Cold Specks - How It Feels
There's no point noting it seems to have been a while since we heard from Toronto's Ladan Hussein (who seems to have dropped the Al Spx identity of yore) because it absolutely is, the first Cold Specks track in seven years after a period of mental health issues and manic episodes still exhibiting her extraordinary, raw "doom soul" voice, trembling with emotion on a spare but ultimately triumphant in the wreckage piano ballad reminiscent of the approach on last year's substantial Corinne Bailey Rae album, augmented with Owen Pallett composed strings and Terry Edwards adding yet another name to his attempt to provide brass for every act that has ever existed (OK, you name another direct link between Madness and Lydia Lunch)
Delivery - Digging The Hole
After a debut album last year that found a big fan in Henry Rollins, the Melbourne five-piece just got signed to Heavenly, also hope of compatriots King Gizzard & the Lizzard Wizzard and Confidence Man - quite some chasm musically between those two. Delivery are much on the left hand side, synthesising that strain of garage rock that Australians seem much better at than most with more than a hint of the Flying Nun house sound and just small enough a classic rock influence, coming out somewhere adjacent to Parquet Courts. They're over for some dates in late July/early August including Latitude festuval (and Tramlines, where they'll stand out a mile)
Hello Mary - Three
We were introduced to the NY trio about a month ago where we noted their switch from obtuse post-punk to sunny guitar pop suggested they had plenty of stylistic interest to offer on upcoming album Emita Ox, out on September 13th on Frenchkiss. Now they're something else again, an unspooling quasi-epic that subtly shifts from daydreaming in the melodic glow not unlike the other latter Mary we've taken a shine to, Mary In The Junkyard, then dissolving into dissonant fuzzy noise for a bit. And they're coming over at the turn of the seasons for End Of The Road, Manchester and Edinburgh Psych Fests and somewhere that may well take them to their bosoms more than most, the Windmill.
julie - clairbourne practice
TikTok shoegaze is usually shit, so finding julie are an LA shoegaze band with an atypically large amount of streams might have made us turn back. Luckily we saw them last year so knew better, and the first single from forthcoming album my anti-aircraft friend, with its quiet-loud dynamics where the "quiet" bits are coiled and harmonic whereas the loud bits are surging... well, coupled with general wooziness and drumming that lapses into the arrythmic it's all quite MBV influenced but that's no bad thing, though with the untutored male/female voices and melodic sense they also make us think of a disortion pedalled bar italia. Even look a tiny bit like them.
THE NONE - Pigs Need Feeding
Comprising people who used to be in Youth Man, Cassels, Frauds and, well, Bloc Party (bassist Gordon Moakes), THE NONE are noiserock as all out, bringing Jesus Lizard-recalling earthquake frequences and overarching blistering guitar outbursts to Kaila Whyte's laser focused energies. MATTER EP is out August 29th.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Thursday, July 11, 2024
New sounds: 11/7/24
Cornelius - MIND TRAIN
Last month Keigo Oyamada released his eighth album Ethereal Essence, an inessential extension of the ambient/minimalist path he's been going down in recent years. This soon after he also released a new single that sounds nothing like it, which you have to say is a flex. Instead, nine minutes of Neu!-level motorik, pulsing slow build synths, looping guitar figures leading up to a coruscating solo, incidental sound effects and a spacey intermission. He's popping over for End Of The Road (yay!) and the Barbican in September.
Hamish Hawk - Men Like Wire
More classier-than-you dramatic roar excavation of the psyche and lost opportunity from Hawk's third album A Firmer Hand. Contains the lyric "an uncanny Frankie Valli".
Laura Marling - Patterns
Sort of title track from Patterns In Repeat, the still somehow only 34 years old Marling's eighth album, first in four years and first as a mother (of a daughter, premonition fans), retreating a little to her sublimely woody folky inclinations.
Loose Articles - Are You A Welder?
First of all, incredible title. The Manchester outfit who recently opened for the Foo Fighters at one of their stadium gigs (as did our old pals Chroma, and the two toured together as a warm-up) have been on the fringes of our radar for a while for their early 80s Fall-inspired attitudinal sardonic socio-political oblique punk, finally getting an actual mention as Alcopop! picked up their debut album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, out 26th July, from which they disassemble gender roles and expectations over a repetitively insistent burrowing riff that, has to be said, sails close to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Wail.
Nightshift - Sure Look
We wrote about the Glasgow not-actually-supergroup-except-maybe-in-reverse the time before last; the latest track previewing Homosapien on 26th July wears its heart on its sleeve, its tempo knowing when to hold back and when to tumble down the proverbial hill (Ray Aggs' fiddle once again helping set the tone) and its guitar power chords set to stun.
Public Service Broadcasting - Electra
And this fifth time of asking it's... Amelia Earhart's final, failed, attempted solo round the world flight! The Last Flight, in fact, out 4th October, the first taster named after her trusted Lockheed plane which links their electroKrautsample origins - more than a hint of the Everest construction about the effects, we think - to the synth-funk groove of Bright Magic, from which EERA returns on guest vocals.
