Stream: Heroine - The Night VI

A track packed full of golden melodies and brassy vocals here from The Night VI. There is more than a little Stevie Nicks to the track, the sort of song that shimmers with a glossy surface layer that only partially obscures the rawness of the lyrics beneath.

Check out & like/heart on HypeM too: http://hypem.com/track/271ts/THE+NIGHT+VI+-+Heroine Written by Jack Gourlay, Sophie-Rose Harper & The Night VI. Published by EMI Publishing Produced & Engineered by Jack Gourlay at The Others Studios Mixed & Mastered by Yoad Nevo at Nevo Sound Studios Performed by The Night VI: With/ Sophie-Rose Harper: Vocals Kristy Buglass: Harmony Vocals Anna Pesquidous: Harp & Xylophone Bogart Giner: Bass Jack Gourlay: Electric guitar, Acoustic guitar, Piano, Organ, Rhodes, Synthesisers, Drum programming & Percussion. Artwork Artwork and concept by Anna Pesquidous, Felipe Pizano & The Night VI. Photography by Felipe Pizano behance.net/felipepizano

Heroin is about a femme fatale, says Sophie-Rose Harpe:

"She knows what she wants and how to get it but she'll ruin you much like the drug ... She's like your mum's worst nightmare but there's another side to her one that raises you up and keeps you wanting more"

Heroin is taken from the band's second EP, DIY, due on 17 November through Duly Noted Records and available exclusively from the band's live shows in a limited physical run or 500 CDs. Also check out Sienna and Wonderlust, both from the same EP, below:

Please vote for us on Hype Machine also: http://hypem.com/track/236d7/THE+NIGHT+VI+-+Sienna

Vote for our track on Hype Machine; http://hypem.com/track/24yrf/THE+NIGHT+VI+-+Wonderlust Wonderlust single launch show at Oslo hackney on the 18/06/14 tickets here: http://www.iamnewmusic.com/tickets/

Stream: Runaway - Grace Mitchell

16-year-old Portland singer Grace Mitchell has been causing a bit of a storm since unleashing her first couple of songs back in August. Yesterday she dropped this new epic ballad, Runaway, and it delivers the same heightened and cinematic scale of her previous tracks. There's undoubtedly more than a hint of the mature-beyond-its-years pop sensibility of Lorde here and I can't wait to hear a proper release.

Check out Runaway above, along with Grace's earlier tracks.

Stream: Freedom Of The Floor / M.P.B. - Nautic

The first release from Test Pressing on new label Test Pressing Editions is by the band Nautic (Bullion, Laura Groves and Tic of Young Turks). Remixes come from Bullion and Open Space (Apiento & Andrew Hale).

This is the first release from Test Pressing Editions, the new label from long-standing electronic music website Test Pressings. With a focus on Balearic sounds that recapture dance music's past whilst simultaneously looking to the future this first release from Nautic is as gloriously wide-open and blissful as you could expect.

Nautic are R&S Records' Bullion, Laura Groves and Tic of Young Turks and FKA Twigs' band. Anyway, it's gorgeous - get on it.

Album Review: Godforsaken Roads - Black Strobe

A lot has changed since Black Strobe's 2007 debut album, Burn Your Own Church. Even back then it felt like Arnaud Rebotini's album was a hangover from a musical moment already passed. Back when Black Strobe was a duo - Rebotini joined then by DJ Ivan Smagghe - they were briefly regarded as one of electronic music's most promising acts.

That debut album took too long to surface however, and innevitably felt like it had missed a beat... Yet single Like A Man, a cover of the Bo Diddley record, hinted at a possible evolution in style however, wild-eyed and psychotic paranoid and sunburnt country for the 21st century. It was a little at odds with the gothic surrealism of the rest of Burn Your Own Church yet by far its most intriguing moment.

