Further Listening:

5. A SASAMI Don’t Come For Free

Los Angeles based artist SASAMI, aka Sasami Ashworth, is set to release her self-titled debut album next month via Domino Records. The record was written over the course of a year that Sasami spent playing as part of Cherry Glazerr’s touring band. This week Sasami has shared the video to the latest track from it, Free, which features backing vocals from the suspiciously quiet of late, Devendra Banhart.

Sasami has previously likened her musical output to, “over-dramatic drafts of texts that you compose in the Notes section of your iPhone”, although we can’t say we’re quite hearing that on Free. The track is, “a lopsided duet”, Sasami rightly taking all the best lines, as she details a tale of destiny, matters of the heart and how, “sometimes when you lose in love, freedom is the consolation prize”. Musically, the track displays a delightfully light-handed touch; starting with a disorienting feedback-squall, it’s wonderfully unadorned, the constant pulse of a shaker, paired with a barely-there guitar line and two gorgeously entwined vocals. There’s a sense of resolution at the song’s climax, as Sasami sings, “our time is running out, and you don’t know, what it means to be free”, as if, in this ending, Sasami has found a sense of freedom, and perhaps that was all they were ever looking for to begin with.

SASAMI is out March 8th via Domino. Click HERE for more information on SASAMI.

4. Piney Gir Sings With The Fishes

Celebrating Valentines in her own irrefutable fashion, Piney Gir this week shared the video to her bittersweet pop-smash, Peanut Butter Malt Shop Heartthrob. The video features 30-year old tropical fishes turning into handsome saxophone players, as all good videos frankly should.

Discussing the inspiration behind the track, Piney has suggested it walks the line between optimism and reality, one moment down-hearted with, “a love that feels lost”, the next tripping off into daydreams portraying, “an old-fashioned movie where guy gets girl and they walk off into a blazing sunset that doesn’t look real, because it’s not real, but for that moment everything is perfect.” Musically the track is a delightfully under-stated doo-wop ditty, like Ezra Furman at his most gentle and dreamy. Piney will be launching the single next week at London’s paper-dress vintage, and is also launching a YouTube channel to promote her “Drunk Cookery” zine, exciting times for this ever intriguingly different talent.

Peanut Butter Malt Shop Heartthrob is out now. Click HERE for more information on Piney Gir.

3. You Don’t Have To Wait Any Longer For Tyler Burkhart

Hailing from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Tyler Burkhart’s career to date has been the epitome of DIY. Tyler’s been releasing his home written, recorded and released music via Bandcamp for a number of years, slowly growing both his audience and his songwriting craft. This week Tyler has confirmed his first not-entirely-DIY release, in the shape of a new single, Waiting For You, coming out via Berlin-label, Feel Flows.

Discussing the track, Tyler has suggest it’s about, “different kinds of people and the motives that drive them” and how at the heart of all those desire is a commonality, “they all long for something beyond themselves”. Recalling the likes of Chis Cohen or Angelo De Augustine, Tyler’s music feels instantly intimate, an almost nostalgic sound, all soft vocals and steady rhythmic guitars, embellished with distant electronic pulses and layers of lead guitar. Tyler’s musical career has always felt on a steady upward trajectory; here you feel this may just be a giant leap into the next level, a songwriter who has clearly spent years honing their sound, now ready to share it with as many people as care to listen.

Waiting For You is out now via Feel Flows. Click HERE for more information on Tyler Burkhart.

2. Oh Billy You Made The Whole Club Sad

Recently picked out as one of our bands to watch in 2019, Sad Girls Aquatics Club are the Pittsburgh based duo of Chelsea and Marie, who in their own words make, “break-up pop for idiots”. The pair released their excellent Vodkawine album back in November, and have this week shared the video to their new single, Oh Billy.

Lyrically, the track seems to find the titular Billy once again leaving our narrator in a state of flux, as he makes a break for emotional freedom, which he’ll inevitable come scampering back from once more, the abominable cad; “Oh Billy it kills me, you still keep your heart from my hands. Oh Billy fulfill all my fears ’cause you want out again.” Musically, the track seems to refuse to get bogged down by the inevitability of the heartbreak, as tight Tegan & Sara-like harmonies, are placed atop a backing of marching beats, and twitching burbles of electronic wonder. Putting the fun back into fundamentally unsatisfying relationships, Sad Girls Aquatics Club are quickly becoming our new favourite band.

Vodkawine is out now. Click HERE for more information on Sad Girls Aquatics Club.

1. Jeremy’s In The Pink Of Condition

One of our favourite songwriters to emerge in recent years, Somerset via London’s Jeremy Tuplin is set to enter a new phase of his musical output with next month’s release of his latest album, Pink Mirror on new home, Trapped Animal Records. This week Jeremy has shared the title track, and its accompanying rose-hued video.

The track is a musing on cognitive dissonance, how we can hold two contrasting ideas in our head, look into a pink mirror and give the world a rosy hue. The Pink Mirror was, in Jeremy’s own words, an observational idea, “that seemed to explain aspects of human behaviour, relating to conscience mainly – both individual and collective. It works to different degrees and vast extremes, as the examples in the song suggests, but at the end of the day that’s all it is, a pop song.” The examples he mentions go from one extreme to another, whether it’s seeing your best reflection in the mirror, or taking no responsibility for global atrocities; Jeremy suggests we tune into our dark side whether that is, “looking up weird shit on the internet, like how to murder your ex-lover and get away with it” or, “standing cold, with a shaking hand, evil plan, in a pool of blood and your little thumb over the don’t touch button, with a hard-on”. These extreme examples are presented with both a dark-comedic spin and a sense that we all spin our lives to cover our flaws, we all have a pink mirror, shimmering and hiding our whole truth from the world, and perhaps even more so from ourselves. Maybe it’s time to be honest with yourself, and maybe Jeremy Tuplin has written the perfect soundtrack for doing so.

Pink Mirror is out March 29th via Trapped Animal Records. Click HERE for more information on Jeremy Tuplin.