Tag: Gigwise

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Hull’s Low Hummer Shares Incisive “Panic Calls”

Hull, UK-based post-punk act Low Hummer — Daniel, Aimee, Steph, Jack, John, and Joe — can trace their origins through the individual members’ connections to their hometown’s DIY scene. After meeting and bonding over mutual interests, the sextet quickly established a regular rehearsal home at DIY venue The New Adelphi Club, where they were able to develop and hone a danceable take on post-punk that thematically focuses on their lives in East Yorkshire, their place in a consumerist world and bad news stories sold as gospel. 

September 2019 saw the release of the their debut single “Don’t You Ever Sleep” through Leeds-based label Dance To The Radio. They quickly followed up with their second single “I Choose Live News” the following month. Both singles received rapturous praise from the likes of Clash, Dork, Gigwise and BBC 6 Music Recommends — with airplay on BBC 6.

Building upon a rapidly growing national profile their subsequent singles “The Real Thing,” “Picture Bliss” and “Sometimes I Wish (I Was A Different Person) received praise from NME, Gigwise and Under The Radar Magazine and were championed by BBC Radio 1‘s Jack Saunders and Huw Stephens, BBC 6’s Steve Lamacq, Marc Riley, and Tom Robinson.

Last year, the Hull-based post-punk outfit released their full-length debut Modern Tricks for Living, which featured “The People, This Place,” an angular post-punk that’s simultaneously danceable yet full of the seething disgust and frustration of someone who lives in a dead-end town, with dead-end people and no real options or opportunities.

Low Hummer’s latest single “Panic Calls” continues a remarkable run of incisive, coolly effortless and jittery post-punk built around propulsive Gang of Four-like bass lines and angular guitars and call and response vocals. The song evokes the anxious and jittery despair of someone at the end of their rope with an uncanny psychological realism.

The band explains that the song references the futility of mental health support by imitating the generic, automated answer machines of crisis lines.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Low Hummer Releases a Stylish and Sleek Visual for Angular “The People, This Place”

Rising Hull, UK-based post-punk act Low Hummer — Daniel, Aimee, Steph, Jack, John and Joe — can trace their origins through the individual members’ connections to their hometown’s DIY scene. After meeting and bonding over mutual interests, the sextet quickly established a regular rehearsal home at the DIY venue The New Adelphi Club, where they were able to develop and hone their own danceable take on post-punk that thematically focuses on their lives in East Yorkshire, their place in a consumerist world and bad news stories sold as gospel.

September 2019 saw the release of the their debut single “Don’t You Ever Sleep” through Leeds-based label Dance To The Radio. The members of Low Hummer quickly followed that up with their second single “I Choose Live News” that October. Both singles were released to praise from the likes of Clash, Dork, Gigwise and BBC 6 Music Recommends — with airplay on BBC 6. Building upon a rapidly growing national profile their subsequent singles “The Real Thing,” “Picture Bliss” and “Sometimes I Wish (I Was A Different Person) received praise from NME, Gigwise and Under The Radar Magazine and were championed by BBC Radio 1‘s Jack Saunders and Huw Stephens, BBC 6’s Steve Lamacq, Marc Riley, and Tom Robinson.

The Hull-based act’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Modern Tricks For Living is slated for a September release through Dance To The Radio, and the album’s first single “The People, This Place” is an angular post punk anthem that’s danceable yet full of seething disgust and frustration that makes the song a spiritual mix of The Clashand Wire— while voicing, the sort of frustration felt when you live in a dead-end town, with dead-end people and no real options or opportunities.

Directed by Luke Hallett, the incredibly stylish visual for “The People, This Place” features film noir-ish split screens between members of the band primping, preening, hanging out and being insouciant, the band playing in a rehearsal space. It’s part music video, part perfume commercial, part look into modern young people’s lives.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rising British Post Punk Act Low Hummer Releases a Seething Anthem

Rising Hull, UK-based post-punk act Low Hummer — Daniel, Aimee, Steph, Jack, John and Joe — can trace their origins through the individual members’ connections to their hometown’s DIY scene. After meeting and bonding over mutual interests, the sextet quickly established a regular rehearsal home at the DIY venue The New Adelphi Club, where they were able to develop and hone their own danceable take on post-punk that thematically focuses on their lives in East Yorkshire, their place in a consumerist world and bad news stories sold as gospel.

