The best part about OUR MOTHER’s website is that it simply presents a jerking gold disc and player of ‘AGE OF EMPIREZ’, which spins on a constant. You could play this song forever, no understatement.
Many might lump the ‘mystery’ tag at a band who’ve existed several months while lacking any promo shots, but they’ve been playing shows in and around London since 2012, and this debut track is an open wound, full of emotions willing to be poked and prodded at, every if it bursts a nerve.
Gorgeous songwriting, with an intentionally baroque quality.
BAY. are in rude health. Everything they touch turns to diamond-encrusted crimson. Hook after hook snuggles up to one another on ‘Honey’, a track where boring ideas go to die.
Been obsessed with this Croydon band since ‘With You’, and there’s something about their ridiculous pop pomp that has limitless appeal.
Dat synth horn section, etc.
TIDEUP | Walk
When ‘Walk’ takes its first steps, I’m expecting it to sift through some by-the-numbers chillwave, to soothe the soul but do nothing more.
Instead, in steps Noelle Indovino. Her voice isn’t childsplay. A background in musical theatre tells us singing is her life, and her work in TIDEUP tells us she’s very, very good at what she does.
Initially she plays her words out in tow with the music, like a sea creature swimming alongside a sailboat. But by the time the chorus flutters by she’s right at the forefront, her words piercing the surface with such beauty you’ve little choice but to sit back and take it all in.
Londoner L L Erskine has put a lot of thought into every aspect of this project. ‘Ku-ru’ is a name given to an incurable neurological disease which spread among a tribe in Papa New Guinea through cannibalism, and even a song title like ‘Loot’ seems fitting: You hear a song like this and you want to smash the proverbial store window, seep out all its parts and use them for yourself.
Alongside the suitably strung-out ‘Long Drive’, this is the more immediate of Erskine’s tracks. His vocals don’t decorate the scene with anything improbably ambitious, but the surrounding instrumentation is a strange, unlikely mix. Every touch is deft and calculated, each fleeting moment flowered with something precious. But its ultimate stance has something grim lurking beneath. Maybe not as grim as, say, cannibalism, but it sure is an enticing mix, one befitting the project.
MOUSTAD | Ivory
Sometimes, as a guy who thinks he can write about music for a redeemable income, I get caught up in this pipe-dream: I begin to think that maybe, given the right tools and maybe a fuckton of luck, I’ll be a successful musician myself. I used to be able to play a couple of Muse songs on guitar, right? I can strum a few chords? What could possibly go wrong?
Within this pipe dream is a settled sound. An idea of what exactly these world-beating songs of mine will emerge as. It’ll tend to sound like several of my favourite bands at once. Actually screw that: It’ll sound just like MOUSTAD. ‘Ivory’ is the audible recreation of every one of my pipe dreams. I’m just glad they got there before I did, obviously.
