HEYROCCO – Waiting On Cool EP

heyrocco 2016 epIn 2015, Heyrocco released their ‘Teenage Movie Soundtrack’ full-length. Its ten songs packed a whole bunch of retro sounds into under forty minutes, often playing like a love letter to the 90s with clear influences from Pavement, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and Smashing Pumpkins scattered throughout. Good as it was, there wasn’t especially much, stylistically speaking, that you’d think might attract the ears of retro-pop superstar and producer Brendan Benson, but for part of their follow up release, Heyrocco were booked into his Nashville studios and naturally Benson found himself in the producer’s chair.

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Watch the new video from Tokyo Tea Room

Starting out as a bedroom project, Kent’s Tokyo Tea Room later grew into a fully fledged band. Their music draws a huge influence from various 90s alternative and shoegaze sounds, while vocally they take in elements of dream pop and twee underground acts.

Their debut cassette, ‘Key Philosophy’ was released via Sexx Tapes in June 2016. Check out the video for ‘Sleep’ below.

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50FOOTWAVE – Bath White EP

50footwaveThere are no two ways about it, Kristin Hersh is a legend. From the earliest days of Throwing Muses, through her varied and lengthy solo career, the singer-songwriter has released some very interesting work. Not all of it of a gold standard, of course – some inconsistency can be expected from a career spanning across decades – but when she’s good, she’s on fire. Such is the case with this sixth release from 50FootWave, comprising six absolute belting slices of alt-rock, all wrapped in a noisy blanket and offset by Hersh’s by now husky tones

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PENNY FOR THE WORKHOUSE – Sneaky Peekers EP

pftwepPenny For The Workhouse have attracted attention by performing a spirited cover of ‘Pick a Pocket’ from Oliver in their live sets. That and their choice of band name should give you at least some idea of where this quirky London band’s main interests lie. Their self-named brand of folk ‘n’ roll is occasionally spiky, sometimes upbeat and has the cheeky charm of a stage school pick-pocket. However, like the kid who learnt their craft at stage school, their performances often seem contrived and try too hard to impress, rather than just tapping into a natural talent. The five tracks on ‘Sneaky Peekers’ – the band’s second release – are lo-fi and hard going, but nothing if not spirited. Not that those high spirits will help at all should Lionel Bart’s estate come knocking – in that instance, they won’t have the Dickensian orphan’s song(s) to fall back on for too long should those guys get wind of the live show…

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