The new band Raveloe is centered around Kim Grant. The Glasgow-based singer and songwriter makes contemporary indie with a folk-y bent. The new EP, Notes and Dreams, drops on Olive Grove Records on Friday, and it indicates the arrival of another talent on that label's growing roster.
"Abalone" and "Old Tree" are simple and affecting numbers, but "Post It" adds more flavors than just folk ones. Grant's vocals, quietly confident and yet tinged with vulnerability, anchor these cuts, with a number like this one doing so much, and so simply, that a listener is impressed at what new joys can be found in such familiar forms. The best thing here, however, is "Steady", the closer that works up a faint head of steam that doesn't sound entirely unlike the kind of rhythm that The Feelies would have used in the Eighties. Raveloe are not exactly making college rock, but they, and Kim Grant, are imbuing this heartfelt stuff with enough flashes of something else entirely as to suggest a future masterpiece in the band's future, should they cut loose like this on more selections.
Notes and Dreams is out on Friday via Olive Grove Records.
More details on Raveloe via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Jason Riddell]