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Cardiff Psych Rock phenomena 'No Thee No Ess' are poised to release their first brand new single from anticipated new 'Dimmer Switch' album out via Surk Recordings this September. 'Chorus' is the first to be lifted from the new LP and will be released on Friday 16th July.

No Thee No Ess is a collaboration between Paul Battenbough (The Cosmic Array, King of Despair) and Andy Fung (Derrero, Cymbient). The two musical and visual artists first met whilst working in the kitchen of a Cardiff arts centre and bonded through a shared love of The Beach Boys, Neil Young, and West Coast psychedelia.

The partnership creates spontaneously, conceiving songs and ideas in the studio and then recording straight away to preserve their freshness and immediacy. The eighth No Thee No Ess album, 'Dimmer switch' was recorded with musician/producer Frank Naughton at his legendary Cardiff studio, ‘Ty Drwg.’

Naughton contributes additional instrumentation, bringing new lysergic colours to songs like “kaleidoscopic” and "Chorus.” The result is among no thee no ess’ most adventurous works to date, rich with experimental energy while retaining their characteristic blissed out vision. Dimmer switch will be released by Surk Recordings on vinyl, CD, streaming, and digital download in August 2021.

Artist:  No Thee No Ess
Single Title:  'Chorus'
Single Release Date:  Friday 16th July 2021
Single Format:  Digital / CD
Album Title:  'Dimmer Switch'
Album Release Date:  Friday 17th September 2021
Album Format:  Digital / Vinyl LP
Label:  Surk Recordings
Genre:  Psych Folk Rock
Social Tags:  @thee_ess @Beastpruk
 

Led by Welsh-native producer and vocalist Ryan A. James, Man Without Country incorporates modern electronic precision with a love of timeless melodies, and an emphasis on lyrics that cannot be compared to many of his peers.

MWC first emerged in 2007, originally as a duo alongside Tomas Greenhalf. The pair produced two acclaimed studio albums - the confrontational Foe (2012) and the maximalist Maximum Entropy (2015) under Cooperative Music(Universal / PIAS). After parting ways the project resurfaced in late 2017, essentially as a solo act.

In 2018, and following a successful crowd-funder with PledgeMusic, James caught the attention of Camden-based indie Killing Moon Records, who released the ambitious Infinity Mirror in October of that year.

“The fact that Infinity Mirror is primarily the work of just one musician is incredible. There is so much craft and melody on show here you will struggle to hear a better electronic album this year - this is absolutely outstanding.”-  THEELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK 

James’ abilities have also seen him collaborate with some prominent names. His vocal-feature on ‘Sordid Affair’ by multi-platinum-selling Norwegian electro-veterans Röyksopp was the first single taken from their 2014 studio album The Inevitable End. In 2019, the duo revealed ‘In the End’ as part of their Lost Tapes series. Originally recorded in 2014, the song features a vocal duet between James and Susanne Sundfør.

Over the course of his career James has also accumulated quite the remix CV, which lists official remixes and co-remixes for the likes of ionnalee (iamamiwhoami), Interpol, Chad Valley, Empathy Test, Carlosh Garzat, School of Seven Bells, Band of Skulls, Röyksopp, M83, Moby and many others.

Now a father halfway through his thirties, James returns with the Nostalgia-tinged Bloods, Side A- his new EP inspired by human relationships. Drawing influence from Com Truise and The Japanese House, lead single ‘Gardener in a War’ blends warped synthesizers and elastic bass-lines with fragile vocals and self-deprecating lyrics (“I was the Petri-dish for you. You’ll be a better man than me”).

The EP’s second track ‘Savannah’ presents a conflicting juxtaposition of bouncing arpeggios, beneath Yazoo-style vocals that recount episodes of sleep regression and feelings of claustrophobia. Whereas closing track ‘Ultra-Nightmare’ is dark and moody, evoking a sense of sadness and unease.

Bloods, Side A is due July 16th on all digital streaming platforms.

