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August 28, 2020 Singer Maddox Jones is nostalgic in ‘My House’ music video

Singer Maddox Jones is nostalgic in ‘My House’ music video

British singer and songwriter Maddox Jones has released his solo debut EP, Headspace, via Radikal/ Quattro Records.

The 5-track EP follow up on a string of singles, the recently released after party anthem My House and the kaleidoscopic Headspace– the EP’s title track and Maddox Jones’ first release as a solo artist which received praise from likes of American Songwriter, SPIN, Complete Music Update and Its All Indie, among others.

While fronting a band is never an easy task – and Jones had his fair share of experience playing and collaborating with other artists – standing alone and allowing his deepest emotions to flow through some of the most personal songs he has ever written allowed him to explore a variety of sounds and emotions. Free from any restrictions, this new creative process allowed the talented artist to develop a vulnerable body of work while exploring a more diverse sound palette. The result is a personal journey through hedonism, love, loss and the pain of growing up, all echoed by Maddox’s honest vocals.

With each self-penned song on Headspace Jones vocals, explore a full range of emotions; from the soft crooners opening to the addictive anthemic refrain of My House, via the funky-influences of Dancing Feels Good, to the powerfully haunting chorus of No More Ghosts, the talented songwriter takes the listener into his personal journey. It’s the story of a search for deep connection. Connection to others, to yourself and to a deeper meaning in life, explains Jones. It’s about authenticity and vulnerability, going after the things we truly want. Going all-in with everything to lose, saying goodbye to old habits and outdated versions of yourself along the way, but with faith and belief in everything there is to gain, he enthuses.

Written by Maddox Jones, recorded and produced in a single day with close friend and producer Dave Crawford, opener Headspace moves through an initial sparse production to a complex synth-washed pop number, before turning into a hands-in-the-air, eyes-closed soundscape, while Maddox builds his warm tenor to a propulsive chorus. The song says Jones is about meaningful connection and the deep, true, unconditional love we are all yearning for. Second track, My House – co-written with Dave Crawford and produced by former Daytona Lights Louis Souyave – is a complex anthemic-pop number, one that explores Jones personal journey through adulthood, encompassing different genres and styles and effectively representing the multifaceted sound of the upcoming EP.

Halfway through the EP, the Stranger Things inspired nostalgic synth-pop anthem More Than This, a track Maddox Jones wrote with longtime friend and future pop artist Adal, searches for reconnection with the forgotten dreams and endless possibilities of youth, explains Jones. Their first collaborative tracks Youth received Notion magazine seal of approval, while this latest effort wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack of a Netflix teen rom-com.

Following track Dancing Feels Good, co-written and produced with Harry Tarlton who has also worked with artists including Tom Misch and Lianne La Havas explores an inner battle over that someone or something that you know is bad for you, but sometimes feels too good to resist”, says Jones. Built around Tarlton’s infectious Nile Rodgers influenced funky guitars and bassline, it reveals Jones ability to encompass different genres and vocal styles.

Closing the EP, No More Ghosts is an ambitious ballad and in Jones own words, “it’s a heartfelt and haunting goodbye, finally making peace and letting go of something or someone that has been a major part of your life. It was inspired by a scene in the Netflix series You where Joe Goldberg says, “There are no more ghosts in this bed. It’s a good contender for one of the best breakup songs of the year and the perfect song to close the EP.

With Headspace Maddox Jones shows he is a bold artist, armed with vulnerable poeticism and equipped with a naturally impressive voiceprint.

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August 21, 2020 Band Phantom Isle release surreal music video

Band Phantom Isle release surreal music video

Directed by Matthew Nelson, the video for MAR V is as surreal and chaotic as the world that we’re living in at the moment, reflecting the pulsating energy of the song itself – wall-to-wall with everything from flashes of a latex-clad gas-masked dancer to tour and lockdown antics.

Discussing the video, director Matthew Nelson explains: “The concept behind the video was a glorified tour vlog turned nightmare. I took influences from directors like Darren Aronofsky and the 90s dance track “Killer” by ADAMSKI.”

