Music

Dubinski- release Downtown Operation

28th Dec 2023 — 1 Comment

Get to know the band of brothers a bit better whilst enjoying their latest track.

Dubinski

Dubinski are back with their latest track, Downtown Operation. After releasing their debut album ‘Dubinski’ in 2022 the brand of brothers have recently released another energetic track to add to their ever intriguing repetroire.

Downtown Operation Dubinski 2023

Downtown Operation, fast paced and free feeling, this song boasts an optimistic edge that makes you feel as though you are soaring away from everything, getting out without missing a breathe. Estatic, you escape adversity with a smile on your face. With its electronic feel, you imagine yourself plugging into something surreal, full of synthetic sounds and digital beats, this track feels futuristic whilst still being familiar but that is just the beauty of their instrumentals whilst the lyrics unveil something deeper, more sinister that would have you running but certainly not with a smile on your face.

Inspired by politicians who are blind to reality, this song offers a satirical edge, a refection of racial profiling, police brutality. It is a forewarning, the sound of despair, a lighthouse to the terrors of the world but no one is turning the torch on, too scared of what they may see.

Lets review the journey that took them to this release; their self-titled debut album, Dubinski, showcased in 2022 is an eclectic audio tour of the band’s buoyant feeling, their ability to discuss darker topics whilst keeping the crowd bouncing with their high energy and altruism.

Dubinski Debut Album Tour:

Track One: Soothsayer.

Soothsayer Dubinski

If you could see the future would you live your life differently to try and change fate? Would this power prevent you from living in the present? Dark spirited and unsettling this song offers a gothic hand through the bands disinticnve indie feel. Arguably seeing the tone for the debut album.

Track Two:Gotta Get Out Of This Place.

We are all trying to get out of ‘this place’ but where are we trying to end up? All the weekends we live for end up the same, stumbling out of the same local and into a different bed, waking up with a banging head being sick at the things you said.

Dubinksi are colour engine of sound and eccentricity, a fusion of creativity and the bizarre. The shape of their sound is massive as they pull us up and over ourselves.

The album focus track ‘Gotta Get Outta This Place’ is rooted in their hard-working studio dynamic, with their producers Mike and Robbie pushing Eugene to record his vocals more than 20 times before the
perfect take emerged.

Beyond Me Dubinski 2022

Track Nine: Beyond Me

Upbeat and optimistic this track is evocative of the band’s high energy live performances. A kaleidoscope of better days.Making the most of each moment and living for it. Making the sun shine when your days are full of storms. The opening is very brit pop infused with the riff taking me straight into the foamier hold of Blur’s parklike, making beyond me a sure favourite for the summer festivals.

Dubinski

Track 12: Fall Right In The Grave

Grief, the devastating notion that things will be how they always were, conversations become monologues and potential is frozen, once we were forever fearing change now praying for it this track is all about coming to terms with death but feeling wounded and angered by its inevitability.

Taken as a whole, Dubinski’s debut album is a shattering, cathartic experience. It’s a record
fuelled by brotherhood, by loss and by the empowering impact of communal emotion.
More than anything else, it’s a launching point, a marker of the sheer will that has dragged
Dubinski from the Highlands of Scotland out into the world.

“I sometimes wonder what
the hell we would be doing if we didn’t have this band,” drummer Eoin muses. “It’s the
umbilical cord that keeps us all together”.

Eoin


Their fast-phased, alt-rock and visceral live sets has landed them an increasing set of accolades including praises from BBC Radio Scotland, Scotland On Sunday and Record Of The Day, a nomination for ‘best newcomers at the Scottish Alternative Music Awardsand they have also performed on some of th biggest stages in the country and the UK including T in the Park, Wide Days and
Liverpool Sound City.

They have supported Indie Powerhouse, The Lottery Winners and Iconic alternative punk rockers Everclear, with another large tour starting next year it is no surprise these indie rockers are taking listeners by storm. More information here.

