As Nolan’s mentioned, we’ve had some new Bicep in our lives for a while and that’s a prelude to a new album in January. Three tracks – Apricot, Saku and Atlas – this is the latter and (just) my favourite of the three, but really they’re all superb cuts that gets me excited about the new album. Of course, they just make me want to get onto a dark dancefloor, so it’s tinged with sadness too, but I think that’s just life right now. Those first few parties are going to be incredible, so that’s the light at the end of my tunnel.
Category: Music chat
2021 should be a good year for music
With all 2020 gave us, music was one of the positives. From artists we have always loved such as Caribou and Run the Jewels, to artists such as Sault and Phoebe Bridgers planting their flag for a constant spot at the table to fresh new sounds like Troy Kingy, Khruanbin and Arlo Parks.
As we wrap up 2020 there have also been some unexpected surprises; Paul McCartney, Black Thought and most recently Parallel by Four Tet.
With a positive bounce in everyones step looking ahead to 2021 there is not only optimism in the air for things finding some normality around the world but also for new music. The hope being that many of our favourite artist have spent the last 12 months creating new material for us.
So far we know the following artists are ready to roll: Arlo Parks, Bicep, Darkside, Foo Fighters plus a Madlib & FourTet collaboration which all should be solid.
Plus unconfirmed but expect there will be new albums from Kanye West, Adele, Julia Stone, The Staves, Travis Scott and A$AP Rocky to name a few.
Will 2021 meet our expectations?
What are you looking forward to?
‘Santa Stay Home’
US Girls take on the big Xmas track. After featuring so highly in my 2020 top albums, I couldn’t resist sharing this one with the blog. This is the explicit version so maybe keep it off the turkey dinner playlist?
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Dear Prudence
Well, we’ve been talking about covers for a while on and off – perhaps coming to a future podcast episode near you – and I was staggered to come across this incredible version of a favourite Beatles track by a band I never would’ve expected to see do it.
Needless to say, it’s not nearly as raucous and rough as you’d expect it to be, but perhaps that’s what a great cover is: one that confounds your expectations. Which could lead down a rabbit hole all of its own. What else stands up to this? A few come to mind:
Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’?
Nirvana’s Bowie Cover ‘The Man Who Sold The World’?
(shameless love of mine) Hot Chip’s brilliant version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’?
Sinead O’Connor’s cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’?
or perhaps Hendrix’s seminal Dylan cover ‘All Along The Watchtower’?
What would you pick?
7’11 by Reyna
A lovely, pretty little thing from Reyna (and a timely reminder to re-watch ‘A Ghost Story’) hope you enjoy.
(re) Introducing Nilufer Yanya
I first banged on about Nilufer Yanya back in 2017 when she released her 2nd EP Plant Feed. Last year she released her debut album ‘Miss Universe’ which I completely failed to pick for AOTM … and I am not sure why. In the past few weeks she’s release ‘Crash’ a massive new single and it’s prompted me to reintroduce her to you all.
She’s effortlessly cool. Ballsy. Writes a great tune and obviously surrounds herself with some talented friends.
What do you think?
This is the lead track from Miss Universe …
And here is Miss Universe, enjoy.
Old pop, new pop.
I’ve been diving into old hard drives and boxes of CDs and been rediscovering some really great music and none so than Susanne Sundfør (David, I KNOW you’ll already be into this). Her Ten Love Songs album is pretty faultless – lots of Robyn energy with a smattering of ABBA – and this is a cracker, but I could’ve picked any of them.
Katy J Pearson – Take Back The Radio
We all like pop music? We like Stevie Nicks? We like this then. It’s pretty joyous stuff, straight from 1976 to 2020. (from the West Country, rather than California).
Introducing … Coco
How beautiful is this? I’ve been looking for some guitar driven music to love and coming up short. This is right up my street and I love it. Coco are … well, nobody know’s too much really. Their ‘about’ section on Spotify doesn’t give much away either. Have a spin through the 3 tracks and let us know what you think.
Sufjan Stevens – Video Game
It’s difficult to know what I really expected the next Sufjan Stevens song to sound like following the epic 12 minute+ ‘America’. The track list for the new album dropping at the end of Sept. was shared recently showing that ‘America’ will close the 15 track album out.
This track ‘Video Game’ will feature as third track on the album. And it couldn’t much further from America. The video features Tik Tok sensation Jalaiah Harmon performing her viral ‘renegade’ dance … which doesn’t really fit but of course in context does. How did that conversation go ‘Hey Jalaiah, do you want to star in a music video for a song about not wanting to star in music videos?’
For the avoidance of doubt … I love this.
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