Modesty Blaise has released their new video for the track titled ‘Girls Just Wanna Dance’. That quirky, almost show tune shtick vibe about is what catches the ears and opens the eyes. This song is catchy. And I mean catchy in a stuck in your head fashion. This is a good thing, trust me. Partly because Modesty Blaise will put a smile on your face. And the story-tell factor of the video adds punch to the punchline and puts some stammer in your step.
As of February 5, ‘Girls Just Wanna Dance’ is available digitally everywhere, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. ‘The Modesty Blaise’ album will be released on March 26 by from Lo-Fi to Disco! and distributed by Broken Silence (for Europe), Shellshock (for the UK), and Tedium House – Revolver USA and Midheaven mailorder (for North America).
ABOUT MODESTY BLAISE
Bristol-based avant indiepop outfit Modesty Blaise has announced that the impending release of a new album via German label From Lo-Fi to Disco! A baroque pop collection titled ‘The Modesty Blaise’, this is the band’s third studio album and their first LP in 20 years since releasing their head-turning ‘Melancholia’ LP (2001), featuring hit single ‘Carol Mountain’.
Ahead of this, they present the lead single ‘Girls Just Wanna Dance’, a perfect orchestral pop song and live favorite singalong that is more Music Hall than Dance Hall. A longtime set closer, ‘Blaise fans have been crying out for it to be recorded and here it finally is. You can bounce around your own kitchen to it and rip your own sink out just for fun.
This new release was preceded by a string of singles, including ‘Natalie Vendredi’ with its endearing nouvelle vague video, which will also be included on the album.
Modesty Blaise has been around for a few decades in various guises. After forming in late 1993, the band quickly recorded their debut single ‘Christina Terrace’ with the esteemed Edwyn Collins at the helm, garnering them immediate success with a live appearance on ITV and inclusion among many many end-of-year top music rankings. This acclaim however was not enough to quell the kind of internecine warfare that Modesty Blaise has become famous for.
After ‘Melancholia’, the band faced one delay after another with line-up changes and deteriorating personal circumstances. An all-too-familiar spiral, the years went by slowly but, no matter how bad it got, Jonny still had his guitars in his mum’s attic.
“When everyone else was in their bedrooms working on guitar solos and dreaming of being a rock god, I was reading biographies of Cole Porter and listening to Gershwin and Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin. I try to write concise things, with deliberate moves away from that where necessary,” says frontman and songwriter Jonny Collins.
“Melody, arrangement and counter melodies… The 3-minute pop single is, I’d contest, the summit of great art. It is timeless, and we consistently get it wrong confusing art with commerce. If your art (or your pop record) sounds like today, it may sound like yesterday pretty soon. Pop iconoclasm”.
Oher career highlights include supporting Robbie Williams at London’s O2 Arena, inclusion in a Rough Trade compilation, an ITV company documentary on Jonny Collins, and a BBC Radio session involving seventeen people.
LINKS:
https://www.modestyblaise.net
https://modestyblaiseuk.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/themodestyblaise
https://www.instagram.com/modestyblaiseuk
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4lnNm8g0IYG9H90ZIzsOZw/videos
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Micky Diana – No Bells This Christmas
Micky is a singer-songwriter from London, who’s performed professionally as an actor since he was in small trousers and plimsoll shoes.
His acting pursuits have taken him around the globe in various productions and some closer to home in London’s west-end.
Songwriting and performing his own material has always been his first love and he is now taking the plunge and intends to make his mark in today’s music industry.
Micky’s brass clad, style of indie pop has a well-balanced mix of intoxicating vocal melodies, fast-paced and quick-witted lyrics which are a must hear for music lovers of any genre, with an almost urban element to his vocals, think Jamie T mixed with Maverick Sabre, with a hint of Ray Davis and a pinch of Damon Albarn’s observant wit and you’re not far off.
Following on from Micky’s debut release “Run With Me” which is available on iTunes and had rave reviews and airplay on countless radio stations including BBC London, Micky is now set to release a Christmas single “No Bells This Christmas” which is available now.
Ultimately Micky’s passion is to entertain, whether that be a small intimate setting for a crowd of 50, or selling out Wembley Stadium, or preferably Loftus Road, home of his beloved Queens Park Rangers it makes no odds.
Either way, Micky Diana is definitely a name to look out for in 2018 and beyond.
With Micky Diana’s quick-witted lyrical prowess and intoxicatingly catchy hooks and melodies out in full force once more.
LINKS:
https://facebook.com/michaeldiana01
https://youtube.com/channel/UCuEIsMnaQhs4HonLA7ikPpQ
https://twitter.com/michaeldiana01 -
2Square & Mark Gardener – Chained
2Square has teamed up with RIDE’s Mark Gardener for their video for the new single titled ‘Chained’. The video captures the mood and moments of the song in that it appears as a quiet dream. An almost solemn memory of a moment captured more with feeling than with recollection. The director chooses subtlety over substance and it works to an almost relaxing state, perfectly complimenting the track.
The song is done in an almost avant-garde style of songwriting with a jazz-fusion style piano alongside the gaze-stylings of Mark Gardener and the post-modern wrapping that is the representation of the track but, when you listen again, there is so much more going on under the surface. Both electric and stylistically. Listen to this a few times for the sake of artistic comprehension. You won’t be disappointed.
