The Arabic word habibi means “my love,” an apt descriptor for Rahill Jamalifard’s feelings about her Iranian upbringing and the music she creates. Jamalifard is the frontwoman for Habibi, the Brooklyn-based band that mixes Detroit garage rock with girl group harmonies and surf guitar.
New York’s Habibi hypnotise on ‘Come My Habibi’, their new single, and give us the lowdown on their hot sauce-fuelled second album.
Back in 2016, the band’s exceptional sound managed to combine the thrills of city life with an almost melancholic charm that always kept them grounded. But in the last few years, the band has moved through many shifts that have completely transformed the direction and aesthetic of the group. After releasing a string of brilliant singles through major label Sony Music as a five-piece, now only two original members remain and their time on the label is now at an end. But not ones to leave anything unfinished, the two remaining members, Sarah Nimmo and Reva Gauntlett, return to deliver their long-awaited debut album ‘The Power’, a smooth and dark return for the duo.
Taking influence from the formative trip-hop and alt-pop sounds, ‘The Power’ instantly has this feeling of longing behind it. Rather than unleash a flurry of high-energy cuts as we might have expected, this new collection manages to blend and merge a diverse range of different inspirations all together, delivering a eclectic and exciting debut release.
Hailed by Consequence of Sound for her “atmospheric vocal delivery…jazzy indie rock arrangements…(and) experimental, avant-garde textures,” Alice Phoebe Lou truly touches celestial heights with her frankly astonishing new album, paper Castles.
The South Africa-based artist’s second full length recording is a breathtaking song cycle of romance and struggle, solitude and adventure, told through a free-spirited blend of electronic soul and psychedelic folk that highlight her honeyed vocals whilst revealing a limitless approach to musicality and craft.
Songs like “Galaxies” and the potent first single, “Something Holy,” are like snapshots of small intimacies, brief encounters, and moments that matter, all reverberating with authenticity, resourcefulness, and passion. Tomorrow in concert at Razzmatazz 2.
Hailing from South London and Hastings, Greentea Peng began singing after a long hiatus from it. Armed with a change in mindset and the life experience to go with it, the singer’s music is full of soulful sound, spiritual lyrics and spreading positive energy.
A psychedelic trip through lo-fi soul, her eclectic sound mirrors the diversity of the city she calls home. As Rising – her amazing new Ep- continues to push her name from the capital into playlists across the globe, it’s amazing to think that 24 year-old Aria Wells has only been working as a musician for a year.
After being dropped by her label ahead of the release of the debut album ‘Bedroom Hero’, Liz Lawrence has had the time and space to find herself.
Her second album ‘Pity Party’ embraces her lo-fi folk past but also brings it into the here and now with satisfying pop elements. It’s also a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to those who said she wasn’t good enough.
For Silvia Perez Cruz (Palafrugell, 1983), life without music is meaningless. Ever since her first (paying) gig at age thirteen, the singer has been going at her own speed, sometimes accompanied, other times alone. She has filled theatres in big cities, but also in small towns in all four corners of the world. She has received two Goya film awards for the best original song (Blancanieves; 2012, and Cerca de tu casa, 2017) and in 2014 Spain’s Rolling Stone magazine named her best female solo artist of the year. She’s dared to sing lyrics fromFederico García Lorca, Edith Piaf and Caetano Veloso, and many more, not only in Spanish, but also in Catalan, English, French and German. She’s experimented with Jazz, Flamenco, Habaneras, Fado, and classical music.
Tonight in concert at Sala de la Cúpula del MNAC,
Honeyblood’s third album sees Stina Tweeddale finding her most ambitious form and steely focus yet. Three albums in she has stepped forward to finally claim the mantle of the project she birthed seven years ago as a her sole vision. Stina takes the reigns in collaboration with none-other than super-producer John Congleton (Angel Olsen, St Vincent) for the most definitive Honeyblood LP to date, consolidating the Glasgow-born band as one of the most important UK names.
On lead single, ‘The Third Degree’ (out today) Stina’s arguably perfected the fine art of the punk-rock ode-to-the-shit-head-ex. But ‘In Plain Sight’ is as sonically gung-ho as peak era Garbage, or the modern day likes of St Vincent; big, bold, songwriting no longer content to be tied to one limited genre. Woven with mysterious themes of illusion and deception, Tweeddale describes the album as “one big trick”. Being hoodwinked never felt so exciting.
