Band

Get ‘Pretty Drunk’ with Diamond Country Dance Club

29th Mar 2023 — Leave a comment

What’s your drink of choice?

Diamond Country Dance Club

Friday at 5.30pm. You’ve signed off for the day and on for the night. Wearing your best off duty outfit, you’re styling your hair to the tune of your friends playing beer pong downstairs.You’re going out tonight and you’re planning on getting ‘Pretty Drunk’

Post Punk/Indie quartet, Diamond Country Dance Club continue their repertoire fast paced, enthusiastic belters, with their latest single ‘Pretty Drunk’. An ode to escapism, this piece celebrates friendship, decent drinks and going out. Two days of liberty we try to make last, another song on the karaoke, one more shot. The streetlights are off,and the sun is rising, you’re still dancing, still smiling. The sore head an easy compromise to the score of anecdotes and memories, if there is a meaning
to life surely it is this, to be with those you love doing what you enjoy.

Pretty Drunk Diamond Country Dance Club

Made up of singer Sam, Ryan on guitar and backing vocals, James on bass and Lisa on drums Diamond Country Dance Club was born in early 2021, a product of Covid driven dreams. Once a hobby, their talents soon saw them on stage playing to live audiences, strangers applauding them for their songs.

What a sound it is too. The raw and ready guitar riffs blended with the boom of the bass and guided by the beat of the drum create the perfect build up to your night out, getting you hyped up and ready for big. And the big comes delivered in the booming chorous that demands a boozy bounce around the beer pong table. Echoes of greats like Adam and the ants, Neutral Milk Hotel and Idles, are imbued in the framework of Diamond Country Dance Club to create their own sound. The timeless appeal of the guitar fused beautifully for the modern ear. Pretty Drunk raises a glass to good times,falling for a strangers eyes and wild nights.

“Wasted all the time and looking pretty fine, pretty drunk.

Chasing after me, but you can barley see, pretty drunk.

Down another beer then come over here“

lyrics to Pretty Drunk by Diamond Country Dance Club

With more gigs in 2023 it is clear Diamond Country Dance Club are ones too watch, so you can say you were there before they got big in fact if a night out is what you need and you’re old enough/want to get ‘Pretty Drunk’ the band have a upcoming gig on the 15th of April in Camden at the Fidler’s Elbow, see more details here.

On Evolve Music’s first podcast episode of 2023 we discuss some wild nights out, the one’s that leave you embracing the toliet , the beauty of Rocket Juice and more about how the band came to be . Also find out how long it took Lisa to learn the drums, take a guess (doubt you’ll get it right), the meaning behind their name (No, they don’t make country music or dance…yet) and the secret to performing well live on stage (Clue- it could take a little rocket juice)

Their debut single Didn’t Tell Jonny boasts anthemic beats that demand high energy and a booming sing a long. Although about infediltiy, betryal and disatisfaction the pace and tempo make you want to groove, fill a dance room with head banging moves.

Quickly a fan favouirte the song demanded a music video;

Tennov

30th Jan 2023 — Leave a comment

Otala’s lastest song Tenov is groundbreaking in its discussion about grief, the depseration one feels when someone they were devoted to dies. This loss of self in the loss of someone else and the onset of crisis this can become.

Otala

We are all haunted by the looming headstone of an empty grave,we have see friends and family fall, their demise a reminder that we shall one day join them. What do we let fade when we focus on what is gone? Those that sleep will surley stir again, eyes stark in the daylight, but what about those that stay shut?

Tennov is written in a 4/4 time signature to reflect the ongoing cycle of love,loss and grief. The beuaty of love is that it can be lost and it is perhaps with this knowledge that we should look after it, cherish it try to make it last. Just because someone has been buried, or burned or lost does not mean the love you had for them has to die too. Losing someone is a lonely place, you isolate yourself in an effort to immortalize them in your memory.

Tennov

As a punk quintent Otala really capture the anger and exhasution of grief in Tennov which explores themes of anger, denial, helplessness. Its narrrative offers a foreboding hand down a darkened path, the mind of death and darkness. This forest of forelonging crowds our vision and we are buried in the woods, pining for all that is gone.

Grief is a mutual experience, a loved one shielded in wood once stood tall now lies still. We are left to die without them by our side. Dorothy Tennov wrote about the expereince of being in Love, researching individual cases, we may all expereince different verions of love but we will all suffer the same loss. We are in debt to those we have lost, the love we shared, the lessons learned from each other. We pay not in our suffering, each tear cried is not a currency, but with our desicion to rejoice, celebrate life as if they were still living it so they can vicariously laugh and cry with you.

The lyrics that stick out to me in Tennov are:

“Sometimes I wonder what would be and what will be if you took my hand. Red and swollen it rests in my palm. An careless act of selfishness but it could never be a lie”.

Otala are really making their mark in the music industry, with up coming gigs on the 3rd of February in The George Tavern London, The Bodega in Nottignham on the 24th of March and april the 9th in the New Adelphi Club in Hull. Click here to buy tickets!

Hull based duo The Arkut Brother’s release Restless.

13th Jan 2023 — Leave a comment

Restless for a remedy that brings some recognition.

Yorkshire a county known for the pud, the terrier and the dales.

But did you know it is also host to a rich music genre from The Artic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and now The Arkut Brothers.

The Hull based duo make music inspired by their surroundings, personal pride and heartache. The brutal awakening of a walk on the dales is whipped into the wit of these musicians. Their song ‘Take your time” is an ode to mental health, giving yourself priority over the whip of the world, let yourself take that walk, read that book or sleep it off. In our world of instant gratification and 7 step successes it is so easy to be fooled by immediacy. Remember things take time and we all run at different paces.

The Arkut Brothers live at Kardomah 94

Ironically their latest track ,Restless, discusses the need for productivity, pride in the face of a final. Of course achievements take time, perfection really does tae practice, but when they seem to take too much time the sense of delay can cripple you. Comparison to peers who may be tax brackets ahead, flights to trace every weekend as a work trip while you’re stuck in your local pub trying to make ends meet. It is bittersweet this roll of dice, we all play the game but each hand weighs differently. You have tried your best, a good balance of conformity and deviance, why isn’t it working?

It seems all forces are against you, lovers turn to heartbreakers, parents shut you out, friends don’t have time for you and confiding in your boss is ruled out. Are you the problem? Or is it the stars? Who knows what the answers are. The desperation and the dramatics that are born from lack of recognition is a dangerous route, my only advice in this scenario is to be patient and to persevere. Take measures to recognise your own worth and believe that one day someone else will see that too. Let yourself be enough for you.

Ben and Sam Arkut.Photography by Tone Broomfield

The guitar riffs are uplifting, giving the song a motivational edge which compliment the protest of the lyrics.The study beat is sure to set a crowd swaying one of their live gigs.If you’re boiling with the pain of potential being met but not being recognised then The Arkut Brother’s have the sound for you. Keep up to date with their socials for updates for up coming gigs.

Ben and Sam Arkut have made hits at a number of festivals including Beverly Folk , Springboard , Filey Folk and Humber Street Sesh making them well known across the Shire . Their dynamic talent and original twang have landed them airplay across various radio stations including BBC Radio Humberside where they were described as “very talented fellas, great guitarists and great songwriters!” by Alan Raw