Alice grew up on a mountainside in South Africa listening to her parent's records and indulging her love of theatre, arts and music at a local Waldorf school; a formative time that nurtured her independence and desire to experience music of all styles. This multi-faceted creative upbringing mixed with Alice's natural wanderlust and in 2010, 16-year-old Alice made her first journey to Europe during her summer break from school. Inspired by watching fire dancers in Paris, she began to perform likewise to get enough money to fund her travelling.

That summer Alice roamed between Paris and Amsterdam; experiencing the highs and lows of street performances' underbelly. This vagabond lifestyle was a creative inspiration and gave Alice an enduring taste for the immediacy of street crowds. After returning to South Africa to complete her studies, Alice's path led her back to Europe and she made her way to the German capital - Berlin. The freedom of the city was intoxicating and she immersed herself in the creative world there.

Alice began busking across Berlin with just her guitar, a small amplifier on a trolley and her mesmerising voice. Her natural talent and captivating delivery started to garner a cult street following with people coming to see her busk and buy her records. The uncompromising creative community of Berlin also helped Alice grow musically and she collaborated with acoustic, jazz and electronic musicians; including multi-instrumentalist Matteo who quickly became Alice's live performance companion. Soon Alice self-released her first body of work - the Momentum EP - her first collaborative effort recorded between Berlin and Cape Town with five different producers. Although by now interest was sparked with several major labels, Alice's desire to maintain the creative freedom she had fostered kept her focus on growing her digital community of loyal fans and imagining ever more interesting settings for her intimate live shows

Now having spent two years playing intimate gigs across Europe and South Africa, and supporting established like-minded artists like Rodriguez, April 2016 will see Alice releasing her first full length studio album. Orbit comprises nine jazz-influenced, eclectic tracks recorded between Cape Town and Berlin that encapsulate the freshness of her live style, vagabond spirit and showcase her distinctive, soprano voice. Produced by Matteo and Kyson, the album is a testament to Alice's collaborative way of writing and features musicians from South Africa and Europe lending their musical skills and different visual artists producing art works to match each track. The result is an intricately woven pattern of soul, blues and jazz: scattered with retro, beatnik melodies; soothing vocal harmonies and sleazy brass flourishes.

To put it simply in the parlance of our times, you know when it’s real…

GRAMMY® Award-nominated Norwegian singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Jarle Bernhoft emphasizes this personal connection on his fourth full-length offering and first as Bernoft & The Fashion Bruises—the aptly titled Humanoid. Recorded as a full band, the record unlocks a soulful spirit buoyed by simmering R&B grooves and powerful pop hooks. In assembling this bold, bright, and brilliant body of work, the artist surveyed the landscape and made a conscious decision to go against the grain.

“So much current music is computerized and machinelike,” he affirms. “I felt like I should go the other way and create human music again. It’s imperative to keep in touch with organic life, so I dove into those soundscapes. I rediscovered that touch. By ample use of guitars, drums, and bass, I’m trying to smash people out of Facebook and back into real life.”

If anybody can do it, it’s him. Since making his solo debut on 2008’s Ceramik City Chronicles, he’s quietly amassed a catalog celebrated by fans and critics alike, spanning full-length offerings Solidarity Breaks [2011] and Islander [2014] as well as EPs Stop/Shutup/Shout It Out [2016] and The Morning Comes [2017]. Highlighted by “Come Around” and “No Us, No Them” [feat. Jill Scott], Islander received a 2015 GRAMMY® nomination in the category of “Best R&B Album.” Along the way, he performed on Ellen and Conan in addition to earning acclaim from NPR, USA Today, and many more.

Joined by The Fashion Bruises, the process for Humanoid commenced in old school fashion. Rather than rush into the studio, they spent time woodshedding in the rehearsal room. The shared chemistry flourished.

“We did this all as a band,” he continues. “We didn’t use computers. We really played through everything. The Fashion Bruises are such an integral part of the sound. The days of playing solo aren’t over, but I’m definitely taking a break. The goal was to keep this like a live performance.”

They recorded at Oslo Klang in Norway for only two weeks with Bernhoft behind the board in the producer’s chair as his infant son crawled around the space.

“There’s nothing better than having a baby crawl around your feet when you’re playing guitar,” he smiles.

The group introduced the album with the first single “Buried Gold” [feat. Raelee Nikole]. Over a funky beat driven by lively guitars, he locks into a hypnotic duet with Raelee. Their voices entwine in an undeniable back-and-forth, speaking to a central theme.

