This genre-bending band was actually introduced to me by the extremely cool pals of Negativland; although they don’t have a ton in common sonically, they do share an adventurous, taboo-smashing spirit and headquarters in North Carolina. Take a look at their bio below and you will find some wild stuff about their backgrounds! And then if you take a look at that RIYL list below THAT and conclude “how can these possibly be all for one band?”, well that’s a reasonable reaction, but take a listen to this thing and you’ll see. Some of this record is gauzy dream-pop, often with a voice in a higher register (a la Cocteau Twins etc). Then some of it is harsher, almost industrial or darkwave-leaning rock, often with a voice in a lower register (a la Nine Inch Nails etc). One track really reminds me of Black Moth Super Rainbow and another really reminds me of Nick Cave. It’s all in there!! Give it a listen and let me know what your favorite parts are, this is one I anticipate everybody having a different answer to that question. For FCC purposes I’ve made sure to let ya know in as many places as I can, that track 9 is the only one with actual Swear Words, but depending on how conservative your station/listenership is, you may find some of the sexually-explicit non-cuss stuff in tracks 8, 10, and 13 a little too much as well, so take a look at the lyrics sheet if you want to make sure (that’s included in my download link if you’re a station rep)!

REVERSELS

LASABRE

Self-Released

By sheer coincidence, both members of this queer doom pop band were raised in different cults. The leader of the cult that Pretty Boy Floyd was immersed in pressured families to have vasectomy reversals, glorifying limitless procreation. The children born after these procedures became singers in the leader’s “Reversal Choir,” children who were told they owed their existence to him.
 
In the beginning of 2018, Pretty Boy and Story began discussing what would eventually become their own Reversels, a dynamic sonic departure from the predatory, misogynistic, homophobic, and authoritarian environments of their youth.
 
The band continually strives to reverse these harmful teachings through their music, an attempt to sing-into-being a world of gender diversity, sex positivity, individual growth, and healing.
 
Two albums and numerous live shows later, Reversels’ sound continues to evolve with their third full album release, LaSabre. Dancing both poignantly and playfully through themes of queer love and loss, the band continues to advocate for the underdog and the demonized, rejecting oppression and celebrating life & death in all of their majesty.

RIYL: Black Moth Super Rainbow, Casket Girls, Nine Inch Nails,

Blonde Redhead, Cocteau Twins, Nick Cave, King Woman

Start With: 2, 6, 8

FCC: 9
(8, 10 & 13 are sexually explicit but w/o swears)

Contact me for a download link if you’re a radio rep!

https://reversels.bandcamp.com/
https://reverselsmusic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/reverselsmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/reversels_music/

Please join me in adoring the pleasantly spooky Ghoul Talk!! This is is a Seattle-based lady-fronted project that ranges from gothy dark rock to synth pop. Check it out ASAP!! KEXP has added it already, what are you waiting for?! I was lucky enough to have a pretty huge number of hard copies to send out (with some fun bonus stickers also!), so unless I know your station to be off the air for the summer or that you specifically prefer downloads, it’s almost definitely there waiting for you!

GHOUL TALK

MAGICIAN [EP]

Death Certificate Records

Grungy and gritty, melodic and lush – Ghoul Talk’s Magician is a noble self-released debut and marriage of opposite worlds. Part indie noise rock, part synth pop, Magician is a séance of moody vocal harmonies, shimmering synths and chaotic fuzz. Though Magician’s arrangements swell and burst, there’s a structure to it – and where you start is not where you end. 
 
At first entrance, Magician is a dark room with the shades drawn. As “Migraine/Headache” – a sludgy tribute to ’90s rock, chronic pain and dangerous doses of acetaminophen – culminates to a thick, gluey guitar solo embellished with French horns and glockenspiel, any expectation of full-on grunge gives way to an ecstatic burst of synthesizers with the opening of synth-rock banger “Materialize.”
 
One roaring guitar solo and surprising string quartet later, Magician finds its soft, sweet ending with the aptly-named “Sleeper”, a shoegaze pop ballad steeped in a haze of lead guitar harmonies and reverberating drums. Sleeper’s unexpected dreaminess highlights Magician’s greatest trick: Ghoul Talk’s dynamic songwriting and ability to set expectations, only to reveal there’s more behind the curtain.  
 
Born in 1993, singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist R.K. King is on the 27th year of her goth phase. Drawing inspiration from horror film scores, Riot Grrrls and noise rock, Ghoul Talk first materialized in Seattle, WA in 2018. Ghoul Talk’s music is self-released via Death Certificate Records.

