Raccoon Book Club is a new project from Multi-Instrumentalist Michael Coates. After struggling with mental health issues and battling a brain tumour, Michael decided to channel his energy into songwriting. Within two months the album ‘Good Reasons to Freeze to Death’ was written before being recorded over the course of a week on the remote island of Lewis, Scotland.

Raccoon Book Club is brutally introspective post-punk/indie and will be playing a show near you soon.

We heard the album, loved every second of it and wanted to find out more so we arranged to have a chat with Michael where we discussed a ton of stuff including the recording process, why he ventured all the way to the Isle of Lewis to record the album, mental health, live shows and more, read on to see how we got on….

Irish quartet The Risen Dread have announced they’re to hit the road in March with death metal legends Vader and black metal kings Marduk.

Ahead of the release of their new album, ‘Mondo Fiction’, cinematic metallers Opensight have announced a launch show at London’s Nambucca on Friday January 28th as part of Retribution. The band will be accompanied by Die Kur, and support will come from Virgin Witch and Sycarium.

It’s not every day that you’re invited to chat to pop music royalty, so imagine my surprise when I was asked to interview the legends that are GO WEST….

Well I don’t know about you but I am sick to the back teeth of January, no money, all these sales where they’re getting rid of stuff at a discount price and not a shekel to my name as I spent the lot leading up to Christmas, one year I’ll learn!

Welcome to the penultimate playlist for January 2022, you’ll be glad to know that February is just around the corner, before you know it, Spring will have sprung, the days will get a little longer and hopefully, things will warm up a bit!

Listen to the track here
Official video to come soon

NEW ALBUM 'GIVE ME THE FUTURE' OUT FEBRUARY 4th
Pre-order the album here

SOM begins their newest album, ‘The Shape of Everything’, with a bleeding-heart memoire titled ‘Moment’ –the earnest lyrics speak with a supernal sadness over heavy guitar riffs, where singer Will Benoit introduces us to the atmospheric doom that pervades the senses throughout the album.

Following the epic sell out ‘Boys Are Back’ Arena tour last year, halted midway through due to the pandemic, 3 of the original members of the 90’s bad boy, boy band Ritchie Neville, Sean Conlon and Scott Robinson who sold over 20 million records worldwide, amassed 3 UK number 1 singles and 3 Top 5 albums, with their debut album going in at number 1, got together remotely during lockdown and have written their first album in 20 years!

‘Time’ is set for release on January 28th, we caught up with Scott Conlon from the band to talk about recording, early memories, the lack of social media in the 90’s, comparisons with other boy bands and those killer dance moves.

I don’t know what it is about January, it seems to drag on forever, nobody has any money, bands and artists aren’t touring (for one reason or the other) and things just feel a little…..flat!

Well let me open the door and kick those feelings out onto the street with a wonderful mix of nine incredible new tracks from some of the world’s finest bands and artists.

Below the embedded playlist, you’ll find a bit more information about some of the highlighted acts, take a look as their track plays to make it more of a 3D listening experience!

When you’re ready, just hit the button below, sit back and let the tuneful loveliness wash over you, I’ll see you on the other side….

With Bev Knowlden on saxes and Peter Shearn on guitars, Jazzient are two thirds of the Totnes band "Shadow Factory" with a stronger focus on jazz infused ambient music. The duo make full use of looping and synthesised sounds enabling live performances that don't skimp on the more complex angles of the compositions.

MEXICAN DOGS
ROCK TRIO BREAK INTO 2022 WITH:
“RUN, RUN, RUN”
OUT NOW, VIA FRETSORE RECORDS
STREAM ON ALL SERVICES HERE
+ HOMETOWN SHOW IN LIVERPOOL THIS FEBRUARY - TICKETS
NEW EP, COMING LATER THIS YEAR…

In celebration of its 15th anniversary, The Kooks reveal dates for the long-awaited UK TOUR, celebrating their seminal debut album ‘Inside in/Inside Out’.

