Call of the Shameless

By RingMaster Review on April 2, 2022 • ( 0 )

Unpredictability is a potent aspect of the world, in the deed of man and nature as today’s revolving cycle of blazing sun and snow bearing wintry winds over the space of three hours proved and the same trait applies to the regular choice of new tracks to explore from our friend Shauna of Canadian atmospheric sound weavers Ummagma and Shameless Promotion PR. Actually, there is something inevitable about her packages of suggestion, they will offer up some seriously striking encounters as her latest selection proves.

First up is a track for the imagination and heart is Sokolonko from Ukrainian electronic artist 6TH CROWD. It is a body of simmering electro-folk beauty which proved a sunspot of radiance upon a time of the rawest darkness.

6TH CROWD is the solo project of producer Dari ‘Dasha’ Maksymova, an artist from the Donbas region of Ukraine. Sokolonko itself is inspired by an old harvest song from that Eastern part of the country which as we all know is being ravaged by another. Folk and traditional music from that area of Ukraine it seems is not widely known or acknowledged by contemporary music but provides the richest source of inspiration for the captivation woven by Maksymova within Sokolonko.

Sung in her native tongue, the track merges modern day bustle and energy with old world beauty. The track ripples with industrial intimation within harmonic and electronic luminescence with Maksymova’s tones the central beacon to the swift captivation. In its own way, the song which is taken from 6TH CROWD’s upcoming new album, is a light of pride and echo of the spirit we have all seen in the Ukrainian people; a defiant stand in a time of atrocity.

Sokolonko is available now on Bandcamp with all proceeds going to support the humanitarian work of Vostok SOS across the Donbas region.

Next we suggest putting your feet and hips on alert for the new Caulbearers single. Out through Single Cell Recordings, Twisted Cord is a track which is compelling seduction but one simultaneously worming its way into the body and orchestrating eager movement.

The new track follows the UK funk-rock collective’s well-received 2021 track Burst Through The Borders, a song which explored a new aspect to their so often enthralling and adventurous sound. The Manchester hailing outfit return to their soulful, dark funk bred inclinations with Twisted Cord yet it is a song which is just as striking in its freshness of breath and invention.

It almost prowls through ears from its first step but with only invitation and temptation to its intent even as rhythms court the shadows around its gentle swing,

With subsequent vines of guitar bringing cinematic hued intrigue and suggestion, everything about the song is pure infectiousness, vocals and fluid twists and turns as irresistible as the ever blossoming web of sounds and the encouragement of its lyrical celebration of the realm we stand within even giving the darker moments it shares.

The track is accompanied by Synching (Bubbling Spring Remix), a mesmeric and effervescent reworking of a track originally found on the band’s 2011 EP, More Lie Deep, and a song that similarly captivated and urged us to suggest you might head the way of the Caulbearers’ Bandcamp page.

Another track providing the first taste of a forthcoming new album is The Girls of LA, the new single from indie rockers Weimar, a band also hailing from Manchester. It is a track which cast us back to the heyday of bands such as Swell Maps, Three Johns and Violent Femmes but firmly set out the dauntless individuality of Weimar’s sound.

There is also a slight Be Bop Deluxe-esque hue to the single, a similar sense of enterprise and mischief which makes the band’s June released debut full-length, Dancing On A Volcano, highly intriguing. Consisting of bassist John Armstrong (The Speed Of Sound), vocalist/ guitarist Aidan Cross (The Bacillus, Black Light Mutants), drummer Anthony ‘Eddy’ Edwards (The Deceased) and guitarist Stephen Sarsen (Frank Is Dead, Playground), Weimar have piqued the appetites of more than a few with previous singles and are sure to again with the post punk, indie punk, Avant-alternative woven incitement of The Girls of LA.

Released through German Shepherd Records and available on Bandcamp, the single immediately sidles up to the listener with devilment in its breath. Then once in full presence it springs a web of angular guitar and a prickly toned bassline as Cross heads to bars and clubs and the ladies working to fund dreams and hopes of stardom. As mentioned, there is a riveting nostalgic air to the song but equally an instant surge of fresh endeavour and tempting which got under the skin.

The single’s B-side, Transatlantic Confusion, proved just as compelling, the song a reworking of a song by Cross and Sarsen from their previous band The Bacillus. It too springs a trap of post punk and indie collusion with maybe an even stronger lean back to previous times but another proposal fiercely of the now and with its companion has commanded a must exploration of that first album.

With his eponymous new album already drawing eager acclaim and support since its recent release, Austin electronic artist Paris Music Corp. presents its second single in the suggestive shape of Almost Lost.

The creation of John Andrew Paris, Paris Music Corp. marked the release of its first outing in half a decade with the ear coaxing single Light Speed and does so again with the imagination rousing instrumental of Almost Lost. It is a piece of music which takes the listener into a ambient realm of dark shadows and kaleidoscopic opportunities, its intimation at times claustrophobic but perpetually compelling and fascinating. Equally though, it shares a lively calm which is as mesmeric as its darker edges and hues are haunting.

Almost Lost is a treat for personal conjuring and storytelling but just as potent in its dexterous lead, much as that aforementioned album as revealed via the Paris Music Corp. Bandcamp page.

Lastly we send you the way of Lights Svoboda, the new single from British Avant pop artist Nick Hudson. It is another offering inspired by the inhumanities upon Ukraine and is giving all proceeds in support of humanitarian aid efforts in the country.

Lights Svoboda (translated as ‘Lights Freedom’) is a track which first found substance around the recording of The Academy Of Sun’s 2020 album The Quiet Earth but did not find its place within the release. But as the artist revealed, now “global reality has tragically and uncannily come to resonate with the song’s poetically fractured scenes of dictatorship, nuclear threat and razed landscapes.”

Performed by Hudson and The Academy of Sun bandmate Kianna Blue, and featuring in its opening the words of an 20-year-old Russian exile friend who fled to Georgia to avoid facing criminal charges for protesting Navalny’s imprisonment, Lights Svoboda is a haunting of the senses and thoughts, an essence epitomised by Blue’s backing vocals.

Hudson’s voice and keys evoked and provoked with similar poignant and touching impact, the song beyond melancholic yet a spark for inner contemplation and an intensity to add one’s own uprising against the kind of wrongs we are seeing around the globe. It is also one striking song full stop, another fascinating moment with the truly individual creativity of Nick Hudson.