September 2019 saw the release of the their debut single “Don’t You Ever Sleep” through Leeds-based label Dance To The Radio. The members of Low Hummer quickly followed that up with their second single “I Choose Live News” that October. Both singles were released to praise from the likes of Clash, Dork, Gigwise and BBC 6 Music Recommends — with airplay on BBC 6. Building upon a rapidly growing national profile their subsequent singles “The Real Thing,” “Picture Bliss” and “Sometimes I Wish (I Was A Different Person) received praise from NME, Gigwise and Under The Radar Magazine and were championed by BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders and Huw Stephens, BBC 6’s Steve Lamacq, Marc Riley, and Tom Robinson.

The Hull-based act’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Modern Tricks For Living is slated for a September release through Dance To The Radio, and the album’s first single “The People, This Place” is an angular post punk anthem that’s danceable yet full of seething disgust and frustration that makes the song a spiritual mix of The Clash and Wire– while voicing, the sort of frustration felt when you live in a dead-end town, with dead-end people and no real options or opportunities.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Youth Sector is a rapidly rising Brighton-based art rock act, comprised of Nick Tompkins (guitar, vocals), Josh Doyle (bass), Brad Moore (guitar), Harvey Dent (synth) and Karl Tomlin (drums) that has received critical praise from a number of British press outlets, including DIY Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, Dork Magazine, Gigwise and So Young Magazine, and airplay from BBC Radio 1 personalities Huw Stephens and Abbie McCarthy, as well as BBC 6 Music‘s Tom Robinson.

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the up-and-coming British indie quintet’s latest single, the Theo Verney-produced “Tonight” continues a run of decidedly 80s New Wave-inspired tracks, complete shimmering synth arpeggios and rousingly anthemic hooks — but with a more introspective and somber tone. And while reportedly drawing a bit from early New Order, the track manages to equally recall The Cars but with a punk rock sneer.

“This song aims to shed light on the contagious quality of apathy in society, and how we favour small distractions in order to avoid confronting some of our toughest challenges,” the band’s Nick Tompkins explains in press notes. ” We’re seeing this constantly in the way the world deals with the climate crisis, where it only seems to be an urgent issue to those willing to make sacrifices while others are happy living in denial.”

Look for new material from the band in 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising British Singer/Songwriter and Guitarist Lauran Hibberd Releases a Satirical Video for Grunge Rock-Inspired “Hootchie”

Lauran Hibberd is a rising Isle of Wight-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, whose witty off-kilter lyricism has welcomed comparisons to the likes of Courtney Barnett and Phoebe Bridgers. And over the past year or so, Hibberd has received a growing national profile across the UK as a result of airplay on the BBC Radio 1 programs of Annie Mac, Huw Stephens and Jack Saunders, and praise across the blogosphere and elsewhere from the likes of The Line of Best Fit, The 405, Clash Magazine and Gigwise. 

Earlier this year, the Isle of Wight-born and-based singer/songwriter and guitarist tour the UK and EU with acclaimed indie act Hippo Campus — and adding to a big 2019 for the rising artist, she earned a slot on the BBC Introducing stage at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.  

Fresh off the heels of all of this big news, Hibberd’s latest single, “Hoochie” is a 90s alt-rock/grunge rock-inspired track centered around the rising British singer/songwriter and guitarist’s ironic delivery, rousingly anthemic hooks, fuzzy and jangling power chords and forceful drumming, Now, we’re all familiar with what the slang term actually means but what makes the song hilarious is that it finds Hibberd laughingly taking the piss out of the term. 

The recently released video emphasizes the song’s theme by satirizing phone sex line TV commercials, as we see Hibberd play very specific and very bland fantasy roles — the high school cheerleader, the girl with daddy issues, the dominatrix and so on. At one point her backing band joins her. “Hoochie is a 90’s slang term for a bit of a you know what,” Hibberd says of the video. “I wanted to embrace that in the only way I knew how. No fruit or vegetables were harmed in the making of this. Why don’t you text/ call and see what happens? Filmed by Skinny Mammoth in a dodgy garage on the Isle of Wight. Say what you will”.