Featuring Joy Orbison, Overmono, Mitski, Travis Scott, Jessie Ware, Róisín Murphy, Maribou State, James Murphy, SX2, Pat Lagoon, Kwengface, Skeleten, Lee Gamble, Lynx, Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee
Today is New Music Friday, which means there’s loads of new songs in the world.
Here are 10 songs released this week I loved, along with fresh ones in the New Music section.
See the end of the post for the Spotify playlist featuring much more than 10 tracks released this week, updated weekly.
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1.
Kwengface x Joy Orbison x Overmono
Freedom 2
UK drill meets UK garage as Kwengface, Joy Orbison and Overmono bring some serious sub-bass heat on ‘Freedom 2’, a new take on the Zone 2 collective drill rapper’s original that dropped on his mixtape The Memoir, earlier this year.
‘Freedom 2’ is really club candy just in time for the end of the summer.
Joy Orbison and Overmono previously collaborated on ‘Blind Date’.
Kwengface’s original was aired on a Colors show.
2.
Travis Scott
Modern Jam
I wasn’t expecting to be as enamoured with Travis Scott’s new album Utopia as I was upon release today, but the album is great, an album with a stacked guestlist and a scope of sound that puts it in a pantheon that Ye formerly occupied, in terms of ambition.
Drake, The Weeknd, Beyoncé, James Blake, Yung Lean, George Clinton, Sampha, Justin Vernon, 21 Savage, SZA, Bad Bunny, Westside Gunn and loads more feature on the album, but it was Daft Punk producer Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo-helmed ‘Modern Jam’ and its industrial electro-rap style that stood out immediately.
3.
Jessie Ware, Róisín Murphy
Freak Me Now
Really just an excuse to get two disco divas on a new version of the song from Jessie Ware’s new now-Mercury Prize-nominated album That! Feels Good!
Ware says:
“It is a huge honour to have the queen of disco, Róisín Murphy on Freak Me Now. I messaged her hoping she may be interested in featuring on the song and before I knew it she’d gone straight into the studio and recorded all her vocals for the track and sent them over to us. I have admired her work for so many years & respect her so much.”
4.
SX2, Pat Lagoon
Steady Up
A Waterford original as the dance duo SX2 link up with Pat Lagoon on ‘Steady Up’, a bouncing dance banger that was originally aired last summer but found its way onto an official release on Moscoman’s respected Disco Halal label.
An EP is to follow, and there is a release party in Waterford for the single this Saturday.
I played the tune last summer at my EP Festival late night set.
5.
Skeleten
Territory Day
Sydney artist Skeleten released an album today called Under Utopia, and I’m digging the Four-Tet meets Junior Boys feel of the single ‘Territory Day’. I’m looking forward to investigating further.
Russell Fitzgibbon AKA Skeleten creates all the music, artwork, visuals, and music videos.
6.
James Murphy, Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee
Los Angeles
James Murphy doesn’t do guest vocals so this is a turn up for the books, but Lol Tolhurst, Budgie and Jacknife Lee clearly have an impressive rolodex, and persuasive powers. Lee is a producer to some big names, while Tolhurst is formerly of The Cure, and Budgie is known for playing with Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Creatures, and John Grant’s band.
The three-headed project “Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee” will release an album this November, featuring the title track with the LCD Soundsystem singing about LA for a change (he’s also on the closing track ‘Skins).
Other guests on the record include The Edge (U2), Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), Mark Bowen (IDLES), Mary Lattimore & Civil Rights avant-garde artist Lonnie Holley.
7.
Mitski
Bug Like An Angel
Mitski has announced her new album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, is out September 15th on Dead Oceans.
‘Bug Like an Angel’ is a stark return brandishing the artist’s trademark intensity, that feels like a suitable introductory track to an album that will feature a 17-piece choir on it, which can be heard here celestially underscoring Mitski’s voice and chugging acoustic guitar.
References for the record include Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti Western, Carter Burwell’s tundra-filling Fargo soundtrack, Arthur Russell, Scott Walker, Igor Stravinsky, Caetano Veloso and Faron Young.
8.
Lee Gamble
She’s Not
UK producer Lee Gamble has announced a new album Models on Hyperdub this October 20th.
The first single ‘She’s Not’ features ghostly echoes of sound traversing a haze of AI-assisted vocals and distant guitar sounds. It reminds me of KLF’s Chillout Album crossed with Overmono’s spectral productions on their recent album.
9.
Maribou State
Blackoak
London duo Maribou State release their first song in three years, since the once off single ‘Mother’ and the excellent 2018 album Kingdoms In Colour.
Not much has changed in the wash in the past few years, Maribou State make evocative and expansive-feeling music, that draws from soul, electronic, global sounds and ambient music without leaning too far in either direction.
Chris Davids and Liam Ivory of Maribou State said:
“The song was written at a difficult time for both ourselves and everyone else involved. Over the past few years we’d both begun to struggle with our sense of selves and how connected we felt to our roots in Britain. The world being in a state of flux seemed to amplify this feeling of disillusion but it led us to explore all the things we loved about where we’re from; the musicians, from artists like David Bowie and The Beatles, through to The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers, and also the likes of Burial, Aphex Twin and Sault; all the electronic genres born here, from Jungle to UK Garage and IDM; and Festivals, namely Glastonbury, the countryside & English summers. In “Blackoak” we tried to capture the spirit of all these things, and it unintentionally helped us reconcile some of our feelings of indifference. For us it sits at the apex of our musical journey so far.”
10.
Lynks
Use It Or Lose It
UK masked electro-pop Lynks is an artist described as the “fourth horseman of the queer apocalypse.
‘Use It Or Lose’ is the provocateur’s first song on Heavenly Recordings, a fun wonky pop track.
Lynx
“I turned 25 last year which is supposedly the “scientifically most attractive year of your life”. I found this out and was like, “Damn, this is as good as I’m gonna get?” I suddenly had this prang of, like, if I’m not fucking 24/7 I’m somehow wasting my youth. Letting it slip away. And then you end up making really bad choices.
Plus being gay on top of that… The gay world is obsessed with youth. Which isn’t surprising – there just isn’t a blueprint of what growing old as a gay man looks like. Like, any film with a gay man over 40 seems to end with them either trapped in a sad, loveless marriage to a woman or dead.
So yeah; dry patches, sex parties and twink death. Everything you could want from a big summer banger if you ask me!”
Nialler9 Weekly Playlist
Nialler9 New Music Playlist
For more extensive Irish and new music coverage, hit up the Irish section for individual track features
For this and more Irish songs, follow the Nialler9 New Irish Spotify playlist.
