MIMR

Drained, exhausted and fed up of all this covid nonsense? Yeah me too but with music being one of the few delights in our lives that still exist, they’re are plenty of new music out there to excite. Prime example of this fact is the pounding new single by cheshire 4 piece and friends of the blog Salt The Snail.

‘Maaate’ has crunching riffs, pulverizing beats and a sizeable degree of menacing power enough to leave your head spinning vigourously.

The heavy punk-rock quartet illustrate their weird and wonderful life they live in with the entertaining video to the track which highlights the obsession with mobile phones that consumes the majority of people, them people that are constantly on them during gigs in particular can get in the bin!

Anyway Salt The Snail are magnetically on our radar and they should be on yours, alright Maaate!

Here’s the track:

As soon as that crunching riff hits your ears you just know to be prepared for some fiery and electric rock n roll noise and Manchester 3 piece We Three Kings deliver with guns blazing with their latest offering ‘Savoir Fair’ released today (Oct 16th)

Escaping fron their covid-enforced hiatus, the trio embark on a frenetic crusade with the track making all your senses tremble with it’s rip-rawing, monstrous riffs and piercing vocals. Describing a dark and mysterious night, We Three Kings put all they have, blood, guts and sweat into the track and it’s a perfect example of how bluesy, fuzzed up rock music should be played: hard and heavy!!

We Three Kings have been silenced no longer, the monster has been awoken, just get this down your lugholes and enjoyment is guaranteed!

All hail the kings!

Here’s the track:

With one of the glowing tracks from this month or any month infact, Manchester indie-rock quartet Valetta release their debut single ‘Irregular Low’ (Oct 9th) and it ticks all the right boxes in a truly magical way.

The 4 piece have been honing their sound over recent times through their brilliant ‘The Swimming Pool’ sessions last year as well as their blistering past live shows in some of Manchester more intimate venues pre-covid of course and this single is just the perfect tonic to intise new followers into their brooding, pulsating tones.

Photo Credit: Becky Cleasby


Echoing the blissful sounds of Everything Everything amongst other notable influences Valetta channel their efforts through electronic-infused and thunderous psychedelic expression with fruitful melodies, shuddering beats and atomic riffs that make you wanting more.

Valetta really should be your new favourite band and when live music finally returns they should be one of the first bands you mark down in your diary, truly splendid!


Here’s the track:

https://open.spotify.com/track/13EP7qioUH3CIGy3TgmujT?si=KAt49GMQQlGOP_KsqFBo6A&utm_source=copy-link

Recent times have been hard on all musicians and the length of time that bands have had to endure without being able to showpiece their craft is a experience that many in industry never thought would happen but it’s a breath of fresh air to see so many bands on the manchester scene releasing new music to put a smile on everyone’s face.

One of these such bands are angelic, indie pop act Diving Station with their recent single ‘Joanna’ hitting the heights and only cementing their place as a much sought after act to follow.

Sweet, blissfull vocals, soft, delicate harp accompaniment and effervescent harmonies echo throughout, shooting waves down your spine and making your hairs stand on end.

The lead single from their upcoming EP ‘June Damp’ serves as a pleasing benchmark of which the rest of the record will surely replicate, something to finally look forward to before this wretched year is out.

One of the acts that have grabbed our attention during these dark times are lo-fi post-punk act Snooker Season who’s new EP expresses their desires and hobbies in equal measure.

We spoke to the band about playing live, influences and going to Barbados.



MIMR: Thrilled to have you on the blog, how has 2020 been for the band so far and with everyone a bit up in the air at the moment, what can you plan for the future?



SS: Thanks for having us! Right now we’re getting our heads down, writing and recording tracks. Spontaneously improvising songs is always fun but it’s great to really nail stuff down. Normally it happens at the last rehearsal before a gig, with the terror of public approval hovering over us.   We’ve just released our new EP and work is already well under well for a full length album. Expect songs about ring road traffic, medical professionals and empty pubs very soon.


MIMR: What would you say is the best description of your sound and what are your main influences?


