Listen: High Wire - Jasmine Ash

Jasmine Ash is an LA-based musician and songwriter who has built a successful career with her music featured in numerous TV shows, including Riverdale, The Punisher and The Good Wife amongst others. She has also contributed music to ad campaigns for Apple, Clinique and more. With a musical repertoire that consists of more than 400 songs, she is certainly prolific.

Whilst 2018 saw Jasmine write for Lisa Loeb’s Grammy winning album, Feel How You Wanna Feel, 2019 sees he focus on her own music, with an EP slated for release in the fall.

High Wire is the first single to be lifted from Ash’s forthcoming EP. Written in Joshua Tree, California, the song has a delicate sparseness to it that evokes the feeling that comes to mind when I imagine that place. The song itself set Jasmine down a path of making music for herself - having become used to writing music for other artists, it was a moment that represents a departure.

The sense of branching out on a new path, of feeling a sense of risk and one of being overwhelmed, comes through on High Wire. The song captures the sense of someone rediscovering themselves, of bravely revisiting feelings once forgotten. Innevitably the chorus conjures the feeling of stepping out into the world with determination - the uncertainty and danger of being on a high wire, but the elation of feeling success and the potential for mastery. It’s an appropriate statement of intent for a musician stepping into the spotlight.

Check out High Wire below, and look out for Jasmine Ash’s EP this fall.

Listen: U Know Where 2 Find Me - AIRGLØW feat. TRTL

AIRGLØW is a project focused on bringing music and writing together, the words of Glo Lazaro set to music, creating the kind of cinematic and emotive experience you can hear on U Know Where 2 Find Me. This track features co-production work from Shadeax (pronounced “Shadow”) and vocals from Glo’s friend TRTL (real name Kim Bjerga), who himself plays in a ukulele band named The Nakes Waiters.

This song details that near universal experience of the one that got away... A person you fell in love with, but it didn’t quite work out. In those experiences we often find ourselves wanting to create the opportunity for that person to return - in the words of AIRGLØW, “leaving one door open so if they ever want to try again, they know how to find us”.

Ultimately U Know Where 2 Find Me plays out the experience of knowing you should move on from something, but actively choosing not to. Sometimes the pull of someone who feels (or felt) so right can be more appealing and comforting to embrace than move past.

Watch: Eugene - Bull

Eugene is the kind of song that took a little while to get inside my head... Like the worm in the video, it gradually wiggled its way into my subconscious.

With that slacker rock intro, Eugene shuffles its way into your ears, lilting vocals giving way to jaunty melodies and layered harmonies. Eventually what emerges is a little reminiscent of Pavement if they had vocals from Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor. Basically you can expect a high level of IQ and emotional anxiety. Things sway back and forth, a little like the cartoon seaweed in my head lost amongst the currents, and my words in a room to busy to notice I’m there.

Yet ultimately, Eugene will kick you in the head. Because sure, waves and inertia and emotions and complexity and air and atoms and shit, but also love and violence and the oppressive nature of time and famine and erections and the vapid waste of time that is every moment you let slip through your fingers. And then, suddenly, it’s all over.

Bull got their break when they decided to up sticks and head to Germany, with a suitcase drum kit in hand. Having slept in the basement of a YMCA they began their journey to success with a two-date dive bar tour of Berlin. Somehow fate brought Pavement’s Spiral Stairs into Bull’s own metaphorical Pavement and he offered to play at a house party the band were through. Remko Schouten, sound engineer and producer of Pavement and The Jicks, ran the sound system at the part and he ended up inviting Bull to record with him in Amsterdam.

And now we are here. I got send Eugene, and couldn’t find a rational reason not to share it with you. So here it is. Play it.

Listen: Slow - Soma

Slow is the second single to come from Stockholm based musician Soma. Whilst this is actually a break-up song, it positively bursts with an infectious form of excitement. If this is a break-up song then it surely depicts the kind of break-up where you still can’t help but feel head-over-heels with the person you are having to face moving on without.

Soma and her collaborators wanted to try and keep the feeling of their original demo and so managed to avoid polishing it too much, and the result is a track that reeks of Prince, in a rather wonderful way. It boasts bold melodies, some lovely analogue sounding 80s bass and the kind of snappy, treble-heavy pop sensibilities you just don’t get these days. There is also a wonderful gospel moment towards the end, a bridge that sees the majority of the instrumentation drop away so the vocals can really shine. In addition to Prince, this reminds me of Nenah Cherry... The same energy that makes Buffalo Stance one of my all-time favourites is audible here.

Slow is one of those songs that I just can't stop listening to - a pleasure to receive and one of those tracks I just can’t help but want to share. Check it out below:

Listen: New Light - Hunter As A Horse

Having found some fame in TV commercials and appearances in the soundtrack to Riverdale and American Horror Story, Hunter As A Horse are back after a two year hiatus with a new EP, their third, in the form of Walk With Me.

New Light is a softly played melodic ballad that worms it’s way into your ear through gracefully free falling synths, muted guitars and soft drums. Hushed vocals deliver a deadpan performance that capture a feeling of a disillusionment, and it’s all very reminiscent of Au Revoir Simone.

Hunter As A Horse describe New Light as “dreamy 80s tinged nostalgia portraying friendship, sharing experiences and living in the moment”. Vocalist Mia says:

“New Light is a nostalgic song about my childhood friends and how quickly it all passed while we believed we were immune to growing up. It’s about how we lived so much in the moment and full out as kids that we didn’t even notice time passing. And how just the way the sun shines can be powerful enough to bring you back to a time when things felt alive and wondrous.”

Check out New Light below.