Further Listening:

5. Pip Blom’s Music Is Yours To Keep

Back in 2019, Pip Blom were the talk of the musical town, with their debut album Boat grabbing acclaim and radio plays at every opportunity. The record took the Amsterdam-based band out on the road, travelling most of the world sharing their music with anyone who’d listen. After all the excitement, Pip returned to her parent’s house and began putting all the inspiration into the songs that would become the second Pip Blom album. Recorded at Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, the album, Welcome Break, will arrive in August, and this week Pip Blom have shared the first single from it, Keep It Together.

Listening to Keep It Together, the maturation in Pip Blom’s sound is obvious, instantly this feels like a further step from Pip Blom the solo artist into Pip Blom the band. This is particularly evident in the twin vocals shared between Pip and her brother/bandmate Tender Blom. The duo sing completely different parts in the fantastic chorus, the two contrasting tones melding together in beautiful familial harmony. The split vocals add to the certain runaway-mine-cart feel of the track. It seems to gallop along on the guitar line one second, before slowing to a gorgeous melodic interlude of indie-pop perfection, then goes careering off a cliff of excitement once more. Welcome Break might lift its name from the popular chain of service stations, yet here it sounds anything but road-weary, as the world wakes up from its enforced slumber, Pip Blom feel ready, willing and able to take it by storm.

Welcome Break is out August 10th via Heavenly Recordings. For more information on Pip Blom visit https://www.pipblom.com/.

4. Show Poise Some Love

The project of New York-based musician Lucie Murphy, Poise first emerged at the end of 2019 with her self-titled debut EP. Back in May, Poise announced that her debut album, Vestiges, would arrive at the end of July, alongside the excellent single Walked Through Fire. A further reason to be excited about that album was received this week, as Poise shared her new single, Show Me Your Love.

Discussing Show Me Your Love, Lucie has suggested it is a song, “about love as an action, not a feeling”, it emerged from a period of feeling neglected in her relationships and serves as, “a reminder to myself and others to show up for your friends, and to show love with more than just words“. Musically, Show Me Your Love is a track of beautiful contrasts, with the languid vocal delivery playing off against the lithe guitar-work, as Lucie sings, “you can’t just say you love, you’ve got to show me your love”. With songs this good, expect an awful lot of people to show their love for Poise in the year ahead.

Vestiges is out July 30th. For more information on Poise visit https://www.poiseband.com/.

3. I’m Greedy For More Music From Ailsa Tully

One of my 21 for 2021, up-and-coming Welsh songwriter Ailsa Tully, last appeared on these pages back in January when she shared her excellent single, Parasite. This week is something of a landmark for Ailsa, as she has detailed the release of her debut EP, Holy Isle, out next month on Dalliance Recordings. Alongside the announcement, Ailsa has also shared a brand-new single, Greedy.

Discussing the inspiration behind the EP, Ailsa has suggested it is a record that looks in the rear-view mirror, reflecting on a past relationship with empathy and well-wishes rather than anger or sadness. As well as thematically looking back, the record also saw Ailsa re-connect with her first instrument, the cello. On Greedy, it plays a part in the delightfully fast-moving whole, this is a song that never stays still, shifting through musical ideas and moods and dragging the listener along for the thrilling ride. At times the track sounds like it’s going to slide into bass-driven rock, before instead floating off on a delightfully delicate vocal melody or a wave of dreamy guitars. A song Ailsa describes as being about, “opening myself up to the world in a new and messy way”, Greedy might be a song that does exactly that, connecting Ailsa to a new audience waiting to embrace her with open arms.

Holy Isle is out August 20th via Dalliance Recordings. For more information on Ailsa Tully visit https://ailsatully.bandcamp.com/.

2. Indigo De Souza Is Going To Make A Killing

Indigo De Souza grew up in a world of contradictions, raised in a small and deeply conservative town in the mountains of North Carolina, with a Brazilian Bossa Nova guitarist father and a visual artist mother. Throughout that experience, music was a way of reaching out and connecting with her community, one she subsequently found after moving to the bright lights of Asheville. Back in 2018, Indigo released her debut album, I Love My Mom and now three years on she’s working towards the release of the follow-up, Any Shape You Take, which will arrive next month via Saddle Creek.

Ahead of Any Shape You Take’s release, this week Indigo has shared the first single from the album, Kill Me. The track was written in slightly unusual circumstances back in 2018, as Indigo recalls, “I recorded myself stream-of-conscious singing it on the kitchen floor at night with my laptop cam. I found the video about a year later, and could barely recognize the person singing”. The final version has come a long way from the kitchen floor as the song builds from an initially quiet strum of electric guitar, before sliding into crescendos of grunge-tinged slacker-rock, as Indigo’s voice becomes an emotive howl on the repeated refrain, “tell them that I wasn’t having much fun”. There’s something delightfully freeing about the music Indigo De Souza makes, while it nods to acts like Porridge Radio or Black Belt Eagle Scout, ultimately she seems to just be letting her personality and passion pour out, with thrillingly unique results.

Any Shape You Take is out August 27th via Saddle Creek. For more information on Indigo De Souza visit https://www.indigodesouza.com/.

1. There’s A Terrifying Tear In The Carpet Of Time And Space

It was back in May that Carpet, the project of musician and engineer Rob Slater, caught our ear with his excellent debut single, Burnt and Cold. Previously known for his work with Crake and Mi Mye among others, Carpet was Rob’s attempt to get back to the joyous experimentation that four-track recording gave him in his teenage years. This week Rob’s shared the second Carpet single, Terror Tear.

Terror Tear seems to operate in a subtly different emotional plain to Burnt and Cold, foregoing some of that song’s uneasy introspection for a more urgent and anxious sound, surmised in the repeated refrain, “what if I can only follow”. Operating in similar territory to modern contemporary Supermilk or even early Weezer, Terror Tear is a rambunctious flurry of both energy and melody. There’s a certain desolate quality to the track, a sense of past trauma that left a certain void in its trail, as Rob sings, “all that’s left is all that’s left me hollow”. As the song reaches its close though there’s a glimpse of hope, a light shining through the cracks and reminding us all that the dark times don’t always last, “I promise I’ll find what I buried between us, I’m sorry that you have to dig out the pieces”. It’s that hope that as a listener keeps you coming back, Carpet is a musician in love with making music, and battling to keep the dream alive, and you’d be hard-pressed to find any music fan who can’t relate to that.

Terror Tear is out now. For more information on Carpet visit https://carpetsongs.bandcamp.com/.

Header photo is Carpet by Ash Scott.