Further Listening:

5. Niamh Regan Offers A New Music Fix

A folk artist based out of Galway, Niamh Regan announced herself to the world back in 2020 with the release of her acclaimed debut collection, Hemet, which saw her pick up fans and award nominations in near equal measures. Since then Niamh has toured extensively both in her native Ireland and internationally, sharing stages with the likes of Villagers, CMAT and John Grant. In between those dates, Niamh has also found time to head to Attica Studios in Donegal, working with producer Tommy McLaughlin on bringing what she describes as her “half-baked ideas”, together into a fully-fledged second album, Come As You Are. With the record out at the end of the month via Faction Records, this week Niamh shared her new single, Music.

Although not perhaps the first thing that springs to mind when listening to the track, Niamh is quick to point out a particular influence on Music, “I was listening to a lot of Wilco while making this record and this song is like a nod to that with regards to production“. Certainly the track has some of the breeziness of later day Wilco, or perhaps even more accurately the excellent Tweedy record that Jeff put out with his son Spencer, which took Wilco’s ambitious sonics and focused them into the tiny details of everyday living. The other factor Niamh is keen to highlight is the playful spirit running through the track, “it’s the first song that I wrote where I thought this might be an ear worm, and just had lots of fun with the lyrics and melody”. Lyrically, the track seems to deal with the slow death of a relationship, watching the other person slowly drift away from the things that matter the most to you, “I’m gonna get back five whole years with this green juice. Are you watching me lose you? Well music doesn’t do it for you anymore”. For a track so breezy, there’s a beautifully intimate quality to the way Niamh dissects a gentle collapse, the way an off-the-cuff comment can be the prelude to an avalanche of thoughts that bring the whole thing crashing down around you. Music might not do it for her songs intended target, but Niamh Regan is definitely doing it for me!

Come As You Are is out May 31st via Faction Records. For more information on Niamh Regan visit http://www.niamhregan.com/.

4. Pom Poko Are Really Growing On Me

A four-piece band from Oslo named after a Studio Ghibli animation, Pom Poko emerged back in 2019 when they teamed up with Bella Union to release their blistering debut album, Birthday. They wasted no time getting back to it with 2021’s critically acclaimed Cheater, and in their own words, “giving every bit of our life to the band”. Recent times have seen something of a shift, with guitarist Martin becoming a father and for the first time in eight years, the band having to take something of a break. With the break came a fresh appreciation for what they have, as vocalist Ragnhild explains, “when you’re not grinding with the band all the time, you gain an appreciation for what you’ve built. It’s like a very weird and really lovely little gang to hang out in”. With a new outlook, the band also embraced a new approach in the studio, self-producing for the first time, and letting their ideas speak for themselves. The result is their upcoming album Champion, which will arrive in August, and which they previewed this week in the shape of their fittingly titled new single, Growing Story.

Emerging from the band’s conscious decision to, “explore simplifying our sound and make some songs a bit more grungy and heavy-hitting”, Growing Story certainly feels like Pom Poko at the most straight-shooting, as driving stop-start rhythms accompany distorted slashes of guitar and delightfully sing-song vocals. If it’s a sign of where the band’s music is headed, Growing Story is also at the heart of the record’s lyrical themes, as the band explains, “its title is kind of describing the themes on this record: growing up, whatever that means, and finding yourself in a place where you realise you can contain a lot of different stuff at the same time”. This sense of growing older and the increasing responsibilities that come with it isn’t presented directly, instead, it’s more like a series of flashbulb moments, whether it’s a bar from your younger days that now, “looks so much smaller”, or attending that most archetypical of middle-aged events, “now we find ourselvеs at dinner parties, not separatеd from the others, two heads still touching your shoulders”. These tiny landmarks of ageing are presented almost without comment, a sense of the privilege of growing older with someone by your side, two people with a bond that barely needs words anymore. It’s a thrilling return, and on this evidence, Pom Poko’s growing story might just be their most exciting chapter yet.

Champion is out August 16th via Bella Union. For more information on Pom Poko visit www.pompoko.no.

3. The Decemberists – Less Oh No, and more Oh Yeah!

Making music together for nearly twenty-five years, The Decemberists have done a lot, released a lot of albums, played a lot of shows, and taken a lot of hiatuses. The world last heard from the Portland indie-rockers on 2018’s synth-inspired offering I’ll Be Your Girl, which deservedly went top ten on both sides of the Atlantic. Six years on and the band’s long-awaited return is nearing, with their ninth studio album, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again set for release next month via YABB Records. Ahead of the release the band recently shared their new single, Oh No!

