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Sonny Tennet ‘Howay’

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Newcastle born Sonny Tennet’s stand out vocal and unique songwriting ability have gained him over 60M streams and secured him a Spotify NMF placement, as well as airplay on BBC Radio One’s Future Pop for his last release. Now the 24y/o is back to turn the heat up further with ‘Howay’, the second single to be lifted from his forthcoming debut album.

“The anthemic chant of Howay came to me completely out of thin air on my way to a songwriting session”, says Sonny. “When I got to the studio, I asked the producer if I could sing the chant and bass line from my head. As I sang, the word ‘Howay’ came out and it just fit the melody. Howay in Geordie means ‘Come On’. I’d just come off of tour and wanted a real entrance to my set on the next run. The song lyrically became about my love of the North, my family, my home, my team. I love how it turned out and can’t wait for it to be out there”, he further explains.

It’s a very exciting time for Sonny who’s TikTok following has recently found him admirers amongst TV soap glitterati with Eastenders star Toby Alexander-Smith secretly arranging for the young singer-songwriter to fly out and perform his track ‘Calm Down’ as he walked down the aisle with Emmerdale actress Amy Walsh in Montenegro at their star studded wedding ceremony last year.

‘Howay’, with its epic chants, rocking bass line and infectious message is set to take things even further, as this ‘soon to be football anthem’ is on Sky Sports radar to be used on televised Newcastle Utd games this year, as Sonny gets ready to embark on a new UK tour in May.

Howay’ is out now via The Qworkz and tickets for Sonny Tennet’s May 2024 UK tour are on sale now here- https://linktr.ee/sonnytennettour

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Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’

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Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.

‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.

The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.

The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:

Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.


About the track, Michele says, I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.

We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.

The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.

Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.

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