One of the best things to do when you’re cooped up inside is to give new indie music, artists and bands a spin. Many times, or some times (depending), you’ll be surprised how much terrific music and talent there is besides just the music and artists everyone knows already (which gets old fast).
Here we have music from our friends in Europe and across the U.S. The February Top 10 Songs playlist is late, but coming up soon.
Q-Bizm – Toscana, Italy
Bif Naked – Vacouver, British Columbia
Telamor – Boston, Massachusetts
Empty Banks – Paris, France
Philiac – Ibiza, Spain
Q-Bizm – “Warning”
Jazz-rock ensemble Q-Bizm, from Toscana, Italy, has shared some great mixed-genre jazz-rock with us, including the sizzling, if eerily titled, “Warning.”
Now we’d like to switch gears completely and showcase a great chill jazz track from the Italian musician Filippo Gaetani and the band Q-Bizm, who is also a member of the popular Italian indie-rock band SheLoom.
The wonderful jazz-infused rock of “Warning” is impossible to resist thanks to its upbeat and chill feel.
The song was written and produced by Gaetani in Toscana with Thomas Murley assisting on vocals.
The band’s sound and style come from a diverse pot of homegrown funk, progressive rock, spaghetti western, film noir and acid jazz infusions and elements.
As longtime fans of jazz, it’s always nice to be able to sneak in a great track from a band that is not necessarily a rock or pop band, but also not a jazz band. The trio, which also includes guitarist ETN Hunyady and drummer Francesco Corrias first performed music together during the summer of 1996.
In 2003, Q-Bizm managed to record one album in 2003 (Vivid) with saxophonist Alessandro Riccucci, violinist Stefano Lunardi, and keyboard player Francesco Longhi (Dark Quarterer).
Q-Bizm’s musical influences include Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Soullive, Jellyfish, Mezzoforte, Tauk, JagaJazzist, and Goblin.
Bif Naked – “Jim”
In the land north of America, Vancouver’s Bif Naked is known as a gold and platinum-selling rock star and songwriter, best-selling international author, cancer survivor, and one of Canada’s most recognized and well-loved celebrities.
The starlight’s new single, “Jim,” is the first single from her new album Champion.
Musically, the song delivers heavy layers of synths and sweeping rock guitars together with Bif’s impassioned, anthemic vocals -creating a feverish sonic effect.
It’s a song about loss and betrayal, she says – perhaps appropriate for our new world. “It’s about that disillusionment we all feel when someone turns into an imposter.
“It is the quintessential story of discovering a betrayal by ‘Jim,’ who is a villain. The song is totally about pain and facing it head-on.”
The accompanying music video for the single, directed by Doug Fury, features a blazing performance from Bif. For the entirety of her career, Bif has documented her journey in a deeply personal way – covering topics that allow her truths to be a source of empowerment and in alliance with her dedicated fans.
She has a blog on The Huffington Post and is a contributing writer to The Globe & Mail.
Telamor – “Wild Wild Weekend”
Boston musician and songwriter Telamor has been dropping interesting tracks left and right for years.
Telamor’s musical discography features a bunch of albums and songs that range from good ole classic rock to indie pop and borderline alternative rock. His passion for music seems to have no bounds.
His newest track is called “Wild Wild Weekend,” a raucous, energetic track. “In the studio,” he says, “I played the guitars, bass, and drums, and sang all the parts.”
Studio whiz Warren Babson co-produced, mixed, and mastered the track and guitarist Tony Goddess (ex-Papas Fritas), who contributed a killer guitar solo, also joined in. The song was arranged to have an alternative rock/classic rock sound, he says.
“I believe that songs are always works-in-progress and that a good song can be arranged in many different ways,” he adds.
As an example, he believes, every song should be playable with a super-simple “bare-bones arrangement.” There is also an acoustic version of the song recorded on a TASCAM 8-track machine.
Telamor says fans were suggesting he do a “heavier version” of the song. So, he got together with the same crew and re-recorded all the guitar tracks played through a Marshall stack. “Of course we saved Tony’s great solo! We also recorded a new introduction. On March 1, we released “Wild Wild Weekend (Metal Mix).”
“Now my fans have a choice of three different arrangements of “Wild Wild Weekend” – the original rock version, the unplugged version, and the heavy version.”
Empty Banks – “Where We Go”
Paris based/Missouri-raised folk pop singer/songwriter Bryan Taylor‘s new track, “Where We Go” is folk pop with emotions pouring out from the first notes. He records as Empty Banks.
“I often think about relationships from my past and what went wrong in each of them. What went wrong with me, them, or even just the circumstances? ”
“I look at the people that I have been with and I can’t say how lucky I am to have gotten to spend time with some of these amazing girls. But I was hard on them. I want to say it was because I wanted to get the best out of them, but I pushed too hard a lot of the time and wound up just being a dick.”
That is something that many guys wouldn’t say. The Kansas City-born and raised songwriter also found the writing and recording of the song a self-revealing process.
“The only thing I can think that I would ever want to do with my life is some good in the world… to leave it better than it is now,” Taylor says. “There are two ways I am going to do this, inspiring love and understanding through my songs, and making life better or easier for others.”
Taylor’s musical influences include Manchester Orchestra, Rancid, Matt Maeson, KALEO, Noah Kahan, Tom Walker, Pennywise, Dermot Kennedy, Broods, among others. In the past, he has volunteered to build homes in the Philippines for storm-ravaged communities.
Philiac – “Oil Wars”
Broadcasting from the Spanish island of Ibiza, the psych-rock band Philiac‘s new concept album, which they call “peyote rock,” consists of one long 39-minute composition titled “Oil Wars.”
According to the band, the E.P. is meant to be experienced in full, like a movie. The art-rock composition is in fact like a dream, complete with sequences, hallucinations, and nightmarish scenes. Altogether it’s a fantastic sonic journey and aptly fit for the times.
The band says the track “conceptually occurs during the ‘snooze’ period of sleep between alarm clock buzzers. It has been crafted to be a headphone ride on a thoughtfully lucid bad dream.”
The recording session took place at the infamous Rancho de la Luna Studio in Joshua Tree, California, with additional tracks recorded in Nagasaki, Japan, and Ibiza.
Philiac was dropped on Cassette Store Day and the cassette features two-color pad-printing directly onto the cassette shell. Each side holds the complete 39-minute composition of Oil Wars.
