Tag: Rok music

The Cockney Cowboy Redraws the Map with “Us Against The World”

There's a curious jolt in hearing a title like "Us Against The World" from an act called The Cockney Cowboy. The name itself is a glorious contradiction, a pairing of gritty East London reality with the wide-open romance of Nashville. You half expect a joke, but what Justin Vella delivers is a dead-serious, straight-shooting country ballad that smells less of hay bales and more...

The Lonely Piano of Sugarfoot’s “Jolene.”

To cover "Jolene" is to stand in a very long, very deep shadow, yet with their new single, Sugarfoot have brought their own strange and compelling light. This isn't the familiar, simmering confrontation we know. Stripped of its country gallop and rebuilt around the stark, lonely-sounding architecture of Graeme Park's piano, the song is transformed from a desperate challenge into a haunting, prayer-like surrender. https://open.spotify.com/track/4P53bty0Ik9kgTfvMjqiIG?si=7e611d085f2f41c4 The...

From Pac-Man to Pop Culture: “Rok” and the Art of Emotional Synth

If the Pac-Man arcade cabinet at the corner of a musty Scottish pub could talk, it might recount something akin to Rok's self-titled odyssey....