RIYL: Warpaint, Weyes Blood, Wolf Alice, Veruca Salt, Hole, L7, Garbage, PJ Harvey

Start With: 1, 2 (release is only 3 tracks long)

FCC CLEAN

Contact me for a download link if you’re a radio rep!

https://www.ghoultalkband.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ghoultalkband/
https://twitter.com/ghoultalkband
https://www.facebook.com/ghoultalkband

It hasn’t been very long so hopefully you still remember the Warren Dunes single of theirs I worked last fall – Seattle’s sweethearts are back!! The two tracks from that single are included on this album as well, although one of them (“Cool Mom”) is actually resurrected in new form, with an added rap verse by Tacoma’s Chris Blount! As you may remember from last time: this band is so great. It’s tropicalia- or even reggae-influenced indie rock, uplifting carefree stuff with a real original spirit. At points it’s almost surfy lady-fronted pop a la Best Coast; at other times its world-rhythms-influenced mathy rock reminds me of a band like MuteMath; their infectious joy (and the fact that the band contains a gleefully happy romantic couple) is even reminiscent of Matt and Kim. You’re gonna love it!! I’m personally particularly impressed that band leader Julia Massey plays two keyboards at once – one with each hand, positioned on opposite sides of her body – while singing. You’ll also catch the vibe that this album is pretty specifically about these times we’re going through, with themes of civil unrest and social justice woven deeply into its fabric (without being so preachy as to sacrifice these songs being absolute bops). The album title isn’t a coincidence. Also fyi, this band is available for interviews if you’d like to have them call in to talk to you! Just hit me up and I’ll connect you! KEXP is already on board (including featuring them on a recent Sound & Vision podcast!), as are BTRToday and Flood Magazine. What are you waiting for?!

WARREN DUNES

GET WELL SOON

Big Wawa Records

Gold pants, red hair, and a Kevin Durant jersey are the first things that catch your eye at a Warren Dunes show. You might compare the Seattle power trio on stage to what it may look like if the summer camp counselors started a band, and wonder if maybe you weren’t at a rock show. Then lead singer, Julia Massey, begins to thank everyone in the crowd for coming, and each person starts looking around because they could have sworn she was talking directly to them. The band starts to play and you notice that Massey is spread-eagle between two keyboards, brothers Jared and Dominic Cortese are all smiles in anticipation of what’s to come, and an arresting crystalline voice begins to trumpet above a palette of tropicalia-infused art rock. Your problems and worries melt away, people are dancing, some are crying, there are neon palm trees on the stage, and for the next hour you feel like you are under the warm sun on a tropical post modern beach somewhere far away. The world is ok. 
 
On Get Well Soon, Warren Dunes’ debut LP, Julia, Jared, and Dominic want to bottle up that experience from their live shows, and do their part in the healing process. “We named the album Get Well Soon because we wanted this record to be like a Hallmark card to everyone who lived through 2020,” says guitarist (and Massey’s husband) Jared Cortese.  Drummer Dominic (and Jared’s brother) adds, “we all just lived through some crazy shit, and we wrote an album that we hope acknowledges all we’ve been through, and helps people move forward.” Creating a soundtrack that drives you back to the present moment is one of Massey’s central goals, who has been cultivating this technique ever since an early event with death led her to the path of songwriting. After losing her father to cancer at fifteen, Massey developed a way of making sense out of chaos. “When I lost my Dad the only things that really made a difference were comforting words from friends and family, and music.” 
 
Get Well Soon slides seamlessly through anthemic choruses, introspective ballads, and meditative chants that follow an arc of danceable beats and grooves you can sink your teeth into. On “Quit Takin A Side”, Massey implores, “listen to the feelings in between every single thought floating in your head/hear what is there instead.” On “Be Good”, one of the record’s more pertinent tracks, Massey asks, “why would you be good to someone who’s bad to you/to somebody whose job it is to be good to you?” but leaves the answer open. This offering of contemplative lyrics that require self-reflection on the part of the audience pervades the record, and creates a conversation between the listener and the band, eloquently avoiding the pitfalls of tackling sensitive subjects head on. This is Massey’s superpower.
 
Brothers Jared and Dominic Cortese spent their youth running through the shifting sands of Warren Dunes State Park in Southwest Michigan. Drawn together by their shared love of music, Massey and the Cortese brothers decided to form a true family band, and the name came easy. With a reputation for bringing their audience to tears and guaranteed hugs after a performance, not being in the same room with their fans has been burdensome for Warren Dunes. Get Well Soon, which includes the band’s 2020 single “Fishbowl” (#18 on NACC’s Singles chart and KEXP’s Song of the Day), is the band’s offering of love, hope, and healing for Dunesfolk of the past, present, and future.
 