Tracklist: "Bloods, Side A" EP

1.Pilot
2.Savannah
3.Gardener in a War
4.Our Silences
5.Ultra-Nightmare
Additional:
6.Gardener in a War - Edit
7.Ultra-Nightmare - Edit


“Remember the Bad Things is an 80s-inspired, electronic alt-pop track with sweltering synths that feel like one big rush.”
- Baeble Music

“Man Without Country sounds like he’s discovered solace in solitude after searching for a place to belong to for a long time.”
- Metro

“Dark, intense, hypnotic.”
- The 405

“Oh God bless... That's just stunning isn't it? It sounds like the soundtrack to a computer game I'd want to get irretrievably lost in.”
- Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales

“Swelling synthscapes and towering choruses.”
- The Times

“Ryan James, the man behind the music, is more than qualified to deliver this synth-heavy, electronic gem alongside a stunning new lyric video.”
- Vents Magazine

“State of the art synth-pop.”
- Classic Pop Magazine

“Combining a mastery of synth, guitar and drums...”
-  THEELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK


Website:   https://manwithout.country
Facebook:  https://facebook.com/manwithoutcountry
Twitter:   https://twitter.com/mwc_music
Instagram:  https://instagram.com/manwithoutcountry
YouTube:   https://youtube.com/c/manwithoutcountry
Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/artist/00b3RKsk2pv5VWSnYAKW8u
Bandcamp:  https://bc.manwithout.country
Patreon:  https://patreon.com/manwithoutcountry

Welsh Alt-Rock band 'BOI' are all set to release their brand new debut album entitled 'Coron O Chwinc' via new Welsh independent label 'Recordiau Crwn' on Friday 25th June 2021.

BOI have been playlisted several times on  BBC Radio Cymru  since releasing their first single back in April, and have had heavy radio support from  Adam Walton ,  Rhys Mwyn ,  Lisa Gwilym ,  Huw Stephens ,  Sian Eleri on  BBC Radio ,  Artrocker Radio ,  WFMU ,  KX FM ,  Bombshell Radio  and  CISM FM Montreal.

‘BOI’ create a big, melodic, unapologetically drum and guitar driven sound, with lyrics and melodies that explore the big issues of our times and the human state. The 10 songs off “Coron O Chwinc” were recorded in various spaces around Wales, and were then mixed in the capable hands of Dafydd Ieuan ( Super Furry Animals ).

'BOI' albym gynta newydd 'Coron O Chwinc' allan drwy Recordiau Crwn ar dydd Gwener 25ain o Fehefin 2021.Mae 'BOI' yn creu sain mawr, melodaidd, wedi ei yrru’n ddi-drugaredd gan ddryms a gitars, gyda geiriau ac alawon sy’n archwilio themau mawr ein hoes a’n cyflwr dynol.

Recordiwyd y 10 trac oddi ar “Coron O Chwinc” mewn amryw o leoliadau gwahanol o amgylch Cymru, ac yna ei cymysgu yn dwylo galluog Dafydd Ieuan (Super Furry Animals)
Bu Osian Gwynedd a Rhodri Siôn yn aelodau o Beganifs/Big Leaves am 15 mlynedd a mwy, gan recordio sawl albwm ac ‘EP’ o dan labeli amrywiol, gyda chaneuon poblogaidd yn cynnwys Seithenyn, Meillionen, Cwcwll a llawer mwy. Bu’r grwp yn llwydiannus ar lefel lleol, drwy Gymru gyfan a phrofi peth llwyddiant yn teithio o gwmpas y DU a thu hwnt gyda bandiau megis Catatonia a Super Furry Animals.

Music Blog Wales  recently described latest single ‘Tragwyddoldeb’ as "a blissful ballad that is filled with emotion and shows the diversity in the musicianship of the band, and really emphasises the close writing partnership between Sion & Gwynedd. Piano is effectively used as the main instrument and creates a beautiful 60′s pop melody and the song that would not be out of place on a Mccartney/Lennon writing session." -  Music Blog Wales


"So good....that sleazy, glitter band groove is somthin' else and is very moreish"
Adam Walton - BBC Radio Wales
 
".....uncompromising and bold guitar and drums with no frills or excess padding."
 - God Is In The TV

"....heavy octane guitar-driven wall of sound, that is served with a uber-confident delivery."
 - Music Blog Wales

No mess, no fuss, 'BOI' start as it mean to go on, like a hand grenade with no timer: pull the pin, instant explosion!"
 - Joyzine

