This week’s discovery issue comes packed to the rafters with new talent.
HARD OF HEARING FIRSTS | PHOTO OF SPRINTS | WORDS BY KARL JOHNSON
Firsts is a weekly round up of enthralling new tracks and first features that have occupied the Hard Of Hearing stereo this week. Tracks featured here find their way onto our new music playlist on Spotify, which you can follow below.
Sprints
‘The Cheek’
Dublin newcomers Sprints are making some seriously fierce music. It’s in your face, it’s relentless and it’s a new era of untamed post-punk, lead by the fearless delivery of singer Karla Chubb. Think Amyl and The Sniffers or The Mysterines with added instrumental muscle, and born in one of the world’s most vibrant indie music scene’s right now. It’s energy alone is hypnotic, every instrument fires harder than the last while the lyrical output beckons you to stand up and pay immediate attention. Find Sprints on Spotify.
Old Moon
‘Exile Theme’
Hailing from New Hampshire in the northeastern region of the United States, Old Moon offers a soundscape for it’s surroundings of quaint towns and large expanses of wilderness. Guitar echos, while drums march through the track proving an ideal companion to the gothic leaning vocal delivery. Never changing pace, but gathering momentum as each sweetly executed vocal line and verse passes, ‘Exile Theme’ exercises instrumental minimalism to great effect. ‘Exile Theme’ is cut from Old Moon’s debut EP ‘Past Lives’, which is out now on cassette. All proceeds go to civil rights organization NAACP Legal Defence and Education Fund and The National Bailout Fund, a Black-led and Black-centered collective of abolitionist organizers, lawyers and activists. Find it here.
Mayflower Madame
‘Sacred Core’
Spend five minutes with Norwegian outfit Mayflower Madame and it could last you a lifetime. ‘Sacred Core’ has a loosely wound psychedelic landscape that drifts and unravels in a slow-burning cyclone of sound, more effective with each instrumental shift and turn. The Oslo quartet touch on the industrial sounds of Yorkshire legends Sisters Of Mercy, with a potent vocal that snakes through a dark mist of hallucinogenic instrumentation. ‘Sacred Core’ is plucked from the band’s new album ‘Prepared for a Nightmare’, it’s a beat-driven and heavy-headed listen, out now on Only Lovers Records. Listen in full here.
JORI SJÖROOS
‘GOTH PERREO’
JORI SJÖROOS’ ability to combine classic sounding influences with more contemporary rhythm and beats is quite alarming. The Finnish artist has unveiled the frightening and mind-boggling ‘GOTH PERREO’, a track which creates an atmosphere of beauty and calm before injecting jarring beats and washes of electronic textures that pull the listener through a range of emotions before the track’s time is up. It’s no surprise that JORI SJÖROOS has scored music for film and musicals, horror I’m thinking.
Meadow Meadow
‘Fireworks’
Clapping beats and an intricate lo-fi soundscape, Meadow Meadow will spark the interest of many through their use of cold sounding keys and lyrics that helter-skelter around the building instrumentation like wildfire. With enough energy and plentiful layers of off-kilter sonic cues to be experimented with, you feel ‘Fireworks’ is just the tip of iceberg for the newcomers.
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