@skopemag news – thursday – february 18, 2021 @ 2 pm est

@skopemag HQ – http://smarturl.it/skope

DANIEL DONSKOY SHARES THE VIDEO FOR NEW SINGLE ‘BRING ME BACK MY SMILE’

‘Bring Me Back My Smile’ extends his sonic palette, by stirring modern alt-pop production and late ’90s harmonies into the mix. His voice is similarly eclectic as it progresses from an almost rapped introduction into a soaring soulful topline. Whereas last single ‘Robbed Me’ delved into the shock that comes after a relationship suddenly ends, ‘Bring Me Back My Smile’ focuses on moving on. How can you rise above the pain, establish what went wrong and look towards a brighter future?

NEWS: Jon Klages (the Individuals, Richard Lloyd) shines with Fabulous Twilight’ album out April 1; Hoboken scene mainstay and bandleader Enoch Light’s grandson

On April 1, 2021, singer-songwriter-guitarist Jon Klages, who helped create the Hoboken Sound as lead guitarist for the Individuals, will release Fabulous Twilight, a collection of original songs and instrumentals hailed as “an exceptionally broad and rich work … mature but still playful…[that] shows off Jon’s considerable songwriting and musicianship skills proudly” (Peter Holsapple of the dB’s and Continental Drifters).

‘Bad Things’ unites Britpop Queen, Louise Wener with Lottery Winners…

Joyfully rattled by a brush with international fame thanks to the viral sensation that was their sea shanty version of Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’ , the irrepressably upbeat and endlessly industrious Greater Manchester four-piece, Lottery Winners return with Sleeper’s Louise Wener to release Bad Things. Deep thinkers wrapped in the bubblegum shine of pure pop, the band’s R’n’B-scented single is an affecting and appropriately-timed moment of reflection on where everyone’s luck lies. Or doesn’t.

Megan Nash shares 80s jazzercize-inspired video for ‘Quiet’

As 2020 closed, Canadian songwriter Megan Nash resurfaced for the first time in three years with the softness of ‘Artifact’. This year, she unveiled her latest track ‘Quiet’ which is now complete with an accompanying video, out now.

UNUSUAL DEMONT REVEALS ” PINE” VIDEO

Unusual Demont was indoctrinated by the internet. He spent his formative years exploring cultural and musical nooks that fall slightly outside the comfort zones of most. Hailing from the vanilla, midwest state of Wisconsin, is an accidental rebel and self-described “weirdo”, who probably has tabs of ASMR, KPop, and Frank Ocean tracks slowed with extra reverb open at any given time. Not to mention the influence of his grandfather, who played drums and toured the world with the legendary Curtis Mayfield. This eclectic exposure to cultures and subcultures, in lineage and online, has manifested itself in his music.

SUFFERING HOUR: The Cyclic Reckoning LP From Minnesota Blackened Death Trio Streaming In Its Entirety

At forty-five minutes in length, the five songs captured on The Cyclic Reckoning showcases SUFFERING HOUR firing on all cylinders. The music on this album is more representative of the band’s core sound than on their previous material, with every member making their presence more known than ever. The new record also features the band sacrificing some of their technicality and chaos in favor of more atmospheric passages, as the band envisioned this record to be an unhindered display of negative emotion, seething or sombre. Based around themes of awakening, obsessions, and mental anguish, this is a natural continuation of everything that encompasses the band’s ideas on life, death and beyond. This is SUFFERING HOUR at their most honest and fierce.

Singer/Songwriter Megan Wyler Releases Haunting New Single “The Calling”

“‘The Calling’ is a kind of dark exploration around the disorientation of loss and where that takes you,” says Wyler. “The build in this song is the outro, which is something new for me from a writing perspective. My dear friend Matt Sweeney added that amazing, subtle but sorrowful guitar line from the second verse which for me lands the whole song.”

BON JOVI RELEASE NEW VIDEO FOR SINGLE “STORY OF LOVE”

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band BON JOVI releases a new video for their current single “STORY OF LOVE” off the band’s critically acclaimed fifteenth studio album 2020 via Island Records. True to the lyrics, the video takes a deeply personal look at songwriter Jon Bon Jovi’s family life with never-before-revealed family photos and home videos.

Bon Jovi releases ‘Story of Love’ video

Manchester Orchestra Announce New Album ‘The Million Masks of God’ Out 4/30/21 (Loma Vista)

Produced by Manchester Orchestra’s lead songwriting duo of Hull and Robert McDowell, Catherine Marks (PJ Harvey, The Killers) and Ethan Gruska (Phoebe Bridgers), The Million Masks of God presents an even grander scale of the epic and re-focused approach to record-making that the Atlanta, GA-based band has forged in recent years. Their sixth album finds Hull, McDowell, Tim Very (drums), and Andy Prince (bass) relentlessly pushing themselves to create a work that breaks beyond the scope and limits of every previous release in an effort to create their most towering achievement to date, all while sorting through the aftermath of a devastating loss.