Band Members/Aelodau'r Band
Keyboards/Allweddellau - Osian Gwynedd
Lead Vocals/Canwr - Rhodri Siôn
Guitar/Gitâr - Ifan Emlyn
Bass/Gitâr Fas - Heledd Mair Watkins
Drums/Drymiau - Dafydd Owen  

Osian Gwynedd and Rhodri Siôn were members of Beganifs/Big Leaves for 15 years and more, and recorded several albums and EPs under various labels, with their hits including Seithenyn, Meillionen, Cwcwll and many more. The group gained huge success in Wales during the 1990 and 2000s and performed throughout the UK and further afield with bands such as Catatonia and Super Furry Animals. Their English-language single Racing Birds was Single of the Week on Mark and Lard’s Radio 1 show.
 

BOI Online:
https://twitter.com/BOIblahblah
https://www.facebook.com/BOImuzik
https://boitiwns.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/blahdblahboi/

The West is changing. All the cardinal points are changing but the upheavals are most strikingly felt in the West. It is now perfectly acceptable for men to dance with women. In the old days men only danced with men or horses or the occasional bear. Flimsy biplanes cross the skies. The telephone has replaced the telegraph. Sometimes the telephone will ring and the voice of a woman will announce that she is coming by biplane to attend a barn dance. Django has only a limited time to construct the barn. But he is strong. He also prepares a landing strip. He has taught himself the fandango in front of a mirror that once belonged in a saloon. There are colleges out east that teach many such dances but one is quite enough for him. He could dance the fandango to the horizon and back if he wished. He hears a low droning and looks up. Biplanes are aircraft that like being flown by both male and female pilots. This one swoops towards him menacingly. The bullets from the Gatling gun mounted in the cockpit make a wavy line in the dirt that stops right in front of the toes of his boots. For a moment he feels the temptation to draw his six shooter and shoot the wheels off the thing as it comes in to land. He suppresses the urge. The West is changing and he must change too. He has already changed his pants and shirt. A permanent change in his attitude will be next. Easy come, easy go, Django tells himself as he welcomes the new arrival and shows her into the spick and span barn.

Visit Barrie Doyle's website here

One of the fun things about writing works of fiction is the excitement of meeting my characters for the first time.

Over the period of a year or so, I will meet them, name them, give them bodies and personalities and watch them develop into viable and, hopefully, believable people.

Some, I will like. Others not. Some will have strange quirks. Others will be fairly normal, even bland, people.

All will be wound together into a strange and dangerous situation that will challenge them and perhaps even destroy them. Some will pass the test. Others will fail. Still others will not survive. Some will be major protagonists or antagonists while others will be peripheral but perhaps quirky bystanders who help move the main characters along.

To me, the naming of the character is critical. The name must be memorable, give hints of the character and his or her role or background. Even if the person’s personality is astoundingly normal, he or she needs a name that will stand out for the reader while also not confusing that reader with a similar-named character at some other point in the book.

I find this a tremendously challenging but rewarding aspect of writing.

It became even more challenging when I wrote  Musick for the King.  This novel revolved around the remarkable creation and presentation of one of the most acclaimed and loved pieces of music,  Messiah,  by the composer George Frederick Handel. My major characters—Handel, King George, the singer Susanna Cibber, Jonathan Swift and others—already had their names. For me, naming the minor characters that help the plot along was the issue. In an age with too many Georges, Thomases, Williams, Marys and so on, it was no easy task.

The same applies to my suspense-thriller series  The Oak Grove Conspiracies . There, naming characters is compounded by the story settings. Wales, Italy, Turkey, the US—all requiring believable yet typical names from those nations.

Compounding this is the Welsh penchant for repeating names (Thomas Thomas, William Williams, Evan Evans and so on) as well as their extreme refusal to come up with different surnames. Everyone, it seems, is a Jones, Williams, Jenkins or Davies!

Indeed, the Welsh came up with a unique way of differentiating various individuals bearing the same surnames. Thus, the storeowner Evans became Evans the Shop, while the preacher Evans became Evans the Bible and Evans the bus driver was inevitably Evans the Bus. Plus, of course, Evans the Post, Evans the Meat and Evans the School. Then too there was Mrs. Evans Lamppost (of the four Mrs. Evans’s on the street, she was the one who had a lamppost outside her front door). There was even poor Evans Bungalow (he didn’t have too much on top) and Evans Half Step who had one leg shorter than the other.