Described by vocalist Colin Meloy as, “the sort of song that just tumbles out of you”, Colin recalls how he began with the opening line, “it was on a wedding night, how they danced by the firelight”, and everything flowed from there. The song touches on the idea of causing havoc and the layered complexities of chaos, “its narrator forever followed by an even greater form of chaos, a great darkness. But it’s a darkness you can dance to!” Musically, the song is a fascinating amalgam of styles, while some of the band’s classic sea-shanty-like shuffling remains, it’s punctuated here by the jazzy rhythms of The Shepherd’s Dog-era Iron & Wine and a retro-cabaret vibe that wouldn’t sound out of place on a C. W. Stoneking record. Particularly wonderful are the parping Latin-influenced horns, that are sure to lubricate the hips of even the most elderly of indie-kids. Here The Decemberists show that they remain one of the most intriguing and ambitious bands around, a band who know that their music has a past, but refuse to be pigeon-holed by it, their ship keeps on sailing into uncharted waters and their adventure just keeps getting more exciting.

As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again is out June 14th via YABB Records. For more information on The Decemberists visit https://www.decemberists.com/

2. You Don’t Need A Crystal Ball To See Where Nightshift Are Headed

It has been five years since Glasgow-based collective Nightshift formed, and four since the release of their well-received debut record, Z​ö​e. Featuring members from bands like Dancer, Spinning Coin and 2 Ply, the band has always been a fluid prospect, as neatly demonstrated by the changes for their new record, with former drummer Chris White now taking up the guitar, and the band’s newest recruit, Rob Alexander sitting behind the drums. The first exemplar of Nightshift 2.0 will arrive in July when they team up with Trouble In Mind to release their latest record, Homosapiens, which they recently previewed via their excellent single, Crystal Ball.

Homosapien is a record born out of some life’s more dramatic moments, the band noting how, “birth, death and love all played a very real part in the gestation of the new record”. While those personal references feed into everything the band do, they also here seem to be digging into politics as well, noting how often personal struggle is rooted in wider decisions by powerful people, from austerity to Brexit, through to the economic chaos of recent months. Crystal Ball is perhaps a showcase of the more sludgy side of Nightshift’s music, it is a track resplendent in foggy low-end rumblings, the swampy bass and primal pounding of the drums cut through by the layers of guitar that sounds always on the edge of collapsing into shapeless, but rather delicious feedback. Amidst it all is Eothen Stern’s vocal, she seems to exist in the eye of the storm, a glistening beacon, as she invites us to, “look into my crystal ball, see into the depths of my soul”, while offering little clue as to what we might find lurking within. This is an understated but quietly thrilling statement of intent from Nightshift, one that suggests that the fabulously fluid Glasgow music scene might just have found another gem.

Homosapien is out July 26th via Trouble In Mind. For more information on Nightshift visit https://nightshift.band/.

1. You’d Best Keep Your Eye On Sinai Vessel

The latest signing to the always brilliant Keeled Scales label, Sinai Vessel is the recording and performing moniker of North Carolina musician and songwriter Caleb Cordes. Sinai Vessel has gone through various guises since Caleb first emerged with 2011’s Labor Pains, most recently demonstrated on 2020’s Ground Aswim. That record was mixed by Bennett Littlejohn, who Caleb roped into co-produce his next move, with the album, I SING, set for release at the end of July. The latest taster of the record to come arrived this week courtesy of Sinai Vessel’s new single, Best Witness.

Described by Caleb as, “a song about ageing into the realization that very few people are going to know you better than you know yourself”, Best Witness explores ideas of friendship. In particular the importance of finding people who really get you and the way it can’t always be defined by proximity, as Caleb sings, “sweet brother, can I call you?
I’m not doing well can you state the obvious? Will you say you love me still?” Musically, Best Witness is Sinai Vessel at their most luxuriously unhurried, it is a song of sweetness and longing for simplicity, mirrored in the music, which combines an almost aimless flutter of guitar notes, with synthy overtones and a drum beat that’s wonderfully unobtrusive, but also subtly driving, carrying the song forward like a current in a river you can feel but never see. A beautiful new chapter from a songwriter with a rare ability to write songs that seem to drift into your conscious unannounced and before you know it burrow into your soul and refuse to leave.

I SING is out July 26th via Keeled Scales. For more information on Sinai Vessel visit https://linktr.ee/sinaivessel.

Header photo is Sinai Vessel by Trent Wayne