Stick Season

24th Dec 2023 — Leave a comment

Stick Season, released a year ago, has seen a revival of folk/country music. It’s gripping chorus the backtrack to many viral TikTok posts. But is this all we are listening for?

Noah Kahan September 2021
Stick Season 2022 Spotify Noah Kahan

Around this time of year we reflect, we revisit the walls that broke our hearts and the faces that tried to fix them. We flick through photos to recreate pleasant days and find lost memories. We dream the days away and find that we would rather rest our head in this other worldly plain. There will always be blurred faces in the backs of our mind, always be those nights when you catch those wandering eyes and you question what if it had been more than kiss? What could be worse than this? Falling in love just to feel like you’ve missed. Something you didn’t have, something you didn’t lose, you learn to live with the decisions you choose.

Stick Season 2022 Noah Kahan Youtube

Our family figurines, just people in positions, we have placed them in to protect us from reality. The lives we lost because of something we found out, everything you’re doing all for someone else. People change because they have to, changed minds and changed lives we can live in our memories but we will not survive. There are the miracles of life and the joys of Christmas and summer but there is also the ‘season of the sticks’ a miserable time of year where life drags out the dirt you have tried to bury.

Noah Kahan June 2023

This song is evocative of campfire nights, of some distant life I am yet to have experienced but I am only really inspired by it’s chorus. There is talent and there is poetry but it feels lost to the rushed tempo, a racing mind too scared to settle on the thoughts that make it run, so it is clever in that sense but it feels undone, taking away the motional impact that a broken heart has, there is no time to settle with the pain, there is just the feeling of running away.

However, I am impressed and amused by the rhyming of sticks with exist and the verse:

‘ So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad
That I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad
No and I’m no longer funny but I miss the way you laugh’

Covered by Olivia Rodrigo on BBC Radio One’s Live Lounge this song has truly got people talking, crying into the cuffs of their sleeves, singing along on drives through the country back to see old friends and family. There is so much pain in poetry but it can be beautifully to listen to as it unites us, an audible force in the face of adversity.

Emotionally intricate but rushed through, maybe we need to be braver and spend a little more time in the ‘Season of the Sticks’ to truly appreciate the warmth of summer.

You’re Christmas To Me

23rd Dec 2023 — 2 Comments

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Sam Ryder 2023 Amazon Prime original You’re Christmas To Me.

Christmas: Rushing home from work, last minute shopping, missing gifts. It is the busiest time of year but it must be this way to bring joy to each other on the big day.The frantic searches for sellotape the debates over what to get for that one odd family member and the sweaty trips through shopping centres all become worth it, sat surrounded by tendrils of eagerly torn wrapping paper, revealed presents buried in Christmas confetti, families, friends and lovers all find themselves under the tree, either experiencing or re-experiencing that unrivalled sense of joy once felt as a child.

As we age we realise that it is not some jolly man and his magic elves that make these moments (spoiler) but the people we hold close around us, it is not about the parcels under the tree but the people that put them there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhRJJ0PEXVc

‘You’re Christmas To Me‘ by Sam Ryder is all about celebrating the people that bring is that chirstmassy feeling of being home after a long time away, throughout the year. The souls that bring us peace or the party depending on what we need. A vociferous expression of euphoria this track boasts a colourful feeling, Ryders gravitational energy taking us to the tree whether we are still in that busy store or stuck working.

You’re the star up on the tree

You’re the only gift I need

And I’d use up all my wishes If it only made you see

What a special time of year Full of joy and festive cheer

Sam Ryder You’re Christmas To Me 2023

With some jazz influences, a classic keyboard and a booming bass Ryder takes us all out to the Christmas party. Christmas is about community, about compassion, looking after each other through both dark days and bright ones, and one this tune Ryder reminds us to appreciate those who perform this, including yourself.

The festive track actually features in Amazon Prime’s new original Christmas film, Your Christmas or Mine 2, but could it double as a Christmas miracle and reach number one? If not it is still a banger which best believe we will be wrapping our presents too for years to come.