New Music: December

by Zofia Ciechowska

Majical Cloudz

Canadian artist Devon Welsh has been lurking around the blogosphere for a while, supported and promoted here and there on video, track or tour by ultra alt.babe Grimes and more recently by synth and sampler man Matthew Otto. Their most recent track, “Turns Turns Turns”, is a spinning ballad that will leave you dizzy with its echoing vocals and earnestness. It might even give you an unsupressable urge to put zeds at the end of all your plural nounz. With a debut album out on 03 December on Arbutus and Merok, you’d best be prepared to hear more from Welsh’s sound cloud.

Eraas

Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz of Apse have reincarnated into Eraas, a rising tempest of howling winds and ominous rhythms. All that New England occult stuff aside, their self-titled debut will become the soundtrack of your wintertime escapades through cold drizzles and up dark, creaky staircases. With a sound that is threatening and foreboding with its repetitive chords, ghostly echoes and muted thuds, Eraas will prick your curiosity in that sinister way that only a good mystery can – which means that we’ll be hearing more from them, no doubt.

Zu Shapes

We’ve extended the expiry date on this baby because it deserves a relisten. Zu Shapes, the solo project of Beau Cole, released an absolute gem of a track called ‘Olivia’ last year that was part of his Merigold EP. Despite the term ‘bliss’ being exploited to the point of passé in music reviews, I’ll make an exception and say it: ‘Olivia’ is lovely, blissful, warm, happy and just really great. Mr Cole, if you’re reading this, send us a tune or two to the Subbacultcha! office and we’ll send you some goodies in exchange. We’ve put MISSING posters all over the blogosphere looking for you.