While great music can come from anywhere, certain styles seem to attract specific kinds of greatness. The best drummers play jazz, the best bassists play funk, that kind of thing. If it’s great vocals you’re looking for however, my money is on soul. Sure, there’ll be plenty better singers out there on a technical level in other fields. Belting out higher notes, hitting wider ranges with more consistency and clarity. But music, like all art forms, ultimately comes down to expression. A great soul performance just channels a raging river of feeling into every note. Joy burns like a fever, sorrow cuts like a knife. It’s not about perfection, it’s about pouring every fibre of your being into each word as though you’re pleading for salvation at the pearly gates. I can’t quite recall the last time a vocal performance grabbed me the way ‘Time’ does. Christopher Escarega here captures the helplessness of feeling the years rushing by you as you fight against the current with fervent intensity. What’s more – great guitarists play the blues – and just as that stunning voice has drawn you in, a bewitching bluesy solo flares into life, burning with every bit as much passion and feeling. No matter how quickly time feels as though it’s slipping through your fingers, I promise this song is worth a moment of yours.
top tracks
Top Tracks: Sparxsea – Daylight
Life is too short to not allow ourselves to feel as deeply as possible. Why restrain what’s in your heart when you can bask in the inherent beauty of the world around you, and surround yourself with others who do the same. It’s all too easy to become guarded and jaded these days, but imagine if we all had the courage to tell the people who inspire us, comfort us, and make our lives brighter exactly how much knowing them has enriched our time on this Earth. We see the best in others that they may not see in themselves, what a waste to leave it unspoken. Beneath the rock solid rhythm section and bright jangle pop melodies of Sparxsea’s ‘Daylight’, lies just such a reassuring confession of faith and appreciation. The sentiment behind its radiant chorus (“I see a daylight burning bright in you, and rays full of golden truth, seeding creation in my heart“) embodies the spirit of what we all long to hear from another, yet are too scared to offer in turn. Between the sense of community and solidarity being fostered, and the fact that the track’s proceeds are raising money for Ever After Mustang Rescue horse charity, it’s hard not to be moved by the love and compassion poured into this project.
Top Tracks: Francesca Louise – Waiting For You
We all need a little push once in a while. Someone to spur us on to take the leap when presented with new challenges and opportunities. As heartening as it is to have people in our lives who embolden us to be better and step out of our comfort zone, often the only encouraging voice at hand when we need one is our own. It’s all too easy to dismiss that inner voice as a hypocrite; the one that built the comfort zone you’re so scared to step out of in the first place, the one most afraid of failure. Yet take a moment to trust in yourself and you’ll find no one more understanding of where you’re at, of what you’re capable of, and of what it would mean to succeed. ‘Waiting For You’, the gorgeous new single from Belwood favourite Francesca Louise, plays as an encouraging reminder to herself to take the plunge into the unknown. Fittingly Francesca’s vocals sound more comforting and assured than ever, and clips of her own travels and adventures featured in the charming lyric video echo the promise of brighter days ahead. The warm folk arrangement shimmers like golden hour sun on rippling water, before building towards a triumphant, uplifting finale that feels like feeling that same sun warm your skin as you begin truly believing your own encouraging words.
Top Tracks: Ren Lawton – Charlotte
Sometimes the best creative breakthroughs are born through approaching your art from a different angle. A fresh perspective works wonders, and occasionally the best way to find one is by adding constraints to a project and treating its creation as a puzzle to be solved. The charming folk of ‘Charlotte’, the latest single from Belwood favourite Ren Lawton, is the product of just such a creative conundrum. It’s the first track from an upcoming EP Harry’s Poems (from the loft), out 23rd September, which sees him interpret the work of his uncle Harry Owen, inaugural Poet Laureate for Cheshire. Not all poetry lends itself to musicality, nor can a lot of songs claim to be truly poetic. Exploring where the overlap lies, playing Elton to his uncle’s Bernie Taupin, and finding inspiration in another medium, has clearly worked wonders for Ren’s creative spirit, if the entrancing fingerpicking and serene melodies he lends to ‘Charlotte’ are anything to go by.
