Any song that concludes with 30 seconds of the vocalist weeping is alright by me. So I enjoyed my first encounter with Bee Mick See and Paul Denver’s ‘We Took A Dive’, a ditty about the crushing disenchantment which comes after moving from Portland, Oregon to Belfast, and with a chorus that runs: “You’d be amazed/I cried for days/I fucking hated everything about this place”.

We will hopefully return to this pair a bit further down the road, but I’d recommend you pick up a copy of their Birds Over Nupes EP – with a particular nudge towards ‘Who Likes Laughing?’ Profanity, discoloured humour, accented rapping and the odd Sesame Street chorus – it’s not big, but it’s a lot more clever than it wants you to think.
Empty Lungs released their Stand Up EP back in February. An extra push, however, comes in the shape of a new video for the track ‘Until The Day We Die’. Like Axisof (a group they appear to share a distinct bloodline with) the emphasis is on serrated riffs and huge choruses. There’s a lot of fun being had by this crew, and – if the video is anything to go by – they aren’t the type to keep it to themselves.
The latest beneficiary of the Start Together Singles Club is Arborist. Although, strictly speaking, the lucky number here is the club member on the kind end of the single. Mark McCambridge’s previous release ‘Incalculable Things’ has – last time I looked – clambered on top of the songs of the year pile, and, judging by how comfortable it seems up there, it’s going to take a monster of a track to dislodge it.
How heartening to see that – as evidenced by ‘Hundreds Of Way’ – the man himself is up for a rattle. Should McCambridge keep on releasing tunes of this stature, he’s going to land himself in trouble.
If his debut album is half as good as these teasers suggest, you’re talking about it being a record for the ages. No pressure there then, fella.
Just as exciting is news that next month brings the release of For The Love Of Letting Go, the long-awaited debut album from Kowalski.
You might remember ‘Get Back’ from two or three years ago. That was exactly the kind of song meant to herald the start of a major campaign. Things, though, didn’t quite work out like that, and while their fellow Bangor-ians (and, it must be said, stylistic kinsmen) Two Door Cinema Club have spent the time acquainting themselves with playlists around the world, Kowlaski have been broadcasting at a far lower frequency.
“Twee indie disco dream pop” it says on their Bandcamp site. Which, as descriptions go, is awful, but accurate. And yet somehow wrong, too, because Kowlaski, you see, have always – and still do – transcended that kind of reductive shorthand by dint of their big collective heart. A heart that, in tandem with their gift for melancholia, distinguishes them from many of their peers.
Bee Mick See doesn’t mind ending proceedings in a weeping heap. Still, it’s nice to see Kowalski go down the other, sunnier route.