On The Radar : Stella Donnelly

Sometimes I’ll just flick through artists on Spotify, like when you start listening to one artist and then click ‘Related Artists’ then be completely sucked into a black hole of music for a few hours. There is always one or two that stick out from that black hole and Stella Donnelly was one of them for me.

I had gone backwards in my blog as I’ve recently started writing again and found The Colourist which led me to the acoustic brutal lullaby like voice of Stella Donnelly, the very first song I’d heard was ‘MechanicalBull’ purely for the fact that it’s the most listened on her Spotify page, a song that is honest and open regarding relationship issues. Stella has this voice that screams jaded Kate Nash, in the instance that if she was bought up by Sinead O’Connor while growing up in the surroundings of Adele and her best friend is Amy Winehouse...Think ‘Foundations’ meets ‘Daydreamer’.

Lyrically Stella Donnelly touches on subjects that only previously I feel Scroobius Pip would, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ is written quite frankly about rape and the victimization of a young women. What is blatant is that she is writing music beyond her years, the most eloquent voice is bashed with pure emotion and words. With only 444,000 hits on Spotify, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the right amount of exposure leads to more mainstream success, definitely one for the future. 

On The Radar : The Colourist

It’s been a while since I have indulged into writing anything music related, but I heard this band, while looking out into the grey of Great Britain and suddenly all was well.

Coming in somewhere between Vampire Weekend and Owl City with a twinge of Beach Boys pop, currently touring with Metric are The Colourist, a 4 piece from Orange County, California.

Throw yourself in around the southern hemisphere and the same musical uproar is on the horizon and has been bubbling for just under a year, these tight guitar pop riffs and summer licks could be the ones to replace the current folk stamping indie that is dominating the airwaves.

Radar track ‘Little Games’ is a slow burning sunshine intro with a love/lust lyrical back story, duel male/female vocals make out the Owl City contrast while the guitar and bass cohort with the drums equaling a sure song for 2013’s ‘soundtrack of the summer’ playlist.