“The song represents what the album is about,” says Bernhoft. “It’s a dialogue between an optimist and a pessimist who are both engaged in fisticuffs daily within me. I’m shifting between disillusionment and re-illusionment, which is the state of things. I remember when the Brexit vote had just come in. Not too long after was the American presidency vote. It’s was if the world was unraveling. I felt torn between wanting to pick up the gloves and fight or just saying, ‘Fuck the world.’ Both of my viewpoints come across. Raelee really shines on it too.”

Elsewhere, handclaps, acoustic energy, and warm reverb bottle a sun-soaked sensibility on the West Coast-inspired “California,” while “Don’t Give Up” offers up a powerful send-off highlighting the expanse of his voice.

In many respects, the title track remains the perfect representation of Humanoid. A hummable guitar riff gives way to a lively chorus that’s downright impossible to shake.

“It says something about the man-and-machine relationship,” he admits. “I’m not sure whether to be optimistic about it or not. You’ll see people at dinner or in a café staring at their screens and not acknowledging each other. I’m thinking of how we interact, talk to each other, and whether or not we’re enhancing our lives or amputating them with these interfaces we use. I’m trying to find people, but I can’t see them behind their screens.”

In the end, Bernhoft has got the power to make people put down their phones, get up, dance, and maybe even think.

“You can dance to this one, but you might have some deeper thoughts,” he leaves off. “All said and done, I’d love to just reintroduce a connection.”

Meeting up to help finish off each other’s songs, sometimes they would become cavernous rhythms and more than often the pair would record just for the hell of it. (On one occasion the two were purported to have stayed up recording the sound of hair swishing across a microphone).

Fusing the elements of disparate musics, the vocal sweetness of Laurel Canyon, Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston and the modern electronic space of the past 40 years, in their first recording ‘Come Save Me’ they created a contemporary psychedelia, with the beauty and simplicity of classic sun-soaked beach pop.

Just weeks after putting it online, it had heavy airplay on Australian radio and a seven inch release on new label The Blue Rider, receiving a positive reaction to the mix of old & new, the uninhibited rhythm and a song rooted in celebrating sadness, its heavenly harmonies jilted by a lyric informing how leaving a loved one can really expose how lonely love really is.

“You can’t trick people in to liking a song” says Gab “We knew we liked it and that we had a really good time making it”.

Understanding that what they had was important and needed to be documented, they decamped to a friend’s studio in France in the summer of 2012 to record their debut album - just the two of them in an empty farm two hours south of Paris, with an 808, a Fender jaguar, a laptop & a pair of vintage Neve console channels.

Their time at La Briche echoes like a strange psychedelic film: cycling in fields of sunflowers, copious amounts of cheese, growing caveman beards and going crazy in the studio. While working they listened to twisted electronica from Liars, Aphex Twin and Autechre. “And when we sat down to dinner we’d listen to Sinatra and Nat King Cole" says Gab.

Meanwhile next door lived a convoy of tradesmen with a thing for hardcore dub…“They were from a scene which is based around homemade soundsystems” says Jono “they take them out in to the middle of nowhere and play literally the hardest most sinister kind of music I’ve ever experienced. It is the weirdest thing in the world”.

The long ways from home helped them to bond and cement their sound and at the same time absorb some of Europe’s cultural and artistic influences from the fierce beats of Berlin’s Berghain to London’s most interesting corners. A mission to re-create a two man wall of sound ensued and with help from friends, locals and a pre-historic desk once used by Conny Plank, the pair set about re-inventing the warmth, harmony and audio sunshine they’d hatched back in Australia.

Their collaborators along the way included long-time friend & Warpaint drummer, Stella Mozgawa and renowned producer/mixer, Ewan Pearson, a friend from Berlin, and they love that the songs have travelled (“they followed us around the world” says Jono) and their balance between old and new, the discovery of something vintage alongside future-looking experiments.

“Finding great music from the past is a way of being adventurous” says Jono " It’s that sense of finding something that you feel belongs to just you”

By the dying days of 2012 their time in France had not been ill-spent and a debut album Howlin was recorded and ready to be mixed.

Their first release from these sessions, The Throw, saw them occupying a space where Screamadelica and its wayward children used to live. A joyful seven minutes weaving melodies & beats with the sole purpose of making people move, of throwing caution to the wind & reaching a higher level with a greater purpose, or maybe without one at all, it touched a nerve & helped soundtrack the last few months.

Next single, ‘The Man I Need’ is more introspective, beats minimal and Gab crying “all you say to me, is all you want to see, you’re not the man I need, that’s what you said to me”. Its ten-minute version climaxes with a voodoo drum-breakdown and the instruction “exercise your chemistry”, and was picked up & played in full by Zane Lowe on BBC R1.