See my dilemma? Try and come up with some interesting names for a fictional thriller when facing those challenges. Finding ethnic names for characters situated in places like Istanbul or Venice was a piece of cake by comparison!

Sometimes you can create a character and his name just pops out of nowhere but is perfect because it hints at some characteristic or background without being too blatant.

For example, my lead modern-day character in the  Oak Grove Conspiracies  series is Bradstone Wallace, known as ‘Stone’. The name implies a stalwart character—one who strong, resolute and is a ‘stone wall’, resolute and unmoving in times of danger. Or his intelligence buddy Chad Lawson, whose name quietly invokes a heritage of law keeping.

Sometimes I envy the novelists of earlier generations who named their characters blatantly and somewhat ridiculously based upon their overwhelming distinctive attribute rather than develop names that reflected their era.

Henry Fielding, for example, writes about a character named Mr. Thwackum—a particularly brutal teacher and clergyman. Charles Dickens was the master of such made up but infinitely evocative names. Can anyone top Ebenezer Scrooge, Uriah Heep or Wackford Squeers? Then there’s Fagin, Oliver Twist, the Barnacle family and Martin Chizzlewit. Memorable, if unusual, names. Certainly not the norm in Victorian England.

Naming a character means giving them a cloak of identity. It sets them in a place and in a space that they and they alone can operate in and define. It expresses their personality or attributes in subtle or not too subtle ways and gives them parameters in which they will conduct the business of moving the plot along.

Their name must be a major part of what makes them memorable to the reader. The reader must remember the evil this individual perpetuates, or the compassion they display and passion they evoke.

The novelist plays with names. You try different first and last names, middle names, or nicknames in order to find the ‘perfect’ combination. In my book The Prince Madoc Secret I had fun with one minor Welsh character whom I named Evan Thomas. He was therefore given the nickname ‘ET” and was the exact opposite of the movie ET in terms of size and volubility.

I am now engaged in creating and naming a series of characters for the fourth installment of the  Oak Grove Conspiracies  titled  “The Dragon’s Legacy”.  Some of the main characters will reappear of course, but there is a new set of bad guys, a whole whack of peripheral characters in various eras and a slew of historical characters such as Merriweather Lewis (Lewis & Clark Expedition) and US President Thomas Jefferson, among others. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

There are many memorable characters to be found in novels. People you get to love or admire; people who make you shudder in fear, or who baffle you with their wild actions or decisions. There are characters you meet once and will never encounter again. Others you will come across in a number of books that become your favourites and valued old friends.

What are the names of some of your favourite characters in novels, and why? Sherlock Holmes? Frodo or Bilbo Baggins? Lucy Pevensie, Hercule Poirot? How about Harry Potter, Atticus Finch, James Bond, Mary Poppins, Miss Marple or Winnie the Pooh?

So many to choose from in so many genres—mysteries, fantasy, thrillers, historical, romance—the list goes on,

I would love to hear from you. Please comment. 

Kindest regards

Barrie Doyle

www.barriedoyle.com

Author of the Oak Grove Conspiracies novels and "Musick for the King"

crisis management and training  www.notifwhen.ca

John MOuse will release new single “When Wales Play Away” on Friday 4th June. This is John’s unofficial release for the Wales Football team at the delayed Euro2020 tournament.

Returning to the theme of Football, When Wales Play Away is inspired by the Wales travelling fans, known as The Red Wall/Y Wal Goch, which he experienced for the first time while playing to a sold out show in Budapest during the qualifying campaign for this tournament.

The tracks nostalgic guitar driven sound is a return to previous John MOuse albums and football themed songs, such as “I Was a Goalkeeper” and the connection with Wales “Whole in my Heart (An Area the Size of Wales)” and a departure from the last longplayer, “The Goat”, an Electronic Krautrock affair, which John has promised to return to for next years follow up album.

“I hope that this song really connects with the Welsh fans, and we get to sing it together soon at a live show, or in the terraces.” - John MOuse

The track is available on streaming platforms and available to buy on the John MOuse Bandcamp page.

https://johnmouse.bandcamp.com/