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Godforsaken Roads - Black Strobe

Godforsaken Roads seemingly takes that moment as its jumping off point. Opener Broken Phone Blues puts music to that horrible post-night-out moment of waking up to a broken phone and a blank memory. It is at least be partially tongue-in-cheek but Black Strobe play it straight, a psychotic hillbilly synth pop stomp of a record all the more sublime for its ridiculousness. The vocal hook that makes the chorus catchy as hell is bound to be lodged firmly in your head by the time a sleazy guitar solo kicks in two-thirds through.

Like A Man was known by many for its appearance in Guy Ritchie movie RocknRolla and the trailer of Tarantino's Django Unchained - and you have to wonder if Rebotini took that to heart. This is an album that feels like it has been created for those cinematic moments in films where characters lose their shit. Monkey Glands is based around a manic riff that travels up and down the fret board like a switchblade across your throat and on He Keeps On Calling Me we get a slow and bluesy semi-drunk sounding justification for bad behaviour. There is a track here called For Those Who Came On Earth Thru The Devil Asshole - you probably get the point.

There is also a cover version of Johnny Cash's seminal classic Folsom Prison Blues. Whilst it doesn't match the understated vitriolic anger of the original it certainly sits at home amongst Godforsaken Roads' themes of alienation, anger and human darkness. There ain't much treated sacred on this album, and so it is unsurprising that one of Cash's best known records was considered fair game.

It's a fun ride on these Godforsaken Roads, and it is at its best when it isn't being overly complicated. From The Gutter's throbbing synth bassline and guitar and vocal interplay are a prime example - it is straight for the jugular and uncompromising where in comparison elsewhere Swamp Fever's melodic country feels like a diversion. This is an album either a third two long or 50% short of ideas, but when it wants to it can take you out on the dancefloor and show you a rollicking good time all the same. Just make sure it doesn't smash you over the head with a beer bottle and make off with your phone and wallet afterwards.

Godforsaken Roads is out now on Black Strobe Records, available on CD, LP or MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links]. Listen via Spotify below:

Album Review: Heat Leisure

It's difficult to know where to start with Heat Leisure, the collaborative project between Pontiak's Carney brothers, Greg Fox and Alexandra Drewchin of Guardian Alien, Beach House's Steve Strohmeier, and Robert J. Otten III. Established as a multi-media project Heat Leisure I & II was a short film accompanied with a 7". Heat Leisure III & IV is a pure audio release, two extended jams effectively, that make up the band's first full vinyl release (though it is still just 27 minutes long)... Although the band state that this in no way rules out other forms for future releases.

Heat Leisure III opens with a monologue from Grateful Dead associate and Merry Prankster Ken Babbs, recorded after the Carneys approached him about a collaboration following a stay  at Babbs' farm on their last tour. As the thick drawl of Babbs lumbers on, the ravings of a man emerging from inebriation into a moment of clarity, distorted synths encircle his words like vultures and coyotes waiting to make their move. It's a piece of audio full of theatre and drama, the band kicking in properly only after six minutes, more than halfway through the song. What remains is an impassioned and ruthless percussive instrumental, yelps and squeals puncturing layers of distorted instruments and clattering drums.

The second (longer) half of this release, Heat Leisure IV builds slowly from a melange of dischordent haunted vocals an melodies. Into a psychedelic droning Afro-beat full of complex layered percussion. Just over halfway through Heat Leisure IV pivots into something different - still percussive, but lighter and more delicately played. With the sheer amount of noise and reverb throughout it feels like the loudest band you ever heard squeezed into a tiny quite room, the volume edged as low as it can go and you still feel it. The result is strangely calming - the rough edges smoothed in a way that still leaves all of the texture and detail but affords greater perspective.

Heat Leisure III & IV is less an album and more of a statement and an experience, but it’s one the begs to be experienced in full, surrounding you and swallowing you whole. For that, it is an achievement.

Heat Leisure III & IV is released through Thrill Jockey on 20 October on LP, pre-order from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].