Corinne Bailey Rae - New York Transit Queen

So we were casually looking at Spotify's punk playlist the other day and noticed it included a new track by Corinne Bailey Rae, the Leeds neo-soul singer who nearly became about as big as any British soul talent could. Weird algorithm glitch, right? Well... before falling into the local soul scene and being spotted she was in a band called Helen, which she has said was inspired by Veruca Salt and L7 and nearly got signed to Roadrunner Records, and covered Belly's Low Red Moon on her 2011 covers EP The Love. Her forthcoming fourth album, Black Rainbows, her first in seven years (out September 15th), is inspired by the archive of the Chicago installation artist and Black urban communities specialist Theaster Gates and seems like it will be a genre hopping exercise using her usual sound as a springboard. New York Transit Queen, taking after Thelma Potter, who in 1947 became the first African-American to win the Miss Subways competition in NYC, is sub-two minutes of handclaps, vocal cadence like a schoolyard chant and a big hook riff, all like something that might have been heard in a subterranean dive in Portland or Olympia, Washington around 1990, or indeed the Highbury Garage around 1997 (see posts passim). I f this ends up as a one-off stylistically it's a spectacular one.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Blur - St Charles Square
Furrowed Brow - Outdoors Man
Das Koolies - A Ride
Sunshine Frisbee Laserbeam - Apocalypse
LYR - Paradise Lost
Good News - Kishki
DAAY – Top Heavy
Rachael Lavelle - Let Me Unlock Your Full Potential
Trips And Falls - Wandering Thoughts
The Hazmats - Skewed View

66 From 6 - Sweeping The Nation's First Half Of 2023

As it says - now we're officially halfway through, here's a representative sample of the best tracks of the year so far.

Islet - Euphoria

Or as we know them round here, The Band We Once Played A Quiz Machine With. Thirteen years in Islet are not only proven as one of Britain's most underappreciated acts, they're cast iron one of our greatest live bands, kinetic energy in the red creating waves of manicured noise whilst charging around stages and audiences. They're not half bad on record either, whether meditating or heading for the jugular. Back to a four-piece again, Soft Fascination (out 29th September)'s first single picks up many of their previous strands, synths spearing into space following Emma Daman Thomas' cries against rhythmic motorik pressure and increasingly claustrophobia inducing insistency.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
FIZZ - High In Brighton
Hand Habits - Gift Of The Human Curse
dexter in the newsagent - The Way
Sasha Adrian - Dog
Swansea Sound - Keep Your Head On
Minor Conflict - Second-Hand Time

Unglamorous Sampler: Velvet Crisis - Scratch That Itch/Glitch Magnet - Jurassic Party Planning

The story so far: Nineties indie survivor Ruth Miller, who has played our Alldayers twice as leader of Po!, decides to found a fresh outlet for new song urges as she approaches 60, forms classically DIY garage-indie outfit The Verinos but struggles to find women of advancing years in her Leicester locality. So she starts Unglamorous Music, a series of gatherings and how-to open houses for anyone else of her rough demographic with no active musical history who might feel the same way, leading to a whole set of bands forming and trading, in their own ways from sweary punk to noisy art-rock, in rawness and lyrical humour and honesty. The press pick up on it, leading to features in the Guardian, Steph's Packed Lunch, 5 Live Drive and two different German TV channels - not to mention the Verinos basically blowing a hole through this year's Alldayer, so much so they're playing the Sheffield Pop Weekender on August bank holiday Saturday.

Meanwhile, as more bands continue to come together thanks to regular showcases and workshops - five new groups, plus five of the existing classes, are playing a fundraiser at Duffy's Bar in Leicester this Thursday - eight of the original set put songs to tape for the first Unglamorous Sampler, to be released on July 7th on vinyl as well as download.

As a taster of a very consistent and exciting snapshot of a unique scene, here's a couple of cuts from the sampler. Velvet Crisis were part of the inaugural Unglamorous intake back in January 2022; you can absolutely hear the lineage from the Raincoats and early Slits through Talulah Gosh and post-C86 bands, sharing the sense that it could all fall apart at any moment but not while they have enthusiasm and something to say. In their words "Scratch that Itch is about how capitalism encourages greed... it tricks people into believing they can have anything and they should want more. When in reality it’s all about making profit and why lots of people get into terrible debt... but capitalism doesn’t care... just a game for the super rich for the rest poverty’s a bitch."



Glitch Magnet meanwhile are from somewhere vaguely nearby but in a different direction, stalking wiry art-damaged post-punk of a type that suggests ATP attendance pasts, live sets that rarely cross twenty minutes, all disturbed sprechgesang and rough edges left unsanded.

