The driving, ecstatic ‘It Came to Me’ begins with a squall of guitar and a rush of drums, quickly formed into a mean, bluesy riff textured with classical acoustic harp.  Brad Barr’s voice distorts to a rasp, telling the tale of a Zen-like quest for answers to the questions of the universe.

“Since we were kids, Brad and I would sit down at our instruments and, without speaking, launch into playing loud rock and roll at high volume. It was probably in part to drown out the confusing noise of youth and being told what to do all the time, and in part it was a way of communicating with each other in a language that was probably more expressive and fun than our normal middle school banter – it also prevented a lot of fighting over the remote control. All to say, when we went to St. Zenon (In Quebec, to demo songs for the new album) late one night, we sat down together and started playing this one. It came easily and cheerfully, and when Brad started singing “It Came to Me”, I laughed at this almost “snake chasing its tale moment”, a song lyric aware of itself  – and so this one came like that, when we sat down with no agenda and tapped into one of our oldest sorts of dialogue,” says Andrew Barr.

The new album arrives after the longest-ever pause in Brad and Andrew Barr’s 20-year career in music.  Both became fathers since 2014’s Sleeping Operator was released.  In that time, Sarah Page also found ways to completely redefine the harp, its sound, and its role in modern music. ‘Queens of the Breakers’ was born out of reflection of what home and family mean now, after the effects of life on the road.

The Barr Brothers released their debut album, recorded in a boiler room in Montreal, in 2011.  Since then they’ve performed on The Late Show twice, several NPR programs, CBC ‘q’, CBS This Morning Saturday, Canada AM, France Inter “Le Nouveau Rendez-Vous”, KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic and more. They’ve shared stages with The National, The War On Drugs, Patrick Watson, My Morning Jacket, Emmylou Harris and countless others.  They headlined the Montreal Jazz Festival in front of 40,000 people and have sold out venues across the world.  2014’s Sleeping Operator was a breakthrough record, with spins on over 50 Triple A radio stations in the US. It was playlisted with all 3 singles and the band did 6 sessions across every BBC Radio stations in the UK. Sleeping Operator is now over 60 million combined streams.

‘Queens of the Breakers’ was engineered by Ryan Freeland (Milk Carton Kids, Ray LaMontagne, Bonnie Raitt) and Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, The National).  It was recorded in Montreal and St. Zenon, Quebec.
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Looking at the gap between memory and reality, Isn’t It A Pity neatly shifts between mellow verses and a glorious chorus driven by a gritty soul groove. The idea of renewal and forward motion is captured in the final verse: “Now all your fabled advice rings of emptiness and studied lines…But I have resolved to erase all the bitterness and venom in my veins’.

“I was listening to Bobby Blue Bland’s ‘Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City’, Bernard explains, “and I loved the way the Philly strings gave it a lot more melody and power without making it beefy. When we recorded it we were deliberately trying to keep it from rocking too much so we replaced what were horns, with strings and it did the trick. Clare Bowditch helped on the weird minory backing vocals which helps it all sound big, without being heavy. It was a bit of an arm wrestle this song, but I love where it ended up.”

Produced by Nick DiDia and recorded at La Cueva studio (located near Byron Bay), Isn’t It A Pity also features his band The Black Fins: Salliana Campbell providing fiddle, Matt Engelbrecht on bass, Andrew Morris laying down guitar and Declan Kelly on drums and a special guest appearance by good friend Clare Bowditch who provides backing vocals.
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The announcement comes along with the release of the duo’s latest single – the thumping two-step and club-ready brass of ‘Leave The Light On’. The song, which premiered on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show, is the follow up to the captivating lead single ‘Hold Me Close’ and it’s follow up track ‘Nighttime Hunger’ – both of which deal with the complexities of love set to a backdrop of lush electronic beats and garnished with seamlessly intertwining harmonies.

NPR’s All Songs Considered says ‘Hold Me Close’ “unfolds with disarming intricacy,” and praises, “the splendor of its deliberate harmony”, while NPR Music also named Overcoats one of its favorite discoveries at SXSW last year, and the duo ranked #3 on NPR’s Listeners Poll of favorite new artists of 2016.  One such listener hailed Overcoats for, “The chills they give me; the fact that I can’t look away when they perform; their complex and irresistible harmonies; the vulnerability to their words and the dance-y beats they put behind them.”

Overcoats is comprised of former college roommates Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell, who co-wrote all twelve songs on YOUNG. The two were drawn to each other when they first met as teenagers in 2011, finding connection in a love of diverse musical styles, and forging a closeness that verges on sisterhood. Both members of Overcoats describe the first time hearing each other sing as an epiphany: the harmony of their voices leading to personal, individual discovery.

YOUNG weaves a tapestry of crystalline vocals with soaring synths and rich bass lines, and showcases a striking range for the duo. While their seamless vocal interplay and contemplative lyrics remain at the core of their sound, YOUNG is also rich with experimentation and sonic surprises.
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To coincide with the release, the band have also unveiled new single ‘The Way Of Mary’, a track which once again pushes their sound to new heights, as impassioned and energetic vocals impact over driving riffs and a bracing beat, a cut which will no doubt sound huge on the festival stages that await them this summer.

LISTEN TO ‘THE WAY OF MARY’ HERE

‘The Way Of Mary’ follows recent singles ‘Strange Clothes,’ ‘You Change With The Seasons,’ and ‘Mixed Signals’, three tracks which showed a new and accomplished layer to the rising quartet’s already joyous songwriting craft.

This long awaited EP release comes after a huge couple of years for for The Night Café. Having grown up in the same area of Liverpool and separately developed a love for playing music while at secondary school, it took a while for members Sean, Josh, Arran and Carl to be introduced through mutual friends, but they soon struck upon a natural songwriting chemistry.

Initially plying their trade as drummers, Sean and Josh began to play guitar and twisted Arran’s arm into swapping his guitar for the bass, with Carl picking up the sticks later. Strongly attached to their hometown, but eschewing the traditional musical heritage of The Beatles and The Coral, the four friends began to rehearse together, finding that their camaraderie was more than enough to fuel a deluge of joyous indie tracks — combining Sean’s charming lyricism and glowing vocal melodies with bold guitar hooks, snaking bass riffs and rich, metronomic drumming.

Settling upon the name, The Night Café, the quartet made the short trip upstairs to Whitewood recording studio — their practice space is in the basement of the Victorian building, known as Elevator studios, home to The Wombats, Dan Croll, Circa Waves, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Clinic — where producer Robert Whiteley helped to polish their promising demos into the sparkling, soaring 2015 releases ‘Growing Up’ and ‘Addicted’.

Returning at the start of 2016 with two more shimmering chunks of lively guitar music in ‘Together’ and ‘Time’, the band crystallise exactly how it feels to throw off the shackles of school life and be catapulted into a world of new experiences at eighteen-years old, all tied together with an infectious rhythm and melodic crispness more akin to Fleetwood Mac than any of Liverpool’s past icons.

Which leads us to this point in time and their career and the release of their debut EP and their most fully formed work to date.
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Describing ‘Fire That Burns,’ lead singer Kieran Shuddall says, “Fire That Burns is a tale of two sides and how far someone will go to please another. It shows the darker side of passion.”

‘Fire That Burns’ is a perfect example of the heavier, grittier direction that Circa Waves have headed towards with Different Creatures. It’s beginning wouldn’t be out of place on the band’s debut Young Chasers, but ‘Fire That Burns’ soon erupts into a fiery, stomp of a chorus that perfectly encapsulates frontman Shuddall’s new found confidence and growth as an artist.

