🎶 Max's Music Mondays with Aanya Martin & Joseph Shipp
imagine me doing a great joke about fireworks and how i'm exploding with joy to share these songs??
Welcome to Max’s Music Mondays. My ~music discovery newsletter~ where I get too excited about songs I love. I hope you love them too. Your subscriptions go such a long way. Free subscribers help these artists get the audience they deserve, paid subscriptions help keep this thing running and also PAY THE ARTISTS!!! 2/3 of every subscription goes right back to the artists I write about. Please consider supporting independent music and music journalism(?) here today <3
Fresh off a holiday weekend, it’s time to get back to business. Summer is here, we need to be enjoying great music. This week I’m stoked to share two gems, something for everyone!! And that gets the ol’ Max Guarantee!!
Thanks for being here - thanks for reading - thanks for listening. Appreciate you all so much!
Every song added here!! Please like the playlist if you haven’t already!
Aanya Martin - White Doves
The perfect sounding drum pattern to start. Drenched in warm distortion just giving it all a little fuzz. There’s that quiet wobble of something, maybe a guitar, in the background. It’s an intoxicating loop that I keep losing myself in as I try to start writing this. A gorgeous building block for all of what’s to come.
As a bass steps forward, guitar with a kiss of echo dancing in the back, there’s an instant elegance to the song. The strings quickly proving my point before I can even finish making it. Aanya Martin joins from there with a killer first lyric I said — leave / you said — stay, the push and pull of this intimate moment instantly clear. A plucked harp adds some sparkle to the edges, a synth leaving light chords, a little piano running around. The moment is full of beauty, but also of chaos. The emotions of a moment like this so all over the place and the production and performance offers us a taste. But a much more gentle and palatable taste than it probably feels IRL.
Precious little drama queen floats by, a cheeky transition from one verse to the next. I love the delivery that follows, that break my doors lyric landing so well, just a tiny breath to keep the groove new and exciting. A single rest to pull you in deeper. The orchestra is back at it from there, so many wonderful pieces adding so much life to this verse. And there!! A new one, a trumpet, makes a splash. Adding more beauty and softness as the song’s story gets more and more intense. This storm brewing but we’d never know. Martin stays cool and calm, seeming to slow things down even more, these final lines barely oozing out, building the sense that there’s something else around the corner.
And at 1:46 we see it bloom. The whole song elevates, into the clouds we go, with a choir of angels adding so much to the track. The band is SOARING!!!! Just take a second to breathe and soak it all in. A sunsetting-warm-breeze of a moment. Pretty White Doves repeats while the band continues to impress. At 2:26 she reaches for a new melody to break us out of the dream. The trumpet repeats the phrase before taking off on a hazy solo. A couple horns actually - taking turns in the spotlight, both wonderful as they move over this endless groove.
Martin returns with some clarity. Stellar writing as she plants her flag and creates some healthy boundaries for herself moving forward. Her voice is absolutely stunning here, that tone is so so good the way the vibrato carries through these longer notes?? It’s all remarkable. The phrasing here is really cool and almost reminds me of a James Blake kind of song. These melodies feel so right, but also unexpected and ‘wrong’ in the best way possible. Hard to describe but it’s like itchy?? Like refusing to give you the resolve and easiness you’d expect it to? It’s got a real edge to it and I adore it.
What’s more to say. The band vibes out and carries us home. One hell of a debut single. Stoked to see what’s to come.
Follow Aanya Martin on Instagram // on Spotify
Joseph Shipp - Dig Deep
I can’t tell you how exciting it is to get a message from a musician I love that says “I think you will like this” with a spotify link. Well, actually I can, it’s incredibly exciting. Shout out Ben Simmons, shout out sack lunch! And when you click on the link and it is so so good??? Wow even more exciting. Anyways let me tell you about the song.
This dark guitar riff surrounds us on both sides. Working through that progression and ending on a sweet chord. Shipp joins the next time around. Matching the riff’s urgency, finding a way to squeeze a lot into each quick phrase. The final lyric alongside that relieving last chord, a chance to breath and look back on all he’s said. Amazing pacing, such a unique and captivating rhythm to it.
In his second pass through, Shipp ends on “Help me”. After noting how powerful this other person is, seemingly supernatural, that Help me feels like a genuine plea. He turns towards us, needing a hand. The deck is stacked against him here.
The guitars evolve, as Shipp stretches a new melody across them. A quiet bit of feedback starts to rise up, a bass drops in too, the whole track feeling so full. Beautiful. After, as Shipp steps aside for a moment, a kalimba replaces on the right, a synth on the left. The moment is magical and feels like a time of reflection. Nostalgic but entirely new. The music’s emotions sitting close to the surface. It’s blues, it’s greens, it’s refracted light shining in from the window.
As those new elements fall away, Shipp returns. The song feeling endearingly bare again just him and the guitar. The simplicity really works for me. With these two layers of vocals it still feels so warm and sweet. Such a nice texture to it all. Returning back to that familiar pattern, lyrics pouring out before dig deep catches us at the end of the moment. The writing in this section is really a delight. This first stanza seeing connection to Brother Rabbit, the titular dig deep finding multiple meanings for itself here. The second stanza is a stunner to me:
Atoms move and shake / Stars radiate / Stillness is a state / Fake it till you make / Resting.
Each so visceral, so powerful on their own, coming together wonderfully and that resting… the perfect punctuation to bring us out of it. Meanwhile this insane piano joins too. The perfect sound to be decorating this verse, adding so much shape and character. It’s a treat.
It flows into the final section, Have you seen the way to me, repeated over and over as the band returns. Chords reversed, the bass, massive piano stabs, more vocals, feedback, it all starts to build and swirl. The bubble getting bigger, threatening to burst. But instead it acts more like a leaf, when it’s had enough, we hear it gently falling to the ground. Sorry to mix metaphors but I can’t find any other way to describe it. In the end, it’s really a hauntingly beautiful song. And PLEASE go check out Joseph’s bandcamp for more of a personal background of the song. All of it so thoughtful.
Unsurprising (yet deeply delightful) to find yet another special special song coming out of that School of Song workshop with Adrianne Lenker. A workshop that will live on in infamy (to me at least).
Follow Joseph Shipp on Instagram // on Spotify
Last Week on All The Other Days:
Olivia Dean’s Time is a MASSIVE highlight for me this week. Loving the newest release from Maisyn, nevermind. Chloe Southern’s new single, This Time Last Year, is a killer. Buscabulla’s latest 11:11 is them at their best, yet again. And lastly, can’t get enough of King Isis’ Dissonance, and cannot wait for more from them :)
All of that and more on ^^ THIS ^^ Playlist - my All The Other Days playlist.
Hope y’all had a great day - talk soon <3
Max