Jammerzine has a double dose of #indie in the form of an exclusive interview and premiere from who I consider one of the unsung heroes of the unsigned scene. I am speaking of Chicago’s Microcosms.
And now, with the addition of Ronn Richardson on guitar, the sound is filled and full. And we get that in a glorious fashion in the new single ‘Better Together’ (player above). The sound is found, as is said in the interview. ‘Better Together’ will be, in my opinion, the song that could, or should, break the barriers to the masses for Microcosms.
We get an in-depth look at this new addition with an interview with both Ronn and front-man Andrew Tschiltsch about this evolution of revolution that Microcosms is in the midst of taking as well as the new music and what the future holds for the band as a whole in this world of quarantine.
Read the full article and hear the new track HERE.
‘For me its been cool because I haven’t really played with that many musicians in my life. I started Microcosms and that’s really been the only band I’ve ever been in. So, for me, it was great to get these ideas because Ronn can play bass, play keys, and more so we don’t have this issue on who should play what.’
– Andrew Tschiltsch
‘There is no ego for me in this band or any project I’ve done with Andrew. In my opinion, it’s more about friendship and fun.’
– Ronn Richardson
Check out our other features with Microcosms HERE.
Check out the new single on Spotify HERE.
Click HERE to watch Season 6 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 5 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 4 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 3 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 2 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 1 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
LINKS:
https://www.wearemicrocosms.com
https://twitter.com/atschiltsch
https://www.facebook.com/WeAreMicrocosms
https://microcosms.bandcamp.com
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Brocarde Releases ‘Last Supper’ Single (The Week in #Indie Segment)
London-based Brocarde has just released her new single Last Supper. Never one to focus on just one project, she also launches the Last Supper Clothing Collection (featuring lyrics from the single), Last Supper Photography Book and Last Supper photography ibook.
The track has been played on hundreds of radio stations all over the world including Kerrang! Radio and Planet Rock Radio – where it’s been played for over 5 weeks.
Brocarde always had a keen interest in performing and storytelling, but she didn’t launch her music career straight away. It was jewelry making that came first and it wasn’t long before word spread and her designs were spotted on Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
Riding the crest of the wave, she spent every waking hour making jewelry in the hope that the company would give her a platform to launch her music. The bigger the company grew, the more its ethos escaped her. The brand did provide her with a platform to launch music, but not the kind that cuts into your soul, not the kind that made her feel alive. So before she drowned in a sickly, sticky vat of bubblegum, she decided to burst her own bubble.
She closed the jewelry company and never looked back. She went to LA to finish the album she had started and discarded every song that she had previously written. Brocarde made a promise to herself that she would never compromise her vision, and to never be filtered for commercial success. During her time in the studio, her love for making clothing continued.
At this point in her life she was unshackled, supercharged and sassy as hell, so she created a brand called Twisted Bitches. She created t-shirts with slogans like “Pussy Power” and “No F*cks Given”. Her designs were modeled by rainbow haired girls and embraced by the “alternative” community, after being stocked on Dolls Kill.
The first song Brocarde wrote in LA was “Last Supper”. The song and her vision for it existed long before she stepped foot inside a recording studio, and every tiny detail was alive inside her head, from the video concept to the clothing she would be wearing. The song tackles her personal experiences with celebrity culture. It begs the listener to question their relationship with social media and loved ones, and it asks the all-important question “What will you consume at your last supper?”.
The video, written and directed by Brocarde takes the viewer on an uncensored journey and tackles a host of controversial issues such as cannibalism, religion, and abuse of power, which leaves them open for interpretation and discussion. It’s a twisted fairytale with haunting darkness that’s usually only present in horror movies.
Brocarde approaches music in a different way. She is genre-less. She uses instrumentation to capture the emotion in her words. She straddles a multitude of worlds; her vulnerable, fragile side is captured by an orchestra of delicately plucked strings; her full throttle sass makes you stand up and take note, and her angst and frustration marry with the heavy metal undertones.
Brocarde is cinematic, captivating and an artistic storyteller.
Last Supper is out now and the second single and album will follow later in 2019.
