Words In The Earth

There's a self-deprecating joke amongst fans of New York noise rock pioneers Swans that goes something along the lines of: 'What's your favourite Swans song?' 'The one with a single guitar chord repeated for ten minutes while someone screams "suicide" over the top' 'But wait... isn't that all of them?!'. Cue a chorus of laughing music nerds. Joking aside, there's something to be said for the mind-melting experimentalism of repetitive music, and while that Swans joke is a bit of an exaggeration, there are times when a simple hypnotic loop can offer something quite fascinating to listen to. In this regard, I wonder if that was the intention of Hollywood Video Game Kill-Bot on their latest single Shaker, or whether the track's trance-like effect is simply an incidental effect of it's composition? Hollywood Video Game Kill-Bot is a rather enigmatic artist, with little information available about them other than the name and location...

Despite some people's assertion that everything in music has been done already and nothing is original, there are certain artists who manage to refresh familiar styles in a way that adds something new and special to it. The sound of 90s R'n'B was the dominant form of pop music during my youth, a time when TLC, Destiny's Child, All Saints and Aaliyah were some of the biggest voices on radio and MTV. That sound has been a strong influence on a number of artists in the last ten years, ranging from Ariana Grande to The XX, but rarely has it been such a pure inspiration as it is to Gaviana. On her latest single Let Go, the singer/songwriter from Long Island, NY appears like the great lost artist of 90s R'n'B; but rather than feeling like a vintage relic, Gaviana balances the classic and the modern together in harmony, producing a track that is catchy, fun and hugely entertaining but also has a sense of drama and empowerment. With a string of successful singles under ...