Eighteen Ways To Keel Her

The self-titled debut from Rose Keeler-Schäffeler’s creative wellspring, Keel Her, is important to note on a couple of levels. No one is going to say that the seventeen tracks (eighteen if you count ‘Intro’ – and you may as well)laid out here are cohesive, fleshed-out or at times even make sense. Nor will many people find this an easy listen due to the slight schizophrenia on display. But that is also the beauty and power of Keel Her – it is a murky blueprint of the creative prowess that Keeler-Schäffeler has broiling inside her. A restlessness pervades throughout that evokes a creative maelstrom, something that Keel Her acolytes are already well accustomed to due to the proliferation of her uploaded musical ventures over the past couple of years. There is a whiff of Ariel Pink in the explosion of vision, continually churning out material of varying genres and degrees of precision and effectiveness. But it is also important that a label like Critical Heights (Lower Plenty, Greg Boring) would endeavour to give voice to such a haphazard sonic explorer, whose skittish genre-jumping could just as well have been mashed disaster. Yet also like Pink, Keel Her has great energy and lively pop nous pulsing through these fuzzed out sine waves. Can't wait to see what she cooks up next - and we won't have to wait long I'm sure.

You can grab Keel Her here - otherwise check out her MASSIVE back catalogue here.

It's Not Hard To Make An Artful Family Portrait

Those wily sons o' guns over at Art Is Hard Records have a juicy release out (aren't they all?). Surprisingly only their second vinyl release, Family Portrait is a four band split between Grunge pop heathens Gum, Cardiff rough and ready indie types Joanna Gruesome, noise pop duo Playlounge and super sweet faux-tweesers KEEL HER, with each band contributing two tracks. These four bands are part of a greater "movement" in southern England, one where bands bond strongly, cover each other's songs and even swap members from time to time. And despite the disparity of the tracks on paper, this is a surprisingly cohesive record, chock full of effortless hooks and rambunctious melodies, all with the grand design to get people moving. If only all family portraits were this luridly addictive, rather than akin to getting a vasectomy with a blowtorch, then that old cliche of world peace may be just that little bit closer to reality. Maybe these four bands should tour the hotspots of the world...

You can pre-order Family Portrait here. They are drip-feeding these tracks onto Soundcloud, so listen below to what great stuff these kids have to offer.