LINKS:
http://brocarde.com
https://www.instagram.com/brocarde
https://twitter.com/brocardemusic
https://www.facebook.com/brocarde
https://youtube.com/brocarde
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/last-supper-single/1451735351 -
An Interview with Blur’s Dave Rowntree
Jammerzine has an exclusive interview with the multi talent and Blur drummer known as Dave Rowntree. His new album titled ‘Radio Songs’ is out as of today and features a gamut of styles and genre hopping contained within songs straight from the heart of a musician that wears that heart on his sleeve.
‘Radio Songs‘ (playlist below) is one of those albums that you could say is truly diverse. Sometimes subtly, and sometimes genre bending. But, what I find really endearing about it is that feeling you get when each song was created out of that certain passion that comes from artists that stay late and work until that sense of completion is present.
And, in this interview, we get that sense between the words as well as a peek into how an album such as ‘Radio Songs’ comes to be. We also get to know Dave the person as well as the artist.
About Dave Rowntree & ‘Radio Songs’
As a kid growing up in Colchester, Dave Rowntree would often sit with his dad at the family’s kitchen table, building radio kits together. Then, using an antenna situated in their garden, they’d tune into stations from around the world, picking up exotic languages and music while wondering what life was like in these faraway places.
“Radio has been a constant for me,” Rowntree reflects. “It’s been one of the steadying factors in my life.”
Hence the title of Radio Songs, Dave Rowntree’s debut solo album. Many of the songs on it began life with his recordings of the weird and wonderful sounds of atmospheric static in-between stations, using them as the foundations upon which he built the tracks.“The idea of Radio Songs is me spinning through the dial,” he explains. “It sounds like you’ve got a radio tuned to some static and you spin the dial, and the song pops out of it. And then you spin the dial again, and the song dissolves back into the static.” Moreover, each of the songs on the record finds Rowntree exploring significant turning points in his life.
Best known as the drummer in Blur, Dave Rowntree is also something of a polymath: film and TV composer, podcaster, light aircraft pilot (and instructor), lawyer, former Labour councillor. “I’ve always been a bit of a nomad,” he laughs. “Never quite satisfied. I suppose I’m endlessly ambitious, really.” Those ambitions have led him to the creation of Radio Songs, which he points out is “an album that I’ve been musing on and chipping away at for a few years now.”
It’s a record set to surprise many people, being an electronic-based album with orchestral fringes, filled with great, tuneful songs delivered by Rowntree’s assured and expressive vocal performances. While down the years he’s provided backing vocals on many of Blur’s albums and onstage during their live sets, this is the first time the drummer has stepped up to the microphone as a singer in his own right. He says he didn’t particularly find the prospect daunting.
“Less than you’d think, really,” he notes with a chuckle. “I’m kind of unselfconscious in the studio, having spent half my working life there. What really helped was I took trumpet lessons during lockdown. Absolute disaster. My trumpet-playing sounds like wild geese being murdered by a fox. But that really nailed the breathing aspect of singing for me. I’m still experimenting with my voice.”
Produced by Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Ghostpoet, Wild Beasts), featuring co-writers including Gary Go and Högni Egilsson and stirring orchestrations recorded in Budapest, Radio Songs is a sonically expansive, but also deeply personal record. Slow-burning ballad ‘1000 Miles’, for example, is a remote long song expressing the difficulties in sustaining a relationship as a world-travelling musician.
“I’d just had an argument with my girlfriend the morning when I set off for Iceland to work with Högni,” Rowntree recalls. “Which is just the wrong thing to do, isn’t it? Because then there’s no chance of making up ‘til you get back again. And so that’s what the song is about. It’s like, ‘Oh God, I’m 1000 miles from home.’ That’s been a real problem…on tour with Blur, trying to keep a relationship going from the other side of the world.”
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s the deceptively bright and upbeat ‘London Bridge’, with its staccato “la-la-la-la” hook line, which on closer listening reveals a lyrical sense of dread. Rowntree says the song has its roots in strange recognitions of patterns.
“When I was in my early 20s, in Colchester, I would start to see the number 126 everywhere,” he remembers. “I lived at a house that was 126, I’d get a bus that was 126. I knew this was confirmation bias. I’d read books about that kind of thing, but it was still happening. It felt to me that the universe was trying to alert my attention to 126 for some reason, even though the rational part of me knew that that was bollocks.
