Who? DOOMSQUAD
What? ‘General Hum’
Where? Toronto
What they say? Toronto’s ardent, art-dance sibling trio DOOMSQUAD will release their second album “Let Yourself Be Seen” on 10 May via Bella Union. Today they reveal the album’s first single ‘General Hum’ with a video riffing on the source of much of their creative power: their siblinghood.
The band explain of the single, “We wanted to expand further on the idea of a post-identity oneness which we allude to in the album cover photo. We envisioned a state where we could go beyond the liminalities imposed by our bodies, genders, and senses of self. This state, or future form, (actually it’s quite archaic) is a merging of our beings into an all-powerful super body. It’s bare and vulnerable, with its mechanisms exposed for all to see, yet is perfectly suited for the world today; in its multi-faceted communal nature, it’s strong enough to take on all forces. Let Yourself Be Seen!”
Why we love it?
An undulating bricolage of twitching beats, keyboard stabs that blur the lines between new wave, electro and disco. Three pronged, entwined vocals embody the multifaceted merging of self-identity into one whole. Artful, peerless millennial pop. (BC)
FFO: Boy Harsher, LCD Soundsystem, Talking Heads
Who? Blue House
What? ‘Accelerate’
Where? London
What they say? Blue House have centred around the songs of principal writer James Howard aside Ursula Russell (who penned two tracks), new member Dimitrios Ntontis and a revolving cast of other beautiful characters. Recorded at London’s vital Total Refreshment Studio with producer Capitol K, this is an album crafted for timeless listening pleasure. Rich in its production, every track is exquisitely delivered with layers of harmony and instrumentation. Gobstopper (due out 23/3) represents an expansion of sound and a widening of subject: it is an album sung from inside the gluttonised belly of up-for-grabs capitalist Britain, swallowing up whatever is in its way: a jukebox on the coast, “see-through wheels on a see-through motorway”, Soho square policemen, and silent discos.
Why we love it? Skittery guitars, elastic baselines and breezy vocals that reference Postcard records and c86 sewn with understated French-accented melodies, its the sound of running your hands through cornfields on a sunny spring day. (BC)
FFO: Deerhunter, Ulrika Spacek, Ought, Real Estate
Who? W. H. Lung
What? ‘Simpatico People’
Where? Manchester
What they say? W. H. Lung have allowed this album to naturally gestate over the course of two years . The result is a remarkably considered debut – the production is crisp and pristine but not over-polished, the synths and electronics radiate and hum with a golden aura and the vocals weave between tender delivery and forceful eruptions. There is a palpable energy to the songs, as experienced in 10 glorious minutes of opening statement ‘Simpatico People’. “I think it’s important to erase the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture,” states Joseph E. This colliding of worlds not only exists in the potent mix between whip-smart arrangements, lyrics and seamlessly danceable music but also in the fact that they are named after a cash and carry in Manchester. As Tom P. explains, “I thought it was funny juxtaposing that kind of austere associations with W. H. Auden and other initialled poets, writers, artists, etc. with the fact that it’s really just a Chinese supermarket.”
Why we love it? The motorik krautrock rhythms that define ‘Simpatico People’ are an infectious basis on which W.H. Lung layer twinkling synth arpeggios. It’s a driving track, that careers through the musical ages – part Georgio Moroder, part Simple Minds, part LCD sound system, with hints of DIIV completing its electronically-charged genetic makeup. (NK)
FFO: DIIV, LCD Soundsystem, The Horrors
Who? Chain Wallet
What? ‘World I Used To Call Mine’
Where?
What they say? The track explores the human urge to find order in chaos, with the band telling us “the song is about somebody on a quest for a cosmic plan. It is supposed to portray the final phase of a rite of passage, the incorporation ceremony into the new world, but something goes horribly wrong.”
