There is something darkly playful about SIREN’s latest release, “No More”. Exploring the complications of marriage, lifelong promises and the rather inconvenient matter of death, the song takes the familiar idea of “till death do us part” and gives it a decidedly different interpretation. Its accompanying music video, directed and edited by Wayne Joyner, takes the story into the afterlife, where unresolved relationship issues apparently have a habit of following you.
Featuring the band as skeletons, pumpkins and plenty of Halloween-inspired imagery, the video brings a healthy dose of dark humour to a song that is surprisingly uplifting musically. We caught up with SIREN to discuss the inspiration behind “No More”, the creative collaboration with Wayne Joyner, the making of the video and the ideas that brought this rather unusual love story to life.
1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize the song specifically in this way?
“No More” explores a Married couple questioning their vows and the meaning of “till death do us part” aspect. Wayne created the video and went straight to the afterlife and it really worked well for this song.
2. What was the inspiration behind this video? (visual, storyline, etc.)?
That was Wayne’s vision and He nailed it!!!
3. What was the process of making this video?
We went through about four drafts before it was completed. The band as skeletons, pumpkins and the smoking candle were all from input from Randy, Mike and I. We thought we might as well make a Halloween video. I believe it came out fantastic.
David Diaz’s latest single “Are We Gonna Talk?” is built around bright synths, an infectious rhythmic pulse and the kind of melodic immediacy that makes ’80s-inspired pop so enduring. Yet beneath that buoyant production lies a much more complicated story about disappointment, unanswered messages and the moment you realise a friendship may have run its course.
The song began with a falling out between Diaz and a close friend. Having repeatedly made himself available when the other person needed him, he eventually found himself asking for something relatively simple in return: time and company. When that never materialised, the frustration became impossible to ignore. One unanswered promise to call back, followed by weeks of silence, provided the unlikely starting point for a song that would eventually become one of his most immediately engaging releases.
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Written and recorded on the very night of the incident, “Are We Gonna Talk?” captures the emotion before time had softened its edges. There is confusion, irritation and a growing recognition that sometimes another person’s silence tells you everything you need to know. Rather than getting lost in the details of one particular friendship, however, Diaz leaves room for listeners to bring their own experiences to the song. Its pronouns and phrasing allow the story to extend beyond friendship into the wider territory of relationships, family and the people we once expected to be there for us.
The track takes a very different route from its emotional subject matter. Driving drums, bright keyboard lines and a satisfyingly funky undercurrent give it a polished synth-pop character, drawing on the sounds of the 1980s while keeping its feet firmly in contemporary pop. Diaz’s affection for that era is genuine, extending beyond music into its films, visual culture and distinctive sense of atmosphere. The intention isn’t to recreate a particular moment in pop history but to take the elements he loves and make them his own.
Producer Luke Kondak proved an important part of that process, helping translate Diaz’s ideas into a fully realised arrangement. The production retains much of the original demo’s character, including the slightly gritty, distorted quality of the lead vocal. Layered harmonies and call-and-response passages add movement, while the contrast between the bright instrumental backdrop and the song’s more bruised lyrical perspective gives it much of its appeal.
There is also an interesting story behind the single’s accompanying visual campaign. Initially reluctant to make a music video, Diaz was persuaded by friends Kahlil Antonio and Abiesel Báez to take the concept in an altogether more theatrical direction. The result is an affectionate nod to B-movie slasher films, complete with a group of supposed David Diaz detractors, a scrapbook documenting their grievances and a masked figure determined to deal with the situation. The eventual revelation that the avenger is Diaz himself gives the video a knowingly ridiculous twist, turning the idea of removing toxic influences from your life into a wonderfully over-the-top horror-comedy premise.
It is an entertaining extension of the song’s themes, but there is a more significant change taking place behind the scenes. Are We Gonna Talk? marks Diaz’s first solo release since 2023, following a period in which he deliberately stepped away from the demands of regular releases and the expectation that an artist should constantly be generating content, chasing numbers and maintaining momentum. That time allowed him to reconsider what he wanted from music. He still wants people to hear his songs, but he is increasingly interested in the connection that can happen between an artist and a listener than in the pursuit of attention for its own sake.
That perspective gives the single an appealing sense of freedom. It is catchy, carefully produced and clearly designed to make an impression, but it also feels like the work of someone who has stopped worrying quite so much about what the industry expects. Even the original friendship that inspired the song has since been repaired, allowing Diaz to revisit the experience with a degree of distance and humour.
“Are We Gonna Talk?” succeeds because it brings together two seemingly opposing qualities: an immediately accessible pop sound and a story rooted in the uncomfortable realities of human relationships. David Diaz has turned a moment of personal frustration into something bright, playful and surprisingly universal.