“So, ‘London Bridge’ was one of those,” he adds. “Things just started happening when I was near London Bridge, or going past on the bus, or on the tube going underneath London Bridge. I would just notice events occurring, and it was slightly unsettling. Bad shit started happening around London Bridge. I had to confront my London Bridge demons and that’s what the song is about (laughs).”
Elsewhere, the tumbling beats and dreamy instrumental layers of ‘Devil’s Island’ backdrop Rowntree’s lyric returning him to darker days back in the ‘90s, and ‘Downtown’ (with its references to ‘Bitterville’) is a commentary on the “negative and divisive” UK post-Brexit. “It just felt so much like my memory of Britain in the ‘70s and how toxic that all felt,” he says.
Further down the track list lie the syncopated rhythms of beautifully brooding pop song ‘Tape Measure’, the slow-moving synths of ‘Machines Like Me’ and the electronically-enhanced admissions of ‘Volcano’. Rowntree says the latter was inspired by a childhood photograph and describes the song as being about “a situation I’ve found myself in several times in life, where I can’t get any closer to something, but equally you don’t want to get any further away. And I’ve just found myself stuck.”
Meanwhile, two other tracks highlight more instrumental or abstract approaches. Closer ‘Who’s Asking’ began life as a choral piece for a film, that went unused, and was rearranged by Leo Abrahams. Similarly, Abrahams reconfigured ‘HK’ from an original track that featured cut-up recordings of radio broadcasts Rowntree had captured in Hong Kong while Blur were there making 2015’s The Magic Whip album.
“There’s something full on about Chinese commercial radio,” Rowntree enthuses. “If you think American radio is kind of pumping you the hard sell, you should listen to Chinese radio. It takes your breath away.”
Dave Rowntree is clearly an individual bursting with energy, and someone drawn to different fascinations. “I get grabbed by these random obsessions,” he says. In recent years, his film and TV composing work has included soundtracks for Netflix sci-fi series The One, the Bros documentary film After the Screaming Stops and BBC One’s technological crime thriller The Capture. Upcoming projects include a second series of The Capture and the third season of War of the Worlds through Disney+.
While he still flies his part-owned Cirrus SR22 single-engine plane every week, touring commitments with the reformed Blur around The Magic Whip put a stop to his parallel life as a lawyer. Instead, when the band’s activities died down once again, he served as Labour councillor in Norfolk County Council from 2017 to 2021.
“That was great,” he says. “I believe in localism passionately. Knocking on doors and offering help I think is a really powerful and amazing thing to do.”
For the foreseeable future, however, Dave Rowntree’s focus will be back on music. He’s already thinking about a second album, along with the gigs he’s planning to perform the tracks from Radio Songs.
“It’s not a traditional album,” he points out. “So, the kind of mosh pit way of doing things isn’t going to work. The idea is for it to be a bit more of an interesting event – maybe doing it in the round, surrounded by a light show. So, watch this space.”
In the meantime, there is this surprising, moving and highly melodic album to enjoy. Radio Songs: spin the dial and tune in.
LINKS:
https://daver.lnk.to/RadioSongs
https://twitter.com/DaveRowntree
https://www.instagram.com/davidrowntree
https://www.facebook.com/rowntree.david
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwdB97JxmimClJXPDMrBEOg -
Jammerzine’s The Week in #Indie for 5/11/2020
This week Jammerzine has an exclusive interview with hip-hop legend R.A. The Rugged Man as well as new music and videos from Prof, Black Needle Noise, Diamond Shake, Drew Davies, Ethan Gold, Lazaris Pit, Lycio, and the new charity video from Indie AllStars for the British NHS titled ‘Chasing Rainbows’.
About R.A. The Rugged Man
R.A. The Rugged Man is one of those artists who remains humble despite having a career that has not only spanned decades but has crossed genres and included the likes of Ice-T, Ghostface Killah, Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, and many others as well as spanning music and film. But what really impresses me is that he remains both humbled and grateful for what he has worked for. And that, to me, is the mark of a true artist. Someone who not only remembers his roots but holds on to them with reverence.
And it is that reverence that shines throughout his latest album titled ‘All My Heroes Are Dead’ released April 17, 2020, via Nature Sounds Records.