SS: A nice cheap mash up of all your post punk favourites. We’re not super determined to ape something obscure like the sound of early Kleenex demos or whatever. We‘re into Talking Heads, The Fall, Wire. Hip hop comes into the drums and basslines. We like a lo-fi, live sound to the recordings rather than ultra-crisp and polished.  Lyrically it’s much more diverse. Don’t tell anyone but I actually quite like Randy Newman.


MIMR: Tell us all about the new EP ‘The American Office’ how did it come about and were they’re any challenges faced in its production?


SS: The American Office and Airport are some of the earliest songs we wrote as a group and have been a jumping off point for what came later. There’s a hard edge to the music and humour to the lyrics. The main challenge was probably recording everything five feet from a death metal band, with only a paper thin wall between us. We originally recorded a version of the EP in a studio, but it wasn’t quite right for us, so we did it again ourselves in our rehearsal space. Learning to record and mix took a bit of effort but the results were much closer to what we want. You can’t buy the ambience of someone screaming about Satan under the sound of your drums. 



MIMR: One of the tracks on the record is called ‘Euromillions’ and we all would love to be the lucky one to win the jackpot one day. What would you be your 1st purchase if you got lucky?


SS: I feel like that moment is a real moral crossroads in your life. Is it gonna be straight to Barbados with all your friends and family beaming beside you? Or cocaine and sex workers in a five star hotel? The song is definitely about someone who takes the low road, and who can blame him.  In reality my actual first purchase would probably be four cold cans of Stella from the shop downstairs. The best a man can get.



MIMR: Like everyone at the moment, i’m itching to see live music again, what’s the one thing you miss about playing live and what venues are your favourite ones to play or to simply hangout in? 



SS: You never feel more like a gang than when you play live. Five men and three amps in a small car, its bliss. And it’s great to let your mates hear what you’ve been wasting all your time on. We love playing in the northern quarter. Aatma and Band on the Wall have probably been our best gigs. It would be great to venture further afield in future though. I love it when people play in weird or unexpected venues. The Fall in Manchester Cathedral has gotta be the gold standard for me.




MIMR: Thanks for dropping by for a chat, we wish you well for the rest of the year. How can people follow you on social media?



SS: Nice one.

You can find us on
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/snookerseason) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SnookerSeasonBand).


The EP is up on Bandcamp (https://snookerseason.bandcamp.com) and you can search for it on Spotify, Apple Music etc.

Hailing from Leeds, the 1st appearance on the blog for explosive garage-rock trio Dense who’s new EP ‘Abjection’ has created a rip-rawing buzz at MIMR.

We chatted about the record, dealing with the lockdown and socialising at gigs



MIMR: Thrilled to have another new band to the blog, hey hope your well. Who are Dense and what’s the best description you’ve had in regards to your sound?


Dense: Thanks for having us, Griff. DENSE is a garage-punk rock 3-piece from Leeds. We started making music at the start of 2017 and have taken our time in playing around with our sound to get to the stage we are at today. In the past we have acquired some great quotes from the likes of Backseat Mafia dubbing us ‘a whole new meaning to the term ‘garage rock”, which is a particularly cool one for us personally as we really try to make our music as unique as possible, whilst understanding the world of genre ‘umbrellas’.

At a selection panel ast year, Phil Taggart from BBC Radio 1 described our single ‘Fever Dream’ as ‘a punishment beating but one he had asked for’, which is definitely one of the more interesting descriptions we have had in the past, surrounded by a fair few comments that we are ‘just noisy’!



MIMR: Been enjoying the new record immensely, it’s a roaring effort. Tell us all about the record and did the lockdown situation have any major effect on it’s production?


Dense: Thanks very much, we really appreciate that! We had been sitting on those songs for quite a while having played them all a fair bit live, and we finally gathered the funds to record them in January with Adam Bairstow, producer and frontman of ‘Brooders’. After a gruelling, coffee-fuelled 5 days we managed to track it all and originally had it set for release in May. As you know, that wasn’t the best month to be dropping new music so decided to push it back until end of August, so we have been chomping at the bit to get the songs out there and are really glad that they finally are!