MIKE TRAMP releases “Everything Is Alright” video & album

Having won the Danish Song Contest in 1978 with Mabel and represented Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest later that same year, Mike will return just over four decades later on the same stage and in the context that kick-started his career with his message from Denmark and all countries of Europe in these dark times. After all the years and a lifetime of experience, it feels right to be back. “In 2021, I can be 100% true to myself and not have to put on any mask – I am who I am. All eight songs are there to win, but the moment you deliver and sing a song without compromising on yourself, only at that moment can you leave the stage as winner – no matter what the jury thinks”, Tramp says.

FICTION SYXX Feat. Former Members Of BILOXI, XYZ, KING KOBRA, Release New Single And Music Video ‘Whispers In The Dark’

‘Whispers In The Dark’ is about the thin line between this world and the spiritual domain.
The upcoming album ‘Ghost of my Fathers Past’ follows their 2 acclaimed prior releases ‘Tall Dark Secrets’, released in 2017 & ‘The Alternate Me’ released in 2019.

FICTION SYXX mixes progressive hard rock with a nuance of melodic rock. The first release from this project was a way to bring a talented core of seasoned musicians together to create a sound and an experience that is different from the rest.

JAKETHEHAWK: stream dreamgazing and captivating new album ‘Hinterlands’ in full!

Pittsburgh’s heavy, progressive and self-proclaimed “Appalachian Rock” foursome JAKETHEHAWK unleash beauty upon this world with their captivating and doomgazing new album ‘Hinterlands’, premiering in its entirety today via Invisible Oranges ahead of its release this Friday 19th February on Ripple Music.

“The band’s latest effort Hinterlands both tenderly and heavily delivers that “ethereal” experience that much noisier acts seek and fail to deliver. (…) Soaring along with frontman and guitarist John Huxley’s atmospheric howling and riffage serves to re-solidify the band’s angle on introducing the tenets of psych-rock into the heavier spaces we are all already accustomed to. Hinterlands is all atmosphere, all power, and all emotion at once.” describe Invisible Oranges.

bladee + Mechatok debut video for “Sun”

On Good Luck, Bladee and Mechatok join forces to dissect the pop formula and in turn break new ground within the genre. “Our approach to composing and producing was guided by a sense of transcendence,” they explain. “Through repetition of simple, mantra-like hooks, the meaning keeps morphing or increasing, constantly transcending its initial outline.”

“Good Luck is a lot about the duality of life,” the duo continues. “The highs have to have the lows. We’re interested in the imperfect way of capturing something, as opposed to making an overly perfect, glossy, 3D-rendered hyper-object.” With Good Luck, Bladee and Mechatok invite the world to join in their quest for the inevitable unattainability of perfection.

MAY-A soars on new single ‘Time I Love To Waste’

Rising 19 yo Sydney pop wunderkind, MAY-A, shares new single, ‘Time I Love To Waste,’ the second half of the story of a blossoming relationship continued from her breakout 2020 single, ‘Apricots.’ With the catchiest of pop hooks, ‘Time I Love To Waste’ is an earworm, bursting with hope, ecstasy, a hint of recklessness, and infatuation as MAY-A wholeheartedly embraces her sexuality and new identity whilst falling deeper and deeper in love for the first time.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announces new album out next week, shares track & video

“I think a true document of live music shouldn’t rely entirely on editing,” Stewart says. “There is something that happens with the way we perceive images, if something “live” is too produced, your mind sort of loses interest. With this format, we wanted to leave the editing up to the viewer. The decision of who to look at, and at what time determines each individual viewing experience. With each watch your experience will be completely different, which mirrors Gizzard’s experience playing the song live. The process is the same, yet the result is different.”

ABOVE SNAKES Release Music Video for New Single “I Feel Bad” – Premiering Exclusively via KNOTFEST

Speaking exclusively with KNOTFEST about their new single, Above Snakes frontman Johnny Skulls shares, “The premise of ‘I Feel Bad’ is me talking to myself; questioning if I can go on and succeed through the eyes of my new self. Can I be the person I need to be without getting pulled under by the dark hands of my past?

Above Snakes eye a promising future and confront a turbulent past on their latest “I Feel Bad”

Greta Van Fleet + “Heat Above” Music Video

Today, Greta Van Fleet presents a brand new music video for the song “Heat Above” from the band’s upcoming sophomore album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, produced by Greg Kurstin (Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Adele) and due out April 16 (Lava/Republic Records). According to the band:

“‘Heat Above’ is theatrical, eloquent, and exaggerated. This is a dream in the clouds, a moment of peace in the storm. Thematically, we are dead center in the cult of Heaven, surreal, strange and free.”

