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Enjoying established acts | Championing new and independent artists | Event promotions | Press kits, demos, EPKs, press passes, tickets etc. welcome: therealmusicobserver (at) gmail (dot) com

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Showing posts from July, 2021

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Dictator: Mirror Mirror

on July 30, 2021

alternative Dictator electronic indie Scotland

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The Felice Brothers: Inferno

on July 26, 2021

alternative American folk roots The Felice Brothers

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Kitty Macfarlane: Folk by the Oak [Live]

on July 22, 2021

festival folk Folk by the Oak IWD Kitty Macfarlane live music

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Katherine Priddy: Folk by the Oak [Live]

on July 20, 2021

festival folk Folk by the Oak IWD Katherine Priddy live music

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The Lumineers: NPR Tiny Desk

on July 12, 2021

American folk online roots The Lumineers Tiny Desk

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Joan Shelley: NPR Tiny Desk

on July 07, 2021

folk IWD Joan Shelley online Tiny Desk

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IDLES: NPR Tiny Desk

on July 05, 2021

IDLES online punk rock Tiny Desk

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New release horizon scanner:

21/11 - Fake Dad: ON/OFF
21/11 - Ellur: Yellow light
22/11 - Krooked Tongue: Ember mile
29/11 - Moletrap: Rhagofn
6/12 - Lee J Toby: Roll with the waves
6/12 - Lauren Mayberry: Vicious creature (Album)
29/1/25 - Dictator: Middle of the road (EP)

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Popular Posts

The Felice Brothers + Anthony D'Amato: Electric Ballroom, London [Live]

There’s a special kind of atmosphere in Camden tonight. Yes, in many ways it’s the same old vibrant, restless, gritty and cool-meets-tourist-tacky Camden, but inside the Electric Ballroom we feel a distinctly North American air, too. Accompanying The Felice Brothers on tour is Anthony D’Amato , a New Jersey singer-songwriter with an infectious smile and a keen, yearning voice. He’s performing solo, armed only with a guitar and a great sense of humour, dry and self-deprecating yet always positive at the core. His music is straightforward in some ways, but the storytelling is clever and often involves interesting characterisation or intriguing metaphors. “It’s a bit of a strange week to be an American,” he tells us with a resigned grin, setting expectations immediately before launching into the overt ‘C'mon Armageddon’. It's heavy in terms of subject matter, but performed with such cheer and engagement that the mood is lifted immediately. 'Passing Through' is amusing but

Bottlemoth: Even Us Ghosts [Album]

Updated 8th November to include video Given the whole point of this blog is to write words about music, sometimes finding the right language proves really hard. There sometimes just don't seem to be enough adjectives in English. Bottlemoth have produced a debut album which has posed me a few problems in that regard. They're a fresh five-piece band with plenty of experience having been formed in January 2024 by the former members of Bridges 'Even Us Ghosts' was released on 18th October to stream, of course, and also on gorgeous-looking limited edition vinyl (links below). It's a 10-track record which encompasses all Bottlemoth stand for, musically: elements of timeless yet modern indie-folk, crisp pop/alt-rock drum production, warm Americana inflections, sublime vocals... That's quite a few adjectives already. 'Landslides (People Change)' opens the proceedings: a brief burst of ambient sound, and then straight in with soft but firmly-hitting guitars and

Amber Saqladi: Becoming a modern-day Siren [Interview]

Amber Saqladi began her journey as a song-writer scribbling poetry at age seven, before graduating to writing songs with a felt-tipped pen on sheets of A3 paper. But it took some time for this pastime to evolve into a way of life. "It's always been something I've done but it was never anything I really took seriously growing up. I was a very academic kid, so that's what I expected to do," Amber explains. By 15, though, she had started writing music more seriously, and gigging. "Since then, it's become undeniable that that's the thing I enjoy the most - being able to be creative, and be academic at the same time," she says. Amber quickly established herself as a familiar name on the music scene in her home town of Leicester, where she also recorded her first three singles at HQ Studios . "The music scene in Leicester is absolutely lovely - it's very community based. I can always count on the other musicians there to support me, and I

Girl Scout: Headache [EP]

Since the Covid lockdown finally ended, Sweden's Girl Scout have been bashing out alt-rock songs which are raw but refined; in-your-ears and satisfying, but with well-crafted complications. On the one hand, they've got power chords perfectly sussed out; but they don't stop there, adding in almost mathematical riffs and beats. That's what elevates Girl Scout's music well beyond the usual guitar-based post-grunge, without losing the core of their garage-nurtured sound. There's great musicianship, but they've still got soul, plenty of soul. The 'Headache' EP – the band's second – is a five-track collection of those kinds of songs, peaking with 'I Just Needed You To Know' at position four on the record. This has to be my favourite Girl Scout track. It's a non-stop blast, the band going at it with full energy, manipulating guitar strings with jaw-dropping panache. Despite that intense energy which presses steadily forward like a sharp, ur

Dolores Forever: Rough Trade East, London [Live]

At the end of September, Dolores Forever released one of the very best albums of the year so far, their debut 'It's Nothing'. I'll shamelessly quote myself here: "The record is richly modern and at the same time soaked in a 1980s vibe. It’s Ataris and Roland synths, plugged into a modern, forward-looking digital interface. Transistor punk, perhaps? Lyrically, the songs in this collection are very clear, with plenty of brilliant one-liners and metaphors forming a close-to tangible imagery" (read more over on CLASH ). I've been genuinely excited about this band and the album really cemented my belief in them. But I'd not heard them live (although I'd seen and heard plenty of good reports) until last week when I caught their album launch / in-store at Rough Trade East. I expected a stripped back show, but this was a full band performance, albeit a short one. They played all but two of the new album's songs (I really missed 'Grace', one o

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