Concord of the Shameless

By RingMaster Review on January 23, 2022 • ( 0 )

With the crispy crack of frost underfoot and a bundle of sounds in her grasp proving equally potent at grabbing attention, our friend Shauna of shoegaze/dream pop weavers Ummagma and Shameless Promotion PR has again come a calling to spark our keen intrigue. Setting the New Year off in fine style with her suggestions, we explored their united landscapes and drew out the most striking for your consideration.

Falun Gong Dancer is the third track from a hAon, the forthcoming debut album from Telefís and another simply compelling temptation for its highly anticipated release.

Telefís is the creative collaboration of producer/ mixer/ composer Garret “Jacknife” Lee (U2, REM, Modest Mouse, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Editors) and singer-songwriter Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney, Fatima Mansions) and fair to say that the duo has already firmly gripped ears and praise with previous songs, We Need and Mister Imperator, both also part of remix and dub rich EPs. Released last year, those songs lit up 2021 with their magnetic individuality, for Coughlan adding to the acclaim gathered by his latest solo album, the irresistible Song of Co-Aklan.

Released, as the upcoming full-length, through Dimple Discs, Falun Gong Dancer swiftly establishes its own uniqueness, an unassuming electronic hum bearing the beauty of piano and voice. Similarly, their glow and captivation is echoed in the lyrical seduction of the song, Coughlan’s inimitable prowess of word and imagination enlivening proposal which the keys reflect in their own gentle but suggestively rich company.

Falun Gong Dancer is a kiss on the senses and spark for the imagination backed by a just as mesmeric video by Matt Mahurin, together making another transfixing invitation to the pair’s February 11^th released album.

Equally as fascinating is Scream Quietly, the new single from postpunk/nugaze/electro artist Revolution Above Disorder. The track is a cover of the Television Personalities gem, a band which has been a potent inspiration to Vancouver-based Dubliner Stephen Nicholas White (The Orange Kyte, House of Dolls, Magic Shoppe) and his solo project.

Within Revolution Above Disorder, he weaves an electronically bound post-punk/psychedelic rock/shoegaze adventure which has proved a magnet for ears and imagination as shown by his recently released 3-track thick Illuminate. The same tapestry of flavours bound Scream Quietly, a song which previously appeared on Mummy, Mummy Please Look At Me: A Tribute to the Television Personalities which was released via Dandy Boy Records.

White relaxes the urgency of the original within his take on Scream Quietly, exploring the depths of its shadows and melancholic grace without losing the cinematic manipulation of the ever compelling song. Equally he reveals the full post punk inclinations of the track centred round a delicious bassline, its twanged nagging an addiction to these ears matched in lure by the intoxicating hooks of guitar and synth. With the undemanding but effortlessly alluring breath of his vocal tempting, White has reloaded an already compelling track with further irresistibility which all can submit to now via Jacknife Sound and the Revolution Above Disorder Bandcamp page.

With a debut album also expected early 2022, Irish alternative rock/post-punk artist Ava Vox recently released the single Crash and far to say it is another proposition which swiftly sparked eager intrigue to a larger encounter.

Ava Vox is the creation of Dublin hailing Elaine Hannon, a persona emerging after a host of various music projects across the years in 2020. Her sound is bred in a fusion of post punk, goth and alternative rock, one hinting at a fusion of Siouxsie and the Banshees, X-Mal Deutschland, and early March Violets but setting its own character and breath in captivation with a firm hand.

A track written within one of her earlier projects, mid-eighties gothic rock/post-punk band, The Seventh Veil, and with a “new interpretation of the lyrics”, Crash rises on a synth cast breeze, its climate already shadow embraced and slightly portentous. Quickly freeing its spirit, the track surges across the senses, its gait energetic but wrapped in a crepuscular grace which is as haunting as it is inspiriting.

With an apocalyptic intimation as echoed in its forthcoming video, and Vox’s commanding and alluring vocal dexterity, the Bandcamp available Crash gripped ears and imagination with unrelenting drama and temptation ensuring that a keen appetite for the upcoming Immortalised was engaged.

With Happy Robots Records releasing Music for Underwater Supermarkets, the new sophomore album from electronic artist Roman Angelos, the Brooklyn-based artist has engaged its forward temptation with new single, Swimming Through The Aisles.

Roman Angelos is the solo guise of producer Rich Bennett (The Shaggs, Mahogany, Limoncello), a project developed for his exploration of “his obsession with library recordings of the 60’s and 70s, muzak and exotica.” Within his new album, Bennett weaves a sonic dreamscape seeded in the mundane act of grocery shopping but equally engaging a futuristic enquiry, a collection of tracks with a certain quality which their author found the inspiration to placing them within the premise of an underwater placing.

Swimming Through The Aisles instantly engages with that gentle fluidity of movement and enthralment, the graceful inquisitive beauty of the flute courted by the sure movement of rhythms and the just as beguiling shimmer of keys. Equally, curiosity is borne from trumpet and a familiarity of sights through the warmth of melodies.

The online available instrumental is a palette for the imagination, a ready-made adventure for ears and in turn a potent excuse to go shopping with Music for Underwater Supermarkets which will be released on January 28th digitally and on green vinyl limited to 200 copies with pre-ordering available via https://happyrobotsrecords.bandcamp.com/track/swimming-through-the-aisles.

Finally we return to the new Telefís single which is also receiving a release in dub mix form courtesy of Jah Wobble (Public Image Limited). As the band’s previous track, Lee and Coughlan see the legendary bassist explore alternative aspects of their music, his instinctive post punk and dub prowess revealing the darker shades and depths of Falun Gong Dancer; exposing another realm in its world, intimacy and beauty without losing the captivation of their humble honesty.

Alternatively but just as imposingly compelling as the original version, the Jah Wobble imagined Falun Gong Dancer is an equally irresistible proposition to embrace; Telefís spoiling us even before the adventure sure to be unveiled by a hAon.