Folk music, the kind of music genre that has been shaped by the plucked strings of acoustic guitar and the voices filled with emotions. Even if a lot of artists keep making it this way, many others are taking advantage of new music production techniques to change it, going as far as creating new music genres such folktronica – a mix, as you will have guessed, of folk music and electronica.
And as you know, we like to dig deep in the independent spheres of various music scenes. These sudden or progressive changes, these variations of pre-existing music genres, we dig them and this time around we did so by looking for changes in acoustic, traditional folk music. Among the tracks that we present to you today, you will find the sweetness of Sunflower Summit, the intimate tracks of Low Girl or even the indie-electro-pop experiments of LIVSKA. Let’s listen to this 10-track playlist & to the latest tracks of Sunflower Summit, Muca & La Marquise, NAYAD, Low Girl, Faerie, Ornoise, LIVSKA, Magali A Cult, Yannick Massard and d i z m a t i o n.
Sunflower Summit – Metronome Heart
We have all listen to songs that talk about the everyday life discomfort that a person can feel occasionally sometimes. Some artists describe this discomfort explicitly, others a little more subtly, and in “Metronome Heart” by Sunflower Summit, an artist whose folk music is both gentle and candid, it is explained in a subtle and soft way. “Metronome Heart” both depicts the way the heart beats meticulously and a way of living that is so precise that everyday life gradually loses its flavor. That being said, this feeling doesn’t last forever, thankfully, and is overcome once they are able to read between the lines of these gloomy days, therefore suddenly being able to submerge themselves in the beauty of their everyday life.
“In a nutshell, Metronome Heart is about disillusionment. That moment when it’s largely evident that the colors in your life have deadened, have facade has fallen apart and the truth stares you starkly in the face. The breath has been knocked out of you a little bit, and life is just boring. As the song continues though, the listener moves through this temporary moment in time to redefine color and light through the mundane, to find the lessons and gratitude in life’s lows and honor them, be forgiving and loving towards them.” – Sunflower Summit about “Metronome Heart”
In order to describe this weird and rather unpleasant feeling, Sunflower Summit has worked with the aerial voice of Lace & Grit ; the almost imperceptible percussions that we can hear in the background – which, we think, symbolize those imperceptible heartbeats that set the pace of our everyday life – support the voice of Lace & Grit, making “Metronome Heart” a unique collaboration which we never get tired of listening to.
Muca & La Marquise – Cheap Red Wine
We keep exploring the folk music realm and this time we listen to the latest single of the composer and guitarist Muca, who collaborated this time with the singer La Marquise on “Cheap Red Wine”. While acoustic guitar plucks played by Muca and also scattered violin chords take place in the background, La Marquise’s voice arises. She nonchalantly tells the dark story of a couple on the verge of breaking up, whose behavior is getting violent and whose personalities are no longer compatible, leaving the woman to drown her sorrow and fears in alcohol. While La Marquise tells this story both with emotion and detachment, Muca’s guitar brilliantly underlines the storyline unfolding before us ; his guitar softens the harshness, the underlying anger of the lyrics with melodious and soothing chords.
“Might have to swallow my pride
Do I really have to pick a side ?
After all, I got mine, you got yours.
Everything happening behind closed doors.”
– Muca & La Marquise – Cheap Red Wine
Muca’s music involves the voices of various singers, and he brings a different one on each of his projects ; La Marquise is a character created from scratch by Muca himself. Why, would you ask ? Because he does not like working with only one person on his project, and this is also why he also wants to set up “Muca Presents”, a concept which will allow him to highlight various singers of his entourage. In the meantime, Muca is working on his next album, “Bus 55”, which will release in June 2021.
NAYAD – Red Carpet Sand
Folk music takes on a much more electronic, pop and almost psychedelic turn on NAYAD’s new track, entitled “Red Carpet Sand”. It flirts with the characteristics of indie music : the voice of the singer of NAYAD is ethereal and heavily processed with reverberations in order to envelop her listener in a bubble of comfort, successfully putting aside all worries they may have had at the moment. Then, on the chorus, it seems like the voice and the guitar keep answering each other’s questions, thus letting the two protagonists talk about breaking up as well as making up.
“Babe, why are you so sad ?
