Into Music Review: Newse by Okiro

Artist: OKIRO
Song: Newse
Label: Modern Sky Records

To be a musician in Liverpool these days can be a daunting task, especially when you consider the rich tapestry of bands and artists who have gone before, from The Beatles to the Bunnymen, Scaffold to Shack and a Cast of hundreds of others.

A few years back The Tea Street Band emerged on the Mersey scene and quickly established a name for themselves and have since released two critically acclaimed albums as well as earning a well deserved reputation for being a red hot live act.

Tea Street Band’s lead singer, Timo Tierney has quickly pulled together a lockdown album recorded under the moniker of OKIRO, called City Pets which is schedule for release on 31 July 2020 on Modern Sky records. The lead single, Newse is out now and on first listen, it stands out as a song to be reckoned with. Written against a backdrop of missed house parties, community, isolation and the soft glow of a morning twilight after an all nighter, it’s sure to be on many a summer playlist and captures the mood with consummate ease.

Starting off with a synch-infused backbeat, what follows is three and a half minutes of dance-tinged creativity with a smattering of shredding guitars and Tierney’s understated, yet soothing, vocal. If this is the standard set for the album then it should be an absolute treat upon its release next month.

Tierney has this to say about the single, Newse, and the City Pets album:

“NEWSE is a simple song about how much time I had on my hands with not much to do. I wanted to write about things I missed about being “Locked down”. It was definitely seeing family, friends and going out socialising. I wanted to write songs that made me think about going out. So this was what I came up with. I wanted it all to be quick and not thought about too intensely so after 8 days of recording between 5.30 and 8am I had 10 songs I wanted to put out as an album. I was really happy when Modern Sky said that they would put it out.”

Interestingly, the album was written and recorded in a matter of hours at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown. It promises to be a throwback to 90s rave culture, dance hall hedonistic grooves, mixing electronic beats and rhythms, yet featuring feelings of confinement and reflection.

Newse by OKIRO is available to stream here.

John Welsh
@welshjb

Links:
@timotierney
@TeaStreetBand
@ModernSkyUK