In this interview, we talk with R.A. about his beginnings as well as the new album and how it further advances his evolution of revolution that is his music and much, much more. Check out the album below!
Check out our other articles about R.A. The Rugged Man HERE.
LINKS:
https://ratheruggedman.net
https://twitter.com/ratheruggedman
https://facebook.com/RATheRuggedMan
https://www.instagram.com/ratheruggedmanofficial
https://www.youtube.com/user/RAtheRuggedManTVAbout Prof
Prof has dropped his new video for the single titled ‘Squad Goals’. This has got to be the most original and interesting video I have seen this year, by a longshot. I know that’s a hardcore way to start a review, but this video demands that declaration. I mean, Mr. Rogers, PTSD, pill-popping, and more in under four minutes. Try fitting that many lucid subplots together in anything, even involving music.
Having said that, this music is brilliant. Steady. Rhythmic. Staccato. Each deserving itself as a sentence. One thing I like about the Rhymesayers artists is that they bring entertainment and introspective reflection back into music, but now Prof brings the fun.
LINKS:
https://rhymesayers.com/artists/prof
https://facebook.com/profgampo
https://instagram.com/profgampo
https://twitter.com/profgampoAbout Black Needle Noise
John Fryer, the globally recognized producer and curator of the project known as Black Needle Noise, has dropped his new video titled ‘Seed of Evil’ featuring <PIG> a.k.a. Raymond Watts of KMFDM fame. A contoured divide between the industrial overtone and gothic underpinnings, ‘Seed of Evil’ crosses that great divide into a darkly original mindset with grinding rhythm and a purely black chord progression.
The video adds to the musical mindfuck just short of epileptic orgasm designed to muse as much as it is to shock. Decadance now has a soundtrack.
‘Seed of Evil’ is out now, available digitally across online stores, such as Apple Music, and streaming platforms such as Spotify. It is also available directly from the artist via Bandcamp.
Check out our other articles about Black Needle Noise HERE.
LINKS:
https://www.blackneedlenoise.com
https://blackneedlenoise.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/BlackNeedleNoise
https://www.facebook.com/John.Fryer.Official
https://www.instagram.com/black_needle_noise
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTC_bNQDfUviTBDiBHYAiSg/videos
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3KkYK2dnIfRb9EDrCRndB6About Diamond Shake
Diamond Shake continues his momentum with the release of the fourth video in his series titled ‘Shake’. Continuing his video partnership with French animator Dominique Bloink, the visualization and integrity of style are maintained with brilliance and the marriage of panache and originality are excelled with the dark beauty of the video and the emotional grit of the song. Almost its own undefinable thing, ‘Shake’ becomes it’s own in such a way that you find out who did what, if you don’t know who this is, just to see who could come up with such a thing. Let this sink into your memory.
Check out our other articles featuring Diamond Shake HERE.
LINKS:
http://www.diamondshake.com
https://www.instagram.com/thediamondshake
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUT0cqzCanrCsAlqgaZRqhQ
http://www.soundcloud.com/diamond-shakeAbout Drew Davies
Drew Davies has just released his new single titled ‘X and Y’. Sounding like a song that gets right down to business, that business seems to be the sound of an original artist. When I first hear the name Drew Davies I think of originality. And that is not a word to toss around. Listen to ‘X and Y’ for example. It sounds signature from the first note. And the passion is evident in everything from the voice to the hi-hat and everything in between. Beautiful chord progressions accompanied by stellar vocals and a steady backbeat, ‘X and Y’ continue the evolution of Drew’s musical journey that is rapidly defining itself into a wonderful legacy.
Speaking of the single, Drew Davies tells us, “I wrote ‘ X and Y ’ on women’s day a few years ago. It’s a song that on one hand calls for equality for all people, no matter their age, sex, or orientation; whilst on the other hand, calling out hypocrisy stemming from the kinds of people who say one thing publicly and another behind closed doors. It was originally written on piano but for the single and album we decided to add a pseudo-Tarantino vibe with vintage guitars and synthesizers.”
Check out our other articles about Drew Davies HERE.
