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The editorial bit again and again, like some sort of crazed , no we can’t go on about sushi again, of course it was sushi and here comes the introduction that heralds the latest Five Music Things thing and whatever the hell the five music thing is actually all about. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Do we need to do the editorial bit again? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling cats out of hats? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Yellow trousers? Five more, everything must go and same as last time (and the time before) five, and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading that Cowman likes so much. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut cut slash and cut it, who needs an editorial or words or worms in general? Just facts and links then, here you go, play the music, grab your five, eat your greens, go eat some art, go eat some dirt and don’t forget the yellow trousers.

Here we go, five (or so) more musical things in no particular order and for no particular reason

1: Shovel Dance Collective – A first relaxed taste of ‘The Water is the Shovel of the Shore’, the “revelatory new release” by nine-piece contemporary folk group Shovel Dance Collective (featuring members of caroline & Gentle Stranger), We’re promised “reconceptions of traditional folk music encompassing drone, early music, free improvisation & metal, predicated on recounts of
queer experience, black consciousness, pioneering feminist ideals, and the labour of the working class. ‘The Water is the Shovel of the Shore’ explores the resonances of water for working people, focusing on the river Thames, across an innovative exposition of poignant folksong threaded through with site-specific field recordings”. Here’s a rather fine first taste, something called The Bold Fisherman, the details are here, or here on Bandcamp. Elsewhere, on first listen, the album is awash with what you’d prebably called ‘traditional’ folk beauty, clearly something we need t ocove in a little more depth, for now here’s a first taste,

.2: Léonore Boulanger & Jean-Daniel Botta – “For their fifth album, “Un lièvre était un très cher baiser “, based on the work of outsider poet Ernst Herbec, Léonore Boulanger & Jean-Daniel Botta with percussionist Laurent Sériès compose and decompose a journey of avant folk, world music, delicate soundscape and acoustic wonderment using voice, hammered dulcimer, classical guitar and various percussion instruments. Something that came out way in connection with a gig in Liverpool last week, seems Léonore has just been on tour with Howie Reeves and no one told us…

Here’s some more, sounds like someone we should have been paying attention to. Find more via Le Saule Bandcamp page, more fro us soon I expect…

3: Vives – 𝑉𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑒𝑎 𝑓𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠. We were poking around seeing where a band called Cheval De Frise had got to when we came upon this from a band called Vives, soemthing that came out back in November….

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3 and a bit: Black Market Karma and Tess Parks – This is easy on ears on a Wednesday morning, the two parties make for good travel companions, we’ve not heard anything else from the album yet, it comes out in January, rather like this though, rather like the tone, the minimalism, not so much lying down as much as watching out the window as the bridges go by, there’s an enjoyable uncluttered simplicity to it all and a rather beautiful tone to that guitar   – ‘The Sky Was All Diseased’ with Tess Parks, the first single from the upcoming album ‘Friends In Noise’ A collaborative record between Black Market Karma and their musical allies” I hope Tess enjoyed it more that I imagine she did making a record with that unpleasant nightmare Anton Newcombe, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone (one day we’ll write the book)

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“Friends In Noise is a record of collaborations that came to life in a pretty hands-off way, at least for the most part. I never set out to make this album, as in it wasn’t something pre-meditated but through my travels with BMK, meeting and becoming friends with many great musicians, it was always inevitable.

It can be traced back as early as 2011, making up music on the fly in the studio with a close and old friend, Ruari Meehan. This groove came together and we recorded a VERY rough take of it with one mic in the middle of the room. Two guitar lines and no vocal melody or lyrics. I always felt there was really something there with that track but it ended up being shelved for years.

Jump to 2013 when I met Joakim Ahlund at a show his band mate Frans Johansson had organised for us in Stockholm. A few months later we toured around Ireland with their group Les Big Byrd, becoming good friends. Upon the release of our 5th album Jocke got in touch with me about the idea of remixing it’s opening track ‘Heady Ideas’ I loved what he did and decided to do my own remix of their song ‘War In The Streets’ in return.

The next stage of this thing happened when Tess Parks reached out about our music and told us she was coming to play in the UK. We organised a tour together and became friends (there’s a theme here)
We often went to the studio to hang out in our down time between shows and ended up writing and recording some songs together, ‘Sky Was All Diseased’ being the track that made it onto Friends In Noise.

By this point I had 3 finished collaborations and decided to try and turn it into a full record, starting with the task of finishing that first song with Ruari. A melody and lyrics finally came to me and we got together to do a proper studio recording of ‘Aping Flair’

The last piece came via two friends I’d known for a long time. Craig Dyer of The Underground Youth and Butchy Davy of The Confederate Dead. Craig and I had briefly mentioned the idea of making some music together in the past but it never came to be. He lives in Berlin so I contacted him and we made managed to make ‘Wonky’ happen over the web. Lastly Butchy came to the BMK studio with an unfinished, instrumental demo and we worked on it together. The result was Ageing Boy.

So in summary, Friends In Noise has technically been 9 years in the making and it feels pretty special to finally have it here” 

More via Bandcamp

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And while we’re here checking out the Karma, here’s an album that came out a month or so back, I guess it sounds like a lot of people you or I could name drop here, but then those songs and that rather easy sound does make it all work so well, and when did anyone last do something truly original and well this is rather likeable, rather refreshing, rather uncluttered and just rather good in an uncomplicated easy going kind of way…

“The album title is a self deprecating, tongue in cheek jab at the idea that nothing is truly original. People often get hung up on the idea of some kind of total originality that doesn’t exist. It’s the unicorn of the art world. It’s all in the blend baby!