MIMR: MIMR have always recognised Leeds as a major hub for new music having featured many bands from the city over recent times. Of course the landscape for bands has greatly altered lately due to Covid but do you agree that the music scene will still thrive and what venues are you looking forward to visiting again?


Dense: Leeds is an amazing place for music and feel very lucky to have started our journey there together. As for Leeds and every other city around the UK, this time will almost certainly alter the make-up and atmosphere of each scene and we only hope that artists still feel they are able to pick up where they left off in the same way that we are hoping to. Our last two gigs in Leeds before lockdown were at Brudenell Social Club and Belgrave Music Hall, and we are very privileged to have stages like that to play in the city as they are both incredible venues. Two of us actually now live in Manchester and having played the likes of Big Hands and YES Basement in the past, we are really excited to get properly stuck into the Manchester scene! Although it’s a pretty awful time right now, we have every faith that independent bands can pick themselves up and show a bit of DIY resilience which has been so prevalent and kind to us as a band in our brief timespan.


MIMR: During this period of isolation and not being able to play music, what have you been up to away from music to keep yourselves sane?

Dense: It’s a strange one because we can’t tell whether these last few months have dragged or flown past, and we have all been up to pretty different stuff. Although we haven’t been able to play live, we have collectively been pretty busy organising the EP campaign, as we do all of that stuff ourselves in-house, which has been a blessing really to be able to keep that focus on the band. We like to write together in the room usually so that has been a challenge, but we have also been exercising our creativity with other side or solo projects which has been fun. Having all ‘lockdown’ed in different places around the country, it’s been strange not seeing each other for as long as we have, yet still speaking every day! So in that respect we have been busy, but definitely couldn’t say we have remained sane…..!



MIMR: So we hope that live music can return sooner rather later and we’re already seeing some social distanced events taking place. What’s the one thing about playing live you miss?



Dense: We always have a great time on stage and feel most comfortable as a band when we are doing that, so having such a vital core of what we do taken away has been really strange for us and we have had to adapt our EP campaign to deal with that as we would have been touring the record relentlessly.

We had a tour in the works with Brooders and Death Cult Electric which we were so excited for and really hope we can sort something with those guys soon as they are both awesome bands. But apart from the obvious, I think we are all really missing the social side of gigging; talking to people before and after each show and getting to know people in a mutually adored environment which has been impossible to come by since March. Also, after writing what we consider to be a pretty raw and live EP, we are itching to play it properly on stage and really hope that time will come very soon!


MIMR: Thanks for chatting to us on the blog, wish you well for rest of the year. How can people follow you on social media? 


Dense: Thanks very much again for chatting to us. Links to all we are up to are below, hopefully see you all really soon!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/denseband

Instagram: www.instagram.com/denseband

Twitter: www.twitter.com/denseband

Bandcamp: https://dense.bandcamp.com/

Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/denseband

In these dark and gloomy times, it’s a very warm and welcoming return to the blog to the ecentric, electro-punk stylings of geisterhaus with brand new single ‘The Garden’ (released 7th Sept) digging deep into his rich repertoire of sonic-like sounds.

Thom breaks out the shackles with this track ringing in your ears from the get-go with piercing riffs, ferocious, cosmic beats and hard-hitting lyrics that resonate with us all in regards to the current predicament we find ourselves in.

The accompanying video displays Thom flambuoyant delivery, rocking out in his garden (one of the few places that you can do that currently, pubs just ain’t fun) and with the appearance of ‘pig gods’ a bit hard not to give you the creepies.

Let’s hope when all this covid nonsense blows over that we can see Thom back in action on stage where he struts his stuff, we all miss the blaring sounds in our eardrums at gigs and ‘The Garden’ will be a track worth waiting for.

Blistering their way onto to the blog during the lockdown period, Stepford Wives display their raucous, power-punch post-punk stylings for us all to enjoy with latest single ‘All On Me’ becoming one of our favourite tracks of the year so far.


We spoke to the Saddleworth quartet about influences, earliest musical memories and tangy wine gums!

MIMR: Great to have you on the blog, how did the band come about and what would you say influences you the most in creating your sound?  