Screensaver - Permanence
The Melbourne dark post-punks are already two albums down, this being a stopgap ahead of some debut August UK and Europe dates that ratchets up the intensity that accommodates a chorus that sounds ripped from Siouxsie and the Banshees amid racing drums, sci-fi synth and art-guitar noise.
Supermilk - Many Thanks
Another part of that sprawling ME REX/Fresh/cheerbleederz family tree have a third album impending, leader Jake Popuyra laudably not letting his ALS diagnosis get in the way at all. High Precision Ghosts (ooh, Prefab Sprout reference!), out on Specialist Subject come 9th August, has as an advance party 110 seconds or so of jagged riffage and Futureheads/Field Music offbeat vocal arrangement, as if - apologies in advance - they've realised they might not have long left to get all this out here.
Last month Keigo Oyamada released his eighth album Ethereal Essence, an inessential extension of the ambient/minimalist path he's been going down in recent years. This soon after he also released a new single that sounds nothing like it, which you have to say is a flex. Instead, nine minutes of Neu!-level motorik, pulsing slow build synths, looping guitar figures leading up to a coruscating solo, incidental sound effects and a spacey intermission. He's popping over for End Of The Road (yay!) and the Barbican in September.
Hamish Hawk - Men Like Wire
More classier-than-you dramatic roar excavation of the psyche and lost opportunity from Hawk's third album A Firmer Hand. Contains the lyric "an uncanny Frankie Valli".
Laura Marling - Patterns
Sort of title track from Patterns In Repeat, the still somehow only 34 years old Marling's eighth album, first in four years and first as a mother (of a daughter, premonition fans), retreating a little to her sublimely woody folky inclinations.
Loose Articles - Are You A Welder?
First of all, incredible title. The Manchester outfit who recently opened for the Foo Fighters at one of their stadium gigs (as did our old pals Chroma, and the two toured together as a warm-up) have been on the fringes of our radar for a while for their early 80s Fall-inspired attitudinal sardonic socio-political oblique punk, finally getting an actual mention as Alcopop! picked up their debut album Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, out 26th July, from which they disassemble gender roles and expectations over a repetitively insistent burrowing riff that, has to be said, sails close to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Wail.
Nightshift - Sure Look
We wrote about the Glasgow not-actually-supergroup-except-maybe-in-reverse the time before last; the latest track previewing Homosapien on 26th July wears its heart on its sleeve, its tempo knowing when to hold back and when to tumble down the proverbial hill (Ray Aggs' fiddle once again helping set the tone) and its guitar power chords set to stun.
Public Service Broadcasting - Electra
And this fifth time of asking it's... Amelia Earhart's final, failed, attempted solo round the world flight! The Last Flight, in fact, out 4th October, the first taster named after her trusted Lockheed plane which links their electroKrautsample origins - more than a hint of the Everest construction about the effects, we think - to the synth-funk groove of Bright Magic, from which EERA returns on guest vocals.
Screensaver - Permanence
The Melbourne dark post-punks are already two albums down, this being a stopgap ahead of some debut August UK and Europe dates that ratchets up the intensity that accommodates a chorus that sounds ripped from Siouxsie and the Banshees amid racing drums, sci-fi synth and art-guitar noise.
Supermilk - Many Thanks
Another part of that sprawling ME REX/Fresh/cheerbleederz family tree have a third album impending, leader Jake Popuyra laudably not letting his ALS diagnosis get in the way at all. High Precision Ghosts (ooh, Prefab Sprout reference!), out on Specialist Subject come 9th August, has as an advance party 110 seconds or so of jagged riffage and Futureheads/Field Music offbeat vocal arrangement, as if - apologies in advance - they've realised they might not have long left to get all this out here.
Monday, July 01, 2024
New sounds: 1/7/24
Fightmilk - Summer Bodies
Hey, they're back! Actually they came back a couple of weeks ago with a cover of Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town for Bruce-as-queer-icon podcast Because The Boss Belongs To Us, but approaching third album season - coming via Fika now - this is one of our stroppy favourites further approaching the nexus, some say nucleus, power-pop, arranging harmonies, backing vocals, hooks and power chords in service to... Lily? "It's about how women and femmes are constantly bombarded with media telling us how to be our best and most beautiful selves, or, bluntly, how to bully your mind and body into an image set by constantly moving goalposts — straight teeth, white skin, feminine but not girly, cool but not threatening, skinny waist, snatched jawline. Products that promise to shrink you in the guise of 'wellness'. And if you don’t look like that, you’re supposed to hate yourself until you do. No thanks. Our favourite bit in this song is where we all take turns unleashing a big scream." Furthermore it's got a vibraslap on.
A Ghost Column - Resistance
A Ghost Column is Victoria Hamblett, who has been around for a while in the orbit of the likes of Crack Cloud and Ulrika Spacek and now goes solo with a dreamy, gauzy sound reminiscent in its haunted introspection of the Birmingham retro-futurists of the 90s (Broadcast, Pram) as much as the drifty end of shoegaze.
MJ Lenderman - She's Leaving You
We loved Wednesday's album from last year Rat Saw God, so why has it taken until now to register their guitarist's just as acclaimed solo project, last seen on 2022's Boat Songs? Because we're lazy shites, that's why. The first single from September 6th's follow-up Manning Fireworks is slacker countrified in a vaguely Evan Dando/Built To Spill way with a love that's fortunately far from overwhelming of classic rock leading to a stratospherising finish partially involving Wednesday's Karly Hartzman. And a beautiful passing Clapton diss.
Scrunchies - The Empire
We came across Minneapolis' Scrunchies with their blazing 2022 album Feral Coast; its successor Colossal, out August 23rd, was recorded by Steve Albini, which makes sense given their sub-two minute surge bisecting Muffs-like power-pop and grunge's entrails.
The WAEVE - You Saw
The second Coxon/Dougall collection City Lights is out 20th September; the second single can feel misleading switching from Rose going all Slowdive on the intro and then plunging into choppy electronics but give it time to grow and manifold touches blossom, underlined by strings, top-lined by neon-lit dramatics.
WUT - Talking To Strangers/Mingling With The Thorns
Vancouver's WUT describe themselves as "riot twee", which we're pretty sure is an Amelia Fletcher invention but regardless. They're certainly coming from a similar point, as the two tracks released from second album Mingling With The Thorns, due August 23rd, are harmonic gems of classic indiepop that variously recall Flying Nun records' golden age, Marine Girls and, yes, Heavenly.
Hey, they're back! Actually they came back a couple of weeks ago with a cover of Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town for Bruce-as-queer-icon podcast Because The Boss Belongs To Us, but approaching third album season - coming via Fika now - this is one of our stroppy favourites further approaching the nexus, some say nucleus, power-pop, arranging harmonies, backing vocals, hooks and power chords in service to... Lily? "It's about how women and femmes are constantly bombarded with media telling us how to be our best and most beautiful selves, or, bluntly, how to bully your mind and body into an image set by constantly moving goalposts — straight teeth, white skin, feminine but not girly, cool but not threatening, skinny waist, snatched jawline. Products that promise to shrink you in the guise of 'wellness'. And if you don’t look like that, you’re supposed to hate yourself until you do. No thanks. Our favourite bit in this song is where we all take turns unleashing a big scream." Furthermore it's got a vibraslap on.
A Ghost Column - Resistance
A Ghost Column is Victoria Hamblett, who has been around for a while in the orbit of the likes of Crack Cloud and Ulrika Spacek and now goes solo with a dreamy, gauzy sound reminiscent in its haunted introspection of the Birmingham retro-futurists of the 90s (Broadcast, Pram) as much as the drifty end of shoegaze.
MJ Lenderman - She's Leaving You
We loved Wednesday's album from last year Rat Saw God, so why has it taken until now to register their guitarist's just as acclaimed solo project, last seen on 2022's Boat Songs? Because we're lazy shites, that's why. The first single from September 6th's follow-up Manning Fireworks is slacker countrified in a vaguely Evan Dando/Built To Spill way with a love that's fortunately far from overwhelming of classic rock leading to a stratospherising finish partially involving Wednesday's Karly Hartzman. And a beautiful passing Clapton diss.
Scrunchies - The Empire
We came across Minneapolis' Scrunchies with their blazing 2022 album Feral Coast; its successor Colossal, out August 23rd, was recorded by Steve Albini, which makes sense given their sub-two minute surge bisecting Muffs-like power-pop and grunge's entrails.
The WAEVE - You Saw
The second Coxon/Dougall collection City Lights is out 20th September; the second single can feel misleading switching from Rose going all Slowdive on the intro and then plunging into choppy electronics but give it time to grow and manifold touches blossom, underlined by strings, top-lined by neon-lit dramatics.
WUT - Talking To Strangers/Mingling With The Thorns
Vancouver's WUT describe themselves as "riot twee", which we're pretty sure is an Amelia Fletcher invention but regardless. They're certainly coming from a similar point, as the two tracks released from second album Mingling With The Thorns, due August 23rd, are harmonic gems of classic indiepop that variously recall Flying Nun records' golden age, Marine Girls and, yes, Heavenly.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
New sounds: 18/6/24
Ed Schrader's Music Beat - Daylight Commander
Cryptically politicised synth-theatrical absurdity heralds Baltimore duo and Future Islands running mates' fifth album Orchestra Hits, out September 20th
Hamish Hawk - Nancy Dearest
Speaking of theatrical absurdity plus synth... well, with more stridency. Album A Firmer Hand out August 16th
Hello Mary - 0%
New York trio arrive at fractured spiralling guitar, subterranean bass frequency and some excellent frustrated shouting, then briefly remember they're occasionally a sunny guitar-pop band too towards the end. Clearly contain multitudes.
