The best new tracks of this week, curated and chosen by Niall.
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Kelsey Lu
Running To Pain
It’s been a long time coming – seven years since Kelsey Lu released her debut album Blood in 2019. We spoke to Kelsey backstage in the Workman’s way back in Episode 43 of the podcast.
‘Running To Pain’ is the first track from the second album So Help Me God, to be released on June 12th on Dirty Hit – and as you would expect after such a gap there is marked difference in the style of the music hear – there are strains of the orchestral strings that Lu foregrounded previously, but here they are recast in a grander electronic-tinged production (the song was produced by Lu with Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman) on “a prayer for the very force you know might undo you.”
The song has a video featuring French actor Garance Marillier (Titane, Raw) and directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Savanah Leaf and developed in collaboration with Lu.
So Help Me God will feature Sampha, Kamasi Washington and Kim Gordon.
“So Help Me God was built slowly and intentionally across seven years of transformation. Sonically and emotionally it holds so many different worlds at once – devotion and desire, collapse and becoming- trying to make sense of what it means to break, to believe, to long for something without seeing it clearly, and to be reborn again and again and again.”
It’s not like Kelsey Lu wasn’t busy – she has spent the intervening years collaborating with Yves Tumor, Jamie xx, Debbie Harry and Skrillex, scoring film like Netflix’s documentary Daughters and A24’s Earth Mama, as well as visual art and fashion, with creative partnerships including Nan Goldin, Wu Tsang and Jacolby Satterwhite, as well as Gucci, Miu Miu and Bottega Veneta.
Modern Woman
Neptune Girl
I’ve loved everything that London-art rock band Modern Woman have put out three singles far this year as they gear up to release their debut album Johnny’s Dreamworld on May 1st.
Along with just-released ‘Daniel’ and ‘Dashboard Mary’, ‘Neptune Girl’ suggests the Sophie Harris-fronted Modern Woman as a band with a breakout potential like English Teacher before them, yet there is a more overt pop style in the vein of The Last Dinner Party at play also.
Jump Source
Empty Bars (with Billy Woods)
Priori and Patrick Holland’s Jump Source is a collaborative electronic project rolling out a series of dance singles since 2016.
The latest releases from Jump Source have expanded the remit with guest vocalists including Helen Deland, Loukeman and POiSON GiRL FRiEND singing over more cerebral headphone productions.
‘Close’ with POiSON GiRL FRiEND is intimate chilled ambient pop music, ‘Shattered’ is more bass dancefloor-centred and ‘Affect’ with Loukeman’s wobbly squiggly sounds was my front door to this project.
‘Empty Bars’ takes things down further to the nocturnal beats for headphones – recalling Nosaj Thing in its gentle imaginative feel.
GT Verses – Nosaj Thing and Jacques Greene
Forever (Tom VR remix)
Maybe Nosaj Thing was on my mind from the last track, or the early blog features (2007!) but the producer and his pal Jacques Greene released a full-length record under the Verses GT name last September on LuckyMe which I missed out on because I was on holiday for that one week last year.
Anyway, this Four Tet-esque remix from UK producer Tom VR makes light work of the original track with vocalists KUČKA – it’s the kind of track you want to hear at a festival this summer for sure,.
Isa Gordon
Love Is Teasing
As featured on Friday, Glasgow-based producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Isa Gordon’s second solo album 8Men features eight tracks split evenly between four traditional folk songs and four covers – not faithful versions of traditional songs but cast anew with clubby electronics and modern production, anchored by Gordon’s expressive vocal – as heard on track two ‘Love Is Teasing’.
Other Songs I also recommend this week:
- Avalon Emerson – EDEN
- James Blake – Doesn’t Just Happen with DAVE
- Joshua Idehen – ‘Don’t Let it Get You Down’
- Lone – ‘Miracle Mile’
- PinkPantheress – ‘Illegal’ Four Tet remix
- Curtisy – ‘Yesterday’s News’
- Lime Garden – ‘All Bad Parts’
- Anish Kumar – ‘Passion Fruit’Joshua Burnside – ‘It’s Not Going To Be OK’
- Arlo Parks – ‘Get Go’
- Rua Rí – ‘Johnny Workman’
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Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