Top Tracks: Megan Dixon Hood – Mind’s Eye
“My mind is like a map of every word I’ve said, reaching far and wide like a spider’s web“. It’s not often the opening line of a vibrant dance track leaves me feeling philosophical, but Megan Dixon Hood pulls off just such a feat with her kaleidoscopic new single ‘Mind’s Eye’. I was introduced recently to the writing of Victorian inventor Charles Babbage; long story short he pondered how every word we speak, every move we make, influences the air around us and makes a lasting yet invisible impression on the world. He thought that if you could somehow track every particle, you’d find a record of all those words and actions – and perhaps, with such a high level of understanding, you may even figure out what comes next. In reality, the highest level of understanding we have is of ourselves. No one knows the journey we’ve taken, the choices we’ve made that led to this moment, better than we do. As such, no one knows our own future better than us. ‘Mind’s Eye’ is a track all about trusting your gut, as the answers we seek are within us from the start. Buoyed by mesmerising synths, Megan’s soaring Aurora-esque vocals, and the energising refrain of “you know who you are“, we find this reminder: manifest the future you want, and reflect on the winding path that led here, in order to find the way forward
Top Tracks: Tyler Edwards – Since You Came Around
Call it what you will – naivety, optimism, being a hopeless romantic – but I’d like to believe there’s such thing as love at first sight. Sometimes when you meet someone there’s just an instant connection. Perhaps you have so many shared interests and experiences that you end up talking for hours and yet it feels like minutes. Or maybe you’re on the same wavelength to such a degree that you can say everything you need to and be understood with just a glance. Every so often we meet someone for the first time and it feels like we’ve known them all our lives – it only takes a small push to turn that initial spark into something deeper. The flipside however is that sometimes such meetings are with people who are only in our lives for a fleeting moment. To my mind ‘Since You Came Around’, the new single from Nashville based singer/songwriter Tyler Edwards, feels like the soundtrack to a Before Sunrise style meeting of two soulmates for the first, and last, time. With a dreamy, introspective and bittersweet quality that reminds me of The Paper Kites, it’s the sound of finding love, knowing it will slip through your fingers, and deciding to make the most of the one night you have together as at least that memory will last forever.
Top Tracks: Lucifers Beard – Out For Blood
It’s nice to do a deep dive into a song. To sit with it a while, unravel its deeper layers. See how different your tenth or twentieth listen will feel compared to the very first, after you’ve had time to pick up on the song’s nuances and form some semblance of a deeper connection. ‘Out For Blood’ is not one of those songs. This isn’t some slow burner to sit and ponder, rather, true to its name, it is a song that goes straight for the jugular. There’s no room for introspection when you can’t hear your own thoughts over the sound of the blood pumping in your ears. This track from solo project Lucifers Beard (10/10 band name, no notes) paints a thin veneer of southern grit overtop the kind of Royal Blood style no-holds-barred hard rocker that just chews you up and spits you out. Between the phenomenal gut punch bass tone, squalling guitar solo, and the brief psychedelic interlude that leaves you just enough time to catch your breath, this little gem is a delightful find for fans of Queens of the Stone Age and King Gizzard.
Top Tracks: EĐĐIE – The Spark
The hardest part of a break-up lies in the sudden onset of the unknown. Not just in practical terms; the constant stream of changes to how you spend your days now that you’re spending them without that someone by your side. Far beyond that, the most painful and confusing part is the realisation that you didn’t know what was in the other person’s heart quite as well as you thought you did. The doubt and uncertainty dig their way ever deeper through your brain like a tree root through soil. What was the moment where their love first began to falter? Was there a way that you could have kept things together? These and more questions that all leave you shaken, and rarely ever come with reassuring answers. ‘The Spark’ channels that frantic pondering about how it all unravelled into an introspective anthem awash with 80s sensibilities. This track from Pennsylvania based artist EĐĐIE, taken from his latest album Grieving Hour, deftly balances the rawness of heartbreak with memorable melodic hooks and stunningly slick production.
Top Tracks: lotusbliss – Heaven To Me
I sometimes wonder if my Spotify stats read like the listening habits of a crazy person. The kind of person that will sit and listen to the same single song on repeat for interminably long stretches of time. The way I see it, if I’m to write about a song and do it justice, I need to know it inside and out, even if it takes hours. Many songs do not fare well with that level of repetition; it becomes such familiar territory that your brain just coasts by on autopilot. But then you have songs like ‘Heaven To Me’, that unveil their secrets gradually, sounding as fresh on the 50th listen as they did on the first. This track from sibling trio lotusbliss, taken from their new EP Deafening and Silent, feels like the audio equivalent of a mirror maze. Weaving an illusion which make it seem like it stretches on forever. From the deft intricate drum work, to the understated synthscapes flickering in the background. With angelic vocals reminiscent of Nothing But Thieves’ Conor Mason, and guitar that both squalls like a gale and twirls gently like a falling snowflake. Every listen becomes a fresh adventure well worth embarking on.
Top Tracks: Picture Parlour – Face in the Picture
At first I didn’t get the hype behind Picture Parlour, but all that changed upon seeing these rising stars live. Seeing their style, energy and stage presence in the flesh, it suddenly made all the sense in the world why they were generating such buzz on the live circuit. Somehow that intensity didn’t quite get captured on their first couple of singles. ‘Face in the Picture’ is the first time that a studio recording has been able to show the quartet at the height of their powers. This title track from their debut EP, out 14th June, effortlessly outdoes the Arctic Monkeys at their own game. Katherine Parlour’s unique croon is bursting with soul, Ella Risi’s earth shaking guitar dances around cinematic orchestration; the whole damn affair feels like an event. All about how the echoes of the past, and the wounds once thought healed, continue to haunt us, ‘Face in the Picture’ feels like a ready-made Bond theme. The ideal track for a suave secret agent struggling to outrun their past, or for making the rest of us feel like we can take on the whole world.
Belwood Music 