Why we love it? Soaring melodies, jangling guitars that crystalize the ambition of 80s pop and underscored by a new eave rumble. The chorus is a thing of towering majestic beauty that searches for meaning in a confusing modern world. (BC)
FFO: The Lotus Eaters, Wild Nothing, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Johnny Marr
Who? Double Mixte
What? ‘Romance Noire’
Where? France
What they say? The title track arpeggiates & boils as waves of bass flow beneath. Rhythms are carried to the ceiling by a searing cascade of disintegrating color. A heavy backbeat anchors Thomas Maan and Clara Apolit’s poetry, ready to wear for a night in the face of oblivion. The cinematic ‘Arlette’ is a call for discovery through darkness lit only by the glare of headlights in digital rain. Through all of this, Thomas Maan’s incantations search for the lonely, lost in the void of electronic fog. ‘November’ finds in Clara an Anglophonic chanteuse, meditating on the cycles of time. A blend of suspended sound & an uncertain melody contracts & expands before dissolving. ‘Romance Noire’ is art that both contemplate and transcends time’s firm grip. It’s a filmic journey inducing a vague sense of future nostalgia.
Why we love it? It’s never hard to guess what to expect from an Italians Do It Better release. Double Mixte’s ‘Romance Noire’ contains all the hallmarks of the label’s suave electronic leanings. Pulsating synth lines, CHECK. Cigarette-smoke cool French vocals, CHECK. slick, spacious production, CHECK. This could easily have been alongside the likes of label-mates Chromatics and Desire in Nicholas Winding Refn’s 80s nostalgia-fest Drive, mirroring the movies’ neon-lit streets and cinematic, urban noir. (NK)
FFO: Chromatics, Johnny Jewel, Desire
Who? Sal Dulu
What? ‘Xompulse’
Where? Dublin
What they say? Xompulse follows on from Sal Dulu’s success with earlier tracks Duluoz Dream, Antasma and Tyko. This new song is a unique and beautiful piano piece that he composed and recorded with the classical, jazz and ambient influences punctuating all his work to date. Since releasing his first song in 2017, Sal Dulu has been building a reputation as an artist who is unafraid to push genre boundaries, with no limits to his desire and ambition to create rich new soundscapes.
Why we love it? Sal Dulu takes a new turn with his songwriting. Eschewing his previous electronic textures and samples here he is showing a new colour palette of fractured neoclassical, tender piano motifs and ambient undercurrents. Sublime. (BC)
FFO: James Blake, Nils Frahm
https://soundcloud.com/user-727004974/xompulse-1/s-Bbp1m
Who? Dana Gavanski
What? ‘One by one’
Where? Canada
What they say? Canadian artist Dana Gavanski has announced the release of her Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) produced debut 7” single ‘One By One/Do You?’ on 26th April via Full Time Hobby. ‘One by One’ was written during Dana’s stay in Belgrade last Autumn. A meditation on being alone and the melancholy, vulnerability and rebuilding of self that comes with it – as much melancholic as a joyous affirmation of the act of letting go and experiencing a new sense of self with all its contradictions. “Dana is the real deal,” says Mike Lindsay. “Effortless songwriting with a voice that wraps you up in a vintage blanket that holds stories of the past, present and future!”
Why we love it?
Stately and wistful there’s’ a touch of class to Gavanski’s songwriting, the spindling hooks and her fantastic and dulcet vocal tones are framed with twinkling notes in the mid distance. Elegantly balancing introspective verses, with melodies that dance on the head of a pin. She reels you into her captivating world of isolation and vulnerability. (BC)
FFO: Joan Baez, Laura Marling, Marissa Nadler
Who? Martha
What? ‘Love Keeps Kicking’
Where? County Durham
What they say? Having introduced fans to their new music with the riotous ‘Heart Is Healing’ late last year, today Martha have shared the album’s incredible title track ‘Love Keeps Kicking’, along with a tongue-in-cheek video homage to 50s alien invasion movies.
Of the video, directors Ben Epstein and David Combs said: “We wanted to do an old sci-fi alien invasion pastiche and create a threat that no one can outrun, because as the song implies, at some point or another, we all feel the harsh sting of heartbreak. And what better metaphor is there for the inevitability of a broken heart than the swift kick of a giant disembodied foot? It basically wrote itself.”
Why we love it? ‘Love Keeps Kicking’ is another belting effort from punk-pop heroes Martha. Headed by a killer, Thin Lizzy-like guitar riff that wraps itself around your brain, the four-piece detail their experience of lost love with an ironically optimistic kick of jangly, melodic Power pop. This tune will glue back together the pieces of a broken heart. (NK)
FFO: Los Campensinos, Bad Moves, Diet Cig