LINKS:
https://www.drewdaviesmusic.com
https://www.facebook.com/drewdaviesmusic
https://www.twitter.com/drewdaviesmusic
https://www.instagram.com/drewdaviesmusic
https://drewdaviesmusic.bandcamp.comAbout Ethan Gold
Ethan Gold has officially released his new video for the single titled ‘Not Me. Us’. Beginning as a somber anthem the song slowly builds up to the hook with pop-sensibility and a craft only a good songwriter can achieve, ‘Not Me. Us’ gives a poignant reflection on the better qualities of humanity with the craft of a poet and the form of an artist.
‘Not Me.Us’ is out now everywhere digitally, including stores such as Apple Music, and streaming platforms like Spotify.
About Lazaris Pit
Lazaris Pit drops their new single titled ‘You Don’t Tag Me in Memes Anymore’ plus the B-Side ‘Cloudsculpting’. This is the perfect ‘capture the band in the moment’ moment. We get that garage-perfect sound with that quirky attitude and tight-yet-loose feeling in the vein of Dinasaur Jr. and the like but all Lazaris Pit in execution and scope.
With ‘Cloudsculpting’ we get the same side of a different coin with an adventurous song climbing to the top with varied guitar chord progressions and a hypnotic varied beat with that lovely feeling of falling apart at the seams while sticking together tightly in that true alt-rock sound at its purest.
‘You Don’t Tag Me In Memes Anymore’ is available everywhere digitally, including Spotify and Apple Music. The full ‘Coniphers’ album will be released on May 22.
LINKS:
https://www.lazarispit.com
https://lazarispit.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/lazarispit
https://twitter.com/themLPboys
https://www.instagram.com/lazarispit
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_mbHlwbaZgIBhb56ybbiAgAbout Lycio
Lycio has officially dropped their new single titled ‘Somebody’. The sweet combination of electronic and soul collide in glorious fashion with a solid rhythm and backbeat that throws emotion on the dancefloor and showcases vocalist Genie Mendez’ beautiful vocal range oozing with feeling and meaning every word.
Speaking of ‘Somebody’, Genie Mendez tells us, “I actually thought I’d try a different lyrical approach with this song. I’m rarely one to write about romance and our songs are usually entangled with expressions of my own mental health. So to have such a lyrically open chorus where I’m so clearly talking about unrequited love is definitely a first for us. Although I’ve still kept the verses dark and mysterious, this song is definitely about wanting someone so bad but them not quite wanting you back. Then you get this really catchy chorus, and I did want it to be as catchy as a Jess Glynne or Fickle Friends track, ‘cause they’re really good at grabbing the listener like that. So I hope you all enjoy listening to it the way we enjoy performing it.”
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/lyciomusic
https://twitter.com/lyciomusic
https://www.instagram.com/lyciomusicAbout #Indie Allstars
he Covid19 pandemic has proved how essential they are and funding cuts need to be addressed. Stoke-on-Trent DJ, Terry Bossons wanted to thank them by the power of music. The rainbow has been the symbol of the NHS, so the song ‘Chasing Rainbows’ by Shed Seven is a fitting tribute. Terry asked Rick Witter of Shed Seven to get involved with the video project and without hesitation, he jumped onboard.
Next, a crescendo of indie music royalty joined the fold: Nigel Clark and Matthew Priest (Dodgy), Clint Boon (Inspiral Carpets), Gary Powell (The Libertines), John Power (Cast), Keith Mullin (The Farm), Chris Helme (Seahorses), Dave McCabe (The Zutons), Alan McGee (Creation Records), Baz (The Fratellis), Ryan & Jack Dooley (All The Young), Alfie (Holloways), Matt Bowman (Pigeon Detectives), Johnny Dean (Menswear), Leon Meya (Northern Uproar), James McColl (The Supernaturals), Rikki Turner (Paris Angels), Billy Bibby (Catfish and the Bottlemen) teamed up with radio royalty Mark Radcliffe and Eddy Temple-Morris (plus a few surprise guests) to make this happen in just seven days.
To donate to the UHNM (University Hospitals of The North Midlands Charity) to fund equipment, facilities and research to enhance the care of patients in the hospital please click HERE.
Click HERE to watch Season 6 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 5 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 4 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
Click HERE to watch Season 3 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.
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Click HERE to watch Season 1 of Jammerzine’s ‘The Week in #Indie’.