New Tunes 20.10.2023

Hello music lovers! 🎶

It's Friday again, and a new beginning!
The #newtunes new music suggestions are here, for the weekend and beyond.

Lesser known and very well-known musicians are making tunes and in this flood of sounds it's sometimes really hard to choose one that satisfies all tastes, and besides my censor's taste which requires something specific and subjective, after more than forty years of listening to I can't tell you what it is, except that I like it and it will resonate in my ears for a while.

You know that musicians need our attention, young and unknown musicians especially, after all, if the music is not spreading then there is no reason for it to be created at all.
So, dear listeners and readers, take a moment of your precious time and give it to the proposals, you might even find something for yourself.
And if you don't like it, just skip it.

Music4Life!

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The Dead Brothers - Wayfaring Stranger

Today I'm kicking off #newtunes with the Swiss band The Dead Brothers, unknown to me until now, but a real discovery. The quartet's original leader and frontman was Alan Crubailan, who is sadly now deceased (1964-2021).
The rest of the band recently posthumously released an album Death Is Forever, where Alan wrote all the songs and sang them, but he never saw an album release.
As I read about them they started as a funeral choir and later decided to perform regularly. They have released several albums and are regularly concentrated in Europe. Music experts even say that this is one of the best Swiss bands since 1999. The music is a distinctly unconventional morbid mix of swamp blues, country, and gypsy jazz. At times they even remind me of Tom Waits. I recommend listening to the whole album!

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Hania Rani - Hello

Hanne Raniszewske or Hanie Rani is a Polish composer and classical pianist by training. Since her 2019 debut album Esje (Essays), the musician has surprised with her ability to push her own boundaries and the sophistication of her piano playing.
On her latest album Ghosts, released in July this year, she ventured into more experimental, synth-backed electronic waters, where her vocals are also to the fore, and, all in all, it sounds very mainstream but surprisingly appealing to the ears.
For the showcase, I chose the song Hello, a distinct dream pop that could easily have been a big hit.
Of course, this is just my opinion.

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Eartheater - Pure Smile Snake Venom

Behind the pseudonym, Eartheater is Alexandra Drewchin, an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and singer who has been performing since 2009. Her music is always a mix of folk acoustic, experimental electronica, and beat. She has released five albums to date, and her latest, this year's Powders, was released in September.
Eartheater puts her lyrical ability and vocal range at the forefront, proving what is possible when pop music is approached with authentic original expression. Her love poetry, inspired by modern expression and the structure of folk songs, is at the forefront of her work. Alternative and pop can live and develop in a certain harmony.

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Deene Abdelwahed - The Key To The Exit

Deene Abdelwahed is a Tunisian producer and DJ. She started her musical career in the underground of the Tunisian music scene and as part of the Arabstazy collective before moving to Paris in 2016. With her first album Khonnar in 2018, she immediately gained cult status, with hypnotic club tracks rooted in traditional Arabic music. With these songs, she reversed the colonialist view of the Arabic-speaking world, while critiquing the sexism and homophobia she experienced first-hand in her native Tunisia.
This August she released her second album Jbal Rrsas, full of bass, techno, electro, and experimental rhythms, dark but still danceable. In her new songs, she mostly reinterprets the Egyptian genre of mahranganat with a combination of shaabi, music played at weddings, EDM, hip-hop, and auto-tune.
She says she is not interested in folklore, but uses it as a kind of background, a soundtrack for the impending end of the world that is upon us...

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Idles - Dancer

Idles is a British indie rock band, active since 2009, that came to critical attention with their 2017 album Brutalism. The music is punk and post-punk rock. Since then they have been gaining popularity and moving into the mainstream.
Their latest single Dancer is the introduction to their new album Tangk, their fifth in a row. The song Dancer is polished post-punk, after all, they can afford it now. What do I know, I guess it suits them. Me too :)

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Vanishing Twin - Lotus Eater

Vanishing Twin is a London-based trio of multi-instrumentalists who have been performing since 2016 and have released six albums to date. The latest, Afternon X, was released last week.
Their music creates a kind of hypnotic, surreal fantasy or psychedelic avant-garde and is the closest thing to the neo-psychedelia of a Stereolab or Sun Ra's retro-futurism.
I find the song Lotus Eater quite interesting to introduce this new avant-garde psychedelia that creates new spaces, as far away from our dirty reality as possible.

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Tex Crick - Easy Keepers

Tex Crick is an Australian singer, pianist, composer and guitarist. He recently released his second album, Sweet Dreamin'. He sang and played all the songs and instruments himself. After the opening song of the album, Easy Keepers, it's clear that he doesn't want to overcomplicate things and sell us some vital truths.
A nice easy-listening song, with very smooth vocals, pop-piano, and analogue synths, with which he creates above all an atmosphere of optimism and harmony, which is much needed in these strange times.

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Pat Metheny - Morning Of The Carnival

And finally, someone I appreciate very much. Patrick Metheny, American jazz guitarist and composer, released his studio album "Dream Box" last summer. It's his twelfth solo album, not counting those recorded as leader of the Pat Metheny Group, with which he released thirteen albums between 1977 and 2010. In addition to his studio albums, he has numerous live albums, compilations and film scores, such as "The Falcon and the Snowman" (which features the big hit "This Is Not America" with David Bowie).
Given his stylistic purity and his tendency to expand the horizons of inexhaustible jazz, it's not surprising that among the many awards he has received, he has also won twenty Grammys and is perhaps the only musician to have won Grammys in no less than twelve different categories. He has been named Best (Jazz) Guitarist several times.
Metheny has said that his new album is an unusual record, more like a compilation of solo songs he has recorded on tour over the last few years. All the tracks are guitar-based, as evidenced by the title - "Dream box", which is slang for an electric guitar with a "hollow" body. There are no recognizable hits that we will hear on the radio, but Morning Of The Carnival catches my ear.