Joan As Police Woman - Long For Ruin
Blimey, long time since we've featured Joan Wasser on here. Lemons, Limes & Orchids, out September 20th, is her tenth album, heralded by expansive shuffling about humanity destroying itself from within.
Knitting Circle - Losing My Eggs
Excellently titled misleadingly urgent jittery mental health/menopause statement from DIY indiepop supergroup (Milky Wimpshake, Crumbs, Red Monkey)'s debut EP Deciduous Climbers.
New Starts - Asbestos Roof
And in case that DIY indiepop supergroup isn't your thing, how about this DIY indiepop supergroup? Darren Hayman scratches his lovelorn new wave/power-pop riffage itch with members of adults and Tigercats backing up. More Break-Up Songs is out August 16th.
Nightshift - Phone
Meanwhile Glasgow's Nightshift's bass player Andrew Doig went the other way and joined a DIY indiepop supergroup, Dancer. His day job outfit's third album Homosapien, released next week, is heralded by swooning, itchy, country-influenced confliction of the heart augmented into seductiveness by the mighty Ray Aggs (Sacred Paws, Shopping, Trash Kit, R.Aggs, probably another thousand) on wandering fiddle.
Cryptically politicised synth-theatrical absurdity heralds Baltimore duo and Future Islands running mates' fifth album Orchestra Hits, out September 20th
Hamish Hawk - Nancy Dearest
Speaking of theatrical absurdity plus synth... well, with more stridency. Album A Firmer Hand out August 16th
Hello Mary - 0%
New York trio arrive at fractured spiralling guitar, subterranean bass frequency and some excellent frustrated shouting, then briefly remember they're occasionally a sunny guitar-pop band too towards the end. Clearly contain multitudes.
Joan As Police Woman - Long For Ruin
Blimey, long time since we've featured Joan Wasser on here. Lemons, Limes & Orchids, out September 20th, is her tenth album, heralded by expansive shuffling about humanity destroying itself from within.
Knitting Circle - Losing My Eggs
Excellently titled misleadingly urgent jittery mental health/menopause statement from DIY indiepop supergroup (Milky Wimpshake, Crumbs, Red Monkey)'s debut EP Deciduous Climbers.
New Starts - Asbestos Roof
And in case that DIY indiepop supergroup isn't your thing, how about this DIY indiepop supergroup? Darren Hayman scratches his lovelorn new wave/power-pop riffage itch with members of adults and Tigercats backing up. More Break-Up Songs is out August 16th.
Nightshift - Phone
Meanwhile Glasgow's Nightshift's bass player Andrew Doig went the other way and joined a DIY indiepop supergroup, Dancer. His day job outfit's third album Homosapien, released next week, is heralded by swooning, itchy, country-influenced confliction of the heart augmented into seductiveness by the mighty Ray Aggs (Sacred Paws, Shopping, Trash Kit, R.Aggs, probably another thousand) on wandering fiddle.
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
New sounds: 12/6/24
ANONHI and the Johnsons - Breaking
Following our number four album of 2023 My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, in all its soulful lament to the opposition and end to everything, feels like a difficult thing to follow, so ahead of some American live dates ANONHI has gone even more spare, just delicate Bill Withers-style guitar and woodwind yet again having to narrate climate catastrophe.
Heartworms - Jacked
Joining in at least an EP too late to the hype around Jojo Orme, we know, but with Dan Carey's production aid this feels like the moment her ideas find their fervid metier, paranoid post-gothic soundscapes that seem claustrophobically closing in around her own increasing anxiety.
Johnny Foreigner - Orc Damage
HOLY FUCK WHAT'S THIS WHAT DO WE DO WITH OUR HANDS WAAAAGH. Er... so, no sooner are we getting used to there being a new Los Campesinos! album impending than their sometime running mates are back amongst the recorded living - seems appropriate just as we start to make special plans for next April's STN twentieth anniversary that two primary anchors of its first decade-plus reactivate, we suppose - and still sounding just as wired and zealous as ever. Their sixth album How To Be Hopeful ("a pure product of chaos magic. It compelled us to be made, to harness returning ripples of stones long since thrown.") is due on the almighty Alcopop! on September 13th but ahead of that we find The Sky and Sea were Part of Me (or I was Part of Them), a nine track... EP? Mixtape? Project? What should we call this exactly? "High quality selection of music" covers it in any case, with all the righteous ragers, proto-emo lyrical references, crossthreaded shoutalongs, hyperminiature guitar pyrotechnics and songs built around almost ambient keys and electronics that still sound of a piece that you could ever want, now from a perspective of being old, jaded, cynical and observing all around them turn to shit, especially here as Alexei and Kelly narrate corporate avarice.
