2019.
The past six years have seen the band working in various studios all over the country on their new record while touring the US at large, including appearances at SXSW, CMJ, Treefort, Underground Music Showcase, Secret Stages, and Athfest in their hometown of Athens. They traveled as far as Japan to work on new material and to film the music video for the single, “Island Nation”, which was premiered by Paste Magazine. The band’s follow-up single, “Always Room For Another”, premiered on Billboard in fall 2018. In 2020 the band found itself spread out among five different cities and so they leaned into the separation and produced five music videos – featuring each member in their respective city.
Produced and engineered by Ryan Monahan, the songs received additional engineering from Mike Albanese at Espresso Machine Recording and mastering from Joel Hatstat at High Jump Media in Athens, GA. The new record draws on influences ranging from Sufjan Stevens and Max Richter, to The Never Ending Story. The band completed a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2020 and will release their sophomore LP, Take All The Time You Think You Need, in December, 2020.
Driven by its crisp electronic percussion, ‘Night Summer Waiting’ recalls the majestic dream-pop masterworks of Still Corners or Chromatics. The song was written earlier in 2020, at a small Italian hilltop town under the fading Summer sun.
“Watching the world with restless eyes… keep up, don’t fall behind” sings Teresa Woischiski, lyrics defiant with notions of escapism, yet tinted with a world-wary melancholy. “Night Summer Waiting, what you keep within, you can do without”, she lulls, her crystalline vocal rising through layers of dreamy atmospheric synthesisers and elegiac piano motifs.
The Ghost of Helags are singer-songwriter and producer duo Teresa Woischiski and John Alexander Ericson. Hailing from Sweden and now located in Berlin, the pairing combine the dream pop sounds of their Scandinavian roots with the electronic nuances inspired by their newfound home and beyond. ‘Night Summer Waiting’ is the latest in a string of innovative and exploratory tracks by the duo and follows recent 2020 singles including the Chemical Brothers-inspired ‘Parallel’ and the seductive Lynchian-inspired synth-pop of recent single ‘Chemistry’. Other highlights of their continually expanding repertoire include the New Music Friday playlisted debut single ‘I Carry Your Heart’, ‘Autobahn Lullaby’ (a tribute to their Berlin home) and 2019’s hymnal ‘The Santa Rosa Song’.
Johan Kull, 31, has been working as a musician and producing music for other artists, as well as being in multiple bands, for ten years. He has studied at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden.
Dreams, which is the first release from his solo project, came to be while studying at the Royal College of Music.
Johan is inspired by artists such as Bon Iver, Finneas and Phoebe Bridgers, and describes his music as melodious och emotional alternative pop, with in uences from dream pop and shoegaze. His melancholic music is characterized by it’s dreamy soundscapes and layers of vocals.
The atmospheric sound of Dreams tells the tale of dreaming as the more tangible reality.
– The song deals with the false reality that dreams can create. When you build this utopian world in your head, how perfect that can be, and how equally horrifying it can be having that taken away when you wake up. But it’s also about the disappointment of expectations being squandered, when reality isn’t up to par with your dreams.
Johan is planning on releasing more singles later this year and an EP is scheduled for 2021.