‘Chained’ is available now via Mark Gardener’s own Bandcamp and will appear on other streaming and sales platform soon (date to be announced). Look forward to several more singles from this collaboration to be announced this summer.
ABOUT ‘CHAINED’
Recorded in Haeri’s small Parisian smoky apartment in the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis area, Gardener notes that this is “up there with my favorite collaborations ever”, saying this will “hopefully take our minds away from all current madness we’re living in”. Written by Stephan Haeri and Mark Gardener with Gardener’s lyrics, this single was mixed by Stephan Haeri and mastered by Mark Gardener at OX4 Sound.
Mark is best known as a songwriter, lead vocalist, and guitarist with shoegaze trailblazers Ride. He also owns and runs the OX4 Sound recording studio. Over the past 20 years, Mark has produced and mixed the work of many highly respected artists, producers and bands including The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Robin Guthrie, Telepopmusik, Dive Index, Rinocerose, Ulrich Schnauss, Man With No Name, Hopewell, Jam+Spoon, Mikel Erentxun, Dead Horse One, Cat Martino and Swervedriver, along with scoring the soundtrack for the Mojo award-winning film ‘Upside Down’ (The Creation Records Story). Mark now brings this knowledge and experience to his new purpose-built studio.
“I met Stephan through a mutual friend – Melanie Bauer, a well-known DJ on Paris radio. I had known and become close lifelong friends with Melanie since meeting her to interview on her program during an early Ride promo tour in Paris. Our paths with Stephan had crossed a few times but Melanie basically set up this recording session, thinking it could be a great combination. Stephan had a small apartment, which he lived in and had turned into a studio. I always loved to visit Paris so I was happy to go and spend a week with Stephan at his apartment, where I also stayed for the best part of a week,” says Mark Gardener.
“Stephan had some loose instrumental ideas and I got to work with lyrics and vocal topline ideas in reaction to these instrumental sketches I was hearing and then Stephan would mess around with my vocal lines. I think I popped out for food now and again, but we basically didn’t stop for a week until the songs were written and recorded. Stephan mixed it as we were going and then finished the mixes when I had gone back to England. This and the other two tracks are among my lifetime favorite collaborations.
Earlier, Telepopmusik released the highly acclaimed single ‘Sound’, featuring vocals by Mark Gardener, for which they released an intriguing video by Japan’s Toshiaki Toyoda. The vocals for that particular track were recorded during the same Paris session that spawned this new single ‘Chained’.
“I wrote ‘Chained’, reflecting on my old home in Oxford, which had become a non-stop nightclub during a time post Ride breakup, when I was living alone. All got a bit out of control for a while and I had some great parties and friends, but one, in particular, would always show up late at my house when I was working in my attic studio. He was a bit of a walking chemistry set, so he would always show up with substances. I was not in the best head-space at that time and was trying to get away from substances, which was not so easy when it kept on coming through my front door,” explains Gardener.
“We’d always end up having big and good nights drinking, getting high and listening to records until dawn for a period; hence the line ‘Chained till dawn to find a new way’ lyric. I knew this was slowly dragging me down so, in the end, I packed up my car with a friend and we drove to the Medieval Wilds of France in search of a new life. I ended up living in France for four years, experiencing a much-needed break from that life. It was just what the doctor ordered! France and nature basically refueled me and put back everything I felt I had lost after Ride and then a few lost party years in Oxford after that.”
‘Chained’ is available now via Mark Gardener’s own Bandcamp and will appear on other streaming and sales platform soon (date to be announced). Look forward to several more singles from this collaboration to be announced this summer.
CREDITS
Written and recorded in Paris
Music by Stephan Haeri and Mark Gardener
Words by Mark Gardener
Mixed by Stephan Haeri
Mastered by Mark Gardener at OX4 SoundLINKS:
https://www.ox4sound.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/ox4sound
https://markgardener.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/ox-4-sound
https://twitter.com/OX4Sound
https://twitter.com/MarkGardener
https://www.instagram.com/ox4sound
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFgoaqoGlLaRjvfNf-vUoQ -
Michael Rhodes – Feel It (Live At St Lukes Church, Kentish Town)
Born in Nigeria but now based in London, Michael Rhodes is a singer who channels the gospel and soul sounds of the 1960s, bringing joy and vibrancy to his songs, as well as imbuing them with his winning personality. Feel It is a self-composed track which sees Michael in full effect, with his soaring counter-tenor voice and upbeat tempo being hard to resist.
Written by Michael three years ago, Feel It is based on unrequited love which, rather than defeating Michael, sparked something of an awakening and led to him looking for happiness in everyday life wherever he could find it – something he hopes will inspire others to do the same. Though Feel It is rooted in a soul and gospel singing style, the inclusion of electronic horns adds a contemporary feel, without it sounding quite like anything else out there.
To support the track’s release, Michael performed a live showcase at St. Luke’s Church, Kentish Town, London, video footage of which demonstrates Michael’s ease with an audience and ability to express himself through his music. With further tracks ready for release and looking to play live across the UK, Michael Rhodes is a singer with real potential and whose passion and sincerity set him apart from the crowd.
LINKS:
https://soundcloud.com/michael-rhodes-8/feel-it
https://open.spotify.com/album/11qKBGrRcenKGOQc9OWzam
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU4_NvS2aaXrRllOwCmPovQ
https://www.facebook.com/iamMichaelRhodes
https://www.instagram.com/michael_rhodes1