It’s hard to believe another year is almost over. The best new indie and DIY songs for December 2019 include tracks from indie rock artists and bands from places as far away as Sweden and Ukraine and as close to home as Connecticut and Ontario. Happy Holdays and don’t miss our alt/indie Christmas songs playlists.
Rvana Shmata – Kyiv, Ukraine
Ali Hugo – Toronto, Ontario
Mårten Lärka – Jättendal, Sweden
FatGrip Band – Hartford, Connecticut
Jody Cooper – Leipzig, Germany
The Kyiv based duo, Rvana Shmata, perform a genre of rock they call ‘Rawk,’ which means raw rock. This is indeed the case on the duo’s new raunchy noise rock single, “Well Hello.”
The track has gained traction in Ukraine and beyond since its initial release. The drums are powerful and almost overwhelming while the bass skims along with electric guitar in tow, but further down on the noise register, which is an interesting choice that creates a unique effect.
The song’s rhythm is really interesting and the vocals from multi-instrumentalists Max Prudeus (bass guitar, keyboards) and Andrew Zakharin (drums, backing vocals) are intense; even a bit evil, hoping along the smoking guitars.
One of the band’s branding efforts, you could say, is Rvana Shmata’s announcement earlier this year that all of their music videos “will be connected into the single story,” which they will continue to label as Episodes. The videos will all be based in the fictional city of Shmatville.
On Halloween eve the band dropped, ‘Episode One’, which is actually a teaser video for their first music video in which a news reporter announces two famous fictional musicians had been kidnapped.
Last month Rvana Shmata released Episode 2 – their first official music video. In that video, the story goes a bit deeper into the actual kidnapping of the musicians. The soundtrack to the video is “Well Hello.”
While the brand new eccentric single, “Marching Saints,” from Canadian artist Ali Hugo may not have much to do with marching, or perhaps even saints, the track echoes the quirky sounds and vocals of made famous by British pop of days of old, but in a totally unique way.
Together with his unconventional, raspy – perhaps even childish – vocals and a steady romp of percussions, Hugo may not have any trouble appealing to the outer limits of the indie spectrum.
The track is the lead single from Hugo’s upcoming new album, Hope For the Meek. A Toronto-based singer/songwriter and professional multi-instrumentalist by trade, Hugo released his 10-track solo debut, Tears Of A Broken Heart, back in 2015 (featured on IRC).
Hugo is credited with all of the writing, arranging, producing and recording of instruments, plus mixing and mastering of the final tracks.
In 2015, he had “adopted the DIY approach to making music” and released an instrumental album, New Generation Farahan.
A single from the album, “Tears Of A Broken Heart” was popular on world music radio charts. But a disagreement with a label led Hugo to plan the newest release on his own indie label, Belief Records.
“I keep reminding myself that I’m only human and this DIY approach has its limits,” Hugo says. “I mean I’m still obligated to promote ‘Time Machine’ especially now that it is picking up in Honduras, Turkey, and Japan.”
“But I’m also receiving pressure from my hardcore fans to announce the expected date for the release of my new album. “That’s why my team and I decided that we should at least have the first single out by this Christmas.” Mission accomplished and a solid single to go out front with.
Hugo started his professional singing career at the age of eight when he joined the family band LEO as the lead singer. After high school, he completed the recording of his debut. He recorded at Toronto studios including Metal Works Studios and Studio 9. He graduated with honors from the University of Bedfordshire in England.
Ali Hugo Instagram
Underground Swedish songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Mårten Lärka just released his first album in English after nearly two decades of building his reputation as a solo artist. Previously, he released albums only in Swedish and French.
His new proto-punk-leaning single, “You’re Gonna Sing My Songs,” was written in fifteen minutes while sitting in a garden.
Within less than two months, Lärka says, the single was produced, recorded, mastered and released – one of his “quickest productions ever.” Percussionist Martin Hellquist played drums, bass, and backing vocals while Anders “Bodinrocker” Bodin managed the lead guitar work.
Produced by The Banana Boys, the single was recorded at Henhouse Studio; mixed by Caroline Wickberg at Welfare Turquoise Floor and mastered by Frida Claeson Johansson at Svenska Grammofonstudion.
The song has a bit of the sound of a Stiff Records’ single circa 1978. A quite persistent song.
Lärka has opened for artists such as Stefan Sundström, Britta Persson, Anders F Rönnblom, Eldkvarn, SHIMA, and is most influenced musically by Jacques Brel and Chuck Berry. (The Sweds have had a love affair with the godfather of rock – Berry – since the early 1960s)
https://facebook.com/martenlarka
Rock Revivalists with great vocals, catchy singable songs, Marshall amplified guitars and drum/bass grooves return with it’s newest single “Name In Lights” from their anticipated new album of the same name.
“The inspiration for our new song and video is simply the struggle to achieve some success yet still thinking of what could have been had things worked out from the past. The video highlights the drummers thoughts of the past, the work put in and now achieving success but in a different way with a new band this time.”
Connecticut rock band from the Hartford area, concentrating on writing catchy radio-friendly music and memorable live performances. Sounds like a cross
The trio is vocalist and guitarist Jimmy Sixx, bassist and vocalist Matty Whitepants and drummer Jimmy “Sly” Petano.
Your favorite rockers from West Hartford perfoming a wide variety music for the occasion from music showcases showing off their radio-friendly originals to Party Rock Favorites for your local Club/Bar venue.
Over past decade became one of the most popular new punk bands in Hartford.
The band members’ biggest influences are Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Green Day, Weezer, and The Beatles.
German multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Jody Cooper has many guises. His songs reflect a love for experimental music and melodies.
Many of his musical tastes and preferences were influenced by his parents’ record collection. They owned vinyls upon vinyls of artists and bands from The Beatles to Kraftwerk; The Who to Crowded House, and Elton John to Mike Oldfield.
His new single, “Song for the Oppressed (Cruelty Dies),” together with the new music video, is dark and authoritative – fairly well done for a DIY low budget video.
Inspired by the great songwriters of the past, Cooper’s music combines his distinctive voice with powerful lyrics that “look beyond the surface, to tackle the reality of things and the uncomfortable truths they tell,” he says.
In 2017, he released his crowd-funded and ‘most ambitious project to date’ – a concept album, Serenades & Odes to a Cracked World (Part 1), full of themes of disintegration combated with integration.
“With everything that’s happening in the world,” he says, “the time has come for people to start engaging with the problems around them in an attempt to make a positive change. This album is my attempt.”
His lyrics “look beyond the surface, to tackle the reality of things and the uncomfortable truths they
tell,” he says.
Cooper had the unusual experience of growing up an English boy in a rural northern Scotland town.
“As a child, people would look at me strangely because I spoke ‘funny’,” he says, adding, “so I learned to embrace that and combine it with my love of performing in order to feel accepted.”
Cooper earned a degree in music at the University of Liverpool and released his first album in 2007. He has toured Europe and also worked with artists like Seal and Jon Bon Jovi. He moved to Leipzig, Germany a few years ago to work on his new album.
https://facebook.com/jodycoopermusic