See the New Music section for all the of tracks and albums featured this week.
1.
Hot Chip
Down
Hot Chip are back with a teaser from forthcoming album Freakout/Release on August 19th. ‘Down’ is having fun playing with samples and looser than a lot of Hit Chip material past, particularly Universal Togetherness Band’s ‘More Than Enough’.
The band have been playing a fine cover of Beastie Boys’ Sabotage live in recent years and their version has inspired the album, they say.
“The idea of being out of control is always there in dance music, in a positive sense,” said Al Doyle
Cadence Weapon, Soulwax and Lou Hayter will feature on the record, which was largely recorded in Al Doyle’s newly put-together Relax & Enjoy studio in East London.
2
YAWA
Show Me Cool
I love this new track from Dublin duo YAWA. Highly reminiscent of German producer Roosevelt with some shimmering electronic pop sounds and hooks to boot. YAWA are 20-year-old Dubliners Tim and Harry.
3.
TSVI, Loraine James
Trust
The closing track from a joint EP on AD93 from TSVI and Loraine James really grabbed me this morning. Full release is May 13th.
4.
New Jackson, Mr Silla
Reach For Me
Kittser is back on the New Jackson buzz with a collaboration with Icelandic artist Mr Silla, who likely met at Drop Everything on the Aran Islands a few years ago. The EP is released on Permanent Vacation.
5.
Sally C
Downtown
“Do you wanna dance?” Asks the middle of three tracks from Berlin-based Belfast producer Sally C’s (pictured) new release Big Saldo’s Chunker 002. The answer, is a chunky YES.
6.
J Smith, KEZ
Into the Blue
From Dublin singer-songwriter J Smith’s new Three Dots EP, out today, which marks some loose songs that didn’t fit on last year’s debut album, comes this gorgeous piano-lead ballad with backing vocals from Kez.
7.
Warpaint
Hips
Warpaint are gearing up to release their first album, Radiate Like This, in six years on May 6th and we’ve heard ‘Champion’ and ‘Stevie’ to date.
‘Hips’ is Warpaint’s vibe, a guitar line folding over a shuffling beat and hypnotising melodies.
Warpaint play the National Stadium on May 14th.
8.
Fontaines D.C.
The Couple Across The Way
An immediate magnet from Fontaines D.C.’s third album Skinty Fia which dropped today. This song is almost all Grian Chatten, playing the accordion and all, which sonically is a new route for the band.
Of the song, Chatten told Rolling Stone:
I was living in a flat with my girlfriend [and] there was a couple across the way. It was like a Rear Window kind of setup at the back. There was a little courtyard and across from the courtyard, there was a really old couple. They used to have really turbulent and loud arguments. You’d hear them really screaming at each other. They’d be roaring their heads off. During the argument, the man would just come out onto the balcony and he would look left and right, and just take a deep gulp of air. Kind of hang his head and collect himself and then turn around and go back in.
How could I resist, as a songwriter, the physical metaphor of looking across at a potential reflection of myself and my girlfriend in a few years to come and also vice versa, to see us as a reflection of them? It’s like a physical manifestation or physical metaphor for empathy.
9.
Bolis Popul
Neon Buddha
§Deewee are back on their schedule of 12″ releases, this time with a track from Charlotte Adigéry collaborator, the Belgian-Chinese producer Bolis Popul. The release is out on May 6th. Thanks Soulwax.
The title track is inspired by a dream Bolis had of a pagoda in Hong Kong featuring a contemplative Buddha made of neon lights. The music is similarly bright and exciting – an insistent acid squiggle giving the track the requisite Weatherall-friendly A Love from Outer Space chug.
10.
The Smile
Free In The Knowledge
There’s often a magical alchemy at play when Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are making music. With their new album A Light For Attracting Attention as The Smile with Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner due May 13th on XL Recordings, ‘Free In The Knowledge’ recalls some of the most beautiful Radiohead moments of the past, with Yorke’s vocals anchored by strings by the London Contemporary Orchestra, and a brass section consisting of noted UK jazzers Byron Wallen, Theon and Nathaniel Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Robert Stillman and Jason Yarde.
Nialler9 Weekly Playlist
Nialler9 New Music Playlist