Kishi Bashi Shares Regina Spektor Cover “Laughing With” In Celebration Of Her Birthday

In celebration of Regina Spektor’s birthday today, her former touring violinist and venerated artist in his own right Kishi Bashi has shared his cover of her deeply stirring track “Laughing With” via Joyful Noise Recordings. “Regina Spektor is a huge influence on me. She taught me almost everything I know about being a solo artist,” explains Kishi Bashi. “I was lucky enough to have been in her band for a couple of years, and what I witnessed every night on tour was nothing short of brilliant, from the songs that enchanted and enraptured, to her uncompromising work ethic and her complete command of intimacy with her fans from the stage. Happy birthday Regina!” Kishi Bashi’s version of “Laughing With,” which trades somber piano for mellowed acoustic strums, can now be heard via YouTube here.

Folk Sensibilities, “Brilliant Harmonies” On “Gorgeous” New Album, out 4/16

With the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling an entire year’s worth of tour dates, The Ladles decided to turn their only remaining gig of 2020 — a three-week summer residency in the quaint town of Springville, New York — into their extraordinary and spontaneous new album, ‘Springville Sessions.’ Recorded over the course of four days in an historic former Baptist church, the collection mixes “folk sensibilities” with pop, jazz, choral, and chamber music, creating a “gorgeous” blend fueled by spare, acoustic instrumentation and “brilliant harmonies.” “When all three voices come together,” writes American Songwriter, “the sound lights up the space like a firefly in the night.”

With Folk Sensibilities And Brilliant Harmonies, The Ladles Find Beauty In Life On “Sunset Pink”

New > Feral on UNO NYC > shares video for ‘In Flames’ single

This is something of a reintroduction for Feral, the Massachusetts based artist (by way of Ohio, by way of New York). Through two EPs on UNO he became known for crafting dense sonic landscapes that pulled the listener between his imagining of big room dance floors and more pensive, intimate moments. With early champions in the 2010s French dance scene like Brodinski and Ghostly Intl cohorts, to the perennially cool LuckyMe label, there was always a sense that Feral’s clash within those worlds would breed something entirely unique.

TED WHEN UNVEILS MYSTICAL VIDEO FOR “NOTHING LEFT”

Motown/Blacksmith Recordings artist Ted When has teamed up with award-winning Canadian filmmaking collective Black Lake (Martin Garrix & Khalid, 30 Seconds To Mars, Shallou) to create a surreal series of six videos to accompany the songs from his debut solo EP, morning. In “Nothing Left” – the first video in the series – an illuminated orb leads a woman from her home into the nearby forest. As she explores the majesty of the natural world at night, she reaches a clearing and glimpses a mysterious sight in the sky.

Philippe Cohen Solal of Gotan Project and Tunng’s Mike Lindsay unveil Outsider

Acclaimed electronic musician, producer, and composer Philippe Cohen Solal and Mike Lindsay, the Mercury Prize-winning co-founder, composer, and producer of UK acid folk band Tunng, have united for a remarkable new album inspired by the life and work of visionary American writer/artist Henry Darger. OUTSIDER will be available in North America via Solal’s ¡Ya Basta! Records on April 12/13, honoring the dates of Darger’s birth (April 12, 1892) and death (April 13, 1973).

Greta Van Fleet release ethereal video for ‘Heat Above’

Greta Van Fleet presents a brand-new music video for the song ‘Heat Above’, from the band’s upcoming second album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, produced by Greg Kurstin (Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Adele) and due out April 16 (Lava/Republic Records). According to the band:

“‘Heat Above’ is theatrical, eloquent, and exaggerated. This is a dream in the clouds, a moment of peace in the storm. Thematically, we are dead centre in the cult of Heaven, surreal, strange, alive and free.”

AZIOLA CRY: “Hollow Reflections” From Chicago Instrumental Progressive Metal Trio Premiered At Sonic Perspectives

Formed by Mike Milaniak on guitar, Jason Blake on Warr guitar, and Tommy Murray on drums, AZIOLA CRY has performed with Behold… The Arctopus, Don Caballero, Tiles, Far Corner, and many others, while appearing at progressive rock festivals including M.A.R.S. Fest. The band released their debut album, Ellipsis, in 2005, followed by Ghost Conversations in 2007, after which they went wholly dormant, until now.

VIDEO PREMIERE: Chicago Instrumental Progressive Metal Trio AZIOLA CRY Drops ‘Hollow Reflections’ Single, Upcoming Full-Length “The Ironic Divide” To Arrive in March Through SENSORY RECORDS