Based on the belief that we can all be #smallbutmighty, Warren Dunes donates proceeds from live performances to a variety of charitable organizations. For more information, please visit their Beneficiaries page.

RIYL: Best Coast, Tune-Yards, Matt & Kim, MuteMath

Start With: 8, 4, 6

FCC: 8 says “asses”, otherwise CLEAN

Contact me for a download link if you’re a radio rep!

https://warrendunes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/warrendunesband/

I’ve got a really special and out of the box Event-type thing to talk about for my newest radio add. I can’t describe what this is any better than the text below, so I’ll keep this short, but I’ll just say that working with Graveface Records is always one of my greatest pleasures, and Ryan Graveface really outdid himself making this Halloween as covid-friendly AND spooky as possible, all in a lil thing that’s thoughtfully designed specifically for radio. Also please note if you’re not learning about this until after Halloween, I’m also still working this as a compilation album thru the end of the year; as individual tracks, they’re not so explicitly Halloween-y as to be inappropriate in November and December (except maybe the one track called “DRACULA” lol, it’s a take-off on “Tequila!”). It’s just good music from Graveface Records! Read on for more about this!

VARIOUS ARTISTS

THE MARSHMALLOW GHOSTS PRESENTS THE WITCHING HOUR

Graveface Records

The Marshmallow Ghosts are the Graveface Records annual spooky Halloween band. It’s a rotating cast of characters, often-times pulling musicians from within the active Graveface roster—a very collaborative affair. 2020 marks the 12th annual Halloween LP release and it’s extra-elaborate and radio focused:
 
This year’s LP is a 37-minute presentation that basically amounts to a radio play. It’s got music tracks as well as spoken-word interstitial parts, constructed and stitched together to sound like it’s an actual radio show (the narrator character of the interstitials is a radio DJ), on the fictional radio station KLME. This DJ is taking calls and hearing stories about people’s spooky encounters, and getting increasingly freaked out at the station, culminating in getting a call from a person in their life who’s supposed to be dead. In between calls, the DJ keeps introducing (and spinning the full tracks of) actual music you’ll want to be spinning anyway, and there’s even a couple of fake commercials in the middle—which can be edited out and left instead as a break in which your station could put in a real voice break or PSAs if you need to – these digital files are set up like a vinyl record and the “commercials” happen at the end of Side A and the beginning of Side B. Feel free to request edited versions with any alterations you need! The whole thing is spooky and deliciously creepy, in a fun-spirited Halloween way (nothing actually seriously dark or gross or horrible or FCC-noncompliant). Like telling ghost stories around a campfire, but mixed with the idea of a War of the Worlds-type hoax radio broadcast.
 
The big idea is to get a bunch of stations all on board to broadcast this thing all at the same time: we’re shooting for 9pm ET/6pm PT on Halloween itself. At that time, people can tune in all over the country at the same time and they’re all getting this same creepy broadcast from all kinds of different, unaffiliated stations. This is where it’s at if you’re looking for a creative, unconventional way to celebrate this strange unconventional 2020 Halloween we’re facing!
 
There’s also a version of this whole thing with just the music, tracks broken apart separately and without the interstitial narrative parts (presented as a compilation album; both versions available for download or streaming preview for stations now). The artists include Night School, Fawning, Joel Grind, Velvet Gentlemen, and Sondra Sun Odeon alongside The Marshmallow Ghosts – all very Graveface-y stuff; fans of the Casket Girls will love the Marshmallow Ghosts and Fawning tracks, and fans of Best Coast will love the Night School one. This compilation will also end up running as a regular Band Mom radio campaign, to go for adds November 3rd, the Tuesday after Halloween (so if you’re not able to spin on Halloween, you still get a chance to do something with it) – but that’s really icing on the cake bonus stuff; the Halloween simultaneous streaming event is really what this is all about.

