See the New Music section for full selection of tracks and albums featured this week.
1.
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Denise Chaila, Songs For Ma Dukes Orchestra, Deekapz
Untitled/Fantastic – Foynes To Feakle remix
J Dilla and county Clare.
There is now a link between the Irish county and one of the greatest hip-hop producers to ever do it, and it comes via a Limerick connection.
Brian Cross aka photographer and music savant B+ is a Limerick man who has a record label called Mochilla who are digitally releasing the 2010 album Timeless: Suite For Ma Dukes, with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and a 60-piece orchestra playing the music of Dilla, for the first time.
To mark the release, Brazilian producer Deekapz was connected with Denise Chaila and the Narolane crew for a remix of a Slum Village song, with a title that links Foynes in Limerick to Feakle in Clare.
Great to see and hear. Listen to Denise on a jazzy singing/rap orchestral tip.
Denise is playing the Olympia on Friday.
They can take me off of DSPs
Lyrics
I’ll train carrier pigeons to carry the vision
This here is UFC
No games but I could Switch and go PSP
Keep it real in front of Billboards, TLC
2
Yenkee
It’s A Video
Yen is the seven-track long player from Graham Cooney aka Yenkee which was released on Friday and I’m really enjoying this track with the killer chorus and the surprising reggae vibes.
The EP also features previously-released songs ‘Dolly’, ‘Soft Satellite’ and ‘Drive’.
3.
Fontaines D.C.
I Love You
Before Fontaines D.C. release their third album Skinty Fia on April 22nd, we’re getting a second preview to what’s to come after ‘Jackie Down The Line’.
‘I Love You’ finds Grian Chatten in a duality expressing his love for Ireland, while wrestling with the disappointment of what has happened in the country, all reflected in the guilt of having moved to England recently. And it’s all set to a rather mopey instrumental until the final minute that ably reflects that push and pull quagmire, while also positively recalling Irish rock music of the late 80s and early 90s.
[It’s] the first overtly political song we’ve written,” says Chatten. “It’s standing in the centre of our beloved home country as a multitude of things are brought to tragic ends in an apocalyptic state of affairs. That’s how it feels to me, and what I felt when I wrote it.”But this island’s run by sharks with children’s bones stuck in their jaws
Lyrics
Now the morning’s filled with cokeys tryna talk you through it all
Is their mammy Fine Gael and is their daddy Fianna Fáil?
And they say they love the land, but they don’t feel it go to waste
Hold a mirror to the youth and they will only see their face
4.
Vince Staples, DJ Mustard
Magic
DJ Mustard produces the first single from Vince Staples’ forthcoming album Ramona Park Broke My Heart, with the Long Beach rapper in a celebratory mood but always looking over his shoulder while doing so.
There’s a direct correlation,” says Staples of 2021’s Vince Staples, and 2022’s Ramona Park Broke My Heart. “They were kind of created at the same time. I was in a similar state of mind. I’m still working through things and the questions that life poses. This album will make even more sense if you heard the previous one.” There is a key change, though. “This one has more answers.”
5.
Guerilla Toss
Famously Alive
New York band Guerilla Toss featured here with their last single of kraut-influenced art-rock ‘Cannibal Capital’ and the follow up song ‘Famously Alive’ sounds like a band doing a live version of early Dan Deacon electro in their own image.
It’s the title track from the band’s fifth album Famously Alive out on March 25th on Sub Pop.
6.
Aby Coulibaly
On My Ones
Rising 22-year-old R&B Dubliner Aby Coulibaly and her label Chamomile has hooked up with English-based label AMF Records (now rekindled, previously involved with the likes of Loyle Carner and Greentea Peng) for the release of new single ‘On My Ones’,
“’On My Ones’ is about enjoying my own company and being by myself. I’ve always been that person to leave functions/parties early because I’m tryna go home to my bed. It’s also about disconnecting myself from everything like social media, even friends sometimes, because I just need to sit with my own thoughts and emotions and be in my own company for a while”
Aby Coulibaly on quitting her day job & building a rep during the pandemic
7.
Junk Drawer
Railroad King
I loved ‘Tears In Costa’, the first single from Belfast band Junk Drawer’s forthcoming EP, and ‘Railroad King’ makes it two-for-two with a gleaming art-rock song with bright guitars spiking off the grid of the song.
“I’d written the lyrics to this song before I’d realised I was on the autistic spectrum, but the lyrics made total sense once the realisation hit. It’s about not wanting to be away from the public world, adventuring happily with my imagination; walking by myself and making up songs etc. It also references the autistic feeling of feeling like my body is just a vessel that I want to ‘zip off’ to be my true self.
Jake Lennox, singer and songwriter, Junk Drawer.
The Dust Has Come To Stay EP is out on March 11th on Art for Blind.
8.
Nilüfer Yanya
AnotherLife
Nilüfer Yanya’s second record Painless arrives on March 4th and ‘AnotherLife’ is the most palatable and mainstream-friendly track of the three we’ve heard so far including ‘Stabilise’ and ‘Midnight Sun’.
“At the core of the song it’s just about being OK with things and accepting that this is where you are at. However, the ‘I’ll do anything’ line hints at a desperation of wanting to let that be known.
9.
Cable Boy
Useful Gift
Cable Boy are a band from Lucan who have apparently only played six gigs so far but a pandemic between the present and their debut 2019 EP Whole probably didn’t help that number.
On ‘Useful Gift’, you can hear the band soft-focus indie rock on full display. Singer Semi says it’s about “being torn between two worlds, and not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. The narrator wants to fully commit to creating music, however cannot due to external powers.”
Cable Boy played a headline show at The Grand Social, which I totally missed.
10.
Hubbabubbaklubb
Flyvende Flyndre (Domenique Dumont remix)
As discussed previously, a relative-obscure album from a great 2018 Norwegian act is getting a 2022 remix album and this Domenique Dumont remix reminds me of the hallucinogenic version of Ain’t Nobody by Chaka Khan.
The album is out tomorrow on Bandcamp.
Nialler9 New Music Playlist