I, Doris - HRT

Formed out of the Loud Women DIY empire, the tabard sporting I, Doris - official membership: Doris, Doris, Doris, Doris, Doris and Doris - play what they term "mummycore riotpop kitchenpunx", playful while cutting feminism-driven lyrical concerns like some kind of indiepop Jenny Eclair routine. Having been at Bearded Theory and being on their way in August to Rebellion and Brighton Pride, their new single's poppy keytar hook and instant hit chorus with handclaps brings the lighter side out of the struggle for accessing gynaecological healthcare; the end of the video features two members being thrown out of a TK Maxx, which is about as good an analogy for the band as you could find.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Muriel - Body Of Light

Your Heart Breaks feat. Kimya Dawson & David Christian - These Old Haunts

Your Heart Breaks, the project of Seattle-based renowned animator Clyde Petersen, has been operating since 1998 with more records than you'll ever get to catch up on - The Wrack Line, out on 7th July, is at least their twelfth album - and a fluid line-up and sense of collaboration that has seen Petersen work with Kelley Deal, Death Cab For Cutie's Chris Walla, Nirvana's cellist Lori Goldston, K Records country rocker Karl Blau and members of drone greats Earth. Another regular contributor has been Kimya Dawson, who featured on the previous track, college rock rave-up Wesley Crusher, and duets after a fashion here with Comet Gain's cussed sole survivor David Christian - throw in that Katherine Paul, AKA Black Belt Eagle Scout, also contibutes musically and that's one hell of a fever dream combination. The track is a typically literate summery shuffle inspired by touring life travelogues, the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland and, er, "the perfect place to take a poo".





ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Son Lux, Anna B Savage & DM Stith - Pyre (Alarm Bells)
Echo Ladies - Awake
Aderyn - I Wish I Had A Dog
sister - Guts
Celestial North - Otherworld

Lande Hekt - Pottery Class

Currently trailing The Beths round Europe having been doing likewise in the UK, Hekt is building quite the catalogue of deep introspection negotiating the idea of self-acceptance over two albums and now a new 7", of which this A-side attempts to be upbeat musically but finds her in a slough of isolated despond brought on by an extended period of separation amid the housing crisis.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Saloon Dion - Happiness
cumgirl8 - gothgirl1
Dream Wife - Social Lubrication
John Monroe & Field Music - Driving
Laundromat Chicks - Florida Dream
Sofie Royer - Mio

Grain Mother - 3am

This is technically the Nottingham band's debut single but there's a possibility you came across them when they were the full band of Alice Robbins, whose 2019 EP earned Joni and Daughter comparisons. This new formation has already supported The WAEVE and Trust Fund, and if you're round about Metronome on Wednesday night you could see them supporting Rozi Plain; their strong single a spacious, pristine lament with Americana airs and jazzy inflections, lyrically astute - including a surprising namecheck for a popular home video-based TV show - in its outwardly strong, inward cracked melancholia.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Trust Fund - London
CMAT - Have Fun!
Mt. Yonder - Ones & Zeros
Grian Chatten - Last Time Every Time Forever
The Popguns - Caesar

Angelo De Augustine - The Ballad Of Betty And Barney Hill

It's probable you'll best know De Augustine from A Beginner's Mind, the film inspired album he made with Sufjan Stevens in 2021. Despite the Californian having made three previous albums of his own it's therefore understandable that you might reach for Sufjan comparisons when discussing the latest track from Toil And Trouble, out 30th June on Asthmatic Kitty, and its hushed dreamstate acoustic storytelling based on historical backwater events and turning bad memories into sweeping, ultimately warm despite the unnerving lushness, decorated around the edges by warped found sounds and multitracked backing harmonies. Notably De Augustine refers to "an ephemeral but nightmarish period of otherworldly sensations and supernatural visions" during recording, which figures.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Forum Friends - Amateur Dentistry
Corvair - Shady Town
Tapir! - On A Grassy Knoll (We'll Bow Together)
Motorbike - Throttle

CHROMA - Woman To Woman

Two from two in terms of featured tracks from CHROMA's debut album. This, we promise, is not directly connected to the press release calling us grassroots tastemakers - it's been a long time, let us savour it - though it does have to be added that literally all that's been made public about the album at the moment is "there's going to be an album and Alcopop! are releasing it". If you've seen CHROMA live in the last year or so, and if not why not, this is the song they've been ending sets with, a heavy coiled spring of rage at feminist backbiting and the necessity of minority allyship and solidarity which in some ways is a companion to the likewise spectacular first thing we heard from them Girls Talk and similarly allows Katie Hall's not inconsiderable howl to really take off on the thunderbolt chorus. (Hey, is that Mythsntits artwork in the video? Well, yes it is, they're credited, but worth pointing out)



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Trips And Falls - It's Not Broken...

