Now Hear This! #021 – Club 8, Daphne Eckman, No Windows, TRIPPLEHAZE

Now Hear This! In keeping with our commitment to bring you excellent under-the-radar music, this week we offer four new artists for assessment: Club 8, Daphne Eckman, No Windows, and TRIPPLEHAZE, a Kazakhstan-based alternative band.

We’ll bring you a new post each week, songs from which will regularly be added to our accompanying “Now Hear This” Spotify playlist.

Find all past Now Hear This! installments right here: https://v13.net/features/now-hear-this/.

Club 8 – “Sunny”

Swedish indie-pop duo Club 8 recently released their single, “Sunny,” a gleaming, lo-fi, feel-good track suffused with hints of post-punk, new wave, shoegaze, and dream-pop.

Formed in 1995, Club 8 is vastly underrated, one of those bands permanently perched on the brink of massive success that never quite appeared. Probably because their sound, like a chameleon, alters according to their influences, ranging from trip-hop, chill, dub, and straight-up pop flavors.

Made up of Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergård, Club 8 has released ten albums, three EPs, and beaucoup singles, including “Jesus, Walk With Me,” a track from their 2007 album, The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming.

“Sunny” hums with delicious sonic layers topped by antiphonal vocals that then blend into sighing harmony.

Daphne Eckman – where you left me

Annapolis, MD-based indie singer-songwriter Daphne Eckman released her debut album, where you left me, revealing the self-loss generated by a manipulative relationship, followed by the loss of the relationship. Essentially, where you left me narrates Eckman’s emotional and spiritual murder, wherein she was finally unceremoniously disposed of.

Eckman’s sound highlights emotional vulnerability, along with catharsis. Suggestions of Joni Mitchell, Phoebe Bridgers, Big Thief, and Radiohead flow through elements of indie rock, Midwest emo, ’70s soul, and pop-punk.

Songs like “cannibal,” “ghost,” and “Jackson pollock,” as well as a personal favorite, “acupuncture,” pull listeners into Eckman’s anguish, making listeners principals to the seminal circumstances.

Lyrically, “acupuncture” bares the turbulence of Eckman’s emotions, emotions that refuse to subside.

“Why do I always choose hell over someplace new / Tear me down, stitch me up, don’t I love this sadist stuff / Why do I always choose hell over someplace new / Tear me down, stitch me up, needles / Never do enough.”

No Windows – “Song 01”

Edinburg-based duo No Windows recently released their new single, “Song 01,” from their upcoming sophomore EP, Point Nemo, slated to drop May 3rd via Fat Possum Records. The EP’s title – Point Nemo – refers to the location in the ocean that is farthest away from land.

No Windows is Verity Slangen (vocals) and multi-instrumentalist Morgan Morris. The pair connected when Morris came across Verity singing on one of her shared online videos. With Point Nemo, the duo worked with an outside producer, Ali Chant, for the first time.

Blending elements of shoegaze and bedroom pop, No Windows’ sound is at once raw and slightly discordant yet almost elegant at the same time. At once dreamy and edgy, Verity’s vocals imbue their songs with plangent vulnerability.

“It’s all way too much now / Tell me I talk too much how / Oh pick it up / I don’t wanna be in love / Not with you.”

TRIPPLEHAZE – anti-nostalgic

Almaty, Kazakhstan-based alternative outfit released their new album, anti-nostalgic, on January 14. Encompassing eight tracks, of which all but two are in Russian, TRIPPLEHAZE’s sound ranges across numerous genres, including shoegaze, noise, nu-metal, witchhouse, and hints of drum and bass.

Highlights include “Дисфория “ (Dysphoria), “Old Games,” which conjures up suggestions of Eric Burdon and War, “всё прошло” (it’s all gone), and “зима внутри” (Winter Inside).

Googling the band reveals a dearth of information, other than in 2022, they released a five-track EP, It Will Be Worse, followed by a seven-track album entitled STAB in 2023.

We don’t know who makes up the band, when they formed, or their influences. What we do know is that they have it going on musically.