30 October 2020

Broken Witt Rebels have shared their new single Take It, which was written specifically for the upcoming video game ‘DIRT 5’ that is set for release on November 6. You can listen to the song here. The song was produced and mixed by Adrian Hall and has been released on the same day as the soundtrack album for the game, which also features high profile artists such as The Killers, Stormzy and The Prodigy. Speaking about the song, Broken Witt Rebels frontman Danny Core said that it has been an entirely new environment in relation to the song, but something they have really enjoyed doing. “This whole thing has been a new experience for us,” Core said. “But we’ve really relished the challenge – providing brand new music for the soundtrack and the game and then shooting a video, too. Our aim was to give Take It the same bursts of energy as the game!” Take It isn’t the only song from the Americana group to feature on a video game this year, with Rich Get Richer also featuring on the EA game NHL 21. That song is part of the Birmingham group’s most recent album ‘OK Hotel’, which they released back in March.

Bristol based duo Foreign Affairs have released a new track titled The Hope Comes Again, which premiered on Bob Harris’ BBC Radio 2 country show on October 29. You can listen to the song here. The pair – made up of brothers Lawrence and Adam Purnell – wrote, recorded and produced the single, which is a very honest affair and very much documents the uncertain times that we currently find ourselves in. Speaking about the song, the duo elaborated on the entire songwriting process and also explained the unique way in which the song takes its meaning from. “The song was written about me, from someone who can feel sadness but who is lucky enough to be able to see the positive in a person or situation, I can always see the hope,” Lawrence said. “The whole process of writing, producing and recording the song was very organic, carried out at home in Bristol,” Adam added. “It felt comfortable and the best environment for this song.” Foreign Affairs continue to rise in profile and win admirers, with the pair’s heavier take on Americana music really standing out. Last year, they signed a publishing deal with Peer Music, which will allow them to release their music all over the world.

Jamie Freeman has unveiled a quirky video for his latest release King of the Village Hall , which has been produced by Neilson Hubbard. You can watch the video below. [wpdevart_youtube]Ysi1M-quXPw[/wpdevart_youtube] The song was written with Doug Williams from Wild Ponies and came about during the ‘Dreams About Falling’ writing sessions in Nashville, while Will Kimbrough added his guitar talents for the track. Speaking about the video – which Freeman shot, edited and animated by himself during lockdown – Freeman said that he wanted to try and find a way of bringing the character to life, while he also had a lot of fun making the video happen. “I shot the video during lockdown, so the decision to animate the ‘King’ character was partly practical as I didn’t want the video to be just me sitting in front of a camera – I wanted to bring him to life,” Freeman said. “But as I started working on it, I started to really like the character, he was cute and mischievous, not like the person the song is based on. “So although he does have one moment of narcissistic rage in the video it’s very short lived and we spend most of the song just mucking about and doing stupid dance moves – I never thought I’d put a video out that featured me dancing in my kitchen! But a pandemic will do strange things I suppose.” Freeman also opened up on the song’s meaning and the sound structure of the track, which has been directly fuelled by the negative experience of a friend in the music industry. “The song’s lyric calls out that ‘big fish in a small pond’ of the music industry who never wants to take a risk or try anything new; they’re happy being lord of their own little world,” Freeman said. “It was inspired by an event where a close friend of mine fell foul of a particular ‘big fish’s’ inflated sense of self importance: this track is everything I wish I could have said to the person who hurt my friend, hence the venom in the delivery, but details have been changed to protect the guilty! “I’ve gone for a pretty different sound on this track. It’s like ‘70s glam rock, punk and rootsy Americana all mixed together. It was so much fun playing it in the studio and hearing those awesome Nashville musicians bring it to life.”