Muse Music Musings

Happy Tuesday, NovelliFans! 

That’s right, Fam, I’m trying something a little different this week, and I’m excited to see what you think.

With a nod to the bygone New Music Tuesday, I’ve decided to run a little experiment that I’m calling Muse Music Musings: Your weekly six degrees of Muse Music happenings, ICYMS or just want to spin the fresh drops again.

If you’re wondering, “but Tanya isn’t that what Muse Music Monday is for?”, you’re not wrong.

However, I wanted to see if rolling my New Music Friday and Muse Music Monday posts into a single weekly roundup could serve as a little ‘after the rush’ boost for the Friday releases once the hype of the weekend wears off, and the artists get busy promoting whatever they’ve got coming next.

I’m also hoping this will give me the chance to interact more with their own marketing efforts on release day, to help fire up those metrics and do my part in letting the algorithm know ‘Hey, this ish is golden, do your thing!’

While I’m fully aware of the fact that these artists already have the support of pros, including some of the biggest names in the industry, their music has been such a gift to me that even as an itty-bitty fish in this mighty ocean of music promotion, I want to do whatever I can to celebrate their efforts & help as many people as possible discover the magnificence of the music they’ve been pouring themselves into and gifting to us every. single. week.

So if you have any thoughts on how I could maximize my efforts, or opinions about whether or not you think this is a good idea, please do let me know in the comments below.

🙏🙏🙏

Another benefit of moving these posts to Tuesday is that it gives me a couple of extra days to round up ALL the releases from the previous week and make sure nobody gets missed.

Which is exactly what happened last Friday, when I realized I’d dropped the ball on covering not one, but TWO new releases — one from Linney and one from Susie Ledge. 

So let’s finally give these ladies their due, shall we!

Start Your ‘Day Party’ Playlist

First up, on Armada Chill is ‘Closer’, a GORGEOUS downtempo collab between Susie Ledge and Finley Brückner that has introduced me to yet another genre of dance music — organic house.

MYT has written an excellent article on the origins, development & key elements of this emerging genre if you’d like to learn more, but if you’re eager to get to the single, here’s TL;DR, according to Will Vance @ Magnetic Magazine:

Both articles name Tim Green and Sébastien Léger as influential artists in the scene, and with ‘Closer’ under their belt, Finley and Susie have made a smashing contribution to the genre as well.

Co-written with Gary Dillon & recently featured by DJ Shakk on BBC Introducing North East, ‘Closer’ is yet another one of Susie’s tracks that takes a difficult situation, full of complex emotions and brings it into the light, giving those emotions a chance to be seen, acknowledged and (hopefully) resolved.

This one’s giving me ‘backroads with the windows down on a bright sunny day’, which is one of my all-time favourite vibes, so if that’s your jam be sure to grab ‘Closer’ on your favourite platform now.

Buy / Stream ‘Closer’

*p.s. Armada did a deep dive into the history of deep house, complete with playlists and festival recommendations if that genre’s new to you too.

Kick It Up A Notch

Next up we have ‘Champagne Eyes’, a collab between Linney and producer, composer and self-proclaimed ‘dreamliner’ Adam Pearce, a fellow Canadian who also happens to be from Vancouver, the city where Mr. Bea & I met. #EDMFamCanada

Seemingly their first time working together, Linney and Pearce co-wrote the track with singer-songwriter, music teacher, multi-instrumentalist and music therapist(!!!), Jamison Fox, and it’s coming to direct from Pearce himself.

An uplifting bop with a lyrical focus on light and colour, the track inspired Linney to attend her first ever Aura Photography session, and she’s taken us bts over on her Instagram. She’s promised a part two coming soon, so if you’re not already following her, head over and change that so you don’t miss your chance to see how the session turned out.

And if you find yourself distracted by the track in the background, you’re in luck, ’cause ‘Champagne Eyes’ is out now!

Buy / Stream ‘Champagne Eyes’ 

Bonus Beauty

In addition to the release of these two gorgeous tracks, last week also saw the reveal of the mystery film project Reigns had been teasing on her Instagram and Tiktok — a stripped-down, acoustic version of her hit single with Cash Only, ‘Baby Believe’, which was co-written with Matt Wilcox and Dee Adam, who also “worked her production magic” on the track.

Shot at a beach in Dover, and featuring the incomparable guitar stylings of Jack Parry, it’s honestly one of the most stunning pieces of art I’ve ever witnessed. Jaw on the floor, completely mesmerizing level of magnificence.

I’ve got my fingers crossed we’ll see this as an official release, but in the meantime, if you’ve been taking a break from social, trust me Fam, you’re going to want to come back for this!

Even More BBC Brilliance

Circling back around to BBC Introducing for a moment, another MMM track was also recently featured in the dance mix segment of the Solent show hosted by Fern Buckley — Winchester-based Paul Sawyer’s remix of Siskin’s ‘Are We Dreaming’.

Having been a teen in the 90s, hearing one of my favourite artists on the radio still gives me a a thrill, and given that dance music has always been exceedingly rare on Canadian radio stations, I’m super jazzed that the BBC makes their shows available online, even if only for a limited time.

At the time of writing, the show still has 27 days left on its rotation, and there are TONNES of great tracks in the full 2-hour set, so be sure to head over and give it a spin while you still can. (The dance mix starts at around the 1:34:00 mark.)

Sidenote, Fern’s enthusiasm for the musicians she features is an absolute delight!

Dreams Really Do Come True

It seems only fitting to wrap up our Muse Music Musings debut with news from the Muse Music Mogul herself … and boy do we have some!!!

Late last week, Christina announced the full lineup of dates for Phase 1 of her It’s Not Me, It’s You! Summer Tour. 

Starting this Sunday, May 12 at the Rong Open Air Festival in Malta, with subsequent stops in Prague, Poland, and Finland, three shows in the UK, plus more dates TBA(!!!), there will be no shortage of chances to celebrate Christina’s triumphant debut dance record throughout the summer and beyond.

And if that’s not exciting enough, did you see the post Christina made at the end of March teasing a special guest at her EN-TRANCE event at EPIC in Prague? Well it turns out she’s going to be joined by not one but TWO of her ‘INMIY’ collaborators (and MMM colleagues) Sue McLaren AND Susie Ledge!!!

At the time of writing there are still Basic and VIP tickets left, and I’ve got links to everything you need over on the ‘Christina Live’ Events page.

So if you’re in Prague, or are going to be in close proximity on May 18, snag your ticket(s) while you can. ‘Cause this is one show you definitely don’t want to miss!

And if Prague is out of reach, the Events page also has details on 4/6 shows from Phase 1 ready for you to peruse, and I’ll be adding the info for shows 5 & 6 ASAP.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the Summer Sound Festival, which will be Christina’s first time performing in Finland, on their website, Instagram and Facebook.

At the moment, Savoy Glasgow doesn’t seem to advertise quite so far out, so I’ll keep you posted on that show as we get closer to the August event date.

I did, however, manage to find a few shots of Christina on their Facebook page from a show she did there back in 2013(!!!)

Plus this delightfully distorted fancap video of her mixing AND singing ‘Concrete Angel’ live.

So what do you think, Fam? Should we make Muse Music Musings a thing?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and I’ll see you back here next week for another try.

As always, thanks for stopping by!