Premieres

The rock quartet Annie Taylor just returned to Switzerland after playing a tour in the US with performances at SXSW and KEXP. 

Time for a break? No way!

Their acclaimed 2023 sophomore album, Inner Smile, laid down the tracks for Annie Taylor to stomp down the gas pedal as hard as they could. With Push Me, taken from the album and released back in March, the band displayed a melodic blend of alternative rock and grungy vibe. However, we were still deprived of their new material so far… until today.

Today, we celebrate the premiere of Annie Taylor's new song, Perfect Pretender, which will be released tomorrow. Grab your seats—it will be an electrifying ride!

The guitars growl, the drums whip relentlessly, a driven push forward. Written on a dark and rainy summer day, singer and guitarist Gini Jungi remembers: «After a drive through the pouring rain after rehearsal, I sat soaking wet in my unusually dark room and started humming this song.»

Perfect Pretender sticks out like a sore thumb in today's polished pop-filled puddle and rises like the messiah—bringing dearly missed rock anachronism back to the starved masses. The song screams loud and proud its raw heritage. And, oh boy, the guitar solo is like the first sip of a cool beer in the scorching summer heat.

But Perfect Pretender is not only a rough rock anthem but, as it is Annie Talyor's signature by now, there is always a slight notion of creeping anxiety and melancholia: «You got me thinking about… that I'm the perfect pretender.» Self-doubt as a subject that is simultaneously shattered with the exceptionality of Perfect Pretender.

A message arrives at 2 am—sent by Markus Nikolaus, who is currently on the other side of the pond, in the United States of America, and about to play his first gigs in the land of the free and the home of bravely divided politics.

«Do you want to present my new single?» he asks—and the question might very well be rhetorical. Of course, we do.

Markus Nikolaus, singer of Lea Porcelain and the embodiment of general creative craziness, already starred in a previous premiere. With Hartes Porzellan—a collaboration with Simon Kaiser—he delivered the rumbling All In Your Head. And solo, Nikolaus made it even in our 2023 best list with the heartfelt Never Let You Go.

With his new song, Pure Tears, Markus Nikolaus stays on the soft and gentle side, similar to Never Let You Go, and yet, the composition has a unique vibe. Recorded with a great deal of room for the sound to expand, he kept it as stripped-down, as reduced as humanly possible: a flamenco guitar, a voice.

«Pure tears are the nicest way to die before your eyes»

However, the profound beauty of Pure Tears reaches deeper than its simplicity. It is an intimate feeling that the song is created while you are listening—a sonic stream of consciousness, underlined by its DIY-styled, lo-fi production, which, for once, does not feel like an act but a deliberate choice to facilitate immediacy.

Jelle Denturck, a Belgian musician, is known as the frontman of the indie-rock band DIRK. The band plays a raw, fast-paced sound. However, Denturck hits different tunes with his new solo project, Dressed Like Boys.

The debut single, Nando, will be released tomorrow, celebrating its exclusive premiere today with Negative White.

The musician explains his sonic love letter to the most trusted people: «Being in a relationship will inevitably cause turbulence. That’s what Nando is about. We all suffer insecurities, injuries, doubts and regrets for the sake of love.»

As Dressed Like Boys, Denturck displays tender honesty and intimacy. He wants to write «truthful, heartfelt songs that sound like they’ve always existed.» Exploring the themes of personal freedom, relationships, and homosexuality, Dressed Like Boys is not a mere outlet for an artistic vision but a vehicle for introspection and reflection.

Nando, can you hear the drums
Hold me while we're dancing
Until the morning light
If you like

Inspired by pop and rock legends of the 1970s, such as, Bowie or Elton John, Nando combines fragility and vulnerability with expression, and large parts. There are soft, reduced parts, with only a piano accompanying his voice. But the composition builds to a full-blown arrangement with all the flourish of pop—vocalising choirs, strings, and escalating drums—before collapsing again into simplicity.

Nando is beautiful, like any piano pop-rock ballad. It is, at times, overwhelming in its burst of opulence. But even in this big moment, it always feels close to the heart and never out of touch or put on a pedestal. It is filled with authenticity.

William S. Burroughs once said: «When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.» Referencing the cut-up technique to gain insights, the author even went as far as seeing it as a form of divination.

Decades later, the project «Section 10_Traces by Filax Staël» was founded in 2013 by Dutch artist and graphic designer Bas Mantel together with Okko Perekki—cutting further into the present with their audiovisual collages.

Traces, the upcoming collection by Filax Staël, marks their first official output, accompanied by a book. The 24 tracks only span over 26 minutes, again hinting at the fleeting nature of time itself.

Today, Filax Staël presents Traces 04_A Drift Through Time—not a singular track but a compilation of Blue Dances, A < > B, and A1 a1. We hear cut-and-pasted symphonies from the silent film era, fragmented electronica, intertwined with sound recordings of 1950s instructional films. Illustrated with Mantel's signature remixing, punkish graphic style.

Filax Staël comments:

«A Drift Through Time; Time as a vehicle, non linear, no end or beginning, remixing parallel universes ... with traces of sound, fragmented memories in language and form, audiovisual collaged dimensions in black and white, raw, shape shifting sounds ... Connections of lines; crossing and coalesce, lines as routes analogous to flight maps. These fragments of memories haunt time as the fusion between image and sound, in which they merge together into new forms and meaning. One in which the spectator can experience and to which he can individually give his meaning at that moment in time.»

Traces 04_A Drift Through Time not only defies any traditional definition of a song but also questions how we listen and find meaning in sound. It purposefully challenges us—and our perception of music.

No doubt: This composition is not something you casually play in the background. It needs your full attention, combined with the will for introspection, letting your mind wander away into uncharted territory.

We should not be fooled by the title: Desperate Art, the debut EP by Switzerland's duo Happy For Real, is anything but depressing or desperate, at first sight at least.

The collection of five new songs, recorded in Wales, will be released on 1st March but celebrates an exclusive pre-listening premiere with Negative White.

Olivia Virgolin and Marcus Petendi, after a couple of single releases, reinvented themselves musically. On the surface, the songs on Desperate Art are driven by polished pop melodies. But the duo scratches into the shiny veneer with dominant guitars, conjuring the grand days of indie rock.

The more you listen to the EP, the more the underlying edge and sophistication appear—the pop fades to a mere vehicle to deliver addictive hooks, but in its place, the extravagant contrasts take the spotlight. The sound evokes a feeling of ambivalence, of action and lethargy.

Desperate Art starts with Limbo, waiting with an intricate, almost complex rhythm. It takes a while to acclimate. Then, with Phony, Happy For Real dive deep into the indie territory—and the back and forth between the voices of Virgolin and Petendi becomes exceptionally impactful.

The voices' interaction is the EP's and Happy For Real's best feature: Virgolin indulges in emotional sensitivity and tender thoughtfulness, while Petendi channels sinewy energy, pulling the compositions into a borderline pop-punkish sphere.

ATRT is the EP's roughest track, even further down the indie rock rabbit hole—full of longing, pushing for the horizon beyond. News, then, is a groovy closure to Desperate Art.

However, the crown jewel is spot-on in the middle: Limerence. There is a sense of nostalgia, even melancholia, slumbering between the drifting lines. But then, there is also the undeniably danceable sound. The song feels like a time travel back to the summer of 2005—surfing on indie rock high tide and coming-of-age insecurities. «It's okay to feel lost sometimes!»