Olivia May has a story to tell. Years of starts, stops and self-doubt has shaped a voice now ready to empower and inspire those going through similar struggles.
Hailing from Fresno, California, Olivia began her career at the age of thirteen when she joined her first band and started playing local venues around her hometown. She quickly earned the attention of some industry executives with her raw vocal talent and upbeat stage performance, and by the time she was sixteen she was playing shows at The Roxy as well as showcasing for record labels.
In early 2007, Olivia moved to Los Angeles to pursue her creative career finding some early success in acting. After establishing herself on the LA music scene as a solo artist, Olivia joined ISLES which lead her to open for Crazytown, performing on the Vans Warped Tour in 2015 and receiving placements on Mashable.com and in Alternative Press.
Not only a powerhouse rock vocalist, but Olivia’s angelic country vocal style also caught the attention of David Rosales while she was performing her acoustic set in 2011. ‘David & Olivia’ performed nationwide, including stops at SXSW, wineries, and dive bars. ‘David & Olivia’ were nominated for a variety of categories in the famous OC Music Awards in 2014 and were asked to perform and open for Steel Magnolias in Temecula. 2016 brought Olivia an exciting opportunity to focus on her solo career.
Liberated from industry constraints, she has harnessed her original inspirations and is ready to unleash her wildly passionate Hard Pop, with a dash of performance art style and a voice that has been through struggles to emerge as a beacon of growth, awareness and wild, unapologetic self-expression.
‘Tonight’ is released on January 13th, 2017, along with an artistic music video shot and directed by the punk rock Greta Valenti of GROWVISION Creative Studios. (GrowVision.com)
Talking about the inspiration behind her new song, Olivia says “I wrote Tonight during a time of complete wonderful chaos. Finding my true love, living in my car, absolutely no stability in my life. But none of that mattered because I knew I found the one who would be there for me through it all.”
LINKS:
http://OliviaMay.com
http://instagram.com/OliviaMay
http://twitter.com/OliviaMay
http://soundcloud.com/OliviaMay
http://facebook.com/OliviaMayMusic
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Earthset – Around The Head
POPISM is the second EP by Italian band from Bologna known as Earthset. The theme is a compositional “game”, the challenge was producing a “light” and more immediate EP compared to “In a State of Altered Unconsciousness”. The title, POPISM, comes from the search for pop atmospheres and was recently used to describe that trend in music critique which recognizes artistic dignity to Pop music.
The tracks, in their order, represent a path towards increasingly Pop atmospheres. It begins with “Around the Head” a structurally schizophrenic song, the lyrics of which are an interior dialogue on betrayed expectations and passive attitude in the face of difficulties. The song was inspired in part by band members’ personal hardships and partly by an anime’s characters which were used to describe the behavior of the protagonist’s two voices.
“In the Pendant” (a pun on the word Independent) in an outburst, a criticism of the independent environment which emulates and replicates the dynamics of the world of mainstream, deadening and conforming the musical proposal to the search for the fashionable formula.
“Flush” is the song which, after the outburst, turns to more Indie-Pop textures. The lyrics tell of a circumstance where the protagonist discovers and accepts, by breaking her routine, a hidden, and to a certain extent disowned, part of herself. Like two unknown wanderers, the two egos of the protagonist meet and are reconciled in the song’s final explosion, which is followed by a bittersweet coda.
“Icarus’ Flight” concludes the quartet with an overtly pop song whose lyrics are inspired by the mythological episode of Icarus’ flight. The myth originally has a paideutic significance whose purpose is to teach the young not to disobey the fathers, whereas in the song Icarus is the champion of humanity who prefers to outdo himself, at the cost of losing his life rather than accepting the cautious and mediocre existence suggested by Daedalus’ wise advice. The final verse encapsulates the song’s meaning. “Ghosts and Afterthoughts” closes the EP. Ghosts and afterthoughts, which lead back to the psychedelic textures of the band’s more experimental songs, yet built on loops with an electronic and noise feel… signs of future developments? At the moment we’re not quite sure ourselves to be honest. An EP that is a game, a challenge, and a new proposal.
POPISM was self-produced by the band and Carlo Marrone (also producer of “In a State of Altered Unconsciousness” and other artists’ works such as “Petali” and “Malamore” by Gianluca Mondo, as well as multi-instrumentalist with, among others, My Own Parasite, Carlomargot, Murder, currently Soren Larsen). The mix, by Carlo Marrone, coherently with the EP’s theme, has explored more pop atmospheres, maintaining, at the same time, the band’s alternative rock spirit.
The drums were recorded and edited by Michele Postpischl (Ofeliadorme).
The master was done at Fonoprint Studios by Enrico Capalbo (producer of“In a State of Altered Unconsciousness”, sound engineer at Fonoprint Studios for, amongst others, Arto Lindsay, Luca Carboni, Gianmaria Testa, Paolo Fresu, Ofeliadorme, Francesco Guccini, Humberto Gatica, currently multi-instrumentalist with Soren Larsen ).
The cover art represents a sketch of watercolor shadings. Each of the four colors used identifies a member of the band and a song of the EP.
SOURCE: Official Release
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/Earthset
https://twitter.com/EarthsetBand
https://earthset.bandcamp.com -
Lucas – Anne Marie
Manchester, UK’s Lucas have released a new music video for their single “Anne Marie.” Produced and co-written by Cage The Elephant’s Lincoln Parish, the swaggering indie rock track will appear on the band’s upcoming EP High Wire.
