It’s a bit cooler here than Morocco, but then they think it’s cold there at 23C. It’s not, I burnt my bonce. Anyway, you didn’t need to know that, here’s more Tracks of the Week because it’s Monday again and that’s what we do. On a Monday, we give you at least seven brilliant new tracks, and we’ve done it again. Give us an award. Enjoy!!
Library Card – For The World Is Hollow
Why we love it: because we’re very excited about the debut Library Card EP, Nothing, Interesting out this week on Friday. This is the third single to be taken from it after ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ and ‘Well, Actually’ which were both Tracks of the Week in October and January respectively.
This one feels like its a bit of swipe at the empty platitudes when there has been a death that social media is swarmed with, but is described by singer and lyracist Lot Van Teylingen as “Grief takes on multiple forms of existence. It lives in the creases of your pillowcase, in the shadows in the hallway, in the corners of your eye. It’s not scary, nasty, or undesirable, but it requires space and attention, just like us when we need to process loss or change. Embrace it. Our melancholy is not linear. It is fluid and universal.”
Starting with jazz inflected drum rolls, cyclical guitar hooks, very much a trademark for the band, Lot repeats “my deepest condolences/to everyone involved/and to everyone involved/my deepest condolences”. It moves into almost a different song at the end, a quieter affair after the intensity and volume that had built. All three suggest the EP is going to be something special. (Jim Auton)
Good Looks – If It’s Gone
Why we love it: because this will perk you up no end on this cold March morning. Bringing us the positive vibes all the way from their home in Austin, Texas with the lead single from their upcoming album Lived Here For A While – out June 7th on Keeled Scales – are Good Looks. And the prospects for the new record are certainly looking good ‘If It’s Gone’ is to be our barometer.
Speaking about the song the band’s frontman Tyler Jordan says “I went through a breakup on day one of the pandemic. ‘If It’s Gone’ kind of opened up the floodgates, and a lot of the other songs on this record were written afterward, so it feels really fitting that this is the first song on the record. I’m kinda hoping I don’t have to write any more break up songs, and if this is the last one I ever write, I’d be ok with it. I feel really proud of this one.”
And so he should be. Despite the sadness that lies at the heart of the song, ‘If It’s Gone’ is elevated beyond melancholy by the effortless groove that just moves the song on a delightfully straight line towards a far more positive future. (Simon Godley)
Bad Bad Hats – TPA
Why we love it: because those Minneapolis gems Bad Bad Hats have once more stepped onto the boilerplate of quirky invention courtesy of their new track ‘TPA.’ The song comes to us as the lead single from their fourth album, the self-titled Bad Bad Hats which is due out 12th Aprll via Don Giovanni Records.
The duo of songwriter Kerry Alexander (guitar/vocals) and Chris Hoge (guitar/bass) have long since developed a reputation for pursuing unusual paths towards artistic creativity and the route they took towards recording the upcoming album was absolutely no exception in this regard. They collected prompts from their active Patreon fanbase, writing one-off songs based on the requests. This process then challenged the band to write songs of country, pop punk, surf rock, disco, and countless other genres. From this template, Bad Bad Hats the album was developed.
Speaking specifically about ‘TPA’, Kerry Alexander says: “This song began with a guitar line I wrote, which I referred to as “the sauce”. “The sauce” sat languishing in my voice memos until we heard “Wake Up” by XTC and knew my guitar line could fit perfectly in an intertwining guitar part. From there, we ran to buy bongos from the Music Go Round down the street and, before long, we had our sideways, dance-y track, “TPA”. Lyrically, I was inspired by the summer my family moved to Tampa, FL. I was in between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, very surly, very sweaty, and very self-conscious amidst the tan, glamorous, and bikini-clad locals.” (Simon Godley)
I Jordan – Close to you
Why we love it: London based DJ and producer I. JORDAN (full name Jordan Tek) recently shared the brilliant ‘Close To You’ .This super charged floor filler rises to a crescendo of euphoria on the back of fantastic synths that bounce off the walls, lucid samples and an instable beat, skirting the lines of techno, house, rave and electronica it’s an addictive and hi-octane first offering from the forthcoming album I AM JORDAN.. . “Close To You” quickly follows the record’s lead single “Real Hot n Naughty”, a queer dance anthem featuring vocal contributions from Sex Education actor and performer Felix Mufti. “‘Close To You’ is an emotional, hands in the air and hug your mate club moment,” Jordan says of the new single. “I played this as the sun was setting at Draaimolen and it felt like the perfect time for it.” (Bill Cummings)
Y Dail – Silly Boy
Why we love it: ‘Silly Boy’ is another tightly packed melodic gem from Y Dail, replete with a carousel of hooky 60-style riffs and lilting slightly wry melodies that sketch out a slightly tragic character, it’s redolent of The Kinks, early Gorkys Zygotic Mynci or Fuzzy Logic era Super Furry Animals, yet is spinning in its own orbit. It’s lifted from Y DAIL (aka Huw Griffiths) ‘s debut album Teigr released on 5th April 2024, he describes the record as “a collection of songs written in my bedroom between the ages of 16 and 19, high on lapsang souchong tea and jaffa cakes.”
Y Dail (‘The Leaves’) is the musical project of 20-year-old Huw Griffiths from Pontypridd, South Wales. Forthcoming debut album Teigr has been several years in the making, and is partly inspired by Griffiths’s love of 70s Welsh-language pop he remembers from school discos and his parents’ record collection. With the album’s completion and release delayed by the inevitable pandemic story, 2021 saw the deceptively young Griffiths juggling finalising the record with studying for his A Levels, eventually putting the finishing touches to the record with producer Kris Jenkins (ex Super Furry Animals) at Grangetown Studios, Cardiff in the lull following. (Bill Cummings)
Babehoven – Birdseye
Why we love it: Babehoven are New York-based duo of Maya Bon and Ryan Albert their forthcoming album Water’s Here In You, is out April 26 via Double Double Whammy. Beguiling and gorgeous, new track Birdseye is built in the arms of golden widescreen strums and big drums, and Bon’s lucid and fantastic vocals. “I forgive you” she sings in a swoop of melody, invested with bristling empathy, its utterly heart warming.
‘Birdseye’ is about the fragility and mystery of life, forgiveness, and reconnection,” Bon says in a press statement. “The bird’s eye view with “one long arrow pointed at you” represents love from afar, a cardinal direction. It is a song about warmth, represented by the aromatic spices ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon in the heat of a stew. Steeped in a perfumed simmer of care, we move through the pain and find a way to forgive.” (Bill Cummings)
Rona Mac – Links like Fists
Why we love it: Taking inspiration from Ben Howard‘s use of reverb echoing guitar techniques, Rona Mac’s beguiling new single ‘Links Like Fists’ is haunting, wistful and ripe with vivid imagery. Loss, contemplation and melancholia, are riven through each bar as this wonderful track offers a beat that allows Mac to unfurl another wonderful song that builds from intimate to cathartic. With an incredibly evocative and character laden vocals, Rona Mac has this unique quality to create music that sums up how she feels and puts you in her minds eye, feeling like you are in a dead end with no where to turn, but finding the tiny glimmers of light and hope at the edges of the horizon.
She says “I write atmospheric Indie-pop songs about things that feel real to me, in hope that they might feel real to other people. I’m from West Wales, I’m 28, I’m gay, and I live in a caravan where I write, record + mix music. If I can talk about things we’ve been told we shouldn’t, and help people connect to feelings they tucked away in their teens, then I’ll be happy when I’m old.” (Bill Cummings)
