LeftLion's Latest Listens #24: Notts music we're currently spinning

Album: Cappo - Houses

Cappo, legendary Nottingham hip-hop artist, blends awesome musical sense with prolific energy. His latest project is no exception. It’s an honest, real record, exploring challenging themes, but boy does it go hard too, with ice-cold beats, wide-ranging samples, and inspired riffs and basslines. Released only eight months after S.T.A.R.V.E., the new album is set two decades later, picking up the narrative of “a fictional working-class early-middle-aged father of two in contemporary Nottingham” who is struggling to adjust to fatherhood.

Everything makes perfect sense and the effect - despite the potential for introspective gloom - is satisfyingly immersive. Centrepiece Hmrc finds joy in a rare moment when administrative madness works in our protagonist’s favour; and tracks such as Funeral, Unborn Seed and Solitaire mark the often tragic and sometimes magical moments of shared humanity. Backed by a brilliantly marketed physical product (complete with a “letter” from HMRC), this album confirms Cappo’s significance in the UK hip hop genre and in our city’s artistic melting pot. @kafka_poe_murakami (Phil Taylor)

Single: Dorothy Ella - Do You Still Lie (Probably)

Do You Still Lie (Probably) is a wonderful, upbeat and fun post-breakup anthem from local pop princess Dorothy Ella. This song is a brilliant staple of her live sets and so its brilliant to finally have it on demand. Dorothy brings a mischievous fun to the song’s themes of relationships ending and deceit, skilfully providing powerful, soulful vocals to express and act upon the emotions in the song’s lyrics. This song also bears a slightly more indie energy to it, crafting a playful sense of anger, again lending itself extremely well to Dorothy’s incredible vocals and the simply divine vocal harmonies. The production on this track is excellent, too, everything is crisp and every part sounds amazing and does not overpower any other.

This is a truly enjoyable track a true musical stalwart of the Nottingham and Derby music scene, one both instrumentally powerful and creative and lyrically fun and vengeful. @dorothyellauk (Thomas Gensler)

Single: We Are Sovereign - This Farewell Is Our Fate (Re:Imagined)

This Derby-based band are on a mission to give those who feel disenfranchised a voice; they do this admirably through the medium of their music. They have developed a style uniquely theirs, which hits you hard and deep. Fronted by vocalist Laura Russell alongside additional vocals by Ash Ho, with Ed Shiers on percussion, This Is Our Farewell is the acoustic version of their previously released song from their album Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone. This re-imagined recording, although stripped down to bare bones, loses none of the original’s raw power, with Laura’s soul searching vocals gently blending with Ash’s, building in its intensity as the song progresses.

Laura and Ash put real emotion into their singing, proving that these guys believe passionately in what they are doing, when, to quote Laura; "We speak for those who feel like giving up, we speak for those who feel like they have lost the way, and we speak for those who fear the unknown." @wearesovereignofficial (Claire Spencer)

Single: GIRLBAND! - Hot Love

One of Nottingham's favourite alt-rock three piece bands prove (again) that their versatility knows no bounds with new single Hot Love. Opening with a glam-rock guitar slide and chugging bass guitar riffs, the song makes way for full-on rock-and-roll vocals and an attitude which evokes all the best things about our American cousins. But don't be fooled: this is done with Nottingham style. With tongue-in-cheek rhymes and plenty of "la la la la-la-la", GIRLBAND! present a vivacious, tenacious and totally in-character defiance in this 2-minute, layered blast of alternative tastiness. @girlbandhq (Phil Taylor)

EP: David Collingridge (The Doctor's Orders Collective) - Little Pharma

David Collingridge is a musician and regular in the Carrington micro pub Doctor’s Orders. He’s in the final stages of a music production course at Confetti and has set up the shoestring Muttley Studios in his spare bedroom. A friend suggested that David should record the musician regulars of Doctor’s Orders and so Little Pharma was born.

First up is a space shanty by Tom Manning of Seas of Mirth. Tom sings and plays all the instruments, including drums which were recorded in just one take. The second track, Solo, is by Gareth Cole who is in several bands including Bardic Depths: a cool, laid-back instrumental West Coast groove. 

Then follows a track by the legendary John Otway, Imposter Syndrum, sung in his unmistakable style with characteristic dry humour and social observation, and the first piece John has written and recorded for a few years. Fourth up is the laid back Le Salvager by Crazy Heron, a whimsical homage to a TV programme, with backing vocals by Crazy Heron’s wife Nicky. The EP winds up with the excellent Uninvited Guest by The Mist – a deceptively simple song with interesting lyrics.

All five tracks sound great, thanks in part to the skilful studio work by David; well worth your time. Doctor's Orders Micro Pub on Facebook (Tim Hills)