Some of the footage used in the video was from the last show that the band played just before lockdown, which was in front of a 1,000-strong crowd at MaNo-Musikfestival in Germany. Drummer, Sam Thorne says “I’d say that the video sort of represents our experience over the last 5 months. The craziness of MaNo and those amazing gigs, all the people and parties, and then a different kind of craziness once we crash landed into lockdown straight after.”

Lead singer and guitarist, Peter Marchant continues: “We had all this footage of us on tour, in the studio etc. which is all well and good, but we wanted to throw some kind of bizarre fly in the ointment. So Matthew suggested we film lots of extra footage in our flat, and use whatever bonkers ideas that came into our heads. We had a lot of hilarious moments shooting these ideas all night.”

Consisting of hypnotic synth lines, goosebump-inducing rhythm and a hint of dark and mysterious atmosphere, Phantom Isle’s latest release, ‘MAR V’ sees the band stray from their art-pop roots with great success; highlighting their effortless capability to blend genres and moods for maximum effect – think LCD Soundsystem/Hot Chip style indie-house.

Keyboard player, Joshua Pullen who took the lead with writing the music says: “The song started as a remix of our previous single ‘I Am Urs’ but became a very different beast when I was messing about with a new drum machine I bought. I was listening to a lot of Soulwax and Simian Mobile Disco at the time and loved how they would produce songs with a pounding single-note loop throughout.” 

Despite its upbeat and energetic feel, there’s a dark side to ‘MAR V’. Lyricist and drummer, Sam Thorne explains: “The lyrics were actually written about feeling anxious and alone” comparing that feeling to an old friend that follows you through life, saying “you almost miss it when you leave it behind”. Singer and guitarist, Peter Marchant adds, “the song pretty much became the soundtrack of MaNo-Musikfestival in Marburg, Germany, where we headlined in March this year”. 2,000 fans jumped and danced frantically to MAR V’s hypnotic pulse at the festival’s closing show, seen in the single’s official video along with a montage of mischievous and surreal footage from the band’s journey so far. The band arrived in Marburg on March 5th (hence the romanised title, ‘MAR V’), they saw and conquered.

Follow Phantom Isle: 

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August 21, 2020 Bad Seeds guitarist George Vjestica shares new Bandate song

Bad Seeds guitarist George Vjestica shares new Bandate song

Photo Credit: Michael Dent

When not performing with the Bad Seeds, George Vjestica is the driving force behind Bandante, a moveable feast of a band, recording and performing George’s music for which other musicians, artists and film makers, are brought in to contribute.  It is the experimental nature of Bandante and in particular his work with Tim – the overlapping of lenses through a collaborative process – that allows George to develop new, interesting and unexpected creative dynamics and outcomes.

Bandante’s debut limited edition vinyl single (Bang Bang b/w My Friend) earned critical acclaim – a vinyl of the year at Rough Trade and a UK Official Vinyl Singles Chart entry. 

So This Is Now is the latest offering from Bandante where music and imagery are seamlessly combined in a video piece made by the artist, Timothy Shepard.

Work on So This Is Now  began at Vale Studios with the recording of an instrumental piece written by George. Joining him were musicians, Ian Matthews (Kasabian) on drums, Nikolaj Torp (The Specials) on Hammond and Mellotron, and Tim Hutton (Dub Pistols, Prodigy) on horns.  From this session came an intense 5-minute blast of killer riff-driven music, inspired by 60’s American psychedelia, Arthur Lee’s ‘Love’ and the Haight-Ashbury/Monterey scene – a soundtrack that George had always imagined being set to film. 

I wanted the chorus to feel like a call to arms, to hear a cacophonous fanfare of blaring trumpets – a massive release, with a verse I wrote to be full of tension and suspense.” George explains.