More importantly, he seems to be enjoying the process again, and that enthusiasm comes through in every part of the record.
Three decades is a long time for a song to wait to be heard. Somewhere between the hiss of an old four-track recorder and the shifting currents of London’s underground music scene, Chris Pascoe captured a handful of ideas that would eventually slip out of view, leaving four recordings to gather dust while life took him in other directions. Now, as SulkyMan, he has brought them back into the light, and the results are a fascinating glimpse into a period when guitar music could be gloriously wayward, instinctive and unconcerned with staying in its lane.
Recorded around 1995 on a Yamaha MT50 four track analogue recorder, these songs have survived without losing the curious energy that made them worth recording in the first place. There are wiry guitars, restless rhythms, unexpected melodic turns and an appealing roughness that feels inseparable from their character. Rather than sounding like relics retrieved for nostalgia’s sake, the four tracks reveal a songwriter already comfortable following an idea wherever it leads. What emerges is not simply a document of Pascoe’s musical past, but a reminder that some songs can outlive the circumstances in which they were created and still have a few surprises left.
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The title track opens the collection with shimmering jangling guitars and a beautifully measured bass part that gives the arrangement warmth and movement. There is a natural swing to the music, an ease in the way the melodic elements find their places, and spaciousness that allows the song to unfold without losing its infectious quality. It has the DNA of classic nineties indie, when guitar bands could be melodic without becoming predictable and atmospheric without disappearing into their own introspection. Yet there is something appealingly timeless about it, too. Had “The Things I Said” emerged during the original heyday of the Britpop era, it would not have sounded out of place. Heard now, it carries the pleasure of discovering a song that has somehow escaped the usual boundaries of its time.
“I Wonder Why” takes a more unsettled route. The guitars have a nervous, slightly careering quality, moving between melodic passages and rougher, more insistent textures. There are shadows of post punk in the atmosphere, with something of Echo & the Bunnymen’s brooding musicality and the ragged charm associated with Nikki Sudden. The bass deserves particular attention here, providing a fluid counterpoint to the guitars and giving the song much of its distinctive character. It is an arrangement that thrives on the interplay between its parts, with tension and melody pulling against one another in a way that keeps the listener engaged.
“Nothing Is Easy” brings a sharper edge to the collection. Its angular guitar work and snarling delivery suggest a song with little patience for easy answers, while unexpected melodic turns lend it a more playful character than the title might imply. There is a hint of the Beatles in the way the melody seems to emerge from within the song’s rougher exterior, a reminder that memorable pop instincts can survive even the most unconventional arrangements. Pascoe seems comfortable allowing these contrasting elements to coexist.
“Never Change” completes the quartet with a nod towards the more restless end of new wave and post-punk. There is a tautness to the song, a sense of unresolved movement that suits the material, while its melodic instincts keep it from becoming overly austere. Across these four recordings, that balance between accessibility and eccentricity becomes one of SulkyMan’s defining qualities. Pascoe understands that a song can be catchy without being obvious, and rough around the edges without sacrificing musical detail.
What makes the collection particularly interesting is the knowledge that these recordings represent an earlier stage in an ongoing creative life. Pascoe has travelled an unusual musical road, from his teenage years playing bass in London anarcho-punk band Part 1 to his later involvement in the underground tech-house scene, before developing SulkyMan into a solo project in which he writes, performs, records and produces his own material. Across those different worlds, he has consistently followed his own instincts rather than settling into one recognisable musical identity.
The songs collected here reveal the foundations of that independence. There is an instinctive understanding of arrangement, a willingness to let contrasting moods sit alongside one another, and a melodic sensibility that prevents the music from becoming an exercise in obscurity. The analogue limitations may have influenced the way these recordings were made, but they have not diminished their character. Instead, the music retains the sense of discovery that comes from an artist working things out for himself, following a line of thought wherever it happens to lead.
There is also something quietly moving about hearing music return after so much time. Thirty years can change the meaning of a song, even when the recording itself remains untouched. Lines written in one period of life inevitably acquire different shades of meaning when heard from another, while the sound of a younger self can become an unexpected conversation between past and present. Pascoe has spoken of his amazement at finding these recordings again, and it is easy to understand the appeal of bringing them into the world after believing they had disappeared from view.
The beauty of “The Things I Said” and its companion tracks is that they do not need their history to justify their existence. The story behind their recovery adds interest, certainly, but the music stands on its own merits. The guitars have character, the bass lines reward attention, and the melodies linger long after the songs have finished. More than anything, there is a sense of artistic freedom running through the collection, the sound of someone making music because the ideas are there and need to be followed.
