The Miller Test is set to drop their new single titled ‘Eden Gaol’ on March 19th. Featuring a slyly post-modernistic sound with a dark personality, ‘Eden Gaol’ with a dystopian neo-soul styled track with a solid hook and a signature sound.
About The Miller Test
London band The Miller Test will return on March 19 with a new single, Eden Gaol. Blending neo-soul, pop and rock, Eden Gaol is a toe-tapping, hip-hoppish slice of art-pop with echoes of Bowie and Funkadelic.
The track’s lyric is a sardonic political critique set against an apocalyptic backdrop, while the accompanying video, shot in a decommissioned Category B prison, matches this tone with its almost Polanski-esque mix of humour and horror.
The track is taken from the band’s forthcoming second album, Dead Blue, recorded at the tail-end of last year with producer John Winfield (Jimmy Somerville, Paul Mosley, Delta Saxophone Quartet) and scheduled for release later this year.
The Miller Test have been playing together for over a decade. For most of that they’ve been hiding out in a small East London rehearsal room, with occasional spells as the house band at Biddles Bros on the Lower Clapton Road.
Their debut album, This Funk Is Political, released last year, was described by Other Side Reviews as “a serious sonic experience that will stick with you” and “a must-hear release” by FV Music. It is available to stream from all major sites.
LINKS:
https://themillertest.com
https://www.instagram.com/themillertest
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFMeg1AjHsiprFv3iYyVcyQ
https://twitter.com/themillertest
https://www.facebook.com/themillertest
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Kepa Lehtinen – It is Ok to Be Sad and Dark
Kepa Lehtinen was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1971 and began studying music in childhood, eventually learning to play piano, synthesizers, theremin, and drums. He went on to study Sound Design at Finland’s Aalto University and has since written music for many films, commercials, and TV productions. He routinely works as a composer, sound editor, and sound designer. His work has appeared in award-winning Finnish titles such as Kimmo (TV series), Almost 18 (feature film), and A Stone LeftUnturned (short film). He released his first solo album, Playing Theremin, in 2018. In 2019 he released Helsinki in November. Spring 2020 is coming album “It Is OK To Be Sad And Dark”.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/kepalehtinenartist
https://songwhip.com/artist/kepa-lehtinen -
Beauty in Chaos – Storm (Acoustic) Ft. Ashton Nyte
LA-based alt-rock group Beauty in Chaos present the new album ‘Beauty Re-Envisioned’ at the same time as unveiling the new video for ‘Storm ft. Ashton Nyte (Acoustic Version)’. Their second long-play includes a wide array of remixes and alternate versions of tracks from their acclaimed debut album ‘Finding Beauty in Chaos’.
Released via LA-based label 33.3 Music Collective, both albums were recorded at Ciravolo’s own SAINTinLA Studio and produced by Grammy-nominated producer Michael Rozon, best known for his work with Ministry.
Beauty in Chaos is the brainchild of guitarist Michael Ciravolo. Originally from New Orleans and now based in Los Angeles, he is perhaps best known as President of Schecter Guitar Research. Ciravolo has played guitar in Human Drama for the past 30 years, as well as playing live and recording with Michael Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel since 1998.
“On ‘Beauty Re-Envisioned’, I basically handed the keys to the car over to an amazingly talented cast of producers, engineers, re-mixers, DJs, and artists, including Tim Palmer, Kevin Haskins, John Fryer, Statik, Ummagma and Marilyn Manson’s Paul Wiley… giving them near-total autonomy to throw the puzzle of ‘Finding Beauty in Chaos’ on the floor and reassemble it as they hear it. Here we have some extremely diverse re-envisions that run the gamut sonically and stylistically, with a few surprises thrown in,” says Michael Ciravolo.
About the new acoustic version of ‘Storm’, he adds, “This version and the accompanying video are the perfect foil to the bombastic ‘Un-Natural Disaster’, the debut single off of this album. It was important to me that not all of the re-mixes and alt-versions on this record where 4-on-the-floor aimed at dance clubs, which some remix records seem to target.”
Mixed and produced by Ashton Nyte (The Awakening), the video for ‘Storm (Acoustic Version)’ was filmed and directed by Vicente Cordero and produced by Industrialism Films.
“When Michael suggested I have a go at re-imagining something for the ‘Beauty Re-envisioned’ album, I knew it had to be ‘Storm’. As the first song we had written together for the first album, it seemed only fitting that it gets a loving remake for the new release. As a big fan of acoustic music, I wanted to try a stripped down, more intimate approach to this version. This meant re-recording it from scratch, as I wanted to re-sing the vocals in a more introspective way, to match the arrangement I had in my head,” says Ashton Nyte.
The debut album ‘Finding Beauty in Chaos’ features numerous music luminaries, including:
- Wayne Hussey (The Mission)
- Simon Gallup (The Cure)
- Robin Zander (Cheap Trick)
- Pete Parada (The Offspring)
- dUg Pinnick (Kings X)
- ICE-T (Body Count)
- Michael Aston (Gene Loves Jezebel)
- Michael Anthony (Van Halen)
- Dirk Doucette (Gene Loves Jezebel)
- Ashton Nyte (The Awakening)
- Pando (A Flock of Seagulls)
- Evi Vine
- Betsy Martin (Caterwaul/Purr Machine)
- Marc Danzeisen (The Riverdogs)
- Kevin Kipnis (Purr Machine/Kommunity FK)
- Rudy Matchinga (Red Scare)
- Johnny Indovina (Human Drama)
- Tish Ciravolo (StunGun/ Daisy Rock Guitars)
The new album involves many of these same players, with the addition of acclaimed producer Tim Palmer, guitar icon Zakk Wylde, Kevin Haskins (Bauhaus, Love & Rockets), Paul Wiley (Marilyn Manson), Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson), and Rolan Bolan, who joins Wayne Hussey for a rendition of T-Rex’s ’20th Century Boy’.
