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Interviews
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Exclusives
Best of ...
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Playlists
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Showing posts from December, 2022

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2022 [Singles]

on December 28, 2022

2022 best of Blue Violet Chloe Lorentzen Death Of The High Street Dictator Greysha Lizzie Esau Metric Minerva Daisy Nice Guy retrospective Serotones Ten Hands High

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2022 [Albums]

on December 23, 2022

2022 Album Alela Diane best of +5 Dictator First Aid Kit Joan Shelley retrospective Tove Lo William The Conqueror Wyldest Yumi and the Weather

2022 Album Alela Diane best of Dictator First Aid Kit Joan Shelley retrospective Tove Lo William The Conqueror Wyldest Yumi and the Weather

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Tove Lo: Dirt Femme [Album]

on December 11, 2022

Album alt-pop alternative +0 Tove Lo

Album alt-pop alternative Tove Lo

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New release horizon scanner:

11/1/25 - Rosie Gault: Dim lights
29/1/25 - Dictator: Middle of the road (EP)
7/2/25 - Arliston: Disappointment machine (Album)
28/2/25 - Hachiku: The joys of being pure at heart (Album(

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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...

Peggy Sue: The Tin, Coventry [Live]

Finding myself in Coventry for a couple of days last week, I was naturally frantically googling for live music events happening nearby - and lo and behold, a gig from Peggy Sue only a few minutes walk away. They're a Brighton-based duo (Rosa Slade and Katy Young - also found in Deep Throat Choir), often joined by other individuals, and playing as a four-piece this time. They've been widely played on BBC Radio 6Music (you've probably heard 'In Dreams' there), and have supported some pretty big names - including First Aid Kit, and Mumford & Sons - over the years. It happened at The Tin , a music and arts venue located in the city's Canal Basin area. The main music space was being refurbished, so the gig was located in one of community spaces instead - but this was no bad thing, and turned out to be a happy accident. The space felt like a living room at a house party; carpeted floor; no stage risers, just an area of floor; and the bar was a few fridges behind a...

IDLES: NPR Tiny Desk

NPR (which nominally stands for National Public Radio, but is now so much more than that) has been putting on it's Tiny Desk concerts since 2008 (the history of these intimate, eclectic concerts, according to Wikipedia , is worth reading). Over the years, NPR has amassed an amazing back catalogue of performances by big name and lesser-known artists, from across the world. You could spend months, at least, trawling the playlists . And I highly recommend that you do. But before that, have a listen to some of the gigs that I'm picking out for this mini-series. During lockdown, NPR pivoted to Tiny Desk (Home) concerts, with the artists really stepping up to provide some memorable live moments. They've also collaborated with SXSW to produce some incredible genre-bending performances. I'll post about at least one of each of these performances this week. Before I get to my first highlight, I've got to mention one particular thing that stands out to me about Tiny Desk: th...

The Music Observer 10: The top singles of 2024

It’s the final instalment of the Music Observer 10 for 2024: here are the songs that meant the most to me this year… THE MUSIC OBSERVER 10: Singles Andrea von Kampen - A Fox, A Bird Ben Mark Smith - Afire Ber - Room for You Beren Olivia - Almost Carla Aakre - Through Hannah Grae - Need Me Now philine - your house, my house Tinlicker feat. CLOVES - Who I'm Not renforshort / PJ Harding - buried alive Youth Lagoon - Lucy Takes a Picture To read all the details including my honourable mentions, please visit my Substack site: musicobserved.substack.com Please subscribe - it's free, takes a moment and you won't miss any posts in future :-)

Thyla: Everything

Sometimes when things become too much, you're trapped, and it all just seems to be falling down around your ears - sometimes, somehow, amid all of that, you find the inner strength to say: you know what, to hell with it all. That's the feeling which Thyla manage to capture, masterfully, in their blast of a song, 'Everything'. This is one of those tracks that showed up uninvited one day and burrowed its way firmly into my life, so much so that I now can't live without it. It features as the fourth and final track on Thyla's 2020 EP, 'Everything at Once' (not their latest offering - they released an incredible new single called Gum on 3 September which definitely should be on your playlist). The fact I'm focusing on this one song here is no reflection on the rest of the EP. In my view, the record in its entirety is really good, and I absolutely recommend that you listen to it all (many timges preferably!). One reason is so that you hear Everything i...