“Anne Marie was a turning point for us in the studio where Parish and I suddenly hit upon that brit-pop psychedelia which definitely sums up a lot of the band’s influences,” says frontman Johnny Lucas. “It was such a fun song to write and record but playing it live is the best and I love watching people get into it!”
After touring around the UK and Europe as a one-man show replete with beatbox and looping magic, Johnny decided to make the move to Nashville and form a full band. It was there that they honed their distinct blend of British and American flavors at Parish’s Talkboxrodeo studio. Johnny’s solo run received heavy rotation on BBC, major appearances at Glastonbury and Isle of Wight Festivals, and even a nod from the almighty Jimmy Page who told Johnny “I loved what you did with the loop pedal. There was so much going on it was like a 5-D experience.”
Fraught with complications and lengthy delays, his journey to the US would become fodder for much of the EP’s inspiration. Lucas explains: “After being delayed for 5 months and nearly flat broke, it took a lot to hang in there and trust that things would work out.”
The struggle proved worth it, armed with raucous guitars and anthemic choruses, High Wire is a rousing rock and roll record that weaves together sticky melodies and sly lyrics. With its strong Brit Pop influence and undertones of 60’s idols like McCartney and Jeff Lynne, High Wire is sure to resonate with fans of across the globe.
SOURCE: Official Bio
“hook-laden, soaring melodies and pop-accessible instrumentation, blurs the line between pop and alternative, feeling both timeless and fresh, and primed to get stuck in your head all day.”
– No Country for New Nashville“A rock and roll anthem that allows you to feel deeply.”
– Imperfect FifthLINKS:
http://www.facebook.com/thatLucasband
http://www.instagram.com/thatLucasband
http://www.twitter.com/thatLucasband -
On The Wane – Sultry Song
Ukraine’s On The Wane has released their new album ‘Schism’, on the trail of their singles ‘Human Race’ and ‘Sultry Song’, the last of which presents an exotic dose of melodic alternative Iberian gaze.
On the video for ‘Sultry Song’, On the Wane guitarist Eli Laika says, “The idea was to create a non-complicated video showing the atmosphere of our workplace, where we write our songs, and also introduce us as artists. After Dari and Eugene’s trip to Lisbon last year, they came back with huge inspiration from Portugal and this inspiration spawned the ideas for creating this song, which we called ‘Sultry”. This video is directed by the band’s close friend Mykhailo Efimenko, who also did post-production.
Oscillating between dream gaze and power gaze fusion, On the Wane is Dari Maksimova (bass, vocals), Anna Lyashok (drums, vocals), Eugene Voitov (guitar, synth), and Eli Laika (guitar). Together, the Ukraine-based four-piece have become a smooth cohesive force in the shoegaze, neo-gothic and noise rock realm.
“This album is a synergy of four personalities reflecting the world outlook both on music and on life. The tone in which it is recorded is anxious although quite realistic. It’s about the questions affecting each of our existence, the questions to which everyone turns a blind eye on, and the questions that are usually left out of the picture. This album is not an answer – it is the result of our thoughts and forces to date,” says drummer Anna Lyashok.
In early 2017, the band recorded the 10 tracks that would become the full-length album ‘Schism’ under the direction of sound engineer Dima Afanasyev-Gladkykh (a.k.a. Sinoptik).
The band formed in early 2014, influenced by 1980s alternative rock icons such as Sonic Youth, The Cure, Joy Division, The Pixies, and Bauhaus, as well as shoegaze giants My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, and Ringo Deathstarr. They rented a garage, went into debt by buying guitar amplifiers, drums, and a line, and settled comfortably in the garage until autumn.
In October of that year, they had enough material for their first album ‘DRY’, which was naive, honest and raw. Recorded during a continuous 27-hour session by well-known Kiev drummer Artur Mikhailenko in his garage studio, it was then mixed and mastered by Sevastopol-based producer Alexander Chabanenko.
Released in December 2014, that album was immediately well received by Ukrainian media with moderate attention abroad in Britain, Ireland, Canada, South America, and the USAThis led to Brazil’s The Blog That Celebrates Itself Records featuring the band in an interview and releasing their track ‘Sweet Girl’ on the ‘Autumn Noises’ compilation.
Following a series of shows in Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, they recorded their second release, now with hard-core vibes inspired by Mudhoney, Fugazi, and similar bands. They unleashed their anxious 6-track ‘Sick’ EP on the world, delivering an angst-filled unbalanced sound that led Britain’s The Sound of Confusion to claim that “this band blows any out of the water for 2015 releases in terms of mixing power-driven genres like grunge, shoegaze, and alternative rock”, citing Sonic Youth-esque vocals and the energetic fervor of Gang of Four and The Damned.
After Eli Demyanenko joined the band, they added synthesizers, a drum machine and drum pad and toured more, allowing them to hone their current sound. With a partially electronic and cold sound, the atmosphere became darker, their trademark wall of guitar sound became more meaningful, and distinct vocals became more self-confident.
“We are constantly in transition, indirectly undergoing a metamorphosis. When we play live, we see that people are really interested in this music,” says Eli Demyanenko.
“We suspect that we may end up categorically changing our sound yet again, so we wanted to record the music we are working with now and this moment in time to sonic memory, so to speak,” explains Daria Maksimova.
SOURCE: Official Bio
LINKS:
http://onthewane.com
http://www.facebook.com/weareonthewane
http://onthewane.bandcamp.com
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA5UiS2eN3XKqWuTShw2cwA
http://www.instagram.com/on_the_wane
http://soundcloud.com/onthewane