Showing 1 - 10 of 15
A pop renaissance
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 14/06/2020
» If Madonna's long, illustrious career has taught us mortals anything, it's that a pop chameleon makes the best kind of pop music.
Miss(ed) Opportunity
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 15/03/2020
» The rise of synth-pop darling Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, has been a fascinating one.
The age of angst
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 01/12/2019
» Maybe it's a sign of the times, but taking a look at the young, emerging artists of today, you might notice that a great many of them tend to speak openly about their anxieties and insecurities. Much like her contemporaries Mitski, Hana Vu and Beabadoobee, 18-year-old singer Griff channels all of these feelings through unfiltered lyrics that read like a page out of her diary.
Beauty in banality
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 17/11/2019
» The year 2014 was quite an exciting one for music. On the Top 40 front, we had a handful of inescapable earworms, like Pharrell Williams' Happy, Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX's Fancy and Taylor Swift's Shake It Off. Elsewhere, new talents like FKA twigs and Arca came out with their cutting-edge debut albums (LP1 and Xen, respectively). Standing among those high profile releases was Total Strife Forever, the debut record by English musician William Doyle, who at the time went by the moniker East India Youth.
Death Becomes Us
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 03/11/2019
» Well, what do you know -- Foals have managed to pull it off after all. The English indie-rock mainstay finally follows up their Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1, released back in March, with the second and final instalment. In Part 1, frontman Yannis Philippakis and co got political with tracks like Exits and Sunday while dutifully filling the quota for danceable indie bangers with On The Luna and In Degrees. On the production side, it swung from indie rock and new-wave to funk and disco -- a classic Foals album through and through.
Fight The Fear
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 01/09/2019
» In his 1818 poem When I Have Fears, English Romantic poet John Keats talks about death anxiety, touching upon all of the things he wouldn't be able to achieve and/or experience before his demise. This universal fear has continued to resonate today, especially in the age where fear of missing out is constantly triggered by social media and unrelenting hyperconnectivity. The poem, too, has struck a chord with rising Dublin five-piece The Murder Capital and gone on to inspire their eponymous debut studio album rooted firmly in art-rock and post-punk traditions.
A glow of satisfaction
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 18/08/2019
» In 2017, the world got to know singer-songwriter Mattiel Brown and her band (guitarist Jonah Swilley, bassist Travis Murphy and drummer Jordan Manley) for the first time. Collectively called Mattiel, the up-and-coming quartet made quite an impression with their self-titled debut -- so much so that they garnered an endorsement from Jack White. Since then, the hype surrounding the band has been nothing short of palpable. People are genuinely excited by Mattiel's sound, which takes cues from rock'n'roll legends like The Ramones, The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground, and garage/punk icons like Patti Smith and The Clash.
Dreaming awake
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 21/07/2019
» "What's that? (I may be paranoid, but no android)/ What's that? (I may be paranoid, but no android)," Thom Yorke sings on the lead single off Radiohead's third studio album, 1997's OK Computer.
Paint it black
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 07/07/2019
» In the age of social media and the hyper exposure that tends to come with it, keeping a low profile can be something of a Herculean task. And while most artists are trying to capitalise fully on the power of social media, there are also those who shy away from it and focus instead on what they’re meant to be doing: making music and performing. One such band is emerging British four-piece Black Midi who have managed to maintain a low-key online presence while steadily garnering a solid fan base through a series of live gigs.
James Blake's Changing Form
B Magazine, Chanun Poomsawai, Published on 10/03/2019
» "Now I'm confiding, know I may have/ Gone through the motions my whole life/ I hope this is the first day/ That I connect motion to feeling," James Blake wears his heart on his sleeve on the piano-driven opener/title track of his fourth studio album, Assume Form. The candid openness with which Blake addresses depression and anxiety, the struggles he's confessed of having since his 2011 debut album took off, is stunning to witness especially for an artist whose career is mostly built on nuances, abstraction and negative spaces.