LISTEN: Lizzie Reid - 'Love Of Her Life'

Well this is all sorts of beautiful, isn't it?! Love Lizzie Reid, and chuffed that she's got a new EP on the way. Releasing via sevenfoursevensix on August 31st, it's called Mooching and I can't wait to give it a listen. Opener Love Of Her Life is a slow-burning delight. Really special. Those guitars are lush, but it's Lizzie's vocals that completely transfix. It's a double Lizzie week too, as she's on the new Jake Whiskin track, Drive You Home, which is just as brill. 

On Love Of Her Life, Lizzie shares: "At the time I wrote the song, I felt like I was looking at heartbreak from a new and less naive perspective. But now I have a bit of distance on it, I can see I was still carrying a lot of baggage. For example, when I say 'I don't mind', I see now that I clearly do mind - but I have a different way of confronting my emotions." 

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WATCH: Wyldest - 'Tin Foil Girl'

Wyldest is back with Tin Foil Girl, the latest single from her upcoming album Feed The Flowers Nightmares, arriving via Hand in Hive on 9th September. One of my favourites from her so far, I reckon... catchy and empowering - the perfect combination. Not gonna lie, the video for this one has me kind of transfixed too, and makes me want to dig out all of my skateboarding games. Directed by Zak Watson, it showcases Wyldest (Zoë Mead) celebrating the joy of skateboarding alongside a community of skaters. 

On the track, Wyldest says that it is "about finding your own superpower to achieve a real state of flow and what I'm coining 'organic happiness.' The kind of happiness that can only be achieved by doing something active rather than passive, activities that truly encourage growth. 

Having dealt with more anxiety than ever in the past few years, I've really had to battle this temptation for 'quick fix' happiness, as it doesn't last and it can sometimes lead to worsened problems. I'm not particularly good at skateboarding, but it is therapy for me. I use it as a way of getting out of dark places and it works because I have no ego attached to it."

Wyldest will be performing for Rough Trade in London, Nottingham and Bristol in September to launch their exclusive silver edition vinyl, ahead of a UK headline tour through the rest of September. Dates and tickets here.

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LISTEN: Siv Jakobsen - 'Birthday'

With my birthday impending next week, it'd be rude not to share a track called Birthday... right? I was delighted to see Siv Jakobsen was returning last month, and when I'm just about getting over the stunner Most Of The Time she's back with another new track. Aaaaaaaagh. Brilliant - and relatable - as ever! She's also sharing details of three UK/EU shows this September, including London's The Slaughtered Lamb on 29th. 

On the track, Siv shares: "I imagine a vast pool of ended relationships where both parties sit at their own gloomy ends, greatly disliking or even hating the other. I wanted to write a song with this in mind, that there are often two deflated and angry hearts involved, both feeling the same anger, the same sadness.

The song is also a retrospective look at a hard time in my life - my 25th birthday - with a strong realisation that I would never want to go back, no matter the circumstances. To me it encapsulates a mutual feeling of wasted effort and time toward something that was doomed to fail from the beginning." 

Siv Jakobsen · Birthday

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LISTEN: Siv Jakobsen - 'Most of the Time'

Rejoice, Siv Jakobsen is back! It feels like forever ago when I was falling in love with the tracks from A Temporary Soothing (definitely soothing, but not temporary, it turns out). The Norwegian singer-songwriter is back with a song about wanting to forget, and there is plenty more music on the way. Phew. I was in love with this campaign before I'd even clicked play on the track - Siv amongst sunflowers with bright dungarees on? This couldn't be more *my* thing if it tried! The track is a stunner too. Of course. 

Having spent much of her life on the road previously, Siv spent time in her homeland since the last record, reconnecting with her origins - which included visiting a city that she used to live in many years ago, a visit which inspired the new track. "I knew that in going there it might awaken some difficult memories, but I was completely taken aback by how intensely I felt pulled back into who I was and how I felt all those years ago. I realised I had some unpacking to do, so that I could begin to properly come to terms with and understand those memories."

"Most Of The Time is about not being able to forget a particularly difficult relationship from my past. When left undealt with, the memories seemed to heighten in my sleep, in my subconscious, day and night, almost as if I was being haunted. It's about how our past affects our future, how it can affect our personalities morphing into someone slightly different. Being back in this place again after such a long time was a much greater shock to my system than I would have ever thought it could be, and it forced me to unbox a lot of things I thought I had safely stored away in the back corners of my mind. In the end, it's about reminding myself that I am feeling better now, most of the time."

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LISTEN: Rachel Sermanni - 'Aquarium Kisses'

How about some folk-y heaven for your midweek (ish) listening pleasure? Rachel Sermanni is back, and she's got an EP on the way, with some of her "silliest" songs to date. Cannot wait! For now, here is Aquarium Kisses, the first track from Every Swimming Pool Runs to the Sea, due June 16th. While the previous EP was written whilst pregnant, made up of four darker tracks which explored the anxieties of balancing motherhood with her career, the new EP is "the light to the previous EP's shadow." Let the new track wash over you... it's a stunner. 

Talking about the track, Rachel shares: "I woke from a dream where an old school friend had led me into a huge aquarium. More like a building with glass, water, and tropical fish for walls. In the glow, we kissed. It was a lovely, playful, sensual dream. This is where the song begins. As is obvious. Each verse that follows is an ode to a past lover. The reasons I loved them, little moments and memories. It has a nostalgic feeling for me which then comes to the present moment with the chorus words (written by Richard Walters) where I hold the hand of my now love. I believe that the chorus and the presence of another's hand in mind is more symbolic." 

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ALBUM NEWS: Jemima Coulter - 'Grace After A Party'

It's shaping up to be a pretty great week (month?) for new music, if a little overwhelming... there's a new Maggie Rogers track in my inbox for starters (yep, I could cry) but today I'm ready to get excited over this gem (you're welcome) from Jemima Coulter. One half of Hailaker, and a collaborator of Novo Amor, S Carey and more, this is their first solo outing and I am thrilled!!! Debut single SST arrives alongside news of the album Grace After A Party, due via Hand In Hive on 29th July. You can pre-save/pre-order the record here.

SST sees Jemima telling the story of somebody who has a fever and, in their ill haze, joins the circus - introducing what is to be the basis of the record, the circus and the clown. They explain "the character I sing about in 'SST' leaves their old life with the clarity that the illness gave them, suddenly free from all of the reason that says that it's a stupid and dangerous idea."

"I wanted to capture the feeling of someone wandering unburdened by the expectations of traditional society and escaping to another kind of life and yet also only doing that because they're out of their mind - crazy enough to know what they really want. It's like the classic 'leaving home to achieve my dreams with nothin but a dime' storyline but I guess pointing out how unsafe that is in this financially-orientated world that doesn't give a f-ck about your dreams so you'd only really do it if you were ill." 

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LISTEN: Lizzie Reid - 'Bible'

Happy Wondrous Place day, folks... Paddy from Stay Loose has made the exciting move to set up his own PR agency which launches today!!! I'm excited for him, and to see what brilliant music he continues to share with us all. That rambling is mostly to say that I'm sharing one of Paddy's artists today, the brilliant Lizzie Reid, who has shared her first new material since the Cubicle EP of last year. The EP, which explored the deterioration of Lizzie's first same-sex relationship, saw her gaining much deserved love from press, radio and streaming, and led to her supporting Arlo Parks on a couple of tour dates in Glasgow and Edinburgh. I love it!

On Bible, for which Lizzie worked with her regular collaborator and producer Oli Barton-Wood, she shares: "Bible is about being nervous about falling in love again. I was feeling something, and that scared me. I wanted to get things right this time, be important to someone, and not to bring my anxieties into the picture. Becoming involved with someone tends to bring up things within yourself. It holds a mirror up and forces me to look at myself through someone else's eyes."

Lizzie Reid · Bible

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