Taste Test, Edition #18: Kat Saul, Lily Bentley, Fiji & more

Welcome to Taste Test, a review wrangling of SubmitHub-only gemstones.

“Middle Name” by Kat Saul

The honeymoon phase inhabits the space between the first sip and the hangover. It’s holding on for dear life as the clunky, metallic, vinyl-plastered seat tips over the edge of the initial hill on a roller coaster, leaving you gasping and teetering on the edge of glory. Nashville upstart Kat Saul exposes her heart through a layer of glimmer illusion, a rose pink that matches her cheeks, dancing in her lover’s eyes, with her new single “Middle Name.”  Bending around a hip-hop cadence, express utterances that mimic the rush of a budding romance, Saul bounds down the runway with slick movements and relinquishes every vulnerable part of herself. “Let’s cover all the bases,” she transfixes her attention on taking things next level with a flip of her hair. But it’s far more than that. He’s the one, maybe, as she coos in a muted, yet provocative, tone, “I want you to be the one.”

“Brookmill Park” by Lily Bentley

An unknown figure splashed around in the lone water fountain, bathing his skin and washing clean of the earth’s tragedy. Peeking from afar, folk fine-tuner Lily Bentley unpacks that image from her all-too-vivid memory, an unnamed man whose life must have fallen far from a once-illustrious pillar. “Brookmill Park,” which creaks under the weight of such heavy poeticism, ebbing between the seasons like a bird in flight, is the arsenic-laced centerpiece of her new album, of the same name, out today. Bentley’s voice beacons you into her world, in much the same hypnotic style of Edgar Allan Poe, but with a heft of grounded humanity and raw, feathery compassion. It’s a kind of performance that’ll rattle your skull and haunt you for days.

“TVI” by Primer

Alyssa Midcalf’s voice is a static shock. It jolts you on first impact, but your body acclimates to the surge but remains numbed and cold, a bone-charging side-effect to such cosmic energy. Onstage and on record as Primer, Midcalf seeks to set herself free from trauma and a near-state of catatonia with “TVI,” which stands for “The Void Inside.” By abbreviating such a tormented headspace, she hopes to wipe the slate clean, so to speak, and allow the pain to cascade her shell from the present to a future unknown, far removed from this physical world. The theatrically-cut outline serves as yet another succulent, wholly moving taste of her forthcoming debut album, Novelty, out March 1 via Young Heavy Souls. She works the heavy groove to her advantage, snarling in the darkness and spooking her demons to the abyss of the world.

https://soundcloud.com/yhs-records/primer-tvi

“Sidewalks” by Stay Young

The guitars dance in unison, casting a sweet glow along the concrete. Rock band Stay Young inch forward into the lush stream, flowing in misty sprays of glory-saddled pop music, but their stance is very much planted with the commanding presence of rock. They bite. They slither. They unleash hell with “Sidewalks,” winding between ’70s classicisms but alighting on something remarkably modern. It’s their debut single and one of impressive musicianship, enveloping and apocalyptic. “I believe in everything I see / And in the end we all will disappear” is a bizarrely confident assertion, carved into their bones and echoing across the mountains just above their heads. But we believe them. And so, we too are now on this uncertain journey into the wild.

“Down by the Water” by Abigail Lapell

Isolation isn’t an inherently grim state of being. In fact, hidden away amongst the foliage, a creek babbling nearby, one can find their center in a way the cloying bustle of modern-day living seems to stifle. Angelic and tough-willed, singer, songwriter and musician Abigail Lapell scampers off into the forest for a moment of clarity, feeling the wind kiss her cheeks and the sun lift her eyelashes in a vivacious peacock display. “Down by the Water,” an essential entry to her new album, Getaway, out today, invites the listener on a treat of replenishment. Her voice gently calls from between the branches, and without even knowing it, at first, you become lost in the brush…forever and ever, amen.

“Walking in the Rain” by Robin Cause

You just have to let yourself feel. Equipped with his acoustic guitar, which crumples underneath the centripetal force of heartbreak as much as he does, folk troubadour Robin Cause drags his tired feet down the cobblestone streets. The rain comes down in a cool drizzle, smudging his tears away into an exquisite watercolor painting, the vibrant red fading smoothly into pink. “I’m leaving to a foreign land in less than seven days,” he confesses, situating the gentle weeper as a wayward child’s last rites before his body drifts away on the tides. Cause calls upon sturdy country tear-in-your-beer traditions of heartache and moving on, knitting together a cathartic, altogether vital upheaval.

“Told You So” by Fiji

The ashy end of a cigarette burns the skin. The flesh melts at the sight of smoke, curling around your heart and slowly poisoning the outer layers first. You always hope for the best, but you can never predict what happens next. Copenhagen producing duo Fiji circle around from the outside, offering up, perhaps unwanted, yet still critical, advice to a friend who finds themselves trapped in a vicious merry go ’round. “I don’t wanna tell you that I told you so / I always wish you the best, just thought I’d let you know / That I don’t wanna tell you that I told you so / But I told you so,” the intro cuts like a knife, leaving a bitter, swollen wound. It’s the truth, but it’s a hard one pill to swallow, possessing a gruesome aftertaste. Given the tremendous lyrical frankness, the production is deceivingly stitched with sparkles, as if a rocket strewn across the sky with stars puncturing holes in the side.

“Could Have Been Me” by Baer Traa

Native to Holland, Baer Traa is a humorist. He brandishes his pen with dry wit inside trusty walls of folk music, an airy, warm tradition that dates back centuries. “Could Have Been Me,” a psalm stoked with melancholic strings aplenty, is voyeuristic in nature. He peers over crowded tabletops and a sea of gently floating heads to inquiry of the performer their intentions of evoking such an outpouring of tears, pain and laughter. “I know that you will be waiting for me / Oh, I’ll be your friend, yeah, I’ll be your friend,” he allows, stepping into the role as participant rather than player. The candlelight flickers across his face, and in his quest for truth, the music awakens every part of his body, renewing him before he skips along on his merry way.

“Here” by Jon and Roy

It can be terrifyingly easy to lose yourself in hate-mongering and a deluge fo ever-spinning social feeds and news cycles. Folk duo Jon and Roy embrace that fact but reach out a gentle, unwavering hand with their new single. The titular cut to their forthcoming record, out later this year, “Here” floats on airstreams of rose petals and compassion. They empty out every inch of their hearts into ours as a way to refuel the world around them; it’s a sacrificial act of paying it forward, without any burden to repay such a debt. Their roots are firm in the well-tended soil, rich with vitamins, nutrients and earthworms, and their branches full and green and sweet. “We are at home,” they repeat, their voices kind reassurances that it’ll all be OK.

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