NEW MUSIC: Villagers, Du Blonde, Anna B Savage, Inner Tongue, White Sage

New Music is brought to you by Deadly Music! which covers mostly independent indie, alternative, electro pop, post rock and ambient music, with a bit of everything else deadly thrown in for good measure.

Most songs reviewed here are available on a Soundcloud playlist, some of them on a Spotify playlist….both of which are embedded at the end of this post, where you can also sign up for our weekly updates.

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Villagers – Darling Arithmetic

Nominated for the Mercury Prize for his grandly conceived orchestral / electro-folk first two albums Becoming a Jackal and {Awayland}, Dubliner Villagers – aka Conor O'Brien (above) – has entirely stripped the sound back for the mostly acoustic nine tracks on new album Darling Arithmetic.

Recorded at home alone and self-produced, Darling Arithmetic abandons the big picture scope of his earlier work for one of quiet introspection in which O'Brien addresses his own sexuality.

Specifically not a “coming out album” – a label which O'Brien wants to avoid – Darling Arithmetic is “a human love album because everyone in the world feels those emotions at some stage.”

However, it is when he moves beyond the love songs beautiful in their simplicity – notably “Everything I Am Is Yours” and “No One To Blame” – to less personal subjects that the album leaves its mark.

In “Little Bigot”, O'Brien takes to task the notion that those campaigning against gay rights in Ireland are actually not homophobes, singing “So take the blame, little bigot/ And throw that hatred onto the fire."

Sticking with the theme, on “Hot Scary Summer” O'Brien addresses an ex and the difficulties of working hard on a relationship in the face of “all the pretty young homophobes looking out for a fight”. It all gets too hard because “we got good at pretending, then pretending got us good."

Although at times tending towards navel gazing as with the rambling “The Soul Serene”, Animal Arithmetic is a massively rewarding sea change for O'Brien.

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Du Blonde: “Mind Is On My Mind”

Du Blonde is Beth Jeans Houghton from Newcastle, England.

Welcome Back To Milk, set for release on May 18th, is Houghton's second album but the first to be released under the name Du Blonde.

As such, it represents a complete reinvention. With the new name comes a new sound, new band and a new attitude, leading to new freak psych pop given a shunt from potential obscurity with the appearance of inimitable Future Islands frontman Samuel T. Herring on “Mind Is On My Mind”.

Where 2012's debut Yours Truly Cellophane Nose threw everything at a song, Welcome Back To Milk strips everything back and is one massive release of pent up aggression, captured perfectly by producer and Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos.

Think: REM doing the soundtrack for the sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

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Listen to new songs by Anna B Savage, Inner Tongue and White Sage, AFTER THE JUMP…

Anna B Savage

Anna B Savage is a singer songwriter from London, England making stark, minimalistic guitar-based, emotionally raw songs that recall PJ Harvey, Sharon Van Etten and hugely underrated New York musician Julianne Mason.

Listen to two tracks from Savage's forthcoming four-track debut EP which will be released May 18th.

“I” is a really quite beautiful laid back affair that is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell with a twist while “II” is its altogether angrier big sister.

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Inner Tongue: “Fallen Empire”

Inner Tongue is a German electro indie pop songwriter.

Diagnosed in 2013 with a vocal cord disorder that could have meant never being able to use his voice in the same way again, this suitably burdensome landscape gave rise to a forthcoming EP Tz, Ka.

On the new EP, Inner Tongue says:

“The songs are essentially about starting over. Moving somewhere else. Putting a few things into empty spaces and feeling them becoming yours. Revealing your reincarnation to whom you've left behind. Feeling embarrassed, but passionate about what's to come.”, going on to say, “[the songs] are all little places in my head.”

“Fallen Empire” is the forlorn and introspective first single from the EP.

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White Sage: “Parnell Street June 1955”

White Sage is the solo project from Andy Walsh, a musician from Dublin, Ireland best known for his work with I Heart The Monster Hero.

Instrumental electronica crafted on vintage synths and organs, the EP Way Beyond Our Means has already drawn comparisons to the early electronic pioneers of the 1970s including Kraftwerk.

The EP title will speak volumes to Irish people of a certain generation and there is something inexplicably right about the music, (possibly) a journey through the malaise of recent history.

Have a listen to the absolutely hypnotic “Parnell Street June 1955″ below

“Parnell Street June 1955″ is taken from the EP Way Beyond Our Means which is out now on Little Gem Records.