The Unsigned Guide Spotlight: May
Blog by Louise Dodgson under Artist Managers, Creative & Branding, Finance, Law & Music Business, Live, Media, Music Publishing, Music Training & Careers, Record Labels, Recording & Production, Selling & Distributing Your Music
A deliciously diverse bunch of audio treats for you in the month of May! Signed, sealed & delivered by our super talented members, let’s see what’s in store…
Influence – ‘This Is The Life’
With his authentically honest lyricism, Influence’s distinctive and cheerful track ‘This Is The Life’ instantly peaked our attention. He tells us how the song came about:
“I collaborated with Andrea Terrano whom I met whilst working as an engineer at his studio in Brixton, Iguana Studios. Together we were able to create an easy listening, feel good sound with a summer vibe, focused on the positive aspects of London. It’s the soundtrack to every great day I’ve had in my city and I really wanted to share that experience and inspire that same feeling within each listener.”
Expressing his opinions, experiences, feelings and dreams is crucial to Influence and he recently built his own studio to facilitate his creative freedom. Reaching the finals of the UK Songwriting Contest for two consecutive years, he also has some great performances under his belt including at the O2 Arena to an audience of 10,000 as part of the Hillsong Conference.
Influence currently juggles his musical aspirations with running Rap workshops with London Urban Arts Academy for youths aged from 8 to 18. The coming months have plenty in store as he collaborates on his first EP with producers Kevin Julien (Afrika Bambaataa, Heather Walker) and Gregory Brown (Sting, Isaac Hayes), due for release in July. And make sure you look out for his article on the UK Rap scene which will feature in BASCA’s (The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors) June edition of ‘The Works’ magazine.
Winters Island – ‘Ares’
Drawing inspiration from a broad and varied range of genres spanning Acoustic to House music, London trio Winters Island fuse all these elements together in a neatly refined electro, indie pop bundle. Ares (pronounced Air-ees) is the Greek god of War but literally means battle, so once Andy penned the first line “I wrote you a song, but you say you want a symphony” the tone of the song was set. He explains it as being about “applying pressure to yourself and others applying pressure to achieve better and how this is destructive.”With an initial demo/lyric video leaked on YouTube, it hit a whopping 300,000 views! They eagerly finished up the track and had some remixes done, two of which by Fin Evans and PrototypeRaptor make up the single release.
To date the band have played some amazing venues with their highlight being Club NME at KOKO, but over the next few months they will be locked away - writing, recording and finalising tracks. Check out their official video for the song here, it’s a dead cert for wrestling fans!
Delora – ‘Sober’
Indie Pop duo Lauren and Lucy a.k.a. Delora have an enviable knack of crafting remarkably catchy melodies and forthcoming single ‘Sober’ is a textbook demonstration of this.
With the track trending and moving its way up Hype Machine’s Twitter chart, this led to a rather random and extremely exciting moment when actor Chloe Moretz then tweeted about it! Fans in Hollywood can’t be half bad!
Last summer Delora graced stages at the Isle of Wight festival and Rock The Farm, and this year they have festival bookings galore ahead including the Big Top stage at Penn Festival, plus some tour announcements coming soon.
We recommend you pick up a copy of Sober on iTunes (officially released May 10th) here: http://smarturl.it/delorasober
Schnarff Schnarff – ‘Desk’
Described as "staccato grunge pop" by BBC Radio Scotland's Vic Galloway, a label that Inverness 5 piece Schnarff Schnarff are more than satisfied with, our selected track DESK very nearly didn’t come to light. The band elaborate further: “DESK was originally scrapped because we didn't like the ending we had for it so it didn't make our debut EP (Schnarff Schnarff EP via Electric Honey - April 2014) but after working hard to finish it we managed to get it to a point where we were all happy. Now DESK is one of our favourite songs so it is good to revisit our archive and explore new possibilities from older songs. The song is about being sick of the rat race and about how everyday life can become monotonous when you are stuck doing what you hate.”
Last summer heralded a real high point for the band who, within the space of a few weeks, played at Belladrum, Wickerman and GoNorth festivals, as well as enjoying airplay for their track FEAR on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio Scotland and XFM. Blimey!
Can 2015 possibly top that? Well, with performances lined up at Brew At The Bog, XPONorth festival, plus plenty of gigs it could certainly be headed that way. Take a look at their video for DESK here:
Jamie Hamilton – ‘Past Midnight’
Having just wowed the crowds at Live At Leeds last weekend, Darwen based Jamie Hamilton embodies DIY, recording everything in his bedroom and self-releasing without PR or management backing. He describes his sound as “…a bit of a collision between acoustic and synthetic noise. I try to retain the intimacy of the songs whilst layering the electronic parts underneath to make things more interesting. Like the guitar and voice are in the same room as you whilst the synths are being played through a megaphone outside the building.”
On the receiving end of very grand praise from Fresh On The Net, Independent Music News and BBC 6 Music’s own Steve Lamacq, who also gave Jamie’s music a spin on his drivetime show, other recent achievements include playing a gig with Rae Morris and Aquilo, plus having music featured on a couple of TV shows.
Currently working on a new record which should be with us by the end of the year, we leave you to enjoy the simplicity of Jamie’s video for Past Midnight:
Tags
the unsigned guide spotlight, new music blog, unsigned bands, unsigned artists, emerging acts, influence, schnarff schnarff, winters island, delora, jamie hamilton