Plenty of recordings from the nineties survive as nostalgic souvenirs of a particular scene or sound. SulkyMan’s rediscovered material offers something more satisfying. These four songs feel like fragments of an unfinished conversation, recovered from the past and given another chance to be heard. They are reminders that good songwriting does not necessarily come with an expiry date, and that the passage of time can occasionally turn a forgotten recording into a new beginning.
For Chris Pascoe, the past has proved to be a surprisingly fertile place to start again. With “The Things I Said”, SulkyMan brings a long-lost piece of musical history back into circulation, and finds that the songs still have plenty of life left in them.
About SulkyMan
SulkyMan is the solo project of London musician Chris Pascoe, a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose musical journey spans the worlds of anarcho-punk, underground electronic music and alternative guitar rock. Beginning his musical life as a teenage bass player in London anarcho-punk band Part 1, Pascoe went on to explore the underground tech house scene before developing SulkyMan as a space for his own songwriting, recording and production.
His music brings together melodic instinct, restless guitar work and a willingness to explore the space between indie rock, post-punk and pop. Unconcerned with genre boundaries, Pascoe follows his ideas wherever they lead, balancing angular arrangements and rough edged textures with memorable melodies.
SulkyMan’s latest release, The Things I Said, brings four recordings made around 1995 on a Yamaha MT50 four-track analogue recorder back into circulation. Rediscovered decades after their original creation, the tracks offer a glimpse into Pascoe’s earlier creative life, preserving the spontaneity and independent spirit of the era while revealing a songwriter whose musical instincts have stood the test of time. Rather than simply revisiting the past, SulkyMan gives these long-lost recordings a new life, allowing their distinctive character to find an audience in the present.
There is a kind of honesty that comes from looking back at difficult experiences without pretending they never happened, and without allowing them to define everything that follows. On “Damages,” the latest single from Animals in Denial, Christian Ines explores that difficult territory with a song that feels as much like a private reckoning as a piece of music. Intimate in its arrangement and deeply personal in its subject matter, it considers what happens when trust is broken, the foundations we have built our lives upon begin to shift, and we are left to work out what to do with the pieces.
Originally released on Millennial, “Damages” has now been revisited by Ines, who has taken the opportunity to restore vocal parts and harmonies that he had originally envisaged but could not fully realise with the recording equipment available at the time. The updated version brings the song closer to his original intentions, allowing its emotional subtleties to emerge while preserving the understated character that made the recording work in the first place.
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Musically, the appeal lies in its simplicity. Built around a vintage Stratocaster and bass, the arrangement has an immediacy that more elaborate production might have obscured. Ines kept the very first guitar take, played on his ’50s Stratocaster using a capo and the neck pickup, trusting the instinctive quality of that initial performance rather than pursuing a technically polished alternative. The bass, played on his wife’s Rogue, brings its own character to the song and reflects a period in which he was beginning to understand the instrument as something more than a means of reinforcing the guitar.
There is no need for a conventional drum part or a towering wall of sound. Instead, the instruments occupy a space that feels almost domestic, as though the listener has arrived in a room where the song is unfolding in real time. A vinyl effect at the beginning creates the impression of tuning into a radio station just as the music starts, a small production detail that establishes the atmosphere without drawing attention away from the performance. It is an inviting introduction to a song whose emotional subject matter is considerably more complicated than its modest arrangement might initially suggest.
That contrast is central to the track’s appeal. Ines is more interested in the lasting effects of broken trust, and in the slow, often difficult process of understanding how those experiences have shaped the person he has become. The song draws on his experiences of relationships, people and institutions that have failed to live up to the trust he placed in them, including events that began early in his life and influenced how he came to understand the world around him.
Yet this is not simply a song about disappointment. Its deeper concern is what happens after the initial hurt, when the immediate crisis has passed but the consequences remain. How do you rebuild your sense of security? How do you learn to trust again without ignoring what experience has taught you? And how do you move forward when the person you become in the process is inevitably different from the person you were before?
Ines approaches these questions with a refreshing lack of sentimentality. Healing is not presented as a neat return to the way things were, nor does the song suggest that difficult experiences can simply be erased. Sometimes the pieces do not fit together as they once did. You have to find a different way of putting them together, accepting that change is part of the process rather than evidence that something has been lost forever.
The decision to revisit “Damages” also gives the song an interesting second life. Restoring the backing vocals and harmonies has allowed Ines to hear the track closer to the way he originally imagined it, but the process is about more than correcting the limitations of an earlier recording. It is also an opportunity to reconsider a deeply personal piece of work from a different point in his life. The song remains connected to the experiences that inspired it, but the perspective surrounding those experiences has evolved.