SW: Thank you for having us on the blog 😊 Like many bands, we met at secondary school. However, Niklos was a Media teacher and Rowan (bass) and Jaz (drums) pupils! In the summer of 2018, when the two teenagers left school, the three piece started jamming together. They soon bonded over a mutual love of blunt, loud, quirky guitar based music. Within three months word was put out into the local community that a new band had a vacant slot for a sensitive, articulate, bespectacled lead guitarist. Completely fitting the bill, Dom walked into the garage rehearsal room and promptly decided it wasn’t for him!! We plied him with alcohol and the promise of unlimited tangy wine gums. The deal was sealed. Stepford Wives was born.

Influences range from Johnny Greenwood, the Clash, Periphery, Pixies, life, Crass, drum n bass, Sonic Youth, Peter Tosh, the kitchen sink of literature, love, war, death.  

 

MIMR: Needless to say this year so far has been unlike any other, how have you coped with the drastic changes that have occurred and what’s the latest with the band?  



SW: Well all our headline gigs were cancelled. Our slot on Sky TV Soccer AM was cancelled. Our single All ON ME was released in March virtually into lockdown. Early on it didn’t look good.  

THEN – We started sharing ideas over our WhatsApp group. Song writing became more prolific. We practiced hard on our individual instruments. Our gigs have slowly been rescheduled to  a more Covid realistic time.  

Soccer AM honoured their word and gave us a slot on their last programme of the season – and put us straight on to their best of season playlist.  

Just in the last few weeks we have had interviews with Metro news, all local press, punk legend John Robb over Zoom for Underground England and Louder than War, and a BBC Radio Manchester daytime slot.  

On 22 August we played a gig!! Outdoors at the MMTV Festival in manchester. Not even the Manchester weather spoiled the joyous celebration of live music.

If anything, we are emerging from the lockdown in a stronger position mentally and physically than before, which may sound a bit mad!  



MIMR: What’s your earliest musical memory?   


Rowan – sister teacher me how to play the piano when I was 6. She didn’t know how to play, but she helped me learn from a book.  

Dom – flicking through my dad’s albums – I was entranced by a Buddy holly sleeve for some reason. (Dom looks like a cross between Elvis Costello and Buddy Holly 😊 )  

Jaz – my dad teaching me how to play the guitar at the age of 8, which is probably why I am the drummer.  

Niklos – Christmas at Uncle John’s house about 8 or 9 with my dad and uncle on acoustics singing Beatles, Elvis and Simon and Garfunkel songs. Magical times.      



MIMR: When gigs do return, what venues are your favourite to play  at again?  


SW: We love small, intimate sweaty – the exact breeding ground for you know what… If they manage to sort out virus friendly gigging, we would love to play Night people again in Manchester, the Castle, the Eagle, Deaf Institute, Gorilla, the Peer Hat.   Moving further afield, which we have not had chance to do yet, we want to play the equivalent venues of the above in towns and cities all over the UK and Europe. Bring it fucking on.  


MIMR: Despite the current situation the manchester music scene is still thriving, what other bands out there do you admire?  


SW: Other bands we have connected with so far are Liines, Narrow Margin, Dirty Laces, Scuttlers, C33s, ist ist and electronic artists like Antagonist  



MIMR: Thanks for talking to us, wish you well for rest if year. How can people follow you on social media.  



SW: Instagram – stepfordwivesband

Snapchat – stepford_wives

Facebook – @stepfordwivesband

Twitter –  @stepfordwivesuk  

If you read this, thank you for your time.

Stepford Wives

Released today (Aug 20th) the latest track to whistle it’s way into our mind is the new single by singer-songwriter Jessica Luise one of the many talented acts to have been picked up by our good friends over at Petty Management.

Television Mister’ is her 2nd official single and her 1st with a full band allowing her to venture away from her indie-folk style and break out into a classic indie-rock sound (The Big Moon, Courtney Barnett, Fleetwood Mac) that is instantly pleasing to your ears.

Hailing from Merseyside but now a resident of Manchester, Jessica bright and breezy vocals are a real breath fresh of air and the track floats along with great vigor thoroughout, certainly her biggest single to date ensuring that Jessica Luise has every chance to be a leading light on the scene for a long time.

Here’s the track: