Mint Julep - Stray Fantasies

Wife and husband duo, Mint Julep, release new album Stray Fantasies on 31st January from Western Vinyl

Mint Julep are Hollie and Keith Kenniff, a partnership born out of a deep love for synthesisers and electro pop, and this has been curated towards the album Stray Fantasies, a twelve track album full of pop nuggets dripping with basslines, punching drums and electro heaven.

This can be expressed in the new single 'Escape' a disco tinged gem, and there are many exciting tracks on the album to discover from opening track 'Blinded' to 'Just For Today' a song that would not look out of place on Pet Shop Boys discography.




When listening to the album there is a buzz you get from enjoying it that you rarely feel with other electro-pop fare; the fizz of melodies coupled with Hollie's winning vocal delivery and the professional production makes this a winning combination in life and love.

All in all this will be a great album for fans of New Order and other electro pop trendsetters, and there are tracks ripe on her for remixing for the club scene as well as crossing over to indie darling-dom as the wave of shoegazing is here also.

Stray Fantasies is out on 31st January from Western Vinyl

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

Margaret Glaspy Returns

Singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy returns with a new album Devotion out on 27th March from ATO Records.

Following on from the release of her acclaimed debut in 2016 Emotions and Math and her EP Born Yesterday, and a three year trip on the road Glaspy is following a new direction on this new release.

She has released lead single 'Killing What Keeps Us Alive' which offers a new sound with digitised vocals and a bare electronic sound in contrast to the rich electric guitar swagger on her debut.

The new single which also has an excellent promo directed by Alex Chaloff which shows how colour can come to the fore if you look hard enough, and is as much about gestation and patience over the be here immediately mindset.

The album which was co-produced by Tyler Chester in Los Angeles features 12 love songs, of which Glaspy states, 'It's about letting love in even when you don't know what will happen when you do'

If the single/video is anything to go by, then listeners and fans both old and new are in for a pleasant surprise - gone is the angry guitar sound a la Glaspy's peer Anna Burch (herself returning with new material this year) and instead a more melodic and emotive soundscape - an artist willing to challenge herself in terms of production, subject matter and material.

Margaret Glaspy will be on tour in the UK for some selected shows:

27th March - Mono, Glasgow

28th March - Institute, Manchester

29th March - Fleece, Bristol

31st March - Lafayette, London

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

En Attendant Ana 'Juillet'

Second album by Parisian quintet released by Trouble in Mind on 24th January

En Attendant Ana is a five-piece from Paris, France who are quietly making waves and gathering further acclaim through muso circles, and the difficult second album shows a broadening of the ambition shown in the debut album Lost and Found from 2018.

Trouble in Mind are releasing the second album also, and it marks the a band going through transition after the addition of guitarist, Maxence Tomasso.  Recorded by Vincent Hivert and Alexis Fugain over the course of one week in isolation in rural France.

Songs on Juillet are ones of hope despite the melancholic tone with triumphant trumpets swelling amid the lyrics of accepting loss but towards a new found sense of self and indepence.

The songs may be about the end of something, yet the beginning of another era - these songs are more focused than the first album, more hooks garner greater attention.

The band admit listening to more shoegazing, dream pop from across the spectrum including the likes of Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, Cate Le Bon and The Breeders; yet the band the album made this listener recall most fondly was the debut album of The Maccabees - a band of joyous infectiousness who could craft a winning tune and perhaps also Bombay Bicycle Club who themselves released a new album last week.

Both those bands share the same line of best fit with En Attendant Ana - a soulful band who want to sing about love, loss and dreams - playing with a lilt and float fitting for a summer sojourn.

This album is already one of the best listens of 2020 thus far, an album full of joy and unbridled ambition that could easily crossover from a niche of European to become an indie staple.

Juillet is released by Trouble In Mind on 24th January worldwide.

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

East Village - Hotrod Hotel

Singles collection of great lost band released 24th January via Slumberland Records

East Village are one of the great lost and what could have been bands from Great Britain. Formed as Episode Four, in the mid-1980s in sleepy Princes Risborough, by brothers Martin and Paul Kelly playing distinctive garage music.  Later joined by Johnny Wood (guitar/vocals) in 1984 and Spencer Smith (drums) in 1985.

In 1987, they renamed themselves as East Village relocated to London recording two EPs for Jeff Barrett's Sub Aqua label.  That label collapsed, and they floated around borrowing money to make an album eventually landing with Jeff Barrett who was forming the new Heavenly Recordings label.  The band played shows with Manic Street Preachers and Saint Etienne in 1991, releasing a single before playing a sold out show in New Cross and abruptly splitting up on stage.

The band have gone on to become a cult amongst indie fans and prices of original pressings of recordings have skyrocketed in recent years.

Slumberland Records have compiled the recordings into a compilation we have here and it is released on vinyl and will be highly sought by alternative music fans intrigued by the history of the genre.



One of the best songs on the compilation is 'Violin' and it encompasses all that is good about the band - jangly guitars, yearning lyrics and tight composition - a sound of their own which is indebted to the late 1960s mod era of the Kinks and yet has the ear for the tune of The Byrds, as well as the extensive catalogue of Paul Weller.