Across the album, Howlin's songs are full of classic hooks but often end in dirty clanking breakdowns. Pop songwriting is buried in layers of crunching synths and pedal effects. “How can you look gloomy? When you look so good to me” wonders Gab in 'Uncertainty', repeating “be my light” over Jono’s techno-inspired beat.

Having played a couple of festivals last summer, adding Jack Freeman on bass, they kicked 2013 off back in Australia on the Big Day Out before playing a packed breathless NME show in London, Gab ending up topless, the audience lost in sound & strobes.

Since then they've toured Europe with Foals, and Australia with the xx and will be back in Europe to play more headline dates and festivals across the summer.

The explosion of colour and sound will echo throughout the year, Jagwar Ma is written on the wind, painted on the stars (as someone else once wrote…)

South London singer songwriter, Jake Isaac released his most recent EP ‘Where We Belong’ on Elton John’s Rocket Records last year, going straight into the Top 10 on the iTunes Singer Songwriter chart. That EP places Jake Isaac firmly alongside the likes of George Ezra and James Bay as an innovative and exciting new talent.

In March this year Jake sold out London’s Bush Hall and headlined shows around the UK and Europe. Jake has spent the summer touring throughout the UK and Europe and is now busy in the studio preparing his debut album due out April 2017 on Virgin Records.

Instead, rather its the atmospheres conjured and the unchartered territories explored within each little marvel of a track that comprise his unique vision. The space he creates is mind-bogglingly vast, and one where the brutalist greyscale of his native metropolis meets the warming slipstreams of his bucolic, often amphibious daydreams to alien effect. In his world near-choral incantations battle and marry with minimalist jazz tones, post-rock layering and swaggering beats and couplets in a way that's sometimes experimental, but always enveloping.

Born and raised in Croydon, Jamie discovered at an early age what a powerful form of escapism music could be for him. Joining a successful local choir aged-11, he not only discovered the incredible tone of his own singing voice (yes, those seraphim sounds on 'Softly Draining Seas', are him on backing vocals), but the immersive, transportive properties of truly grand musical composition. "There's something really powerful about performing a huge piece of music that's had so much time and thought put into creating it," he says. "It becomes something you can totally lose yourself within." It was these newly stoked fires that drove him to take his music seriously, earning a place at his local music school and honing in on piano as his primary instrument throughout his teens. It was here that he and his peers began first obsessing with the never-ending vortex of jazz, first with the greats, but before long with the avant-garde minimalism of composers like Philip Glass and Steve Reich, whose sense of space and adventure leave their mark across 'I Will Be Cold Soon'.

It was also there that he and his teenage friends, as many do, cultivated a love for the craft of hip hop. Certainly there's a street culture that runs throughout his sonics, from the foundations of Premier and Dilla, through to more evolved UK bass sounds like Mount Kimbie. Before long Jamie would become the one of the most accomplished beat-makers within his peer group, leading to a poignant collaborative relationship with classmate Archy Marshall aka King Krule. Fitting then that this debut will be released via House Anxiety, the same imprint that gave the world Marshall's owndebut in Zoo Kid's 'Out Getting Rib's'. When dealing with musical depth and tender years it's always easy to label this things prodigious, but what's harder to pin-point and more exciting to consider, is if this EP release represents Jamie Isaac's first chapter, then what could the rest of this story possibly resemble.

“It’s always the goal to challenge myself and the band as much as possible. I want the music to even catch me on the wrong foot from time to time”, admits the singer and musical architect who records ethereal, oft- hushed but forever gripping synth-anchored music under the moniker Klangstof.

The Dutch-born, Norway-raised Van De Wardt is on the surface a happy-go-lucky 24- year-old (“People expect a very depressed young man and instead they get this smiling asshole”), and yet when he retreats to his solitary place to write music, much in the way he’s done since first picking up the guitar at age 14, the anxiety, the negativity, the feeling that he’s misunderstood, it all comes pouring out. The result is a collage of the supremely genteel yet haunting vocals, sleek melodies and experimental beats and rhythms.

There’s a patience at play in Klangstof’s aural creations: the musician is a craftsman when constructing the chilling sound that comprises his stunning debut album, Close Eyes to Exit. It’s there in the crisp, slow-building single “Hostage,” electric guitars gently strummed, electronic beats like a rising heartbeat, all giving way to full- throated release: “I ran for shelter/But I got there,” he intones. Or in the way “Sleaze” shifts from whispered confession (“Nintendo is the only thing that makes me smile”) to propulsive, rainbow-hued synths at a moment’s notice.

