At Take Magazine, we take music seriously, regularly featuring New England’s coolest, most unusual and most diverse set of musicians and music-adjacent artists. In the past two years of publishing, we’ve brought you everything from Grammy-award winning pop stars to musicians crafting their own experimental instruments. As the music industry reinvents itself, and people continue to subvert and transcend genre classification, we promise to continue to scour basement shows, online forums, and music festivals for the region’s best.

In the meantime, we’re upping our music game to bring new music right to your ears. Each time we feature a musician, we are going to ask them what they’re listening to and then create a playlist for that artist on our Take Spotify channel. Though not all the artists on these playlists are from New England, several New Englanders have already made the cut. For example, Vermont’s own bedroom pop crooner Bella Ortiz-Wren, aka bella, shared a Ruth Garbus track on their playlist. Garbus is also a super confessional dreamy pop crooner from Vermont like Ortiz-Wren…who knew there were so many!

Some of these playlists feel like a personalized mixtape (see The Rap Scholars‘ playlist or the picks from Home Body), while others are lists of full albums from different artists. Either way, you’re guaranteed to hear something new or fun and familiar.

In addition to these custom playlists from featured artists, Take Magazine staff curated a playlist of some of our favorites. The strange diversity of tracks on the Staff Picks playlist mirrors the eclectic tastes of our staff as a whole. You’ll find catching pop tunes from New England heroes, classical chamber music, sad bastard indie, neo soul, and much more. We’ll be adding more tracks to the playlist each week, so be sure to check on it frequently.

But wait there’s more. We want to know what you’re listening to as well.

Submit your favorite songs right now to pr@takeindustries.com email or get us on any social media platform with the hashtag #heytakealisten with an artist name and the title of the track you’re currently obsessed with. Check our Spotify channel soon and see if your pick made it on our list. Extra points for New England bands and songs we haven’t yet heard.

Playlists From Across New England

The Rap Scholars

David Seidel aka Mysterybear

bella

Soggy Po’ Boys

Jenn Van West

Molly Brown

Home Body

Top image: Hannah Mohan of And the Kids, featured on our staff Spotify playlist | Photo by Montgomery Sheridan

The post Take a Listen: A Spotify Playlist Just for You appeared first on Take Magazine.

Molly Brown’s new band, Gilliver, seems as organic as an afterthought—a new voice coming out of Peterborough, rife with whispery vocals and an earthy sound straight out of the catalog of Cowboy Junkies or Mazzy Star.

The music is even more impressive when you consider that two main sources of inspiration for the singer-songwriter is doom metal and traditional Bulgarian women’s choir music. “It wasn’t planned, it just happened,” Brown says of the band’s sound. “I guess it’s just hard to define.”

Music fans will be able to decide for themselves on Saturday, June 9 as Gilliver performs as part of the Tenth Annual Peterborough Thing in the Spring, a five-day arts and music festival. Gilliver will perform at Harlow’s Pub (3 School Street) at 9:30 p.m. The band, which consists of Brown, her brother Dylan Brown, and Mia Govoni, is working on its first album, and have already released two tracks to BandCamp.com.

“I’ve been a musician since I was a kid,” Brown says. “In high school, I decided I was going to be an angry chick with a guitar. Then I got into Celtic music. And jazz. After ten years, I had all this material, but had nowhere to go with it.”

Enter Mia, not just the band’s drummer, but an audio engineer and producer.
“She saw some of my music online and wanted to get something down,” Brown says. “And my brother, who is also a musician, has always encouraged me, so we brought him in, and tada!”

Gilliver was born. The name, according to Brown, is a forgotten word for wall flower. “That’s how I feel most of the time, a sideline observer,” says Brown. “My life and my writing are observational, and has to do with plants!”

Actually, the music benefits a great deal not just from Brown’s work as a landscaper, but from the fact that she worked on a farm for a time. New Hampshire itself is an influence. “I sing a lot about day-to-day life, and that’s New Hampshire because that’s where I’m at,” she says. “Stone is a theme; it’s always in my background. I think about it a lot when I write.”

The band’s first album, which is still in the mixing phase, will be called Tooth in the Tilth, and is named after the first time Brown attempted to plow a field. “I messed it up real bad,” she says.

But in the end, the music of Gilliver is as laid back as the band’s musicians. “Listen, I’m a farmer, I went to school for farming,” Brown says. “There’s just something about the rhythm of the day, taking care of the animals, and sitting on the porch for an hour and writing a song.”

Want to hear what’s on Brown’s Spotify playlist and other artists we’ve featured at Take? Check out our Take a Listen Spotify channel.

Molly Brown–founding musician of Gilliver
Peterborough, New Hampshire
Website
Instagram

Top image Molly Brown and Mia Govoni, courtesy of Molly Brown

The post From Farm to Music appeared first on Take Magazine.