Following our number four album of 2023 My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, in all its soulful lament to the opposition and end to everything, feels like a difficult thing to follow, so ahead of some American live dates ANONHI has gone even more spare, just delicate Bill Withers-style guitar and woodwind yet again having to narrate climate catastrophe.
Heartworms - Jacked
Joining in at least an EP too late to the hype around Jojo Orme, we know, but with Dan Carey's production aid this feels like the moment her ideas find their fervid metier, paranoid post-gothic soundscapes that seem claustrophobically closing in around her own increasing anxiety.
Johnny Foreigner - Orc Damage
HOLY FUCK WHAT'S THIS WHAT DO WE DO WITH OUR HANDS WAAAAGH. Er... so, no sooner are we getting used to there being a new Los Campesinos! album impending than their sometime running mates are back amongst the recorded living - seems appropriate just as we start to make special plans for next April's STN twentieth anniversary that two primary anchors of its first decade-plus reactivate, we suppose - and still sounding just as wired and zealous as ever. Their sixth album How To Be Hopeful ("a pure product of chaos magic. It compelled us to be made, to harness returning ripples of stones long since thrown.") is due on the almighty Alcopop! on September 13th but ahead of that we find The Sky and Sea were Part of Me (or I was Part of Them), a nine track... EP? Mixtape? Project? What should we call this exactly? "High quality selection of music" covers it in any case, with all the righteous ragers, proto-emo lyrical references, crossthreaded shoutalongs, hyperminiature guitar pyrotechnics and songs built around almost ambient keys and electronics that still sound of a piece that you could ever want, now from a perspective of being old, jaded, cynical and observing all around them turn to shit, especially here as Alexei and Kelly narrate corporate avarice.
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
New sounds: 11/6/24
ACHB - Double Agents
Alex and the Christopher Hale Band, to give them their government name. Alex Hale has been around the STN-sphere for a few years, even designing our Alldayer posters for a while, and this upgraded version of his band, now featuring another Alldayer alumnus in SJ Newman, toughens up with nods to ME REX's exuberant post-LC! (of whom more shortly) post-indiepop/emo.
The Jesus Lizard - Hide & Seek
They're back! Back! BACK! Their first album in 26 years, in fact, Rack out September 13th, with David Yow set to soar over/crash into the half-waiting arms of British audiences in January. For now this largely picks up impressively adjacent given the ageing process to they left off, wild eyed and iridescent with classic rock riffs punctured with live wires.
urika's bedroom - XTC
Nobody seems to know much about urika's bedroom, apart from that they're based in Los Angeles and they've got the enormously influential Chris Coady to mix this second single. While the introductory shuffling acoustic guitar comes on disturbingly like Everlast, the rest is pure shoegaze effects, where melodies fly in the reverberated stratosphere and the hopeful, fragile vocals of dark matter blur into it all until disappearing into digital distortion.
And as before, we've just recently told you or you already know who these people are:
Los Campesinos! - 0898 HEARTACHE
My Best Unbeaten Brother - Blues Fatigue
Nilufer Yanya - Method Actor
Alex and the Christopher Hale Band, to give them their government name. Alex Hale has been around the STN-sphere for a few years, even designing our Alldayer posters for a while, and this upgraded version of his band, now featuring another Alldayer alumnus in SJ Newman, toughens up with nods to ME REX's exuberant post-LC! (of whom more shortly) post-indiepop/emo.
The Jesus Lizard - Hide & Seek
They're back! Back! BACK! Their first album in 26 years, in fact, Rack out September 13th, with David Yow set to soar over/crash into the half-waiting arms of British audiences in January. For now this largely picks up impressively adjacent given the ageing process to they left off, wild eyed and iridescent with classic rock riffs punctured with live wires.
urika's bedroom - XTC
Nobody seems to know much about urika's bedroom, apart from that they're based in Los Angeles and they've got the enormously influential Chris Coady to mix this second single. While the introductory shuffling acoustic guitar comes on disturbingly like Everlast, the rest is pure shoegaze effects, where melodies fly in the reverberated stratosphere and the hopeful, fragile vocals of dark matter blur into it all until disappearing into digital distortion.
And as before, we've just recently told you or you already know who these people are:
Los Campesinos! - 0898 HEARTACHE
My Best Unbeaten Brother - Blues Fatigue
Nilufer Yanya - Method Actor
Thursday, May 30, 2024
New sounds: 30/5/24
Julia-Sophie - Numb
Julia-Sophie Walker fronted turn of the 2010s Oxford-based garage rock band Little Fish and went on to Candy Says, who you have even less chance of having heard of. None of that background in any way whatsoever guides you towards the sound of her new single following three EPs since 2020, in which claustrophobically, hypnotically building layers through propulsive Moroder/house-like electronics and synth pads, unsettlingly intimate spoken semi-whispers and detached singing of no small amount of internalised pain up to conversational voices glitching out at the end. This is special, as may be debut album Forgive Too Slow, out on July 26th.