RIYL: Graveface Records, spooky campfire stories, War of the Worlds-type hoax broadcasts, The Marshmallow Ghosts, Casket Girls, Best Coast

Start With: 7, 3, 5

FCC CLEAN

Contact me for a download link if you’re a radio rep!

graveface.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/graveface_recs
graveface.com

Meet my new pal, AMANDALA! This is a really cool Seattle-based artist, who actually came my way via Julia Massey, the bandleader of the also Seattle-based and wonderful Band Mom artist Warren Dunes. But another cool thing about AMANDALA (stage name of artist Amanda Lamprecht) is that she’s originally from South Africa! You can totally hear the accent in her singing voice and everything. Extremely cool. (Adding to my intensely international roster here; between New Zealand, Sweden, and South Africa [plus my many American artists], The Band Mom has got four whole continents represented in 2021!!! Waow.) She’s also a yoga teacher who went to law school. AMANDALA contains multitudes. Her voice/vocal delivery gives off strong Cranberries or even sometimes Björk vibes, and her musical style ranges from 90s-ish singer-songwriter a la Natalie Imbruglia to more adventurous, dream-pop kinda stuff like say Sia or Dido. She’s all about empowerment, tapping into your strength, and oneness with the universe. (Very in line with her yogi profession.) It’s refreshingly optimistic and sweet while still adding something new to the musical conversation. I think you’ll like it, give it a whirl! I promise this isn’t a permanent state of things for the Band Mom, but this is indeed my third add in a row which is entirely digital only, so don’t wait for a hard copy – please feel free to reach out if you’re at a radio station and didn’t get the download, and get into the happy whimsical world of AMANDALA!!

AMANDALA

STRONGER EP

Self-Released

AMANDALA is a Seattle-based singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and yogi born in Cape Town, South Africa. Amanda Lamprecht adopted the stage name AMANDALA because it sounds like the word “mandala”, which is a Sanskrit name that literally means “circle”. A Mandala is a tool in many spiritual traditions to aid a practitioner to inner states of wholeness.

AMANDALA’s third professional studio release, Stronger, is aimed at the concept of coming full circle and stepping into one’s power. The short album of 7 songs is a picturesque musical landscape in a style that draws influences from indie pop and indie folk-rock.

AMANDALA’s songwriting and voice has been compared to the likes of Björk and The Cranberries, and her songs dictate both raw edge and crystal sweetness. 

AMANDALA is a world traveler who lived on three continents, traveled the globe to study yoga and holds a Law Degree from Nelson Mandela University. She played violin from the age of 6 and sang in many school choirs throughout her life, but it was not until she moved to the US that she started to play in goth and punk rock bands and write her own music. Between 2008-2012 she self-released two experimental albums, Tanzanite and Make This Real, for which she did all the instrumentation herself. In 2015 she teamed up with producer and co-owner of London Bridge studio, Jonathan Plum, to co-write her first professional studio album Far and Wide in a dream pop style. Andrew Joslyn, violinist for Macklemore, and Davey Brozowski, traveling drummer for Modest Mouse, played on Far and Wide.

In the same year, AMANDALA also wrote her first ever Afrikaans album, Alles wat jy lief het, in an indie pop, folk rock style. The Afrikaans album was recorded at Earwig Studios in Seattle, working with studio owner Don Farwell, and completed in South Africa. “Two albums on Two Continents in Three studios in One year” became the tagline for a 5-month music promotion trip to South Africa from October 2016 – March 2017.

Her newest EP, Stronger, was an international project. Musicians from Seattle and South Africa played on this album. The recording for Stronger began at Earwig Studios in Seattle, before continuing its journey in Stellenbosch, South Africa at Sunset Recording Studio. Coming full circle, the songs were mastered by Ed Brooks from Resonant Mastering (Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Courtney Marie Andrews, The Head and the Heart) back home in Seattle. 

A music video was released for the song “Let’s Not Leave This Life Broken” from Stronger, and received 2000 views in only 2 weeks. The video is a request for universal unity and friendship, filled with images that are profoundly colorful and watery, with a thumbnail that is Frida Kahlo inspired. Another music video will be released in mid-October 2020 for the song “Flow” that will feature more water and ocean scenes. “Flow” is a musical sketch of a river building till it finally reaches the ocean, so the vocals are sparse and it doesn’t follow cookie cutter song structures. 

AMANDALA’s intention with Stronger was to write songs that make one feel empowered, more connected, songs that encourage, that reflect. The songs convey all the attributes of water. Water is fluid, moody and emotional. Water can be powerful, loud, still or reflective. Water can be hard when it is ice, or it can be weightless when it becomes steam. Just as water does not have a form, but it takes the form of its container, so it was AMANDALA’s intent that her music does not sit in one specific genre, but rather capture a fluid mood which is different from song to song and album to album.

RIYL: Dolores O’Riordan/The Cranberries, Björk, Natalie Imbruglia, Dido, Sia

Start With: 3, 1, 6

FCC CLEAN

Contact me for a download link if you’re a radio rep!

https://www.amandalamusic.com

https://www.facebook.com/amandalamusic/

https://www.instagram.com/amandalamusic/

https://amandala.hearnow.com

https://amandala.bandcamp.com