The latest release from Ceramic Animal is due for release on March 4th and see’s an added punch to their already strong songwriting and musical talents. Produced by Dan Auerback, guitarist and vocalist for The Black Keys, the 5 piece from Doylestown, Pennsylvania are made up of brothers Chris Regan (vocals, guitar), Erik Regan (drums), and Elliott Regan (vocals, keys), along with childhood friend Anthony Marchione (guitar) and Dallas Hosey (vocals, bass). This fourth album comes on the back of self-funded, self-produced and self-released albums High End (2020), The Horse (2018) and The Cart (2016).

We at musomuso love helping unsigned artists and bands get their music out to people that may not have heard of them before, we do this in a variety of ways, playlists, news alerts and introducing features which allow the band or artist the chance to tell their side of the story.

We were contacted by an up and coming artist called Elliott Kean who released his sophomore album in December, we took a listen, loved what we heard and agreed to complete an introducing feature for him.

Read on to find out about Elliott’s hometown, how he got into writing music, his influences, his process for creating music, what everyone can do to aid climate & ecological issues and who he would choose for his dream festival lineup….

We love talking to bands, especially young bands who have every chance to ‘make it’ on the scene, you may laugh but think about it, every young band has a chance, all they need is the right team behind them, someone to spot their talent (think Alan McGee and OASIS) and WHOOSH, they’re off.

We were approached by a group of musicians from York who call themselves The Rosemaries, we listened to a few of their tracks and loved what we heard, we wanted to get involved and with the release of their latest single ‘Hullabaloo’ (19th January 2022), we caught up with Billy and Arthur from a York based band called The Rosemaries to chat about influences, early musical memories, first gigs, songwriting and even get invited round for tea, just wait until you see what they’re planning on cooking/warming up in the microwave for us…..

As January slowly rolls on so does the amount of quality music that appears in my inbox…..

Shows continue to be postponed, wreaking havoc on the live music and general entertainment industry, what can we do to keep in touch with music? How about pouring yourself a drink, sitting back and letting us entertain you with 30 minutes of the finest new music around?

With the recent release of their debut single ‘Make It Last’, I was keen to learn more about a Belfast based indie-rock band called The Continentals.

We caught up with lead guitarist and songwriter Palko to chat about how and when the band formed, influences, the Belfast music scene and how they got on in the studio where they recorded their single.

Read on for all of this and more.

Celebrating over 35 years since their debut top 5 hit ‘We Close Our Eyes’ GO WEST to play 4 UK dates WITH A FULL LIVE ORCHESTRA plus special guests Cutting Crew

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

http://www.gowest.org.uk

I have lost count the amount of times that I have chatted to Clara Bond on the website, I think we must be knocking on double figures but I don’t mind, she’s a joy to speak to and a real breath of fresh air who’s music is a pleasure to listen to.

The last time we caught up was midway through the very first lockdown, I forget what she was up to at the time, maybe she wasn’t releasing anything at all and just fancied a chat…. I’m sure if you type in ‘musomuso’ and ‘Clara Bond’ into Google, you’ll find the feature.

Anyway, this time she DID have something to talk about and boy were we excited. Not only had she recently released a track called ‘Misbehaving’, she had also dropped her brand new ‘Backtalker’ EP which consists of 5 tracks, 2 of which are completely. and utterly brand spanking new.

We caught up with Clara on a train back home, what better place to bombard her with questions when all she really wanted to do was sip her overpriced watery coffee and chew on a stale biscuit bar……

Colour TV are a South West based band that have been on my radar for a few weeks now. They got in touch with me via Instagram and sent me a link to their EP which will soon be available to buy on shiny vinyl! As with 90% of messages I receive, they get lost in the ether and it wasn’t until I saw that they were playing in Plymouth that I remembered. I dug out the message, hit the link and enjoyed their EP a few times on repeat before heading out to catch them live.

I caught up with Sam Durneen from the band to talk about the early days, how they got on in the studio, dream festival lineups and a very interesting story about The Cure, read on for all this and more…..