After moving with his family from his native Netherlands to rural Norway at age 14, the once-social teenager found himself totally isolated. “I was just a guy playing football and hanging with friends in Holland and then all of a sudden I was sitting in Norway with no one around,” he recalls. “My life was torn apart and I had to start all over again. I had to learn a new language and build up a new life”. He turned to music.

In short time, creating music became an almost manic pursuit for the fledging musician. He’d lock himself in his parent’s basement, master one instrument after the next, tinker on his laptop for hours at a time, searching for the perfect sound. Even after attending Hedmark University College and playing bass in a popular Dutch band, Moss, Van De Wardt felt compelled to return to his own well. “That’s when I started to do Klangstof” (“klang” means echo in Norwegian and “stof”, dust in Dutch).

· BEATS 1 ZANE LOWE
“ If you love Radiohead, Pink Floyd, My Morning Jacket, Mercury Rev and all of the amazing musicians which take songs into a more widescreen environment, and you get to know Klangstof. It’s called ‘We Are Your Receiver.’"

· NME MATT WILKINSON
 “'Hostage’ by Klangstof sounds like the more shimmering moments of pre-bloopy Radiohead, if they had aligned themselves with the production tendencies of Abel Tesfaye and the soaring beauty of all those Sigor Ros moments that make nature programmes so atmospheric."

· IDOLATOR MIKE WASS 
"the soundscape is impressively vast, the lyrics (as sparse as they are) and tone are decidedly intimate."

Imagine a mixture of 60s power pop and 70s punk rebellion, then throw in a bit of glam rock as well for good measure and you will get an idea of what to expect from Slydigs. Evoking ‘the good time’ rock ‘n’ roll with their anthemic songs, the four-piece are wowing audiences around the UK,Europe and North America. Rave reviews such as “bound to be filling stadiums of their own in the not too distant future” highlight the reception from both audience and critics alike. Frontman Dean Fairhurst, co- founder of the band along with lead guitarist Louis Menguy, is driven by the need to “express our own obsessions with the likes of The Clash, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles to create our own legacy”.

Fresh from their tour with The Who in April/ May 2016, Slydigs were invited once again 􏰉􏰁􏰈Vintage Trouble for a second tour, often sharing the stage with lead guitarist Nalle Colt for a show stopping rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s Hey Joe. The band has been collecting new fans all over Europe and the US and soon Slydigs will 􏰓􏰆act with their own brand of anthemic rock.

After their impressive performance supporting Vintage Trouble was featured on Rockpalast 􏰁􏰂􏰈􏰜􏰆􏰄􏰅􏰎􏰂􏰈􏰝􏰞􏰟􏰈􏰒􏰙􏰠􏰇􏰐􏰏􏰊􏰈􏰎􏰄􏰆􏰈􏰀􏰁􏰂􏰘􏰄􏰅􏰆􏰇􏰈􏰉􏰁􏰈􏰄􏰆􏰉􏰋􏰄􏰂􏰈 for two headline shows in Cologne and Berlin Hamburg this September. In addition, their short documentary outlining the birth of the band􏰣􏰒􏰋􏰓􏰋􏰄􏰓􏰎􏰂􏰈􏰚􏰁􏰂􏰘􏰂􏰆􏰅􏰆􏰂􏰉􏰤􏰈􏰐􏰊􏰈􏰀􏰋􏰄􏰄􏰆􏰂􏰉􏰙􏰠􏰈􏰛􏰆􏰎􏰉􏰋􏰄􏰆􏰇􏰈􏰁􏰂􏰈.

Their Debut EP DIAMONDS is as much set in the past as it measures modern ways of music making. Combining classic Rhythm’n’Blues-song potency with subtle electronic elements and new lyrical ideals, MALKY created a truly unique sound that builds bridges from Motown to Liverpool by way of contemporary electronic music.

MALKY is Bulgarian. It means ‘Little Boy’. Daniel emigrated from Bulgaria to Germany in his infancy. Michael is of Hungarian ancestry. Longing for somewhere to call home is a common theme for the duo and an endless source for musical and lyrical expression.

The release of the duos debut-album SOON in the summer of last year gained strong attention in Germany, including premium TV-features, exceptional print coverage and solid airplay. Being declared “a masterpiece”, MALKY took the album on the road, visiting Germany, Austria and Switzerland twice and playing more than 100 mostly sold out shows almost everywhere. MALKY raised a great deal of international attention by entering the respectable stages of important European Showcase-Festivals such as Eurosonic Noorderslag, Sonic Visions and Reeperbahn Festival. Reeperbahn’s “Wunderkind”-program showcases some of Germany’s top talents to an international audience.

