Charles Connolly

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙚𝙩 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙂𝙤 – 𝘽𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙇𝙤𝙬𝙧𝙮

Charles something something (for want of a better something)…

Another week, another review. Another plod through the same old words in a different order. Sorry to put you all through this ordeal every week. I suppose it could be worse. Death is worse. Yeah, my reviews/articles/musings are better than death. There we go! And who says I’m not a positive optimist?? As opposed to the negative variety… The Easter weekend left me with good vibes. It treated me to family I have not seen in over two years. It also treated me to something else I have not experienced in quite a while. A hangover. This ghastly, heavy, HEAVY feeling. I have tried the English cure of “Plink, plink, fizz”, and I have also tried the American cure of “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz”. Those who know, know. Those who don’t: accept your fortunate lack of pointless knowledge and move on. My brain, however is chock-full of pointless knowledge. Nothing useful whatsoever. I think to an extent, it is what makes me, me. I may have listened to a LOT of songs over the years, and I may ADORE music in general, but I am far from any kind of trained music theorist. There is probably a better term, but like I say – I know nothing useful. Who wants to read that kind of in-depth jargon anyway? It would bore the panties off me. And so I turn to imagination. Usually, anyway. Today, My imagination is snoozing. Deeply. Where it is normally a lithium-charged sparkler, right now it is little more than a twitching twig close to decomposition. I am useless to you now. Lobotomies are us!

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙚𝙩’𝙨 𝙇𝙞𝙫𝙚 – 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙔𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙒𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙥𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙧

Charles celebrates life…

Last week, I spoke of standards. But this past week on the New Artist Spotlight has been anything but standard. You all know how volatile it has been lately, what with our petition, Spotify being bad and only getting worse, and the ongoing suspension of our founder’s Spotify curator account. The scammers continue to spam our inboxes and social media profiles, yet continue to get away with it. We are all quite used to this now. We take it in our stride, despite being constantly perturbed by it. As artists must, we go on. Last Tuesday I published my weekly review. Nothing out of the ordinary there. It had been a perfectly normal Tuesday – business as usual. As night fell in London, I checked my phone one last time before bed. At the top of my Instagram feed was a post from the familiar face of a known NAS artist. He was looking good, healthy, cool, and sharp in a suit. “I’m guessing he has a new release coming soon, then”, I thought. But as I stared at it, my mind started to curl like the red cellophane fortune teller fish we all had as a child. Under his image lay dates. Not release dates. Then an impossibility dawned on me as the colour drained from my face. It was unfathomable and inconceivable to actually realise and believe. But it was in fact true. Kyle M. Watson had died. He was my age.

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙚𝙩 𝙈𝙚 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚 – 𝙀𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙮, 𝙈𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙚𝙪𝙧 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙚

Charles realises the importance of length…

What a stupid week I’m having. Quite absurd, honestly. There is no crisis and nothing terrible has happened. For which I am most fortunate. I speak of home problems. Not “problems at home”, as people say, but problems with the home itself. The good thing about renting, is that you don’t have to fork out yet more money when something goes wrong. The bad thing about renting is everything else. At least this is how I had come to think about it. This week, however, has shown me that there is in fact nothing good about renting. It is, as we English say, “a mug’s game”. So! With this in mind, I will relay to you my stupid saga. Several weeks ago, my shower decided to drip profusely, to the point where I decided that many litres per hour was too much to ignore any longer. Within a couple of days a plumber arrived to fix it. He barely spoke any English – but of course. I tried to explain the problem by miming with sound effects, and at last he seemed to understand. Much noise and mess later, he uttered a noise. He proudly showed me how the thermostat knob was no longer stiff, and gestured for me to try it for myself (perhaps to prove that he didn’t have something up his sleeve). I declined the offer and took his word for it. Baffled by why he was showing me this, I then politely asked, “and the drip?”. His reply was a look, as if to say I had stripped in front of him and done a little dance. I repeated, complete with miming and sound effects. “Ah okay okay. Noh. Repless repless”. What he meant was, it couldn’t be done (he couldn’t do it) without replacing the whole shower mixer (I now learn this is what it is called, for it mixes hot and cold – clever). Days passed, and he arrived again. He did the job very swiftly and that was that. Weeks passed, but now the tap itself was dripping. I ignored it as it wasn’t that bad. However, by this point, my kitchen sink decided it was full, and refused to drink anymore. Oh what joy. They ask if I can do 8am the following day. I ask if 10am is possible. All is arranged for 10am.