It’s not really that bad
Now you seem to understand
This is not the promise that you hoped you would find”
– NAYAD – Red Carpet Sand
NAYAD is based in Stockholm, Sweden. They have been collaborating with various well-known producers & artists – “Red Carpet Sand” was indeed mixed by the duo of producers Swedish Red Elephant, one of the members being part of the indie-rock band I Don’t Speak French. Thanks to the success of their previous single which allowed them to be broadcasted on national radio and to be featured on Indie Shuffle, NAYAD may be a very young group, but they loudly claim their place on the independent music scene !
Low Girl – Lovable Maybe
Moving on to Low Girl, aka a more than promising artist. She has already been spotted by a large number of media & tastemakers such as the BBC radios as well as The Line OF Best Fit, which only gave her but a huge head start for her debut EP, entitled “Big Now”. Even if we are going to mainly focus on the track “Lovable Maybe”, the five tracks of “Big Now” have an intimate, personal aspect, which all talk in various ways about her struggles with OCD, a mental disorder that prevents her from living her life the way she wants to live it. She gets very vocal about it in her track “Sertraline”, the last track of the EP.
“The overwhelming presence of this disorder in my writing very much reflects my reality, except it feels like I get the final say in my songs. Sertraline takes back control of all the difficult intrusive thoughts and imagines a future where I am as unphased by the world as I was when I was a child.” – Low Girl about her track “Sertraline”
Therefore, with all of this information in mind, a song like “Lovable Maybe”, which is as melancholic as it is joyful, takes on a whole new turn ; getting to know of these troubles and her daily struggles with them allows us to read between the lines of the lyrics of this folk & indie track. “Lovable Maybe” indeed tells the story of a young woman who wonders if she can be loved for who she is by the person she loves ; a tearful story told between stretched synth notes and percussions.
“Can you handle me ?
When I’m crying at half past three
About something stupid that I touched
Am I worthy of your love ?”
– Low Girl – Lovable Maybe
We leave you with the rest of her EP “Big Now”, which we heavily recommend if you enjoyed “Lovable Maybe” !
Faerie – re:invite to the moon
Let’s keep exploring the dreamlike spheres of folk music with the American singer Faerie. She describes her world as being as fantastical as it is chaotic – we on our hand see it as being plural and diverse, and her single “re: invite to the moon” is the ultimate proof of that. If until now she has mostly wrote dreampop and synthpop music, this time she takes a step aside, allowing herself to wander around in a more organic music world, which main features are depicted by notes of guitar, bass, acoustic drums and keyboards, the result as childish as it is innocent. This soundscape produced by Spanish producer VelviV allows her to express her views of a fictitious world coming to an end, and in which she still wishes to see the positive side of things.
“So nice to meet you on the other side
Watching stars fall with meteorites
Take a moment to feel us collide
It feels so good to fly”
– Faerie – re:invite to the moon
Faerie is an artist based in New York, United States. She has been producing as Faerie since 2016 ; her project is the combination of a classical music training with jazz, pop and folk influences, three universes which allow her to translate her thoughts and vision of the world into lyrics.
And if you enjoyed Faerie’s universe on this track, we recommend you to listen to her EP, entitled “2am”, released earlier this year !
Ornoise – Kallunda
Think of this track as an intermission in our folk exploration. We cross the Atlantic once again and leave the United States for Belgium ; on our way we meet Ornoise, an electro-organic music producer whose music meaningful, although devoid of words. Although he has produced electronic and techno music in the past, Ornoise, just like Faerie who we mentioned above, decided to step aside and try to work on a calmer, more introspective type of music, and more specifically try to depict an environment and a state of mind.
Composed entirely at home, his EP “Men Cry Too” describes in music the impressions the world and its various event left on him last year : we are indeed talking about the lack of live shows but also of the need to be close to your loved ones and to be in tune with your own emotions – hence the name of the EP, which insists on the fact that crying is not a matter of gender but of soul, and that every soul is capable of suffering and therefore of expressing their emotions.
Today, we focus mainly on the track “Kallunda”, a track that lets saturated synth take the lead over a syncopated melody ; we get to hear on top of this complex melody vocalizations that seem to resemble siren songs. “Kallunda” also reminds us of what Caribou and Bicep produce !
LIVSKA – Patience
Ornoise’s electronic intermission allows us to move on to the second part of this playlist ; we now dig into more electronic productions, thus passing folk into the background, but not going unnoticed. That being said, let’s listen to LIVSKA’s first track, entitled “Patience”, a track which tells of the early emotions that strike a person who falls in love with someone, only for it to turn into unrequited love. Those emotions are showcased just as they are in the verses & choruses ; the emotions featured in the lyrics are also to be heard in the electro-acoustic guitar chords, and it even seems like these very chords amplify said emotions, thus giving an indie folk feel to a largely electro-pop song.
“And I notice how you feel let down
Can you tell me how you feel inside, in this moment ?”
– LIVSKA – Patience
Although “Patience” is the first official release of LIVSKA, she hasn’t just started her music career. Indeed, her debut with the band Seattle Fix has been widely noticed in Australia last year, and it even reached the listeners of the renowned national radio Triple J. Although she was celebrating this success, she also wanted to take it to the next level by building her own artistic project. LIVSKA thus composed her own music from home and translated her thoughts into music ; the result of LIVSKA’s experiments is definitely pop, and is the right blend of dream pop and indie pop music. Her influences ranging from The XX to PVRIS are also largely felt, making her an artist to follow closely !
Magali, A Cult – Magic Potion
We now take it to a more experimental level with Magali, A Cult, a mysterious producer and singer to say the least, and whose use of instruments such as drums and synthesizers largely reminds us of alternative and experimental music. What does it have to do with folk music, will you ask ? The way she processed her voice undoubtedly made us think of what indietronica and folktronica have best to offer, and the striking contrast between experimental music and indie music is all felt on “Magic Potion”, the first track of her EP “V21”.
Magali, A Cult is largely inspired by themes such as new technologies, spacetime and even the possibility of interstellar travel. If all these influences are to be found on this EP, it is on “Magic Potion” that we will focus today. The artist indicates that the first tracks of her EP refer to the beginning of an interstellar journey during which everything goes well, at least at first ; the interstellar journey only goes downhill by the end of the EP. Thus, on “Magic Potion”, we we dive into a surrealist universe in which Magali, A Cult is our guide, and we are being guided through it thanks to the dissonant rhythm of the drums and the extreme reverberation applied to her voice, thus reminding us a lot of both Crystal Castles and Tirzah’s work at the same time.
If you appreciated the electro-organic experiments of Magali, A Cult on “Magic Potion”, we strongly advise you to listen carefully to the rest of her EP !
Yannick Massard – Rewind
We leave interstellar space for Earth again, and Yannick Massard is the one who makes sure our journey goes well. His works are reminiscent of both Emmit Fenn and Monolink, and are easily recognizable for their electro-acoustic aspect. Today it is on his latest single “Rewind” on which we focus ; the song is shaped by its piano and guitar chords, its dry and repeated percussions, as well as its half robotic half humanized voice, which is there only to tell us a few words ; this voice crystallizes an emotion, a feeling : that of the warmth of the arms of a loved one.
“Dreaming,
I feel your arms around me when I’m dreaming
When I’m dreaming”
– Yannick Massard – Rewind
Yannick Massard has only been releasing his music on streaming platforms for a little bit more than a year. He uploaded his first single on streaming platforms in April 2020 ; since he released his very first track, he combined piano chords and electronic productions wonderfully, turning his songs into alternative electro pop works, and they are given an epic touch thanks to electronic treatments applied to the instruments he uses.
If you liked Yannick Massard : Hypnotic music video alert : Monolink’s latest track “The Prey” showcases the beauty of all of our surroundings’
d i z m a t i o n – Never Destroyed
Finally, we arrive at the end of our curated playlist, and we greet you with Dizmation’s latest single. Dizmation is an artist based in Dublin, Ireland, whose music sways between acoustic folk music and indietronica. His latest song, named “Never Destroyed”, is about exploring what it means to be an artist, but also the relationship artists have with their creative process, this almost impulsive feeling that pushes an artist to create. Dizmation compares it to a state of mind which is to him very close to that of addiction.
“For tonight
I’m here in this song
Trapped among the waves
It won’t leave me alone”
– Dizmation – Never Destroyed
“Never Destroyed” is a progressive track, a song that compares to both the freshness of the tracks of the Icelandic artist and singer Ásgeir and the calmness of the songs of The Lumineers. The main inspirations of Dizmation are to be found in art, personal expression or even the quest for meaning ; by describing the artistic process and the emotions he feels about the artist’s “condition” – i.e the creative process – Dizmation emphasizes the cathartic and calming side of the artistic creation. “Never Destroyed” is a song as metaphorical as it is relaxing.
This playlist is to be found on our Spotify account. If you’ve enjoyed this playlist, we recommend you to listen to one of our previous playlists : hauméa selects #3 !
– disclaimer : this playlist has been curated through MusoSoup #SustainableCurator.
