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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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The Music Observer 10: Artists to watch in 2022

on December 29, 2021

2021 2022 Arcade State best of Carpark Crawlers Eleri Angharad Jen Dixon Little Comets MarthaGunn music Pillow Queens The Crayon Set The Wind and the Wave

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2021 [Singles]

on December 23, 2021

2021 best of BLAB Chloe Lorentzen Conscious Route Dictator Five O Fives Gefahrgeist Greysha MEMES retrospective The Florentinas The Howl and the Hum Wet Leg

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2021 [EPs]

on December 22, 2021

2021 Alice Robbins best of Bleach Lab Charity Stow EP Graywave Holly Humberstone JJ Lovegrove Lossline music retrospective Soot Sprite Swim School Thyla

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2021 [Albums]

on December 20, 2021

2021 Album best of Chvrches Cloves Dry Cleaning Halsey IDLES Katherine Priddy music retrospective Soda Blonde The Felice Brothers William The Conqueror Wolf Alice

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Ozric Tentacles + Silas & Saski: The Musician, Leicester [Live]

on December 13, 2021

Charles electronic instrumental live music Ozric Tentacles psychedelic space rock

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Arcade State: Silence

on December 10, 2021

alt-rock alternative Arcade State electronic Glasgow indie Mind Aid Scotland

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Black Foxxes + Jools: Boston Music Room, London [Live]

on December 06, 2021

Black Foxxes emo grunge indie Jools Leicester live music London post-punk

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Gefahrgeist (feat. Conscious Route): Orbit

on December 04, 2021

alt-pop alternative ambient Conscious Route electronic Gefahrgeist rap Scotland

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Peggy Sue: The Tin, Coventry [Live]

on November 27, 2021

alt-folk alternative Brighton Coventry indie IWD live music Peggy Sue

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Lanterns On The Lake + Hilang Child: Rescue Rooms, Nottingham [Live]

on November 24, 2021

alternative ambient Hilang Child indie IWD Lanterns on the Lake live music Nottingham Rescue Rooms

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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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Music Observer Friday highlights - 03.06.22

I haven't done one of these posts for a while and this is a bit of a hybrid, mopping up some music I've heard in the past couple of weeks but haven't had chance to write about yet. Hope you enjoy. Remember, a ll of the songs I write about (as well as lots of others) feature on my May 2022 and June 2022 playlists. Frances Gein - All I've Loved A song released today (3rd June) but which I've been listening to for a few weeks (thank you for the early preview Frances!). This is a slow paced, minor key folk tune, with a simple, calming and strangely comforting beauty. The song is centred around a picked-out guitar riff, which - couple with Frances' muted and mysterious vocals - gives it a satisfying grungy feel. But there's also some great use of strings, which start as a barely-there backing and build into something a little unsettling (matching closely to the lyrical progression). The ending is brilliantly done thanks to a surprise, low piano note which pu...

Grace Calver: My Life and Its Disasters [EP]

It’s just over a year since Grace Calver released arguably one of the best ever songs related to the undead - her debut single, ‘Zombie Conversations’ - pivoting from popular music blogger to accomplished artist in a way which felt natural and preordained. And now, here’s her debut EP, building on the success and catchiness of that first release. The brilliantly named 'My Life and Its Disasters' is five tracks of Grace Calver's well polished, finely honed brand of dream-pop-meets-grunge, sugar-coated angst rock. It’s an infectious, deceptively innocent style of writing - like a rainbow with a pot of boiling oil at the end. And let's also not forget that Grace plays all the tuned instruments, too, leaving only the drums to be outsourced (in this case to Oscar Liddiard). Two of the tracks on this EP are brand new, and perhaps best represent where Grace is now as an artist. She’s come a long way in a very short time, playing countless live shows, including several festiva...

Hannah Grae: Need Me Now

Welsh singer-songwriter Hannah Grae writes some ludicrously catchy songs, the kind that can drill themselves into my conscious and subconscious and obsess me for days on end. Just under a year ago, I felt compelled to write about 'I Missed The Joke' (a song from Hannah's debut album), which I described as "just about the perfect indie angst-rock ballad." This year, Hannah has released a sub-30 minute "mini-album", 'Nothing Lasts Forever'. Its main features are her recent singles, 'Better Now You're Gone', 'It Could've Been You', 'Screw Loose' and 'Who Dunnit?', all powerful songs making full use of her remarkable vocal talents. They've received a lot of attention. But there's also new material on the record, and the new and older songs combine to create something varied and really interesting, and which feels like a lot more than 28 minutes. The song which struck me and has stuck with me is the fo...

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...

NewDad: Madra [Album]

'Madra' has impact, but it's a soft impact - force, cushioned with a layer of dreamy haze. And there are plenty more of those apparent contradictions to come. The album opens with the brooding, minor-key noodlings of 'Angel'. This is a song which plays around deliciously with musical pre-conceptions. The chords are dark, the guitars ominous, the vocals hushed and intimate - but it's a threatening, sly intimacy rather than something warm. It's low key under the surface, and yet this is juxtaposed with a relatively bouncy rhythm and pace. There's energy in bucketfuls, but also a striking sense of restraint. This sets the scene well for the rest of NewDad's debut album: it's not one which is easy to pigeonhole. That's only a good thing in my view. The band have been floating around for several years, offering tantalising glimpses of their style by way of two EPs ('Waves' in March 2021; 'Banshee' in February 2022), as well as sub...

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