The influence of this guitar music can be heard in  1990s bands - Ocean Colour Scene and Cast for example and up to the date with The Coral  with that wash of summery guitar; even the opening riff of Violin sounds like an opening to a song by Olden Yolk's 'Cotton and Cane'

Slumberland released another compilation late last year by another forgotten band, the American band The Springfields - an album also indebted to the 60s Laurel Canyon music writing; yet these two albums will go hand in hand together at a listening party.  Other key songs on the album are 'Cubans in the Bluefields' and 'Kathleen'.

While the reasons for the split of East Village are never fully known, and the band refuse requests for reformations constantly, at least finally they have granted permission for their legacy to not remain lost forever to the ether and instead can now be freely found upon request.

Hotrod Hotel is available on all formats from 24th January from Slumberland Records

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity

Ali & Ava

The fourth feature from writer-director Clio Barnard has finished principal photography.

Ali & Ava is the fourth feature by Clio Barnard (Dark River, The Selfish Giant, The Arbor) starring Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions) and Claire Rushbrook (Secret and Lies)

Produced by long-term partner Tracy O'Riordan of Moonspun Films; the film is financed by BBC Films, BFI and Screen Yorkshire, with Altitude handing world sales and UK/Irish distribution. Principal photography and shooting recently took place on location in Bradford.

AVA (Rushbrook) is a devoted mother and from an Irish-Catholic background in a predominantly white Bradford estate; a teaching assistant who fills her time looking after others and listening to country and folk music, masking an abusive marriage with her ex-husband.

ALI (Akhtar) is a charismatic son, brother, boss and landlord, a music fan and book lover he is devoted to his family and Asian community in Bradford. Still living in an estranged marriage, he hides the estrangement from wider family, and carries on the charade because he is still in love with her.

Both lonely for different reasons, Ava and Ali find each other and sparks fly despite fears about the coupling within their respective family and communities.

Producer O'Riordan says of the film;

'It was wonderful to be back in Bradford shooting Clio’s fourth feature; a love story, based on people we have met whilst making our previous films there. Inspired by Fassbinder’s ‘Fear Eats the Soul’, ALI & AVA is a film about fear and courage, loneliness and belonging, time and love’.

The critical acclaim given and the funding bodies behind this project bodes well for a film that follows in the footsteps of unlikely love pairing - think Harold and Maude, Last Tango in Halifax, Kelly + Victor - hopefully this will have as much to say about love in general as it does about the fraught racial tensions within the Yorkshire borders.

ALI & AVA will be released in cinemas later in 2020.

My thanks to Emfoundation for the review opportunity.

Deserta - Black Aura My Sun

Debut album from Deserta out from Felte Records on 17th January

Deserta, is a solo project by LA based musician, Matthew Doty (a former mainstay of Saxon Shore) who has taken his solo material and released this persona's debut album on Felte Records on 17th January.

For fans of electronica and the ever growing shoegazing trend, Deserta is a band that writes song full of character despite the solitude nature of its production.  It is soft and not overbearing as some electronica can become due to the emotional nature of the melodies being made.

Doty found his own voice and this was harnessed in collaboration with Josh Tillman (Father John Misty) in their group Saxon Shore; and yet this is Doty's first stab at a solo production.

The album Black Aura My Sun, is one of those hypnotic soundscape albums that is indebted to electronica, Johnny Marr guitar riffs from The Smiths and an air of quiet euphoria; this can be heard in opening track 'Save Me' which soars and then has quiet moments to then explode again.

Doty is playing with listener's expecations of rock and chill out music here; loud can be subtle and subtle can have a roar; for fans of Sigur Ros, Slowdive and everything in between - this is the sort of album to put on for those long train journeys or on the underground when you just want that bit of distortion and the unknown to reflect upon the day, to shut your eyes and drift.

Black Aura My Sun is out on 17th January from Felte Records.

My thanks to OneBeat PR for the review opportunity.

Alice Boman - 'Dream On'

Debut album from, Alice Boman, out from Play It Again Sam on 17th January

The long awaited debut album from Alice Boman is finally here, after a prolonged period of gestation and introspection, the songwriter emerges with a sumptuous piece of work that is at times hypnotic, sonic and intimate.

Boman came to prominence with home tinkering works that became the two EPs Skisser (2013) and EP II (2014) with her music captivating audiences as well as appearing in major American television series.

This album has the help that it has a brilliant lead off single in 'Don't Forget About Me' that is a wonderful gateway to the album as a whole; Boman's light lilt of singing and delivery married to Patrick Berger's melodic production, a collaboration that brings out the intimacy of Boman to the forefront and elevating the personal to the mainstream.

Other stand out tracks 'I Wish We Had More Time' and 'The More I Cry' again preach the tenderness of the songwriter in ballads, while 'Everybody Hurts' is a song that while morbid is much like her fellow countrywoman Robyn's 'Every Heartbeat' is ripe for a dance mix.  The real sense of pop freedom washes through the recordings.

Boman with her debut album establishes herself as an artist to watch, this is an album of emotional maturity despite the subject matter of heartbreak and disappointment, there is a real sense of defiance and mild-mannered confidence to the production as a whole.

Alice Boman is on tour in the UK in February:
23rd February - Brighton - The Latest Music Bar
24th February - Manchester - Gullivers
25th February - London - Union Chapel

Dream On is released by Play It Again Sam Recordings on 17th January

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.