The heavier sound has brought a renewed excitement and sense of purpose to Circa Waves. “We started playing (the new songs) live in the room, and there was so much more energy than the first record,” says Kieran. “I think the songs are big enough, and I think we’re easily good enough live, for us to be as big as whoever now.”

Co-produced by Alan Moulder (Foals, Arctic Monkeys, Smashing Pumpkins), Different Creatures is the grittier, ‘night time’ counterpart to the breezy summer vibes of its predecessor Young Chasers, exuding a newfound swagger. Shaped by Kieran’s perceptive songwriting ability to reflect the changes he sees in the world, Different Creatures showcases a disenchantment with the world he sees, a louder and more vital band, nudging their sonic palette into a territory shared with rock heavyweights such as Arctic Monkeys and Queens Of The Stone Age.

Their debut album Young Chasers saw the band’s popularity and profile rise over a meteoric six months, as they built an immediate and loyal audience off the back of 13 direct, propulsive, indie anthems crystallised the band’s self-belief, and emboldened Kieran to delve into the weightier subjects explored in Different Creatures. “When I saw the way that people connected with it,” Kieran continues, “I really started to believe in myself, I’m a different person now -I feel like I’ve got a fire in my belly with this record.”

Different Creatures is not the sound of a band giving people more of what they know that people want from them. It is the sound of a band who are going with their hearts, reflecting the changes they’re seeing unfold around them, and moving forward. A risky move, but as fans will soon discover for themselves, it’s a risk that has paid off creatively in droves.

Different Creatures Will Be Released March 10 via Dew Process / EMI.
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The up-tempo single is simultaneously glamorous and minimalist in its approach, revolving around a basic formula of clapping drums, a strutting bassline, bright guitar notes and cooing layers of falsetto vocals that all stand out on their own while perfectly combining in a mix that straddles the line between tender indie rock and a neo-disco jam.

LISTEN TO ‘BACK FOR ME’ HERE:

‘Back For Me’ is a side-step to ‘Dear To Me’, the duo’s synth-driven first single from Plural. Released late last year, the no less infectious single feautured a cameo from Haim on backing vocals, and was Electric Guest’s first official release since their 2012 breakout debut album, Mondo. Premiering on Stereogum, it announced their return with soulful style and a terminally chill flow that seamlessly suited the rise of Australian summer.

Recorded in their hometown of LA and, Plural is a record that finds Electric Guest’s Asa Taccone and Matthew Compton at the absolute top of their game, infusing their version of electronic r’n’b with an even more confident, adventurous spirit than even Mondo displayed. Co-produced by the duo, along with the likes of John Hill (Rihanna, Santigold, M.I.A.), Cole MGN (Nite Jewel, Ariel Punk’s Haunted Graffiti) and Lars Stalfors (HEALTH, Coldwar Kids), the album is much more than the sum of its parts – using spare instrumentation and recording techniques to produce vibrant and joyful pop music that focuses purely on the power of the band’s songwriting and performing abilites.

When it came to record Plural, Taccone admits that he forced himself to simplify and look for that joy in writing and recording that had originally inspired the band’s debut album and won them so much success.

“I just realized that working quickly and intuitively is part of the magic of making music,” says Taccone. “I think a lot of music suffers when people get into a studio and feel like the process has to be this heady thing. When you go in with expectations, it wears down the levity and the fluidity that the natural process should have. And that’s not to say there weren’t songs on this record that were puzzles we had to figure out, but making music is supposed to be fun, and it was important for us to get back to that.”

That freewheeling sense of looseness Taccone rediscovered also opened the doors to several off-the-cuff collaborations, including an impromptu collaboration with baroque pop star Joanna Newsom and the aforementioned Haim sisters. It also led to a new level of comfort both at the mixing board and behind the microphone. That relaxed, go with the flow approach permeates Plural, encouraging the listener to shed all their preoccupations, and sing or dance along with its 12 glorious tracks.

‘Back For Me’ is just a tantalising taste of what we can expect once Plural finally drops February 17.
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