Contemplation
Edition #70 concludes the year with new tracks by mantocliff, CATT, LIN, Mary Middlefield, and kitsches.
mantocliff – ocean
The Swiss band mantocliff reports back with ocean, the first music since the debut album umbilical in 2016. Synthesizers and deep bass create a dense foundation on which singer Nives Onori's voice dances like a figure skater on a frozen lake. The darkness is fragmented by rays of light, the composition's slow creeping contrasted by the vocal playfulness. It's all sloshing like waves.
CATT – I'm The Wind
Berlin-based singer-songwriter and Weekly5 alum CATT reduced for her light breakup song I'm The Wind her usual soundscape. Only an acoustic guitar accompanies her voice, often multiplied to a choir to create an overwhelming feeling regardless of the song's apparent simplicity. CATT's voice skips beautifully across the pitches, almost like the Asian-inspired violin in Lili Haydn's Saddest Sunset.
LIN – Ablution
The threatening booming in the background, combined with German artist LIN's repetitive lyrics, create a fascinating soundtrack to a ritual. Ablution washes away the patriarchal past. By miles less pop-driven than Doubts featured in 2021, Ablution is a thoughtful but gigantic opus, stretching deep down into the sonic gloom but also daring and empowering in its final climax.
Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 12, 2019
Mary Middlefield – Two Thousand One
Two Thousand One is like a flower slowly opening its blossoms with the rising sun: It takes some time but is also a beautiful process to behold. Mary Middlefield, a fresh singer-songwriter from Lausanne, Switzerland, creates a complex composition, slow and meandering at first, gaining ever more speed and drive, adding layers of guitars, drums, and restrained synthesizers expanses.
Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 20, 2021
kitsches – attic
Announcing this German band's second album, attic is a wonderfully contemporary take on folky pop music, enhanced with its art-pop elements. The duo kitsches brilliantly balances contemplation and urgency in its first single release, proving that Mathea Pittelkow and Moritz Holstein have a high standard in quality, execution, and sophistication. And attic ticks all the boxes with its dreamy yet stirring composition.
