Archives

Alternative Pop

Epilepsy

by Martin Ejlertsen

Epilepsy from The Admirer by Black Light White Light


How can you convey a song about a disease? Especially a disease like epilepsy that most people have heard about but probably know very little about. And can I express the feelings and the hopelessness associated with having a child with this disease without it being simply too much for others to listen to?

Among other things, it was with these thoughts that I started writing the song Epilepsy. A song that has now become very central to my album The Admirer, which is my most personal album to date. The song was also the first single from the album, and was released on International Epilepsy Day. That all made sense.

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Miles And Memories

by Mike Haggith

All The Best In All You Do


Do you ever rehearse a conversation in your head that you’ll probably never have?

My name is Mike Haggith. I’m an indie/alternative artist with countless albums under my belt, and stories to tell. Today, I’ve got one for you.

Imagine being 18 and setting off for a place where no one knows your name, landing in a place where the only thing familiar is your dream. That was me, stepping out of the car and touching the ground of Sault Ste Marie for the first time. I had just relocated from Windsor, Ontario. It was 2010 and I looked like McLovin from Superbad, so at least I had that going for me.

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Cruel Optimism – The story behind the music of Natural Velvet

by Corynne Ostermann of Natural Velvet

Natural Velvet


My name is Corynne Ostermann; I’m a multidisciplinary artist and musician playing bass & providing vocals for the Baltimore-based group Natural Velvet.

Natural Velvet started in 2012, and I’ve been involved since the beginning, as well as with my bandmates Spike Arreaga (guitar), Kim Te (guitar), and Greg Hatem (drums, production). I genuinely feel so lucky to have had my bandmates’ attention for as long as I have had, and as a result, I’m very protective of them and the long-term sustainability of our project.

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A Collaborative Musical Concept

by Octomusic


I remember when I first started the OctoMusic project; I was still playing in my previous band back in 2017-2018. I was kind of tired of playing in that four-piece format, and I just felt we weren’t moving the whole thing forward, so that was the perfect time for me to start working on my own thing. I began releasing different singles and working with a couple of other musicians. When you do everything by yourself, it is very challenging as you have to establish your own deadlines and you have nobody to share the workload with, like when you are in a band, but it’s also very comforting as you can produce your music with much more depth.

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Stasis

by Forest

Forest


Want to know how I became good at making music? I just forgot I sucked at it.

I have a selective memory. Depending on how I feel, things either seem rather gloomy or much more thrilling looking back. However, a feeling I remember experiencing well throughout my upbringing is one of not being good enough. I always tried different things, which made me insightful in many respects but simultaneously mediocre in those very things. I’ve always struggled to do one thing. That always made me feel indecisive and ill-disciplined – two qualities you don’t want as a male where I’m from.

Well, my dad died when I was really young, so most of my life has just been my mother and me. As much as I’d hate to admit it, she significantly influenced my perception of the world and myself in it. Accepting this brought about the meaning behind my latest project: “Stasis,” a collection of songs made at home during points of recovery after wild trips far from home (2021-2022).

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What I’m in it for

by Adrian Sood

Adrian Sood


Music has always been an integral part of my life. I have been writing it since I can remember. Nevertheless, I feel I am only beginning to understand it now in my more mature years.

I’ve tried my hand at all different styles and genres. That’s important to do if you want to grow as a writer. I’ve been in and out of bands through the years but writing and recording is it for me.

Thats what I’m in it for.

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Automatic Songwriting

by Alison Eales

Alison Eales


I have just released my first solo album. It is called Mox Nox, a sundial motto that means ‘night, shortly’, and the theme running through the record is the passing of time, particularly the transition from day to night. Rather than writing songs specifically for the album, I looked through my songbook for things I had already written that fit this theme, and one of them (now called The Broken Song) jumped out at me as being a bit of a curiosity.

I’ve always been a night owl. I can be absolutely exhausted at 10pm, but by 11 my head will be racing with ideas. The Broken Song began its life during a nocturnal writing session, and its original lyrics made direct reference to being up all night. The song was clearly relevant – but it was also an underdog, half-written and still wearing its working title. I hadn’t thought about it in years.

Looking over the lyrics, I remembered that I had always liked the verses but struggled to come up with a chorus. I’ve never been too worried about following a verse-chorus structure, but I knew this song needed more, and I knew that it was stuck. The breakthrough came when I deleted my crappy excuse for a chorus and looked at the lyrics that were left. Quite suddenly, I saw that the song I had thought was about a particular event in my life was about something else entirely.

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The Futile Project, with a Wink

by Hendrik Heuser

Hendrik Heuser of The Futile Project


When I read the advertisement for the contest, I had to chuckle. The Nassau cultural prize for contemporary composition 2003 sounded great to me. Yet I hardly believed in myself enough to think the effort to apply would be more than futile. So that’s what I called my non-existent band project: The Futile Project.

I had left all my former bands when I returned from six months abroad in Glasgow. There, for the first time, I had an opportunity to present my music to an audience of musicians I hardly knew. Therefore, the feedback I got was honest and not tainted by friendship or sympathy. I performed almost every Monday at Gerry Lyon’s open stage night in the Nice’n’Sleazy, a club on Sauchiehall Street.

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Some things stop, some things don’t

by jakson

jakson


I am jakson.

jakson is a musical project by me, jakson.

It first began in 2019 with the release of ‘guilt.’ There have been three releases since.

The latest release, ‘too artsy for the footy kids, too footy for the art ones,’ was released in February 2023.

It was written and recorded in my bedroom as I moved across Melbourne, Bendigo, and Canberra over the last three years. Its title comes from a line in its second song, ‘michael cera, serotonin.’ It references how I fit in socially, growing up in a country town with an interest in sports and art.

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I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to think about

by Ben VanBuskirk of Blackout Orchestra

Ben VanBuskirk aka Blackout Orchestra


I can’t talk about music.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I have the language. I can talk about what a particular song means to me, or I can talk about what that drummer is doing on the hi-hat that makes you know it’s them. Music history is an easy one – I’ve devoured all the rock bios, read all the critical analysis, seen all the interviews. I eat, sleep and breathe music. So why does it feel hard to talk about?

Not to sound all new-age about it, but music is elemental. Larger than life. When I was a kid, like most kids, I was into superheroes. The bright colors, the high stakes, the every moment of a story that meant something important to the larger narrative. As I grew up, music was the only “adult” thing that felt that exciting, that vital, that universal and yet intensely personal.

So of course I became a musician.

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