Okay Kaya – The Groke
Kaya Wilkins by name, born in New Jersey, raised just outside Oslo, three albums behind her, recording this first new material in a couple of years in -25C conditions on a small island. Not that it sounds like it at all, being a quite thrilling combination of strutting R&B rhythm, funk bassline, dramatic strings and alt-pop chorus based on climate change and named after the character from The Moomins who freezes the ground they stand on.
And some people we've featured recently enough for you to already know about them...
Jen Cloher - Annabelle
mary in the junkyard - goop
Mike Lindsay & Anna B Savage - Pretender To Surrender
My Best Unbeaten Brother - Extraordinary Times
nathy sg - Ryan Write Me A Poem
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Frogs
Julia-Sophie Walker fronted turn of the 2010s Oxford-based garage rock band Little Fish and went on to Candy Says, who you have even less chance of having heard of. None of that background in any way whatsoever guides you towards the sound of her new single following three EPs since 2020, in which claustrophobically, hypnotically building layers through propulsive Moroder/house-like electronics and synth pads, unsettlingly intimate spoken semi-whispers and detached singing of no small amount of internalised pain up to conversational voices glitching out at the end. This is special, as may be debut album Forgive Too Slow, out on July 26th.
Okay Kaya – The Groke
Kaya Wilkins by name, born in New Jersey, raised just outside Oslo, three albums behind her, recording this first new material in a couple of years in -25C conditions on a small island. Not that it sounds like it at all, being a quite thrilling combination of strutting R&B rhythm, funk bassline, dramatic strings and alt-pop chorus based on climate change and named after the character from The Moomins who freezes the ground they stand on.
And some people we've featured recently enough for you to already know about them...
Jen Cloher - Annabelle
mary in the junkyard - goop
Mike Lindsay & Anna B Savage - Pretender To Surrender
My Best Unbeaten Brother - Extraordinary Times
nathy sg - Ryan Write Me A Poem
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Frogs
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
New sounds in brief: 22/5/24
We've been very busy this week, not least with preparing for our inaugural visit to the much admired Bearded Theory festival this weekend, so if this is our last ever communication you'll know that we drowned there. So just a quick round-up of embeds - and additions to the 2024 rolling playlist we keep forgetting to link to - for now, but you'll know most of the names already if you're a regular reader or cogent being.
Dayflower - Crush
Los Campesinos! - A Psychic Wound
meija feat. Hand Habits - SEVEN
SAM MORTON - Double Dip Neon
Dayflower - Crush
Los Campesinos! - A Psychic Wound
meija feat. Hand Habits - SEVEN
SAM MORTON - Double Dip Neon
Thursday, May 16, 2024
New sounds: 16/5/24
Cassandra Jenkins - Delphinium Blue
Truth be told we were a bit underwhelmed with Only One, the first single from My Light, My Destroyer, out July 12th. The second... well, that's a very different story. The way it evolves from sparse, gossamer Lynchian layers and electronic hits, through the re-emergence of her Laurie Anderson-ish spoken word bridges into technicolour celestial choirs and guitars like power tools in the background... there's something special here.
Good News - Orange Juice In The Shower
Yet more hyperactive end of skittish post-punk, is it? The Sheffield trio align metronomic percussion with deadpan-monotone vocals in a minimalist whirl and it's done with as soon as it feels done.blurb
Helen Love - Stay With Me
32 years, Helen's been at this coalface of glitter-gun dayglo synth-bubblegum by now. The Ramones were still a recording act back then. Aligned to the mighty Alcopop! these days, her 31st single continues the introspective side developed on last album, 2002's This Is My World, and is an openly Northern Soul indebted love song replete with string stabs, percussion rolls and talc-friendly beat. Still sounds ready for the light-up dancefloor, of course.
Los Campesinos! - Feast Of Tongues
You're reading Sweeping The Nation, don't pretend you don't know. And better yet, they're on the slow burn build path. Album number seven All Hell is out on July 19th and contains a song called To Hell In A Handjob, which is already only a leftfield football reference as simile short of being the ur-LC! song. And they're releasing another song from it today! Emergency afternoon edit ahoy!
My Best Unbeaten Brother - Time On Our Hands, Spider-Man
Ben Parker (Nosferatu D2, Superman Revenge Squad etc)'s current vehicle for frantic verbose excoriations of society and culture moving around him have a debut EP, Pessimistic Pizza, out on 28th June. Driven, as with the former band, by Adam Parker's frantically driving drumming, the first slice (see?) covers the passing of time and memory, processing and legacy, and "trying to be the Spider-Man/Superman figure for someone".
Truth be told we were a bit underwhelmed with Only One, the first single from My Light, My Destroyer, out July 12th. The second... well, that's a very different story. The way it evolves from sparse, gossamer Lynchian layers and electronic hits, through the re-emergence of her Laurie Anderson-ish spoken word bridges into technicolour celestial choirs and guitars like power tools in the background... there's something special here.
