Playlist: Singing in the new

Pit Pony – Cut Open

One of the most exciting releases scheduled for early 2025 is Pit Pony’s second album, Dead Stars, is set to be one of the most exciting releases scheduled for early 2025. Their debut, World to Me, emerged from the wreckage of lockdown back in 2022 with a noisy blast of indie rock. But the new stuff shows signs of greater breadth.

Take Cut Open, one of the tracks that got an airing before the Feb. 7 launch. Suddenly we find a swoon of do-wop, a stately 50s swing that feels worlds away from much of what came before. It could so easily be a recipe for disaster, a textbook case of the “difficult” second album spiralling crazily out of control.

And yet it works. In place of saccharine love-songs, we have an exploration of imposter syndrome. Rather than sanitized, radio-friendly vocals, we’re hearing a natural South Shields accent courtesy of the ever-excellent Jackie Purver. The combination of someone else’s ideal and Pit Pony’s reality neatly encapsulates the tale behind the music. It’s a striking change of pace, yet it still feels organic alongside the rest of the band’s output.

Dead Stars is released on Feb. 7. Pit Pony has an in-store album launch event at Reflex Records in Newcastle on Feb. 9, with a UK tour to follow in April.

Jen Dixon – Exhausted

On stage, you might find Jen pummelling the drums behind the likes of Manchester Anthems. In the studio, though, her brand of songwriting offers less of the swagger and thunder of the Madchester scene; instead, it’s a world of quiet reflection.

Latest release, Exhausted, fits the bill nicely. Stripped down to voice and piano, then revved up in production to deliver a quietly epic choral mix, it’s understated yet still powerful. Lyrically, we’re in that awkwardly familiar territory where we know something has reached its end even if we’re not quite ready for the curtain to fall: relationship? Job? Engagement with a social media platform that lurches ever further into the abyss? Take your pick. Depending on circumstances, it could be any or all of the above.

Long-time readers might recall Jen featuring way back in the second ever playlist with The Sound, her swipe at political machinations on her native Teesside. That preceded a fairly quiet year; something of an occupational hazard for musicians trying to balance their calling with the demands of a day job and the mundane necessity of paying the bills. That, too, might feed into exhaustion at a time when venues, artists and audiences are feeling the collective pain of keeping heads above ever-deepening water. It’s not for nothing that this track was released on Blue Monday (and not the quintessential Manchester electro anthem either). Yet there’s a defiance underpinning it all, not so much strut and shove as a determination not to be silenced. Try it. It grows on you.

Shannon Pearl – Fae Falla

File this one under “unclassified”. Shannon Pearl’s self-styled witch pop has always been sui generis. But her forays into kulning, an ancient, ethereal vocal technique are something else.

The Sunderland singer went viral – topping a million views on Insta and even featuring in the local paper – with a sound that reaches into the depth of Nordic history. Kulning, similar to yodelling in the Alps, was a means of using the natural reverb of the valleys to communicate across long distances. Unlike yodelling, which long disappeared into a parody of itself, the Scandinavian version has remained muted. That might explain why it still has a spine-chilling freshness, an audible sorcery at odds with the technique’s rather mundane origins as a means of herding cattle.

Fae Falla, Shannon’s recent EP, focuses on Kulning but that’s by no means all she does. One of last year’s playlists shared some of her folksy witch-pop and she’s playing on Friday evening at Little Buildings in Newcastle’s Ouseburn. That’s a gig that promises its very own Valentine’s Day enchantment.

Thanks for reading the first Playlist of 2025. You can check out the 2024 Playlists from one convenient landing page. If you like what you’re reading, please like, comment and subscribe. If you’re feeling generous, you leave a tip or buy me a coffee. But most of all, please support independent musicians, labels and venues – it’s the only way to keep the songs playing.