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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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SPRINTS: Letter To Self [Album]

on January 29, 2024

Album alt-rock alternative Dublin SPRINTS

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What I’m excited about in 2024

on January 12, 2024

2024 best of Crawlers Hurray for the Riff Raff IDLES Katherine Priddy NewDad

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2023 [EPs]

on December 27, 2023

2023 Andrea von Kampen best of Cloves Drew Thomas Freyja Elsy Grace Calver Greysha Lizzie Esau Oliver Beardmore Queen Cult Wrest

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2023 [Albums]

on December 21, 2023

2023 Album best of Coach Party Fizz Hannah Grae Holly Humberstone Josienne Clarke Lanterns on the Lake Lastlings Olivia Rodrigo RAYE The Murder Capital The National

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The Music Observer 10: Looking back at 2023 [Singles]

on December 16, 2023

2023 best of Charlotte Carpenter Ella Clayton Hannah Grae Jack Rasmussen Katherine Priddy Lucy Spraggan Olivia Rodrigo Queen Cult She's in parties Sigrid Swim School The Empty Page

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Charlotte Carpenter: Awakenings [Interview]

on December 07, 2023

alt-folk alternative Charlotte Carpenter indie interview Leicester singer-songwriter

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Plasticine: Do Bad Boys Go To Heaven

on November 24, 2023

alt-rock alternative garage rock Glasgow Plasticine

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Music Observer: October '23 highlights

on November 03, 2023

Carpark Edie Bens Hannah Grae Holly Humberstone IDLES Lizzie Esau Lossline She's in parties Sigrid The Boxer Rebellion

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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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Popular Posts

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...

Holly Humberstone: Paint My Bedroom Black [Album]

(Note: Now updated to reflect that the album has now been released!) Holly Humberstone just keeps on climbing. Last year, I wrote about her Glastonbury set, and how she winningly pushed through a spell of nerves. This year, she's elevated herself to regular Radio 1 playlist status, made her first headline festival appearance (at Barn on the Farm ), and successfully completed an intense headline tour of the U.S. All of this while the anticipation built for her second album. That second album dropped on Friday, 13th October, and for this one I broke my self-imposed rule of not writing about music until at least its release date. I just had to share some thoughts in advance. My first impression of the record: it's more direct, more mature, and more determinedly poppy in many places. There's a feeling that Holly is now freer and more confident to play with different vibes and rhythms: in places things are dark, soft and cinematic, but in others Holly has found the confidence ...

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...

Nice Guy: Tonight

Well, this is a really interesting one from Teesside alt-rockers Nice Guy . It's a song which brings you on a beautiful journey: your starting point is a deceptively straightforward, relatively slow-paced indie-rock track; your destination is a long, thrilling guitar solo and a sustained Hammond organ chord. Everything that happens between start and finish is exciting and quite subtle in places. Photo: Laura Horton The song opens with a relatively simple guitar lick, based around just a few notes. This grabs your attention - perhaps not in the same way as a crashing drum intro or heavier guitar riff - but it grabs it all the same. This opening is a kind of shadow of the track to come - an opening motif - which takes you gradually into the song. With each repetition of that simple opening theme, an extra layer is introduced, allowing the song to build really subtly. It's a build of intensity but also of complexity. The more you listen, the more you appreciate how carefully this...

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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