As we slowly and carefully emerge, the newest batch of 2020 indie songs we’re listening to include the following artists, and most especially the newest from Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien. The full playlist for all of the songs in this post is featured at the end of the post for uninterrupted streaming. Please like and share this post (Like and follow on FB and Instagram )
EOB – London, England – “Olympik”
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – Los Angeles, California – “Phenom”
State to State – Los Angeles, California – “Undead Love”
Grenon – Manchester, New Hampshire – “Imaginary Friends”
Alec Danger – Helsinki, Finland – “Ghost Notes”
Coming Up Next: Dream Pop Artists; IRC Indie Rock Showcase Hour; Top 10 and more album reviews from talented and exciting artists and bands you’ve probably never heard of before.
EOB – “Olympik”
EOB is the solo project of Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien who released his debut album Earth recently, featuring the new single “Olympik” that has a Zooropa-era U2 vibe.
He also recently shared the nine-minute long “Brasil,” via a video/short film. The song also featured Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood, as well as drummer Omar Hakim and The Invisible’s guitarist David Okumu.
The was recorded in Wales and London and also features Laura Marling, Portsihead’s Adrian Utley, bassist Nathan East, and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche.
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – “Phenom”
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down’s new album Temple spawned the latest single and video “Phenom.” The video was shot via Zoom and features Thao Nguyen and various dancers broadcasting from their homes.
A regular music video was originally scheduled to be shot in late March but the covid-19 outbreak forced the team to improvise. Erin Murray co-directed and choreographed the video along with Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux and producer Victoria Fayad.
Nguyen issued this press release statement about the “Phenom” video: “We were due to shoot the video for ‘Phenom’ with Erin and Victoria in L.A. in late March. That shoot was of course rightfully canceled in mid-March, and the fate of any kind of video and release of ‘Phenom’ was very much in question.”
State to State – “Undead Love”
The new single, “Undead Love,” from the Los Angeles atmospheric alt. rock band State to State, is the latest booming track from the fairly popular southern California outfit.
The band was met with almost instant success thanks to their first hit singles “We Are The Reckless,” (featured on The Howard Stern Show) and “Get Away”, which spent seven weeks at #1 on LA’s legendary rock station, KROQ.
Another track, “The Shifter” is a crowd favorite and has some likeness you could say to the newest single.
Before the days of Covid-19, S2S sold out shows at the Troubadour and The Roxy and held residencies at The Hotel Café and The Viper Room. They also toured on the final Vans Warped Tour and appeared Milwaukee’s Summerfest.
Grenon – “Imaginary Friends”
Punk inspired pop-rock band Grenon consists of a rag-tag bunch of teenagers from Manchester, New Hampshire that says they suffer from “too many feelings”. That’s hard to tell on the new upbeat-sounding DIY pop single, “Imaginary Friends.” The band says the song is an “anthem for the lonely.”
The band is Kacie Grenon (lead vocals/guitar); Nick Turgeon (lead guitar, vocals); Zachary Stone (drums), and Spencer Gregory (bass, keys, vocals).
The single is the advanced track from the band’s upcoming five-song debut EP, mental hell[th]™, is set to drop in a few weeks.
It’s “edgy wholesome vibes” are likely to appeal to an indie rock audience that likes unabashed celebration and embrace of rock and pop sounds.
The song was released earlier this month, the band says, in conjunction with Mental Health Awareness month.
Alec Danger – “Ghost Notes”
A cosmic musiconaut residing somewhere between Helsinki & Berlin, Finnish musician Alec Danger operates at a rare intersection between prog rock, 80s-influenced pop, and electronic music.
With a sharp focus on the lyrics, he touches on themes such as the bleak and silenced nuances of human relations, anxiety, dystopian/utopian future visions & the dangers of the information technology. In addition to a failing marriage, Danger heart-broken and searching, wrote the new single “Ghost Notes.”
“I think the movie Her had a big influence on me as well as Orwell’s 1984. Back in those days, I felt like I had little control over my own life, neither in terms of technology, nor relationships, so I was mixing these themes while writing.”
The song started with a bass riff that he says “provided the harmonic frame” while the piano motif was built around the chorus. “It was originally just a power chord piano sample,” he adds.
At Kaiku Studios, in Berlin, he was “around the owners and industry stalwarts, Jonas Verwijnen and Janne Lounatvuori, and their support and advice helped me a great deal during the process. As a result, I cut out unnecessary parts of the song, worked on the structure & started using better, high-quality plugins.”
He also had access to vintage analog synths like the Roland RS09, Korg Trident, Roland Paraphonic 505 & Moog Taurus Bass Pedals.
“I thought that once I was in Berlin, I would be going all techno and using a lot of software but it turned out the other way around.”
Russell Ockmond and his wife are The Goldilocks Enigma, a musical ministry of sorts they say.
Their hippie-like new song, “Free Will Isn’t Free” is from a personal perspective of being outside and looking in on the current state of our world.
“Although humanity touts their superiority over the beasts of the field, we aim to wield our personal desire to be free to make any choices while discounting their obvious endings,” says Ockmond.
The single was recorded in southeastern Louisiana in a home studio with traditional stringed electric and acoustic guitars, bass, and drums using Sonar Platinum as the main DAW and mastered with Ozone 9 within Soundforge 13. It is just one of a 13-track album the duo plan to release soon.
“TGE stays away from utilizing auto tune although it can be tempting to ‘perfect’ our vocals we would like to keep the human feel of being sung in a shower, on a train, in a field, on a plane,” Ockmond says.