Forum Friends - New Boy

Forum Friends are based in Sheffield, formed via Reddit, supported Fresh recently and that's about the size of what we can find out about them. They've been pigeonholed, not least by themselves, as an emo band and the vocals are heading in that direction but there's much more of the charging, awkward power-pop that puts them much more snugly in the lane of a ME REX or Fortitude Valley. They actually have a third track coming out on Friday but nobody ever said timing was our strong point.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Tonguetied - Losing My Mind
Self-Immolation Music - Kaleidoscope
Melenas - Bang

Meursault - Laugh Track

Oh, they're all coming back now, aren't they. Meursault, the Edinburgh-based heartfelt lamentations of big voiced heart-on-sleeve dweller Neil Pennycook, is preparing a sixth full band album, due on 7th July. It's self-titled, which is ominous, but to go some way towards explaining the blurb describes the album as "a study of his relationship with what Meursault means to him, with each song representing a different stage in the evolution of the project. In short, it’s an album about creative endeavours and how they help shape not only the artists view of the world, but also the worlds view of the artist." As with a few songs on the record Laugh Track is a newly minted version of a song previously briefly available on one of three likewise named EPs in 2020, reworked from those electronic home recorded versions into the musically detailed widescreen folk that complements the uncomfortable introspection of Pennycook's common approach.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Blur - The Narcissist (which is worthy of the actual post but come on, they're Blur, they don't need this blog's help)
Storm Franklin - Hush Now
HMS Morris - House

Laurence-Anne - Politesse

We'd heard her last single Polymorphe so it wouldn't class as a discovery, but getting to see Laurence-Anne Gagné twice as one of Focus Wales' usual batallion of inventive Canadian visitors was a quiet joy of that wondrous Wrexham (sort-of-)weekend. If you want a one line description, try "Quebecois answer to Gwenno via 2010 Beach House but also Alison Goldfrapp", using varying timbral synths and co-operational effects landing on the gauge off-kilter retro synthpop or haunted textural dreampop. Politesse, from third album Oniromancie due on 8th September, is a dreamscape built from loops and layers, finding a glorious chorus melody never quite letting go into a groove and throwing itself out with parts echoing out and barging in, not least a free jazz sax interjection and an ending that seems to detach itself from the rhythm and float off into space. No more UK dates at the moment, sadly.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
ANOHNI and the Johnsons - It Must Change
Mandy, Indiana - Drag (Crashed)
MADMADMAD - Krautjerk
Obongjayar - Just Cool

Grove - BIG BOOTS

Superbly, the first vocal is a delightful "yoo-hoooo!" The rest... is not. If you hadn't already come across the Bristol producer/toaster/MC/rouser from their string of warping sweaty underground club joints you may have done from conquering a succession of sometimes unlikely festivals last summer - Green Man, much as we love it, is not a natural home for dark d'n'b, jungle, UKG and dancehall, especially in a mid-afternoon slot, yet they could do this to/with an End Of The Road crowd with their Nicola-endorsed bashment cover of Sound Of The Underground. In a couple of weeks' time they'll be trying the same trick at Bearded Theory and then later in the summer at Deer Shed; in the meantime their militantly political stance gets a thorough runout on what it has to be said is a slightly late release for an acidly anti-royalist message, the titular boots all the better for stamping and dancing on heads and graves over similarly uncompromising breakbeats, messy breakdowns and generally heavy bass from regular associate EJ​:​AKIN, who is also responsible for bringing things almost back to earth in the last minute with raga-esque counterpoint vocals that in context (and definitely not shared message) are in a similar ballpark to Shahin Badar's Sheila Chandra-inspired vocals at the end of Smack My Bitch Up. Suffice to say, Kelly Jones could never.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
yeule - sulky baby
Arlo Parks - Pegasus (officially "ft. Phoebe Bridgers", but just like Lorde ft. Phoebe Bridgers, The National ft. Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift ft. Phoebe Bridgers we only have their word to go on for that)
Kelli Blanchett - Stay (meanwhile this has Kelli's employer Self Esteem on BVs, it's clearly Rebecca's voice and she isn't co-credited. A lesson there.)