Good News - Orange Juice In The Shower
Yet more hyperactive end of skittish post-punk, is it? The Sheffield trio align metronomic percussion with deadpan-monotone vocals in a minimalist whirl and it's done with as soon as it feels done.blurb
Helen Love - Stay With Me
32 years, Helen's been at this coalface of glitter-gun dayglo synth-bubblegum by now. The Ramones were still a recording act back then. Aligned to the mighty Alcopop! these days, her 31st single continues the introspective side developed on last album, 2002's This Is My World, and is an openly Northern Soul indebted love song replete with string stabs, percussion rolls and talc-friendly beat. Still sounds ready for the light-up dancefloor, of course.
Los Campesinos! - Feast Of Tongues
You're reading Sweeping The Nation, don't pretend you don't know. And better yet, they're on the slow burn build path. Album number seven All Hell is out on July 19th and contains a song called To Hell In A Handjob, which is already only a leftfield football reference as simile short of being the ur-LC! song. And they're releasing another song from it today! Emergency afternoon edit ahoy!
My Best Unbeaten Brother - Time On Our Hands, Spider-Man
Ben Parker (Nosferatu D2, Superman Revenge Squad etc)'s current vehicle for frantic verbose excoriations of society and culture moving around him have a debut EP, Pessimistic Pizza, out on 28th June. Driven, as with the former band, by Adam Parker's frantically driving drumming, the first slice (see?) covers the passing of time and memory, processing and legacy, and "trying to be the Spider-Man/Superman figure for someone".
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
New sounds from way out (Focus Wales 2024 to be precise)
Every year of late, at the end of the week that begins with the May Day bank holiday, we've travelled west out to Wrexham for Focus Wales, a conference that discusses big hot topic issues with industry types in the afternoon, exhibits short films and artistic progression and, most importantly for us roadtripping heathens whose idea of a rock'n'roll anecdote is "we once played a pub quiz machine in Wrexham with Islet" - and the pub's shut sometime in the last year, just to completely kybosh it - puts a hell of a lot of varied musical entertainment on for three days at a time. Link-ups with various similar conferences across the world brings in a remarkable array of under the radar international talent and while there's a good few well known names - this year Spiritualized, the Mysterines, Snapped Ankles, Antony Szmierek and Fat Dog because it’s still a festival happening in 2024, Deerhoof if they hadn’t had to pull out - the emphasis is on a wide, and stylistically all-encompassing, variety of Welsh talent. It's pretty much the city festival circuit’s best kept secret, and one where we get to hang out with a good few people we've got to know through this wingding, catch up with old favourites and find new ones.
Most of which for whatever reason have tended to be Canadian. This year Fold Paper, whose recent single we covered a few posts ago, brought their knotty, obtuse take on post-punk over from Winnipeg for a couple of underattended and not greatly mixed sets - they're in London tonight and sticking around for The Great Escape and Get Together - while last year's discovery Laurence-Anne returned in her other guise as guitarist in art-pop outfit La Sécurité, full of electric shock new wave post-B-52s jumpiness (and also doing a Great Escape show) Our real Canuck catch for the year however was Boyhood, the project name of Ontarian Caylie Runciman who's been recording under the guise since 2011. A late addition to the Llwyn Isaf big top main stage after Ben from Seazoo broke his ankle in the week, a woefully small audience got into the Soccer Mommy-recalling emotionaly exposing bedroom guitar pop given a left of centre realignment, the day's second set in the smaller room at The Rockin' Chair emphasising the electronic loop and noise undertows.
Meanwhile the rest of the world also delivered W!ZARD, Bordeaux's more post-hardcore leaning answer to Gilla Band's noise and confusion delivering a packed, ultra-loud set (and the first broken bass string we've seen in a while), Romanian duo Musspell's drifting, spellbound electronic soundscape pop reminiscent of Golden Fable, and some appropriately smeary, serrated sets from Brooklyn shoegazers Punchlove, right down to the Fender Jazzmaster. Something else exciting came all the way from Seoul, in the more than just effervescent Sailor Honeymoon. How the hell did their debut EP, released two weeks ago, bypass our usual 'scrappy shouty melodic but with twists female garage-punk' radar until now? Having things to say pertaining to the pristine image of Korean women they clearly have things to say and fun, innovative ways to say and fire through them in a style within the Raincoats' ballpark - the cover of their free fanzine showed one of them sporting a T-shirt reading 'KOREAN GIRLS INVENTED PUNK ROCK NOT ENGLAND'. Their last song was called Fxxk Urself, is based around a chant of "go fuck yourself/I'm gonna fuck you up" and absolutely collapses in chaos at the end. Because why wouldn't it be? Oh, and they're also in London tonight (Tuesday)! It's only a mile between Sailor Honeymoon at the Sebright Arms and Fold Paper at Strongroom Bar, just run between them.
What about the Brits? Well, we missed a few due to clashes but obviously some of our old Welsh longtime favourites were well represented, with Campfire Social owning the biggest stage and (apparently, we got stuck in the queue outside) being even better in Rockin' Chair two days later previewing an album due in the summer, CHROMA likewise on the former, Mowbird's first gig in years, HMS Morris their usual unorthodox selves, and two sets from Islet that were entirely different in setlist while both capturing their hyperactively charismatic/enigmatic drones-you-can-dance-to idiosyncracies. One hopes fans of the band their second set was supporting Spiritualized were receptive.
Meanwhile, from just across the way in Manchester and playing to a sardine-like room in "indie bar" (and when they say indie bar, they mean they literally exhibit a signed setlist from The Sherlocks) The Parish... once more, how the hell did The Red Stains bypass that self same radar we mentioned up there? They've been around for a few years but in the last eighteen months or so with a settled line-up and some singles they've carved a path through the thicket with provocative dayglo disco-punk, uncompromising anti-consumerism/mental health/queerness-led lyrical torching, onstage energy and banter to spare from charisma to spare singer Natalie Emslie and a guitar played through pedals that make it sound like an analogue synth. Manchester Psych Fest at the end of August appears to be their only currently announced date. They call themselves "cyborg-housewife-glitch-kitsch-supermarketcore". That'll never fit on the HMV divider. But it should.
Most of which for whatever reason have tended to be Canadian. This year Fold Paper, whose recent single we covered a few posts ago, brought their knotty, obtuse take on post-punk over from Winnipeg for a couple of underattended and not greatly mixed sets - they're in London tonight and sticking around for The Great Escape and Get Together - while last year's discovery Laurence-Anne returned in her other guise as guitarist in art-pop outfit La Sécurité, full of electric shock new wave post-B-52s jumpiness (and also doing a Great Escape show) Our real Canuck catch for the year however was Boyhood, the project name of Ontarian Caylie Runciman who's been recording under the guise since 2011. A late addition to the Llwyn Isaf big top main stage after Ben from Seazoo broke his ankle in the week, a woefully small audience got into the Soccer Mommy-recalling emotionaly exposing bedroom guitar pop given a left of centre realignment, the day's second set in the smaller room at The Rockin' Chair emphasising the electronic loop and noise undertows.
Meanwhile the rest of the world also delivered W!ZARD, Bordeaux's more post-hardcore leaning answer to Gilla Band's noise and confusion delivering a packed, ultra-loud set (and the first broken bass string we've seen in a while), Romanian duo Musspell's drifting, spellbound electronic soundscape pop reminiscent of Golden Fable, and some appropriately smeary, serrated sets from Brooklyn shoegazers Punchlove, right down to the Fender Jazzmaster. Something else exciting came all the way from Seoul, in the more than just effervescent Sailor Honeymoon. How the hell did their debut EP, released two weeks ago, bypass our usual 'scrappy shouty melodic but with twists female garage-punk' radar until now? Having things to say pertaining to the pristine image of Korean women they clearly have things to say and fun, innovative ways to say and fire through them in a style within the Raincoats' ballpark - the cover of their free fanzine showed one of them sporting a T-shirt reading 'KOREAN GIRLS INVENTED PUNK ROCK NOT ENGLAND'. Their last song was called Fxxk Urself, is based around a chant of "go fuck yourself/I'm gonna fuck you up" and absolutely collapses in chaos at the end. Because why wouldn't it be? Oh, and they're also in London tonight (Tuesday)! It's only a mile between Sailor Honeymoon at the Sebright Arms and Fold Paper at Strongroom Bar, just run between them.
What about the Brits? Well, we missed a few due to clashes but obviously some of our old Welsh longtime favourites were well represented, with Campfire Social owning the biggest stage and (apparently, we got stuck in the queue outside) being even better in Rockin' Chair two days later previewing an album due in the summer, CHROMA likewise on the former, Mowbird's first gig in years, HMS Morris their usual unorthodox selves, and two sets from Islet that were entirely different in setlist while both capturing their hyperactively charismatic/enigmatic drones-you-can-dance-to idiosyncracies. One hopes fans of the band their second set was supporting Spiritualized were receptive.
Meanwhile, from just across the way in Manchester and playing to a sardine-like room in "indie bar" (and when they say indie bar, they mean they literally exhibit a signed setlist from The Sherlocks) The Parish... once more, how the hell did The Red Stains bypass that self same radar we mentioned up there? They've been around for a few years but in the last eighteen months or so with a settled line-up and some singles they've carved a path through the thicket with provocative dayglo disco-punk, uncompromising anti-consumerism/mental health/queerness-led lyrical torching, onstage energy and banter to spare from charisma to spare singer Natalie Emslie and a guitar played through pedals that make it sound like an analogue synth. Manchester Psych Fest at the end of August appears to be their only currently announced date. They call themselves "cyborg-housewife-glitch-kitsch-supermarketcore". That'll never fit on the HMV divider. But it should.
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