Featuring PJ Harvey, Jessie Ware, Confidence Man, Daniel Avery, Julie Byrne, Jayda G, Bobbi Arlo, Nabihah Iqbal, Clark, Four Tet, Water From Your Eyes.
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.
Jessie Ware
Freak Me Now
French Touch and Jessie Ware’s disco vibe sniffed some poppers and are going off in the club. From the discotastic fifth studio album from Ware – That! Feels Good!
2.
Confidence Man, Daniel Avery
On & On (Again)
Confidence Man’s first new song since last year’s excellent Tilt album is this wavy electro banger courtesy of producer Daniel Avery. I wouldn’t have put these artists together naturally, so it’s nice to hear where they find common ground – in some nineties rave euphoria.
The band have signed to Polydor, and the track ushers what is apparently “the beginnings of a new club-focused chapter.”
3.
Julie Byrne
Summer Glass
The American songwriter Julie Byrne has announced Irish gigs and an album called The Greater Wings, out on July 7th via Ghostly International.
Summer Glass’ is the first single from the record, a lush light-filled ballad built on an arpeggio, harp, strings and specific memories flooding back.
4.
Four Tet
Three Drums
‘Three Drums’ is a return to the cerebral Four Tet sound of old, the softer non-dancefloor side.
It comes just as his old band Fridge are getting a spotlight with a 20th anniversary reissue of debut album Happiness. That band’s experimental electronics and live acoustics with hip-hop beats feels like a neat throughline to a lot of Hebden’s headphone listening music.
‘Three Drums’ is majestic in tone, the kind of song that would have bookended a Back To Mine / compilation, strings and synth rushes over the course of 8 lush minutes.
5.
Clark
Dolgoch Tape
Clark’s tenth studio Sus Dog was produced by Thom Yorke who encouraged the producer himself to strip things back a bit on ‘Dolgoch Tape’.
“Those synths wanna be like sunshine. Mr. Thom Yorke was v helpful on this one, saying it’s fine to take a few layers off your voice, you sound fine solo’d. Who would have thought, eh.”
Clark
6.
Nabihah Iqbal
Gentle Heart
Iqbal’s new album Dreamer came out today on Ninja Tune, and ‘this is another fine track ‘Gentle Heart’ like ‘Sunflower’ and ‘This World Couldn’t See Us’ .
Loving the synths that come in after two minutes here…
A genuinely interesting story behind the album: Iqbal’s studio was burgled in early 2020 and she lost all her work. Already with burnout and a broken hand, and with police looking for fingerprints in the studio, she got a call – her grandfather in Pakistan had suffered a brain haemorrhage.
The next day she went to Karachi, and the distance from the burglary, gave her a new perspective on music, which lead to a back to basics approach of returning to an acoustic guitar and a harmonium.
7.
PJ Harvey
A Child’s Question, August
PJ Harvey has announced a new album this week, Inside the Old Year Dying, the English artist’s first album since 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project.
‘A Child’s Question, August’ is the lead single, and the album Harvey says, offer “a resting space, a solace, a comfort, a balm – which feels timely for the times we’re in.”
8.
Water From Your Eyes
True Life
The Brooklyn duo of Rachel Brown and Nate Amos have an album out on Matador with their project Water From Your Eyes on MAy 26th called Everyone’s Crushed.
From it, angular guitar rock fizz of ‘True Life’ caught my ears this week.
“‘True life’ is our Neil Young-inspired quasi-nu metal stomp. It is also intended to be our ‘Short Skirt / Long Jacket.’ The bridge was initially meant to contain lyrics from ‘Cinnamon Girl,’ but Neil Young’s lawyers wouldn’t let us use them. Now they are about how Neil Young wouldn’t let us use his words. The rest of the song deals with life and assorted complications of the material world.”
9.
Jayda G
Blue Lights
Jayda G’s latest from forthcoming album Guy, out on June 9th on Ninja Tune – a soft day electronic banger.
Scar was inspired from when her dad was dealing with bullies in school.
“These guys would wait outside of his school, to just beat him up for no reason whatsoever, other than that they could. So my dad would try to avoid them, or would wait hours after school ended or leave through different entrances so that it was safe for him to walk home. But these people were just not letting up. Eventually, he realised he had to face them in order to move forward… and he got the shit kicked out of him! But then they left him alone.”
“I think of how terrified my dad must have been to stand up to these guys, and by putting myself in his shoes it makes me think about what we all carry with us, as we go through life. What do these kinds of situations mean in terms of how you see yourself, and how you interact with people, how you deal with conflict, how that informs you as you move through life. How if you don’t know your worth and you don’t have self love, this world can really beat you down, especially if you’re a person of color or you look different or sound different, you have to be really strong and have conviction of yourself to move through this world”
Guy was co-produced with Jack Peñate, who popped up on Django Django’s new album last week.
10.
Bobbi Arlo
JUNI
Bobbi Arlo’s first song since ‘Parasite’ last year, shifts the artist’s sound as alterego Juni, meaning body-crushing booming electronic pop with big rock stabs and skittering percussion. It features production from producers Alex O’Keeffe and Adam Shanahan.
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.
