Tag: Music

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Five Days North – Colours (In My Mind)

Five Days North are not strangers to T.A.M. and now they’re back with a new single called Colours (In My Mind), which is totally on brand with the sound of this indie pop band from Manchester, UK. It combines elements of 1980s synth pop with modern indie rock a la The 1975 to delight us with a tune that is cheerful and nostalgic at the same time. The lush synths and  buoyant  guitars set the scene for Darryl Messer‘s vocals to lifts us all with the anthemic chorus.

If you’re a fan of 1980s-infused music, Colours (In My Mind) will be right up your alley. Listen to it below.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Folk/Indie
  • Pop

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Andrew Land – Defects

Andrew Land is a British multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer who was classically trained through his youth and then studied contemporary music on his own. This has resulted in a style of music that combines elements of both approaches, neoclassical music with traces of ambient and electronic sounds. It is not surprising then that one of his main influences is Oláfur Arnalds, who regular visitors should be familiar with. This year, Andrew is releasing his debut album, Relevant Matters, and he has given us some appetizers with a few singles and even an EP: (Making Good) Defects, all recorded and produced by the artist in his home studio in the Midlands, UK.

This EP contains three gorgeous tracks, including two versions of Defects: a stripped down version that you can listen to in the video below, and the regular, more atmospheric version, which you can find in the mixtapes mentioned after the video clip. Both versions are stunning and well worth your time. The track (s) got a cinematic vibe that evokes a feeling of peace and tranquillity. I fell in love with it and, hopefully, you will too.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Relax

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Sultan + Shepard – Assassin

Sultan + Shepard - Assassin

I stumbled upon Sultan + Shepard (not the Australian band Sheppard) when Youtube decided to play this song, Assassin, automatically after it had finished playing another video and I was too busy to stop it. The tune was so good that it grabbed my attention almost immediately even though I was focused on work. It is a charming electronic offering with a synth line you simply cannot get enough of.

Sultan + Shepard are a Canadian duo with several EPs under their names and even collaborations with artists such as Tiësto. They have just released their first full-length album Something, Everything, which includes today’s featured track. Sultan, born Ossama Al Sarraf, lived in Kuwait, Cyprus and Egypt before moving to Montreal in 1996 to study mechanical engineering, where he met Ned Shepard and almost immediately started producing music together.

If you like good, melodic electronic music, you really cannot miss Assassin. You are going to love it.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Electronic

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Mokita & Stand Atlantic – I’m Sorry

To say that I’m Sorry was a catchy song would be a massive understatement. It’s hard not to get hooked with it after just a couple of seconds in. Nashville-based chill-pop singer and producer Mokita wrote it after a conversation with his brother about past relationships and how regretful they felt about mistakes they made. Trying to make it sound even more nostalgic, he decided to make it a duet and managed to convince Bonnie from Stand Atlantic (remember them?) to join forces with him. I’m glad this happened because her voice gives the tune a really nice touch that makes it even more haunting.

Don’t miss this great tune out. It’s really good.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Pop
  • Alternative

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Ashland – In Your Head

If you enjoyed recently featured bands such as Rivals, Monowhales and Fireflight, then you’re in for a treat because Ashland is right there in the same league as those bands, delivering guitar-led tracks with powerful choruses. After flirting with pop in their last full-length album, the extra spare time caused by the pandemic made them go back to their rock roots and return with a new EP, I, that leans more towards rock. In Your Head is exhibit A of that.

A song about how we often make things worse than they are in our own heads, In Your Head is filled with all the repressed energy from a year without proper live gigs. As it must be evident by now, Ashland is a band fully deserving of our attention. Led by such a talented vocalist as Asia Marie Dupuy, they got what it takes to reach new highs after each release.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

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Everything
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Indie
Pop

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The Broken Cradle – Road to Gilead

Gilead may mean, among other things, “hill of testimony” and that is the meaning The Broken Cradle had in mind when he decided to use it as the name of his latest EP. It is supposed to tell the journey of our respective roads to Gilead in our search for happiness and purpose. The EP is a neoclassical and ambient album that starts with the aptly titled Road to Gilead, a piano-centered track with atmospheric pads that create a mesmerizing soundscape. Listening to the multiple textures in the song feels like scratching an itch and not wanting to stop.

The Broken Cradle is the solo work of Eric McLean, a musician from North Carolina with over 20 years of experience. With influences such as Brian Eno and Olafur Arnalds, it is not surprising that his music could fit so well in an album from any of those renowned artists. He is that good.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Chill Out
  • Relax

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Steve Kroeger & Skye Holland – Home

Steve Kroeger is an electronic music composer and producer who has had 5 singles on the Billboard Dance charts. He often teams up with singer-songwriter Skye Holland, as was the case in Home, a chill spellbinding tune that feels like summer. Skye, who got Japanese, Dutch and Canadian roots, started her music career at 10 when she joined a Japanese teen pop group. Her sweet voice shimmers all over this track and complements Steve’s smooth production really well.

Home is the perfect track to listen to when you want to lighten your mood. It’s fun and catchy as hell. As far as house/pop songs go, it cannot get any better than this. Enjoy!

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Pop
  • Electronic

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Couchsleepers – All The Best Intentions

Harrison Wood Hsiang, the Vermont-based songwriter who founded the collective of musicians and artists known as Couchsleepers, is upfront in telling you that he actually makes his living as a neuroscientist. After all, it comes up in everything that is written about his band. I can imagine that it could get really tiring, but, at the same time, I can’t blame the people writing those articles. It’s actually a pretty cool fact. He formed Couchsleepers in 2019 during the third year of his graduate studies because he needed a way to express all his creativity. Fast-forward to 2021 and they have received hundreds of thousands of streams and even one fan with a Couchsleepers tattoo. Not bad at all.

All The Best Intentions is the band’s latest single. It’s a song about that feeling we get when we’re about to do something that we know we shouldn’t do but want to anyway. Melodically, it has a really strong Snow Patrol vibe and all the ingredients it needs to become a hit with the right marketing (I know, easier said than done). At the very least, it will help Harrison and Coachsleepers to keep growing their audience organically. I, for one, am now intrigued by the great music they have yet to release.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Folk/Indie

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The Wallflowers – Three Marlenas

You might have heard this week’s news on The Wallflowers releasing their first album in 9 years next month. They even released its lead single already, which is okay, I guess, but nothing to write home about. While I’m not a die-hard fan of Jakob Dylan‘s band (I wasn’t even aware they had made an album in the last decade), they do have some really great songs that were very popular during the The Wallflower‘s heyday. Their most famous –and probably best– song is One Headlight, which won two Grammys and became the first song to top all three of Billboard‘s rock charts: modern rock, mainstream and adult alternative.

All that being said, I do have a soft spot for a far more modest single from the same Bringing Down The Horse album: Three Marlenas. It peaked at number 51 on the Hot 100 chart and is not the song most people immediately think about when they hear this band’s name, but it is that song for me. Take a walk with me down memory lane with this week’s #ThrowbackThursday song.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative

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Twenty One Pilots – Trees

"Trees" by Twenty One Pilots

You can love them or hate them, but you can’t deny Twenty One Pilots is one of the biggest musical acts out there. They hit it big in 2015 with their album Blurryface, and basically every single song they have released since then has become a success. Until not that long ago, I thought that record was their debut album, but as you probably know, I was very wrong: it was their third. In 2019, I decided to watch some of the performances from that year’s Reading Festival on video-on-demand, which included this musical duo from Columbus, Ohio. That was the first time I listened to “Trees,” a little gem from their second album, Vessel (2013), and that they used to close their show. They put on an amazing spectacle performing this track then and it blew me away. It immediately became a #musicalcrush.

Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunn are releasing a new album, Scaled And Icy, in May. While we wait for it, please enjoy this week’s #ThrowbackThursday entry: Trees.

Featured on the following mixtapes:

  • Everything
  • Alternative
  • Pop