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The best new tracks of this week, curated and chosen by Niall.
Broken Social Scene
Only The Good I Keep
The Toronto collective Broken Social Scene returned with their first new music since 2017’s Hug of Thunder and it lands like they never left – the return of David Newfeld, who produced their breakthroughYou Forgot It in People (2002) (we are hosting a listening party for that one on May 27th) and 2005’s self-titled record also chimes with a band coming full circle to their best moments on record.
‘Only The Good I Keep’ while holding the band’s trademark warmth with the voice of new collaborator Hannah Georgas adding a fresh dimension to the classic Broken Social Scene sound in the teenager remembrance vein of ‘Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl.’
There’s a lovely interview with Kevin Drew on Hearing Things.
Octo Octa
First Intention (Right Here, Right Now)
The fourth album from Maya Bouldry-Morrison , the New Hampshire producer Sigils For Survival released this month via her own T4T LUV NRG label is grade A dance music with a really strong opening run.
‘First Intention (Right Here, Right Now)’ is the album’s opening track – a ‘Drone Logic’ bubbling synth bassline colliding with 808 beats and supremely effective house vocal sample stabs.
The record marks a decade since Maya publicly came out as transgender in November 2015, and it is explicitly autobiographical – eight tracks conceived as a spell.
For each one, Maya drew a personal sigil: a handmade symbol intended to bind magic to the song and seal its intention. These drawings were incorporated into the album’s artwork by her sister, the New York artist Hope Morrison.
Cornelius
Yumenemi
I have been going through a Cornelius period (particularly 2001’s Point album) lately so the return of Keigo Oyamada – one of Japan’s most singular musical minds since the mid-90s is most welcome, and ‘Yumenemi’ is a reminder of why nobody sounds like him.
A cover of a cult Balearic classic 1989 song by Japanese singer-songwriters Yosui Inoue, the title translates roughly as ‘dream-seeking’ and the track is a piece of precision pop construction that manages to feel both meticulous and effortless – layered sounds moving in and out of focus, a melody that lodges on first listen, and the kind of production detail that rewards headphones. There are so few artists able to conjure up these kinds of vistas.
The new track arrives following a recent resurgence in his work, including a viral TikTok moment and a nod from Rosalía, who featured ‘Typewrite Lesson’, a b-side deep cut from Cornelius’s 1997 album Fantasma, in her Met Gala–themed Vogue playlist of all-time favourites.
Antony Szmierek
Chalk
The Manchester poet and musician has been developing one of the more singular voices in British indie-adjacent music over the past few years – deadpan, rhythmically precise, with a lyrical sensibility that owes as much to spoken word as it does to songwriting.
‘Chalk’, inspired by a Ronnie O’Sullivan snooker documentary pushes that further, building around a production that leaves a lot of air around his delivery. He described it as: “a song about the stuff that accumulates. Not the big things. The chalk marks on the wall, the running total, the way things quietly add up.”
Antony Szmierek plays Button Factory on Wednesday October 28th. He has a new album Decoding Birdsong out August 21st via Mushroom Music / Virgin Music Group, with collaborators including Los Bitchos, Pretty Girl, and 1-800 GIRLS
Gener8ion, Yung Lean
Storm
You’ve seen this right? I had seen clips but only just sat down this week to properly watch it on a big screen. The last two minutes are a video choreography of the year contender.
Gener8ion is the audio-visual project of French house producer Surkin and director Romain Gavras – the filmmaker behind Athena, and era-defining videos for M.I.A., Justice and .
Watch it, don’t just listen to it. Gavras is the man behind Jamie xx’s ‘Gosh’, M.I.A.’s ‘Bad Girls’ , the Justice video that made everyone slightly uncomfortable in 2008 – and it shows. Yung Lean plays a boarding school bully in Leeds in 2034, no dialogue, all physical menace. The first half is urgent techno and ambient threat. Then it pivots completely – piano, strings, Damien Jalet’s choreography taking over as the boys descend the school steps in a sequence that is genuinely extraordinary. Lord of the Flies by way of French Touch.
They’ve just announced an audio/visual album. A previous song and video featuring 070 Shake was released four years ago and looks like it will also feature.
Other Songs I also recommend this week:
- Overmono – ‘Lockup’
- Boards Of Canada – ‘Prophecy at 1420 Mhz’
- Father John Misty – ‘The Payoff’
- Chanel Beads – ‘Song for the Messenger’
- Digitalism – ‘Sirens’
- JPEGMAFIA – ‘babygirl’
- Mike D – ‘Switch Up’
- Verse GT – ‘Devoted’
- Kelela – ‘linknb’
- Quiet Light – ‘Self Tape’
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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.