Lyrics cover topics like: observations on the sycophantic circles that leach from the arts, desperately trying to stay spiritually close to a love that is geographically far, Japanese folklore and the deep connection between man and beast. All wrapped up in an aquatic psych pop bedsheet”. Bandcamp is your place to find it once again…

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4: Miriam Clancy, that’s her down there, and buckle up, this is Kamikaze Angels, the first single and video from US-based Aotearoa musician Miriam Clancy’s new album Black Heart out 13 January 2023. More about the single via that link you just passed

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The press release tells us that “NYC-based, New Zealand-bred rocker Miriam Clancy returns today with her powerful new single, “Kamikaze Angels,” to announce her latest album, Black Heart, for a January 13 release.  Discussing the track, Clancy stated, “‘Kamikaze Angles’ zooms in on the impressionable and hurting mind of a religious/political terrorist or a suicide bomber seeking something they are lacking – validation, acknowledgement or just to make someone pay for the bad they are feeling. A low-flying duck for manipulators who build them up then weaponize them to do their bidding for a higher cause, promising belonging, salvation and honor… it’s all such bollocks. They are then left alone to carry it out, wear a ticking bomb and wipe your tears and fears away.”

Hailed as “a voice to move mountains” and “New Zealand music’s best kept secret” by her homeland’s leading music critics, Clancy amassed rave reviews for her debut and follow up  albums and a stack of stage cred having headlined national tours and supported Wilco, Mark Lanegan and Ron Sexsmith before shifting camp from Aotearoa to New York City. From there Miriam played the hallowed stages of her favorite 70’s songwriters, while gathering further acclaim with her Chris Coady produced album Astronomy. Then a left-field move to the Lehigh Valley in search of space brought forth her 2021 single – “Pennsylvania,” featuring alt-country rock band Frog Holler – which invites you to get lost and found again in this searing love-letter to Pennsylvania.

From the NYC immersion to the depth of rural PA, Miriam has now found herself with a solid lineup of talented musicians which has resulted in her new record Black Heart – a melodic Gen X explosion of heart, rage and release reminiscent of the great female artists at the fore of 90’s alt music and the era’s definitive sonic aesthetic.

“This album is a tsunami, a spiritual purge – smashing out my big feelings with an insight that growing up too soon has gifted me. Some of these songs are staring right at my childhood trauma, so it’s a vulnerable and awkward space, which is a bit freaky. I had to do it for myself, but hopefully it might help others in a similar situation past/present not to feel freakishly alone,” notes Miriam. “It’s also calling out the dependency most of us have with connectivity, fomo and being overwhelmed with too much info, being too accessible by our own compulsive hand and laying ourselves to waste. It’s handy and beautiful but we are running straight into the sun and can’t help it. I can’t help it either. We are all going down together!”

Black Heart captures the brilliance of Miriam and her telepathic band featuring Jeremy McDonald, Will Graefe and Mike Riddleberger as they move through intricate clouds of Clannad-esque guitars and vocals, which turn to sparse folk-rock deep cuts twisting into fleeting moments of Roxy Music influenced art-pop, and out again via a grand piano apocalypse. And then there’s Miriam’s angelic voice pulling it all together and tearing it apart with pivotal moments drawn from her indie-folk beginnings”.

5: Nothingheads – A new video for ‘3000 Years in Showbusiness’, a bit of a dark-edged Post-punk PIL flavour (or maybe Gog Magog?) a video filmed and edited by Nothingheads and a track released on just Step Sideways Records a couple of days back on the 28th October. They play the Victoria in Dalston, East London on November 11th. Find the track on Bandcamp

“Formed in 2020, London-based powerhouse Nothingheads make dissonant grooves drawing influence from post punk and doom. Rocks fall from the sky. The TV cuts out. A head bounces to songs covering amazonian mines, modern super sewers and gambling in gethsename. Nothingheads have become a mainstay on London’s DIY live music circuit, sharing the stage with Mclusky and Japanese Television amongst others”.

“‘3000 years in Showbusiness’ is the first in a string of singles released by Nothingheads, as a lead up to their new EP next year. It will be available on 7’inch via DIY label Just Step Sideways Records (Beige Banquet, Civil Partnership, Tommy Cossack) on October 28th”.

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And while we’re here, a whole new level of Ambient Doom Metal and Blue Öyster Cult slowed down a beautiful 800%…

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And a bit more while we’re here….

Spotify playlists. Well we were making use of the platform back when it first started out somewhere around 2008/9, haven’t made use of it for quite a few years now though, until June 2022 that is. Can’t say we’re that impressed with the way Spotify treats bands, artists, smaller labels, railing against it is like trying to hold back the tide though, we tried. Most bands/labels seem happy to use Spotify and regularly send us press releases with nothing but Spotify links and well who doesn’t love a playlist or a mixtape and so we’ve given up fighting it.

Each month we’ll build a playlist of tracks from bands, artists and such that we’re featuring on the Organ website during that month, we’ll pepper it with an old favourite or two, we’ll let the playlist build throughout the month and then when the month comes to an end we’ll kick in again with a new one for the next month.