Muriel - Seaside Painter

We've just spent three excellent, fun, slighly wearying but ultimately rewarding days in Wrexham for our sixth full year at Focus Wales, a kind of Great Escape without the suffering hype, stupid queues or A&Rs but with lots of Welsh and international, largely Canadian in our experience, acts of excellence - hey, you can do so too next year - so we've come home to a new Welsh artist. One, admittedly, that didn't play, because they've only just played their second gig supporting Jeffrey Lewis, although they're already confirmed for Swn, which we're similarly planning to make our annual pilgrimage to. Muriel is the project of one Zak Thomas, whose debut single, it turns out after we'd selected it to feature, honest, features extra production by by Tom Bromley/Campesinos! Signed to Venn Records -unlikely on the surface given it's also been home to Gallows, Bob Vylan and Hi Vis - for an as yet unannounced album, the debut single in its slowly unfolding, pastorally pretty feel recalls the countrified/West Coast influenced introspective explorations and acoustic sharp-to-touch vulnerability of influence Mark Linkous. This is about as subtly impressive a start as can be.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Grimelda ft. Telgate - Freedom
HMS Morris - Family Souls
Laundromat Chicks - Let's Do This
Decisive Pink - Dopamine
Special Friend - Selkie

The Wind-up Birds - Margarine

Leeds' The Wind-up Birds were doing sociopolitical talk-singing over expressive post-punk before you were, and we know that not just over the course of four albums since 2010 but more directly because we've put them on twice, once at the 2014 Leicester Indiepop Alldayer, and again later that year supporting their friends Post War Glamour Girls, whose singer James Smith later formed Yard Act. Indeed the press release for their first single in three years has Smith declaring "Kroyd is light years ahead as a political lyricist in modern music. He changed my life and influenced me so much." From an EP, Pop​.​Thinking, due on 1st July, Margarine is an enervating, angrily poetic organ-driven thrusting two and a half minute blast at Tories, privilege, professional scapegoaters, Making Britain Great Again by proxy, the usual.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Panic Pocket - GET ME
Grian Chatten - Fairlies

Modern Woman - Achtung

You know sometimes even within the metropolitan centre of everything London there's the odd band who are much more interesting in noise and scope than many of their much more feted peers but because they don't have the same connective tissues as others (and we don't mean that in a Last Dinner Party way) they go under the radar? Modern Woman are a prime example, pulling apart and fiddling around with the edges of post-punk darkness and Sophie Harris' lyrics and delivery having the primal unfiltered poetic urgency of early PJ Harvey. Following the Dogs Fighting In My Dream EP of 2021 and still aligned with End Of The Road Records, the label arm of the exceptional peacock-strewn festival, Achtung is all bass-driven tension and noisy release as Harris streams of consciousness about adolescent observation and innocence, crushing and the undercurrents of levels of violence.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Neev - Will I Change You
Former Champ - Beginner's Luck
The Hannah Barberas - Party From Hell

Private Party - Could've Asked Sooner

It's Focus Wales, the actual most important thing in Wrexham, next week, we're making our now annual visit and one of the highlights as far as we're concerned will be (hopefully) getting to catch Private Party, a prenaturally young quintet from Swansea whose half-dreamy, emotionally conflicted chiming Artifical Feelings EP from last July was one of our favourite discoveries of this year, and not just ours as Welsh radio's finest Adam Walton called them "the sound of the future". Their new single is more direct, as songs that last 2:17 tend to be, but no less involving, harnessing a classy, some might say summery timeless janglepop melody to their own ends. Plus, and let's not overlook this as an attraction, their singer is called Violet Sourbutts.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
John Monroe & Field Music - Sleeping On The Floor
LYR - Presidentially Yours

Broken Records - You Won't Be There

Now, that's a name we haven't heard in a long time. Broken Records burst out of Edinburgh in 2007, a multi-handed folk-pop collective of mini-orchestral chorality and tunnel vision intensity who collected Bright Eyes/Arcade Fire/Beirut press comparisons as if it were a game of modern Americana I-Spy, the excitement getting them signed to 4AD for their first two albums. They inevitably drifted off the radar but they're back, back, back, with a fifth album (first in five years too) later in the year that approaches the grandiosity of The National while keeping itself grounded in that particular Scottish turf of ambitious folk-indie and, having left its raucous past behind it for now, finds itself awake late into the night contemplating, Jamie Sutherland citing an influence from 90s REM (well, maybe not Monster or Up)

Broken Records Band · You Won't Be There

ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Only Fools And Corpses - GREENHOUSE
Single Mothers - Sad Dumb Game
Slate - Tabernacl
Tugboat Captain - Like Caroline

cumgirl8 - Cicciolina

Yep. There is, of course, a certain knowing artiness to a New York female band with that name, not one you choose just to fit in but also signalling a smuggling of gender, sexual and feminist theory under the guise of boho electro-post-punk, it being entirely unsurprising to find they're playing some summer US dates with the reactivated Le Tigre. After a couple of releases last year they've wormed their way into the 4AD fold with a single that while not the first track to be named after and written in honour of the once much publicised porn star/politician feels like the one closest to her spirit (if not her actual music), grotty disco-punk laced with fucked up synth washes, ESG basslines, threatening stage whispers and CSS-esque gang sign post-electroclash all-out indie disco destroying brio.



ALSO WORTH YOUR ATTENTION:
Dream Wife - Orbit
bar italia - punkt
The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters