New Music: Kitba “My Words Don’t Work” ~ words by tom johnson photograph by sara laufer ~ Gold Flake Paint is a fully independent music blog You can support us via Patreon here * Brooklyn’s Rebecca Kitba Bryson El-Saleh wastes no time at all in conjuring a spell, holding the listener in her grasp from the opening seconds of “My Words Don’t Work” – her brand new song which you can listen to from today. Performing as Kitba, the new track is the first to be released from her new self-titled debut album, which is also announced today with July 21st release via Ruination Record ..read more

A Winter’s Journey words by tom johnson ~ (Written somewhere between 2018 and 2019) I’ve been in Scotland for more than five years now and despite a soft acclimatisation (I say “aye” without a second thought; ask for a “wee bit” of something) I’m still not close to being used to its winters. Neither are so many of the folk who have always been here though, so I’m not alone in my dank hibernation. Even in the short time I’ve called this country home, I’ve known a good few people who’ve enjoyed the sparse fruits of summer and then promptly disappeared to warmer climes, unable to deal with anothe ..read more

Introducing: Meagre Martin “All My Thoughts” ~ words by tom johnson photograph by lamia karić ~ Gold Flake Paint is a fully independent music blog You can support us via Patreon here * Ahead of their debut collection set to be released later this year, Meagre Martin today release tantalising new single “All My Thoughts”, which makes for an invigorating introduction to the Berlin-based project. Founded by Sarah Martin in the summer of 2021, the project grew after Martin moved to Germany from Boston, MA, in late 2017. Created as a “means for survival”, there’s a dark edge to Meagr ..read more

New Music: Gia Margaret “Hinoki Wood” b/w “Cicadas” ~ words by tom johnson ~ Support GoldFlakePaint via Patreon here * I saw a cicada once. It sat on a metal table, heated by the sun, on a sidewalk in Rock Island, Illinois. I heard them first, of course, you always do. That startling throng of electricity they fill the streets with, so alien to someone like me, someone not from there. I never felt so far from home as in that moment, seeing that bug I’d mispronounced for so much of my life, that I’d been fascinated by. So large and full of colour. Earlier that day we sat by the edge of the grea ..read more

Album Stream: Lisa/Liza “Breaking and Mending” ~ words by tom johnson photography by alexa clavette ~ Support GoldFlakePaint via Patreon by visit our page here * So often, when we talk about an artist working through their pain to make music, we think of it as mental pain, complex layers of loss or beauty, the merging of those two things and the void between. There’s very little space in the conversation for physical pain, the effect that the work has upon the body, the exertion required to make the beautiful sounds we hear.  Liza Victoria, who has made beautiful and considered work ..read more

New Music: Johanna Samuels “Holy Mothers” ~ words by tom johnson photograph by david-simon dayan * GoldFlakePaint is a completely independent music blog. We are supporting our return via Patreon – for more info & to subscribe please visit our page here * “Ugly On The Inside” – the lead single from Johanna Samuels’ forthcoming new album – was a heartfelt and dynamic return from the LA-via-NYC songwriter. Released alongside the news that her new album is set for a June release, the track is a colourful and sprightly slice of indie-rock, the kind of which Samuels has excelled at over the ..read more

new music: Julie Byrne “Summer Glass” ~ words by tom johnson photograph by tonje thilesen ~ The last we heard of Julie Byrne, her voice was slowly fading into a sea of beautiful strings and rich analogue synths, on “I Live Now As A Singer”, the remarkable closing track of her 2017 LP Not Even Happiness. That undercurrent of electronica that rose to the fore can now be viewed as something of a prelude to her latest work, which arrives today in the form of ‘Summer Glass’, the first single to be released from Julie’s new record, The Greater Wings, her first in more than six long years. Led by her ..read more

New Music: RF Shannon “Heathen Nights” ~ words by tom johnson * GFP is a completely independent music blog. We are supporting our return via Patreon – for more info & to subscribe please visit our page here * It’s a few months shy of four years since we last held an RF Shannon full-length album in our hands – with the August 2019 release of Rain On Dust, the band’s third full-length album. There have been a couple of interludes in the time since then and now: a demo of “Cedar Perfume” featured on a 2020 benefit compilation, and “Dublin, Texas” was released in 2021.  Both of those afor ..read more

Album round-up: April 7th 2023 words and introduction by tom johnson ~ Well hello there, it’s been a while. In case you missed the quietly-whispered news, GFP is coming back in blog form, after a small excursion to make some lovely printed journals. This return says nothing of the success or failure of that chapter, in fact what we achieved with A Music Journal went wildly beyond our wildest dreams. But things change, life changes. Somewhere in the dust of 2022 I began to miss this. A coffee, a quiet morning, some rambling words about a collection of records that changed the shape of that very ..read more

digging at the roots An Interview with… Emma Ruth Rundle ~ words by tom johnson photograph by emma wondra The voice is a remarkable tool, capable by desire or design of twisting itself into all manner of shapes, of carrying out all manner of tasks. Shrinking into a tiny whisper it can be both gently alluring or deeply sinister. Erupting into song, into guttural yells, it can face down an opposing force to make a space all for itself. Most captivating, perhaps, is the fact that we can ourselves choose how, where, and when to use our voice; when to shriek and when to shrink, when to leap and whe ..read more