This seachangeis reflected on the EP’s stunning psych-folk-rock opener, a ballsy 18-minute track (yes eighteen minutes) that onjures desert visions of Crazy Horse guitar solos, David Crosby’s mustache, and all the good things about a journey through the past on mescaline. Matt actually grew up in Austin (and Dana Point, CA too) and the song is a slice of his life--an autobiography that isn’t even close to being finished-- an epic American saga that reflects his skill as a remarkable modern songwriter still on the rise. If Richard Linklater could write a song, this would be it.

"Matt’s voice and words have that Nashville outcast vibe to it,” says Jay Sweet, producer of the Newport Folk Festival and a longtime champion of Matt’s music. “He’s not California, he’s not Texas, he’s not Brooklyn—even though he’s lived in all of those places. He’s a transplant and a vagabond, which is why he embodies folk and rock music. For a singersongwriter,

he is truly refreshing."

Matt went solo for simple reasons-- to return to the style of rock he loves. And when he went solo he REALLY went solo. He plays every instrument on the record, except for two drum tracks and one guitar track. Delta Spirit undoubtedly will be back but he wanted to make a collection of music without the influence of his beloved brethren (it's only natural for a frontman to feel the need to let loose from time to time). You will hear his new material and you will hear Iggy Pop. Neil Young. Kurt Cobain. Gram Parsons. But ultimately, you're hearing Matthew Logan Vasquez. A man young at heart, who

loves the shit out of rock music... loves it so much that it's been his life's goal to make the masses reconnect with her spirit.

But he's become a father, and he's been through some shit. His dad was a bomb builder. Fact.

At the end of the day, Matt’s objective as a singer, a poet, a preacher, a believer in this beautiful bullshit we call “RocknRoll,” is to find some harmony through life’s confusion and to make you feel good about yourself. He'll be spreading his message via his wonderful songs starting in the fall of 2015. You better go put your dimes in his collectionbasket. Are there better things you can be doin with those dimes?

Wintersleep spent two years touring the world in support of their last album Welcome to the Night Sky, picking up a Juno Award back home in Canada for Best New Band and playing with the likes of White Lies, Editors and the Maccabees along the way. Unavoidable on UK radio, whether it was with storming live favourite, "Oblivion" or the festival- hit-in-waiting "Weighty Ghost". They did sessions for Zane Lowe at Radio 1, 6 Music, and XFM with platitudes heaped upon them from the likes of Mojo, Q, NME, Rock Sound, Clash, The Fly and The Word.

Lesser bands would have followed up this success with a simple re- write.. if it ain’t broke...instead, Wintersleep have chosen to make some of the most expansive, dynamic, dark and courageous rock music you'll hear this year.

There's a lot of time to kill when you play over 200 shows a year and Wintersleep have used it to their advantage. Quality time spent devouring work by the likes of Hank Williams, Jorge Luis Borges, Nathanial Hawthorne, Flannery O'Connor and Karen Dalton, in between understanding the dynamics of sound in a tiny space as well as the power of a 10,000 capacity room.

While their lyrics to date have focused on the personal, the songs on New Inheritors tend towards a bigger worldview. The narrator is a voyeur, commenting on situations rather than being in the situation itself. Without a doubt, a much more brooding, shadowy record, at times the lyrics verge on the intentionally indecipherable - check the pre-chorus to "Blood Collection" - suggesting a menacing, indefinable figure. Moments and memories are alluded to across multiple songs and overarching themes of alienation and despondency crop up repeatedly. But make no mistake this is not a miserable record, from album opener, ‘Experience The Jewel’ to the closer ‘Baltic’, New Inheritors is an album of rousing, inspirational rock songs.

Recorded in Montreal and mixed in Glasgow with Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Malcolm Middleton, Dirty Pretty Things, Teenage Fanclub, The Delgados), Wintersleep's sound is more expansive, less distorted and more cerebral. For the first time, the band opted to work with both a brass and string arranger on some songs, but rather than overpower with swathes of violins and trumpets, they form a core part of each track rather than an awkward add-on.

You may have felt like you had Wintersleep pegged and pigeonholed but this record will undoubtedly sweep away any misconceptions and win over a huge new audience. You may have thought you knew exactly what this record would sound like before you clicked play or dropped a needle. But you definitely will not have been expecting this