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙚𝙩 𝙄𝙩 𝙂𝙤 – 𝙐𝙣𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙

Charles has a black Sabbath…

Unnecessary stress comes to us all. Doesn’t it? You know it does. Why, right now you could be reading without taking it in. I said, right now you could be reading without taking it in. Sometimes a little repetition can help things sink in. But I know; you’re stressed. You’re thinking about other things. You’re worried. You’re concerned. I know how it goes. It happens to all of us. All in different ways. Completely understandable. And usually it’s completely pointless. I had an unnecessarily stressful day on Sunday. A Sunday that should have been pleasant, positive and maybe even exciting. Before I continue, I am fully aware that many of you are going through REAL stress of a serious nature. I bring you my nonsense not to tread on or water down your life-goings-on, but to briefly take your mind off it all. A diversion of a kind. Despite being grounded and level-headed, I am prone to nerves. Nerves from the littlest thing. I think too much. I think too much into everything when I should just ride the wave. Here’s my Sunday. It all started with breakfast. It was the best bit of the day. It was before my mind had started to work. Dopey in the best way. That Sunday feeling. Then I made a quick plan for the day. The plan was thus:

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙚𝙩 𝙂𝙤 – 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙠 𝘼𝙝𝙡𝙢

Charles refuses to let go…

This might be complete and utter fiction, but I always have the feeling that some of you moan or complain in private when I review someone I have reviewed before. It might be entirely in my head – lord knows, SOMEthing’s gotta be in there. But should this be the case, I’d like to set the record straight (wicked song by Reef, if you know it). Favouritism… “CC just picks his favourites”… Er… Yes. That’s the whole point of this weekly column of mine. To pick my fave new releases. BUT!! I will never simply pick my favourite artists out of blind support for my musical chums. Which is why it was 19 weeks since I reviewed last week’s artist, and why it is 37 weeks since I reviewed this week’s. Speaking of whom, he had three great singles in a row that I didn’t review. Five, if you include the one with Seven Streams and the one with Jane Marie (gorgeous song that I had stuck in my head for half of Sunday). Four of the last five reviews (this year so far), have been artists I have never reviewed before. And three of those four were immensely grateful. So you see, I am very much innocent in this way. Probably guilty in many other ways, but that’s beside the point. Those who might have held some sort of grudge (again, might be all in my head and a thoroughly fictional matter) against me for reviewing an artist I have reviewed before, I simply ask that you let go of this nonsense and enjoy the articles. Or ignore them altogether. Entirely up to you. If you want a (pretty much) guaranteed review from me, simply make an absolutely fabulous song. Either that or something completely original or fresh. Basically, something I can’t ignore that really piques my little cells. It must however be of decent quality sound, and hold a certain level of professionalism. You must show you care and have actually bothered. If you’d like to deposit £1000 in my account, this can also sway me. No no no. I don’t, have never, and will never take bribes.

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙆𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚 – 𝙀𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙮

Charles murders your precious little time…

“The leaves that are green, turn to brown” – thank you, Simon also ‘Gumfarkel’. It is officially Autumn. We know this because we all changed our clocks. Or rather, for those in the digital age, our clocks changed without us realising. Due to the magic technology of now, we can be even lazier than ever. We don’t have to change a clock. Not meaning you used to have to hurl your alarm clock out of the window and buy a new one. Not that kind of clock change. It’s that time of year when the clocks move back an hour. How do we know whether it’s forward or back? The saying goes: “Spring forward, Autumn back”. No it doesn’t. It’s “Spring forward, Fall back”. For merry cans call Autumn, Fall. And in this instance, I prefer the word Fall. In all other instances I prefer the word Autumn. This beautiful season is the easiest way to watch time passing. Day by day, the leaves change colour, and day by day the ground becomes obscured by leaves that have lived a life and felt the world’s climate. Providing it isn’t miserable and wet, Autumn truly is a beautiful season. I adore the views from my flat in London. Of course, Winter gives us stark contrast with the unlikely possibility of snow, Spring brings the subtle excitement of a new and pretty dawn, and Summer is simply ideally glorious. But Autumn is the velvet. The lush. The radiant. But it is also the brief. So brief that you must snatch it while you can, before it’s all gone. But of course, aside from today (the day of writing), it has been raining raining raining. Just seemingly constantly. It washes away those warmly daubed pigments and coldly reminds you of what follows Autumn. That bleakest Winter. So what do we do to while away the time until the sunshine lights these fiery trunks? Well, what DID we do this week? We got excited and listened to the new Beatles single, of course.

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 (𝙛𝙚𝙖𝙩. 𝙀𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙮) – 𝙎𝙖𝙣𝙤 𝙃𝙞𝙡𝙡

Charles is only pretending…

It’s been a while since I wrote about love here. Used to do it all the time. Writing, I mean. And it’s always tricky. Well actually, it wasn’t ALWAYS tricky. At the beginning it was quite easy, because it was new. But after a while, there is little more I can say on the matter. Admittedly, most of you will either not remember my earlier articles, or will not yet have joined the New Artist Spotlight community at the time they were published. Shall I just rehash one of my old ones, then? I mean, that’s what everyone else does these days, right? The thing is, I don’t like doing that. I never do that. I never do that with anything. Newness is “like my thang”. The funny thing is, we do it in songs all the time; this love-ad-nauseam doohickey. Admittedly less so these days as I think young people have been too anxious to learn how to love. Probably far too much like hard work. Okay, so I won’t concentrate on the very young ones (as if I ever did). Do we maybe just take love for granted? It’s a big old thing, don’t ya know. Love, I mean. We’ve all heard the stories. We’ve all been through it. It’s either beautiful and tragic. Or starts one way and ends the other. Actually, usually. “She’s the one” – how many times have I told myself that?? We so desperately want THAT one to be THE one. We all want the happily ever after. Some genuinely get that. Lucky sods. But more often than not, it just ain’t the way. Bit of a bugger, if you ask me.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙈𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙘 – 𝘾𝙚𝙧𝙪𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙤𝙣, 𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝙇𝙚𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙨𝙤𝙣

Charles casts a spell…

It’s a new dawn; it’s a new day; it’s a new life for me… And I’m feeling good. Hopefully your bodies and minds have recovered from the copious amounts of shandy booze, and I trust your ears have stopped ringing from the relentless colourful cannon fire. Some of you might have been saddened or even offended by having not received a New Year message from me. Even in the public chats, I was completely absent. But then again, most of you probably couldn’t give a monkey’s. Quite right. For those of you who have nothing better to do than to frown and weep and mourn the lack of a review for an entire week, have no fear: CC is here! Do not worry your pretty little head. I was simply saving that message for this here public broadcast. I have also been truly enjoying life without screen. There’s a whole world out there, ya know…! What did YOU all do between the festives (24th/25th) and the bing-bangs (31st/1st)? Did you read that book you were given for Christmas? Did you drink yourself into oblivion? Did you resent having to work between the two significant dates? Perhaps you just pigged out while listening to whatever Spotify told you to listen to? Well my favourite day was so simplistic it might even barely bear mentioning. But it is so often the simple things in life that we cherish the most. It was December 30th. I was heavily hungover from the night before – don’t ask. Feeling groggy can be awful, but it can also make you feel cosy at home. Like a yawning puppy. I knew I wasn’t going to get any work done. How could I possibly judge the balance of audio when I couldn’t even remember to put on trousers… Think of it as a duvet day. Yes, I know this is starting to sound like a teenage girl’s slumber party, but I assure you it wasn’t. My girlfriend and I did a jigsaw puzzle from start to finish, while listening to music. It was as simple as that. And a highlight of the music was Kaminski’s album from 2022 (no longer “last year”). We both had such a special time despite there being pretty much nothing to it. I suppose this is what love is all about. It is the magic of it. How something so simple can be so special.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙝𝙖̃ 𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙖 – 𝙅𝙤𝙖𝙤 𝘼𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙝𝙖

Charles is just being nice…

I’m a bad man. Rotten to the core. Cruel and sadistic. Horrid horrid horrid. This is what everyone says about me. Okay. This is not what everyone says about me. At least, not to my face anyway. Then why say it here? Because sometimes we have thoughts. Irrational thoughts. Absurd and fictional thoughts, based on absolutely nothing. It was also a punchy way of starting the article. Ahem. Negative thoughts of oneself can easily creep in when surrounded by negative, bad and ugly. Take last week’s article, for example. I decided not to comply. I decided not to embrace a thing called HAL. I decided not to see the potential positive effect of it on art. While I won’t be changing my stance any time soon, this negativity can lead to heavier things. If one sees only doom and gloom, one feels only doom and gloom. And it is easy to slide down the slippery slope of “I’m no good”. These days, I would have said my thoughts and views are pretty balanced. Also, these days I think I’m pretty comfortable with who I am, and what I’m like. Am I bad? Am I mean? Am I cruel? Am I dishonest? Am I a criminal? No. Am I perfect? Pahahaha! No. Very far from it. While being in a generally healthy state of mind, I could always be better. We all could. But I’d just like to give the good guys a pat on the back for being so good. While we could all be better, just think how much worse we could be? All those liars and fakers and cheaters out there. We could be like that. We could be going around, spitting on grannies and tripping up children. I saw you, laughing at the idea of the kid falling over. I chuckled too. Because it’s funny. Okay, the kid isn’t laughing, but we mustn’t lose our sense of humour. Stifle that natural laughter, then help the kid up. For most of us, good enough, is good enough. Don’t try to be a positive drone. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t natural.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙈𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙚 𝙆𝙡𝙚𝙞𝙣 – 𝙁𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙅𝙤𝙨𝙝𝙪𝙖

Charles analyses the situation…

There has been an increasing rarity of something in my reviews lately. Please don’t all shout at once: “Rap! Death Metal! Brevity!”… I know, I know. I’m more talking about something that used to be quite common in these parts. But has only come up maybe three or four times this year. We’ve had plenty of the rock, the indie, the alternative, the folk, the classical, the soul, the pop, the prog, and even the reggae. So, what am I talking about? What is missing? It’s something that is actually relatively common. But rarely of a high standard, because it’s bloody hard to do well; notoriously so. It has to sound polished. It has to sound classic. It usually has to sound professional (but there can be a certain charm when it’s not). It can be peaceful, but usually it’s sad; and it can be heart-wrenching. I’m talking about ballads.

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