Timothy Shepard is an American contemporary fine artist based in London who uses collage (in a very broad sense of the term) working in 2d, film making and music composition. He has been a regular collaborator with Bandante, creating videos for Bang Bang/My Friend as well as super 8 films projected at Bandante’s immersive shows. He has previously worked with other musicians including Paul Weller (a series of country walks which resulted in the cover for 22 Dreams), the quite possibly deceased enigmatic film maker CS Leigh, and a very close collaboration with Kevin Ayers on the making of his swan song album The Unfairground.  

George continues the story. “After the Vale Studio sessions, I got very busy with the Bad Seeds whilst the track I had recorded kind of went in the drawer. One morning in mid-June, during lockdown, while going through some playlists on my laptop, I found a file labelled, ‘Protest/Revolt into Style/Vale Studio‘. I put it on and was blown away. It sounded and felt like what was going on outside at the time when it seemed that an unstoppable momentum was building for a summer of protest.”

“I’ve known Tim for a while – he lives up the road from me in Notting Hill and we’d often meet for a coffee. Our conversations always ended up trying to figure out what the fuck was going on around all the talk of Trump, Brexit and the rest of it. This continued during lockdown over the phone. I asked Tim if he would make a short film set to this piece of music I’d recorded in Vale Studios, “it’s all the stuff we’ve been talking about.” I said.  He chewed on it, I heard him draw hard on his E cigarette, pause and say to me in his laconic Bostonian drawl, ‘Let’s see’.”

He came back with what was, to me, a stunning piece of art. The music had the soul and the film, a ‘visual lyric’, had the mind and the conscience. It’s a hopeful, sad yet defiant, audio/visual collaboration that, in some visceral way, reflects the times we are living in right now.”

For the project, Tim made a film comprised of hundreds of sequenced cut-up and collaged images, in which we are shown a world through a dystopic like window of now, teetering on collapse and chaos with a message of only-hope that,  “the power of the people is greater than the people in power”. 

We are at a moment of choice,” Tim explains. “George and I would talk about this a lot, and in great part the collaborative process with George and what informed the making of the film were these conversations – about how this point in human history is so pivotal –  when we either have global social, economic, and climate collapse or we don’t.” 

Tim continues: “It is by no means impossible that we can achieve an understanding whereby we can live sustainably and flourish. There is this idea of decentralizing the power which is very interesting – whether it’s the media or politicians or whatever force that is enacted in order for us to behave in a certain way or impart some ‘truth’  – and in place of all that we could bring about a more collaborative sense making approach. We’ve all “had enough of reading things by neurotic-psychotic pig-headed politicians”. 

“To get ourselves to a good place we’ve got to take an honest and positive look at ourselves – realise and empower ourselves. But because we’re all guilty of something, if not the same faults we point out in others. Change must start with ourselves and be enacted upon even more urgently than the call for others to change.”

So This Is Now is currently available to watch on YouTube –  it’s something that’s just out there. 

Meanwhile during Lockdown George has been busy in his studio, there are plans with Tim for a sound and vision installation and whilst touring and performing remain on hold we can expect the two of them to bring a whole bunch more of overlapping lenses.

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August 18, 2020 Mental health and music videos in Milo Gore’s latest release

Mental health and music videos in Milo Gore’s latest release

Milo Gore, a musician on a mission to make mental health a more widely discussed topic, has released the music video for ‘Noise Gone Dancing’ via Red Van Records (RVR). The single is taken from his upcoming album, How Do You Cope While Grieving For The Living? which will be released in a few short days.

On the album, listeners will be able to find some his known works such as ‘Green Eyes’ and ‘Jerry Can’ (a song filled with tiny easter eggs for the upcoming album). However, there are a few more songs on there that will resonate with everyone. Hot tip: we’ve been specifically instructed to keep our eyes (and ears) open for ‘I Hear You’.

Keen to learn more? Here’s the full tracklisting for the album:

1. Noise Gone Dancing 

2. Green Eyes

3. Jade

4. FARE

5. A Collaboration Of Our Grief – feat RMC

6. Jerry Can

7. MEDS

8. I Hear You

9. Homegrown

10. Eyeliner

11. Complete Peace

12.The Endless War

Be prepared: the music video below will take you through the five stages of grief as you’ve never seen them before.

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