Young Fathers – In My View
Young Fathers have just announced the release of their third album, Cocoa Sugar, through Ninja Tune later this year. Yes, the Edinburgh trio is back, and I’m just stunned thinking about the artistic progression the trio has undergone to get to the point they’re at with this new track, “In My View.” It was only five years ago when I was praising Tape One and Two, a pair of creative lo-fi hip hop EPs with splashes of soul and West African music thrown in.
Two albums later, there’s no mistaking a Young Fathers song – the chilling synthesizers, foreign rhythms, soaring vocals, and abstract rap verses all add up into an experience that’s both fiery and contemplative. Check out the new music video for “In My View” above, and look for their new record on March 9.
Read the rest of this article at The Needle Drop
Porches – Find Me
On his last single “Country,” Porches’ Aaron Maine stepped away from the glassy beats that populated his 2016 album Pool. On his new one, from upcoming album The House, he doubles down. “Find Me” sounds as though Maine has been busy refining his skills in the studio. While Pool had a charming grain to it, a warbly, indie-rock looseness that Maine carried over from earlier slammers like 2013’s “Townie Blunt Guts,” “Find Me” aims its sights on clean, sharp techno.
Maine no longer cocoons his voice in reverb here, and you won’t hear a single guitar among the sound palette of “Find Me.” Instead, he populates the song with an arrhythmic bass drum backbeat, bright keys, and a brash synthesized horn that could have been borrowed from Underworld. The stutters and hiccups in the beat mirror the song’s uneasy lyrics: “I can’t let it find me,” Maine repeats, never specifying exactly what’s hunting him down, but making it clear he’d rather avoid it. It sure does sound like he’s being followed; the most arresting new element in the production is a high, cybertronic vocal that trails his own. It’s distorted enough that you can’t quite tell whether it’s a real voice drawn through a filter or a completely computer-made backup singer. This sense of overarching confusion only deepens the song’s uncanny magnetism.
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
Loma – Relay Runner
Last month, Loma – the project of Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski and Shearwater singer Jonathan Meiburg – announced their debut self-titled album would be out on 16th February through Sub Pop.
They also shared lead single ‘Black Willow’, a defiant marching song that also closes the album. Now they’re back with a second taste of the record in the form of ‘Relay Runner’. It starts with skittering, percussive elements before expanding out into a chunky arpeggiated rhythm that also incorporates eerie harmonies before building to an expansive climax.
Jonathan said of the track: “‘Relay Runner’ was the happiest accident on the record. We discovered it when we wired up a tremolo pedal the wrong way, and got this funny, stuttering loop – and then we built a whole song around that sound. The last thing we did in the mix was erase the loop, which had gone from inspiring the song to ruining it! But it made sense that what was left underneath was a song about how to escape from a sealed room”.
Read the rest of this article at DIY Magazine
Soccer Mommy – Your Dog
Sophie Allison, the Nashville native who records as Soccer Mommy, has been packing pipe dreams and heartache into hushed bedroom-pop ballads since 2015. She hit her stride on last year’s EP, Collection, by recalibrating her sound with a full backing band and extracting herself from the “sad girl” pigeonhole of her earlier work. Now, with her new single “Your Dog,” Allison seems miles away from her soft-spoken past. The song is the first taste of her upcoming debut album, Clean, and in it, Allison parses new emotional terrain: complete, unfettered frustration.
“I don’t wanna be your little pet/At the edge of every bed you sleep in,” Allison sings heatedly. Leaning into the pet metaphor to describe her fury at being pushed to the periphery, she taps into a bitter punk attitude, but maintains a cozy indie-pop aesthetic: A charming, twisted guitar riff surfaces between every verse, and breathy multi-tracked vocals cushion the blow of her harsh words. The vulnerability in Allison’s music hasn’t gone totally missing—after all, admitting to feeling invisible requires courage—but she’s not letting it stop her from taking charge. With “Your Dog,” Soccer Mommy serves up an emboldened anthem for those stuck in the vicious cycle of settling for less. Spurned lovers, shout it from the rooftops: “I don’t wanna be your fucking dog!”
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
Ride – Catch You Dreaming
Oxford shoegazers Ride released their comeback ‘Weather Diaries’ last year, and have already announced plans for a follow-up EP.
‘Tomorrow’s Shore’ will come out on 16th February, and is being previewed by first single ‘Catch You Dreaming’.
Talking of ‘Catch You Dreaming’, in a press release, vocalist Andy Bell says: “Catch You Dreaming” is written from the perspective of being one of the last two people alive, watching as the Universe is ending. The protagonist looks back over the time when humanity existed, realising that we as humans brought about our own inevitable demise.
“Then the couple look back over their own lives of shared memories and as they are sharing this moment, everything vaporises. It’s a love song about fate, nostalgia, and having no regrets.”
The band are set to play a headline show at London’s ULU on the day of the EP’s release.
Read the rest of this article at DIY Magazine
