Featuring The Blessed Madonna, Beck, Phoenix, Róisín Murphy, Faye Webster, Tandem Felix, Peter Gabriel, Midnight Wayne, Autre Monde, Daire Patel, Poser, Blimp, Mild.
Today is New Music Friday, which means there’s loads of new songs in the world.
Here are the 10 single songs released this week I loved the most.
See the New Music section for all the of tracks and albums featured this week, and the end of the post for the Spotify playlist featuring much more than 10 tracks released this week.
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1.
The Blessed Madonna, Jacob Lusk (Gabriels)
Mercy
The Blessed Madonna continues a collaboration series that has included Jamie Principle (along with Uffie, The Joy and Todd Edwards), with a hookup with Jacob Lusk of the gospel-soul band Gabriels.
‘Mercy’ has some big body-pumping gospel-house music vibe to it, a perfect soundtrack to Pride Weekend. A Sylvester vibe is never not a good thing. ‘Mercy’ features co-production with Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and additional vocals from the House Gospel Choir.
“I’m interested in the dichotomy of the sacred and the ordinary in songwriting. Agony and ecstasy. A song about love and heartbreak can still be a deeply spiritual piece of work. I began by thinking about what love is for me in my life and arrived at the simple idea that it was at its core a promise not just to live but to forgive. Love is Mercy. Over many revisions and with the developments that came from working with Jacob and the rest of the many people who came together to make this record a reality, the idea deepened and we found exactly the sweet spot between the church and the dance floor that I was looking for. The gospel influence in intentional and undeniable. I thought in particular about the sculpture The ecstasy of St Theresa which is an incredibly rich image that feels as carnal as it does holy. This is my conception of god: those moments where we are humbled by a love so big that we can’t imagine being worthy of it or worthy of the kind of acceptance and mercy we feel.”
The Blessed Madonna
2.
Róisín Murphy
Fader
Róisín Murphy has released the third single from her forthcoming album Hit Parade, which is produced by DJ Koze and is released on September 8th on Ninja Tune.
We’ve previously heard ‘CooCool’ and ‘The Universe’, and today the song ‘Fader’ has arrived with a music video shot in Murphy’s Irish hometown of Arklow, County Wicklow, featuring the Arklow Silver Band.
If you were hoping for a big DJ Koze-assisted dance album, Hit Machine doesn’t sound like it’s that so far, with all the songs being melting psychedelic dancefloor-adjacent music.
3.
Faye Webster
But Not Kiss
I loved the Atlanta artist Faye Webster’s recent Car Therapy Sessions orchestral versions EP, and the followup to I Know I’m Funny haha is being teased with ‘But Not Kiss’ a song that punctures its own intimate tautness with a memorable piano line.
“I think it could be a really romantic song or a really anti-romantic song,” explains Webster. “It’s something I’ve looked for but struggled to find in other love songs, for them to describe this conflict or contradiction.”
The video was filed at the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre in LA.
4.
Tandem Felix
There’s a New Sheriff in Town
As featured this morning, the returning song from Dubliner David A. Tapley and Tandem Felix is a world-leaning reintroduction that hangs with a certain heaviness.
“ The songs on There’s a New Sheriff in Town are a lot more embittered, more jaded. I wanted to make the songs world-weary. That’s how it came together initially, although lyrically nothing was intentional, so to speak. I tend to save that for the music-side of things instead of the words. The words just happen, or at least, I let them happen.”
David A. Tapley
5.
Peter Gabriel
Road to Joy (Dark-Side Mix)
Proof it were needed that, ahead of this Sunday’s Dublin 3Arena gig, that Peter Gabriel has never really stopped making interesting experimental music of his own ik.
‘Road to Joy (Dark-Side Mix)’ is the sixth song from a forthcoming record I/O, which as the bracketed version suggests has been released with different styles.
‘Road to Joy’ was produced by Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno, and features the Soweto Gospel Choir.
‘I’m working on a project which is partly a story focused around the brain and how we perceive things and this song connects to that. It deals with near-death experience and locked-in syndrome situations where people are unable to communicate or to move. It’s an amazingly frustrating condition. There have been some great books and films about this subject, but at this point in our story the people looking after our hero manage to find a way to wake him up. So, it’s a lyric about coming back into your senses, back to life, back into the world.’
Peter Gabriel
6.
Midnight Wayne
Get What You Got
Comparisons to Kevin Parker’s Tame Impala project are no bad thing for any musician, and Wayne Soper aka Midnight Wayne (formerly of The Hot Sprockets) is inviting that comparison on the psych soul pop of ‘Get What You Got’.
The song features on a forthcoming EP Ouroboros, and is about his time with his previous band.
“Lyrically the song was written about the breakup of my old band and how I felt I was becoming someone I wasn’t, not to lose myself and never give up on what I love, it’s a positive affirmation to myself”.
All written, performed and produced at his home studio. With additional production by Alex Borwick. Live drums performed by drum legend Ken Mooney, congas and bongos by Trev Keogh of New Secret Weapon.
7.
Daire Patel, Poser
Aftersun
Daire Patel and producer Poser bring the pensive feels on ‘Aftersun’, a bumping sunkissed track.
“The goal was to make a song you can play outside, whether you’re relaxing at the beach or having a few drinks as the sun sets – moments that always need a soundtrack. I think that’s what Poser and I have achieved with this song….”
Daire Patel
9.
Beck, Phoenix
Odyssey
A 2023 Cut Copy-esque summer jam from Beck and French band Phoenix who are out on tour together this season.
‘Odyssey’ reminds of when tropical pop was a big trend in music about ten years ago.
10.
Autre Monde
Sensitive Assignment, Parts 1-4
As the name suggests, not really one song but a four-part suite from Dublin band Autre Monde’s forthcoming album. This 10-minute track jumps around from a gritty tense creaking opening (“Go to the pub and take your brother home”) to a double-timed instrumental leading to a big band ‘schlager’ crescendo and settling on a sensitive off-centre percussive passage.
Padraig Cooney says parts are “linked by the story of a man’s release from prison and the feelings it stirs up in family members (mother, older son, younger son) who each have their say over the course of the 3 vocal sections”.
Autre Monde play a headline show at Whelan’s in Dublin on Friday July 21st.
Autre Monde are Paddy Hanna (vocals, keyboards), Padraig Cooney (bass, synth, vocals), Mark Chester (guitar) and Eoghan O’Brien (drums, keyboards, backing vocals). They met through their involvement together in a network of Dublin bands that at one stage or another were central to the Popical Island collective (Skelocrats, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Ginnels, No Monster Club, Land Lovers, the Paddy Hanna band).
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.