Ultimately, “Damages” is about acknowledging what has happened without surrendering the future to it. The title might suggest something broken beyond repair, but the song arrives at a more complicated and ultimately hopeful understanding. Damage can leave its mark. It can alter the way we see ourselves, the people around us and the possibilities ahead. But it does not have to determine the outcome.
Sometimes moving forwards means accepting that you will never be quite the same person again. “Damages” understands that, and finds something quietly powerful in the realisation that this need not be a bad thing.
Keep up with everything Animals In Denial on the Website
For Brooks John Martin, a song can begin with a guitar part and end up somewhere entirely unexpected. On his new single, “Ocean Breathes Salty“, the wave-like arpeggios of Mark Kozelek’s interpretation of the Modest Mouse original sparked an image of a windswept beach and an ash spreading ceremony, a scene that would eventually become the inspiration for the song’s accompanying video. Featuring Nashville singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt, Martin’s version adds drums, bass and strings to create a melancholic, cinematic duet that honours the spirit of Kozelek’s arrangement.
The single offers a glimpse into the imaginative world of War All The Time, Martin’s forthcoming album and the first release to emerge from an extraordinary burst of songwriting that followed a period when he thought his musical journey might be over.
Blending the rootsy warmth of 1970s Laurel Canyon with orchestral arrangements, alternative rock and his own richly expressive baritone, Martin has created a collection shaped by musical curiosity and a gift for turning sounds into stories. We caught up with him to discuss the influence behind “Ocean Breathes Salty”, the making of its North Carolina beach video, and the creative resurgence that brought War All The Time into being.
Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize the song specifically in this way?
The song was originally written by Modest Mouse and Mark Kozalek reimagined the song with Sun Kil Moon. I always loved his arrangement and wanted to put my own spin on it. I added drums, bass, strings and sung it as a duet. I imagined the imagery of the song being on a beach at an ash spreading ceremony and the video made that a reality.
What was the inspiration behind this video? (visual, storyline, etc.)?
The inspiration for the song imagery was the guitar arpeggios Mark Kozalek came up with. They felt wave like to me and made me feel the sad beach vibe. The lyrics fit the imagery perfectly.
What was the process of making this video?
I had a preproduction meeting with Scotty Felix and we had to choose California or North Carolina to shoot. We decided on NC because it would be less crowded and I liked the dunes scenery. We flew everyone down and filmed it in one day on Oak Island. Had some great food and met some great people. Very nice part of the country.
Keep up with everything Brooks John Martin on his Website
There is something really infectious about a song that simply wants to make you feel good. With “Happiness Looks Good on You,” George Collins set out to do exactly that, deliberately stepping away from the more reflective and introspective territory that has characterised much of his songwriting to create a joyful, celebratory track steeped in vintage soul and Gospel influences.
Inspired by childhood memories of watching Soul Train, as well as a lifelong admiration for The Staple Singers, the song channels the warmth, optimism and irresistible spirit of classic soul. The accompanying video takes that nostalgia a step further, taking inspiration from Billy Joel’s wonderfully retro “Tell Her About It” and imagining Collins performing with a vintage soul band on a 1960’s television show.
Created in collaboration with visual artist Marta Vorontsova, the video brings together Collins’ love of classic music, his playful sense of humour and a distinctly old-school visual aesthetic. We caught up with George to talk about the inspiration behind “Happiness Looks Good on You,” the making of the video, his love of vintage soul and the process of bringing the two together.
Tell us the story of this track. Why did you choose to visualize it specifically in this way?
As I was reviewing my catalog and planning my latest album “New Ways of Getting Old,” I realized that many of my songs are reflective and introspective and that I had very few “happy” songs. This was surprising to me, as I am generally an upbeat and happy person! So I intentionally set out to write a happy song. From the outset, I knew that I wanted it to be a celebratory song with a vintage soul vibe and a Gospel choir. I used to watch the TV show “Soul Train” when I was young, and I loved the Staple Singers – I thought Pops Staples was the coolest old dude in the world! I listened to their music continuously while I was writing and recording “Happiness Looks Good on you.”
What was the inspiration behind this new video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?
I am a huge fan of Billy Joel, and he, like me, is also a huge fan of vintage music – as evidenced by his wonderful retro album, “An Innocent Man.” He has a video of a track from that album, “Tell Her About It,” in which he plays a singer backed by a soul band performing on The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s. I love that song and the video, and I wanted to do something similar for my song.
What was the process of making the video?
I have been working with an amazing visual artist, Marta Vorontsova, for several years – she has created many of my lyric videos, and her work is absolutely first rate. (https://www.instagram.com/_imagikali_/) So I sent her the track and my basic ideas and she got to work creating the video. It was an iterative, interactive process, and after a lot of back and forth we ended up with a video we could both be proud of – and that I sincerely hope my audience will enjoy!
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