Pumarosa
Info: Whilst all of our collections of tracks from around the globe are special, this one has had me particularly excited. Opening with an absolute stonker of a single from London band Pumarosa, 'Barefoot', which comes from their debut album Witches, released in May, I stumbled across it on SoundCloud recently and have been hooked ever since. It's easily one of my favourite singles of the year so far and thankfully they play The Workman's Club in Dublin on the 24th of November, REMY will be there.
Oslo electronic duo Sgrow, Vilde Ilkama Nupen (vox and electronics) and Kristoffer Lislegaard (electronics and baritone guitar) bring us a beast of an industrial electronic track in the shape of 'Feel Something'. It's a feast of glitchy electronic mania, dub house beats with no rhyme or reason, and it's completely gorgeous.
We jet off to the Southern Hemisphere next and to Siobhan Sainte's new single, 'Burn It Down'. The New Zealand solo act nails an aggressively delivered mix of indie and synth-pop, where others would sugar-coat their pop sensibilities and play it safe by falling into only one of those genres, Sainte pulls no punches, and it's most refreshing.
Gordi - Heaven I Know
In preparation for the recent Forbidden Fruit Festival in Dublin I ran a series of posts for each of the festival's three days. Genre-wise it was a festival that I wouldn't be overly familiar with in terms of some of the more experimental electronic artists. My own taste lent me to be more leaning towards the final day, and one of the acts I was particularly determined to see was Sydney's Gordi, after listening to her earlier single 'Can't We Work It Out'. Gordi played the main stage on the day curated by Bon Iver, who I have long been a fan of.
With a gaggle of other (actual professional!) photographers who seemed unsure of which stage to go to next I mentioned we should get down to the main stage from the Irish-only tent (which we had been patriotically using as a hub for the weekend), and check out Gordi, I'm not blowing my own trumpet here but it was a good call! She was definitely one of the show stoppers on the main stage over the three days, unassuming in terms of setup, but delivering a memorable set, no need for bells and whistles here. Anyway, enough gushing, Gordi's latest single and accompanying video for 'Heaven I Know' will sit very well with fans of Justin Vernon's music and it would be great if she returned to Ireland soon for a show in a smaller venue.
Sudan Archives
From Cincinnati but currently based in Los Angeles, comes another zinger from Sudan Archives, 'Come Meh Way', a prime example of the potentially glorious outcomes that can occur when old world music naturally collides and fuses with modern sounds. Violinist and singer-songwriter Sudan effortlessly joins East with West on her single, which my only complaint about is that I could listen to its two and a half minutes multiplied by three at least, that short but pointed violin sequence is most fetching.
A complete shot in the dark comes from Caroline Says, presumably in homage to Lou Reed! Her track 'Winter Is Cold' has already featured on Pitchfork, who praised the fact that there was no intention to avoid or skirt away from her influences or hide them from view, but rather, embrace them, and convert them to something original and new, and there's a very faint nod to Sufjan Stevens in her guitar playing too.
Channeling a contemporary interpretation of Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights', we return to Oslo once again with Susanne Sundfør's soulful and arresting single 'Undercover', a modern reworking of the age-old Italian opera, Sundfør whisks us through piano-laden drama and a bracing finale on a track that will feature on her upcoming album, Music For People In Trouble which is due for release on the 25th of August.
Sydney's Joel Stein, guitarist with Howling Bells, strikes out on his own as solo act Glassmaps, with single 'Summer Rain', a bone fide honky tonk electric blues riff provides the charge that accompanies a vocal that could have turned up at Sun Studios, Tennessee a few decades ago and been delivered through a vintage Shure microphone.
We close with some wonderfully plonky and breezy indie-pop courtesy L.A.'s Sure Sure and their track 'Friends' and one of my favourite international pop acts of the last year, Brooklyn funk-pop duo Secret Weapons. Their latest single 'Ghost' is incredibly catchy and just as importantly has mass appeal, snappy, funk-laden bass-lines and pitch-perfect classic pop vox create a super-swinging groove, damn fine stuff.
Listen to Issue #8 of our best of independent International Playlist right here http://thebestofmusicandfilm.blogspot.ie/2017/06/playlist-remys-best-of-international.html
Listen to Issue #8 of our best of independent International Playlist right here http://thebestofmusicandfilm.blogspot.ie/2017/06/playlist-remys-best-of-international.html
