See the New Music section for full selection of tracks and albums featured this week.
Nialler9 Weekly Playlist:
1.
Foals
Wake Me Up
Foals are following up their two-part 2019 album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost with a new album next year, and ‘Wake Me Up’ is all Talking Heads guitar funk, Gibson Brothers drum fills and production that AK Paul is also involved in alongside John Hill and Miles James (Dan Carey was also involved in the album).
“There’s a journey that the band has gone on experimenting with different palettes of sound. This time there was a desire to take it back to more of the initial idea of the band where the rhythm, the grooves and the guitars are interlocking architecturally. We wanted to tap into the physicality of music. And we wanted it to feel good.”
“With ‘Wake Me Up’, I just wanted to write a song about transporting yourself to a better, idyllic situation. I think we all had that feeling of the last eighteen months being like a weird fever dream that felt surreal but very affecting. I think we all wished we could have woken up somewhere else at various points.”
Yannis Philippakis
2
Charlotte Adigéry, Bolis Pupul
Blenda
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul will release their debut album Topical Dancer on March 4th 2022 on Soulwax’s DEEWEE label.
‘Blenda’ addresses racism head on, wrapped up in an electro-poppy bop.
“Go back to the country where you belong. Siri can you tell me where I belong?” Racism has always been a part of our lives and the irony is that we wouldn’t know where we truly belong. We are foreigners wherever we go. What this painful and very common comment also exposes is the ignorance it carries. Because “we are here, because you were there” god damn it! But we converted this pain into a strength. A kind of hybrid Toyota Prius generation, but sexy!
Charlotte Adigéry
3.
Rejjie Snow
Arigato
Apropos of nothing in particular, Rejjie Snow leaves us ‘Arigato’, a multi-beat-assisted new single.
4.
TNGHT
Tums
Lunice and Hud Mo are revisiting the 2014 beat zeitgeist with the return to their TNGHT project. Luckily, ‘Tums’ is still lots of fun and the video turns stock video into pure nightmare fuel.
5.
ABBA
Keep An Eye On Dan
No-one needed the first ABBA album in 40 years really, and Voyage is a mixed bag of hermetically sealed old-fashioned cheesy ABBA tunes.
A Christmas song is the third song! A synth that sounds like a bagpipe! Flutes! OTT production and melancholy! A woman dragged by her partner, who prefers the dog! A Kilkenny reference. It’s ridiculous.
But it also has a track like ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ on it.
‘Keep An Eye On Dan’ isn’t going to get near the ABBA Gold collection any time soon but in its production and verve it is a tune that reminds me of an ’80s space-disco song that people would pay hundreds for on Discogs. The lyrics are about co-parenting after a split. It also has a call back to ‘S.O.S.’ at the end.
6.
Fynch, Elkin, Chxmist
Pavement
Fynch, the world champion from Drimnagh is at it again, dropping great rhymes on a Chxmist-produced (TOYGIRL) beat with vocal sprinkling hooks from the Elkin duo.
We’ve got references to Pavement, Des Kelly, Sengalese footballer El Hadji Diouf, FAI, House of Pain singer Everlast and the marriage of Gerard Pique and Shakira.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had a bit of craic when writing my own songs. When someone wants me to feature on a track, I’ll always want to write the most eclectic and out there bars, but I always end up self-reflecting on my stuff and eventually, it becomes a bit dour.”
“On ‘Pavement’, there’s a bit of self-reflection, but it’s about me being a bit more assured, a bit more willing to showcase a confidence that I have in the deeper recesses of myself.”
“Nothing like a bit of a change of pace, even if I did manage to get a few football references in there. They’re my USP at this stage!”
7.
Mr Twin Sister
Beezle
Long Island’s Mr Twin Sister continue their run of bright danceable weird tunes on ‘Beezle’. New album Al Mundo Azul is out on November 19th.
8.
Rebel Phoenix, Adam Garrett
Herstory
Dublin rapper Rebel Phoenix pays tribute to the women in his life, with Adam Garrett on the hook.
“It was written from a place of awe and gratitude for the women in my life, celebrating
their successes and strength as well as showing solidarity for their struggles.”
9.
Chósta
Late Night Jazz Radio
Dublin producer Chósta’s latest track ‘Late Night Jazz Radio’ sounds like Leon Vynehall with a Killing Me Softly interpolation and conjures up the vibe of twilight hour radio with Donal Dineen’s old Today FM show referenced by the artist.
The video, directed by Jack Martin was shot during lockdown and underscores the venues we’ve lost in recent years in Dublin like Hangar, Tivoli along with those which were shut for 19 months.
10.
GRWL
Facetime
‘Facetime’ is the super new single from Dublin R&B bedroom pop artist GRWL, inspired by SZA, Clairo, and H.E.R., and is about “online relationships, missing someone, and only having your phone as the communication piece.”
Nialler9 Weekly Playlist:
