SINGLES BAR

A round-up of EPs and singles that have come our way

SINGLES BAR 30 Oct 2015JAKE AARON is a singer-songwriter from London with a distinctive spiky guitar style and a youthful voice and outlook that seem at odds with the grey in his hair. I’m still puzzling over the first two songs on his eponymous EP. ‘1790’ is clearly very personal and I suspect that only one other person fully understands it. ‘Record Player’ is equally deep – “I’m not a rock, I’m a record player” seems to be the key line. I’m not rigid, I’m open to influence? I don’t know. ‘High Rolling’ is an instrumental, not pretty but hypnotic, and then comes possibly the best song in the set, ‘Dalston Kingsland’. Again, it’s a young man’s song as is the final ‘Constitution Blues’. Jake reminds me of all sorts of people but I can’t think who they are but I do know he is a name to watch.
www.jakeaaron.com

SINGLES BAR 30 Oct 2015Raising The Fires, the debut album from HEG & THE WOLF CHORUS, will be with us next year but here’s our first taste, a single containing two versions of ‘The White Witch’. The “standard” version, if that’s the correct term, begins gently with Heg’s voice and piano before building up with echoey drums and strings to a big finish. The second version, The Jillk Remix starts with strange percussion and electronics with just the bare skeleton of the song remaining and Heg’s voice manipulated to a stutter. If the remix doesn’t appear on the album you’ll wish you’d bought this. Excellent.
www.hegandthewolfchorus.com

SINGLES BAR 30 Oct 2015‘Seed Stitch’ is the single taken from Coracle, the most recent album from EMILY PORTMAN. Like so many of Emily’s it’s wrapped up in myth and memory and metaphor. Ostensibly about knitting it is a song of loss, of breakdown and new beginnings. Initially I thought it was about the loss of virginity and innocence but now I’m not so sure. Paired with it is ‘Nightjar’ another complex song full of imagery which often goes unexplained and one really weird line which will continue to haunt you.
www.emilyportman.co.uk

SINGLES BAR 30 Oct 2015THE DEADLY WINTERS are a five-piece band from Edinburgh who are beginning to make a name for themselves. Table In The Corner is their latest EP; the title track being the story of a piece of pub furniture that no-one ever uses because … well, that’s the story and we’re not privy to the answer to the unspoken question. ‘Liars, Liars, Liars’ is the tale of a man on the run pursued by stories that make him out to be much worse than he is – it’s a very clever song. ‘Sam Did Run’ tells of a war hero pursued by bullets which leads nicely into ‘Gone To Ground’. The band has a sound that is part folk-rock, part Americana and a fine songwriter in Christopher Blair. We should hear more of them.