Earlier, Beauty in Chaos presented the first single ‘Un-Natural Disaster’ ft. dUg Pinnick, Zakk Wylde and Ice-T (Collide Mix), which premiered in Rolling Stone. The second single ‘Drifting Away’ ft. Robin Zander (Synthetic Capricorn Mix) also has Michael Anthony (Van Halen) on back vocals and was remixed by Paul Wiley (Marilyn Manson) and Steven Alexander Ryan (The Black Queen).
LINKS:
https://www.beautyinchaosmusic.com
https://www.facebook.com/beautyinchaosmusic
https://www.instagram.com/beauty.inchaos
https://twitter.com/MichaelCiravolo
https://www.beautyinchaosmusic.com/music-store
https://www.beautyinchaosmusic.com/bic-blog
https://soundcloud.com/33-3-music-collective
https://beautyinchaos.bandcamp.com
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/finding-beauty-in-chaos/1436694940
https://open.spotify.com/album/7cmbwIpDm9aAXS4vVjcq4U?si=LZ_9_Bi1SzaZyN7wOIRCvw -
Cathal Coughlan – Owl In The Parlour
Cathal Coughlan has released the video for his new track titled ‘Owl in the Parlour’. Given a dark tone only highlighted by the video, the track has an almost dark alt jazz feeling to it. Almost a cross between Leonard Cohen and Joe Jackson. The chord progressions are brilliant and the originality factor is above ten.
As of February 5, ‘Owl In The Parlour’ is available digitally across online platforms, such as Apple Music and Spotify. Lead track ‘Song of Co-Aklan’ can already be found on these same platforms. The full album, set for release on March 26, can be pre-ordered HERE.
ABOUT CATHAL COUGHLAN
Irish indie music legend Cathal Coughlan presents ‘Owl In The Parlour’, the second single from his forthcoming album ‘Song of Co-Aklan’, his first new music in ten years, to be released via London label Dimple Discs. The accompanying video was created by Andy Golding (The Wolfhounds, Dragon Welding), presenting Co-Aklan in an infomercial of the most hallucinatory and lurid kind, which is nonetheless friendly and persuasive in tone.
“This song is, in part, a survey of the options in personal couture, animal husbandry, and ‘inexpensive’ domestic staffing which are now available to the spry middle-aged man in this era of global communication. In this gilded age, we are simultaneously interlinked and mutually repelled as never before, whether we live in remote settlements in war-torn parts of the world, or in the mosaic of postage-stamp-sized semi-detached fortresses and gargantuan fulfillment hubs that is the English Hinterland in 2021,” says Cathal Coughlan.
Earlier, Coughlan released the title track ‘Song of Co-Aklan’, along with a video that is a hermetic visual feast, created by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker George Seminara.
Best known as co-founder and vocalist for seminal 80s/90s bands Microdisney and The Fatima Mansions, who toured internationally with U2, the Cork native has been described as “the most underrated lyricist in pop today” by The Guardian newspaper. DJ John Peel was also such a fan that he stated he could “listen to Cathal Coughlan sing the phone book”.
Recorded in London, this song features Coughlan’s long-time collaborators from the Grand Necropolitan Quartet. Namely Nick Allum (The Fatima Mansions, The Apartments) is on drums, James Woodrow is on guitar, with cello by Audrey Riley (notable collaborator of Lush, The Sundays, The Smiths, Nick Cave, The Cure, The Go-Betweens, Smashing Pumpkins, Catherine Wheel, Moloko and Coldplay). Anchoring the song is Rhodri Marsden (Scritti Politti) on bass.
This album also features contributions from Luke Haines (The Auteurs, Black Box Recorder) on bass and baritone guitar. The eye-catching cover art for the ‘Song of Co-Aklan’ LP is by outsider artist Cristabel Christo and originated by Bruce Brand, award winning designer for The Darkness and Whites Stripes.
Cathal Coughlan is widely considered to be one of Ireland’s most revered singer-songwriters, beloved by fans of caustic literate lyricism and erudite songcraft. Since Fatima Mansions’ demise in the mid-90s, he has released five acclaimed solo albums, taken part in an array of collaborations, and made numerous guest appearances. Along with Microdisney bandmates, he was the first recipient in 2019 of Ireland’s National Concert Hall Trailblazer Award, which celebrates culturally important albums by iconic Irish musicians, songwriters, and composers (for 1985’s ‘The Clock Comes Down The Stairs’).
Feautred image by by Gregory Dunn.
LINKS:
http://www.cathalcoughlan.com
https://www.facebook.com/cathalcoughlan
https://twitter.com/realcathalc
https://www.instagram.com/cathalcoughlan
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCazYm7FpGdnSORnFUGqHHtQ/featured