Teddy went and got a cold so you’re stuck with me for another week. Sorry.
June marks the start of summer. I know they say it’s not until June 21 or something silly, but next week is the start summer. That makes this the final New Music Friday before summer.
A certain Mr. Liam Gallagher is back and on first listen C’MON YOU KNOW is very good. This is an album made to be five pints deep at Knebworth and there’s nothing wrong with that. Our full review should be arriving early next week, but the immediate stand out for me is the opener ‘More Power’. A most un-Liam of tracks, it opens and closes with a children’s choir, and is a really quite lovely song.
Wilco are back with their new album, Cruel Country, and the third track ‘Hints’ is great. The prolific Chicago outfit’s third album in almost as many years, they just keep churning it out. Irish 5-piece Just Mustard have also returned, with ‘Seed’ the impressive lead single off Heart Under. The album arrives soon after the band’s return from a worldwide tour supporting Fontaines D.C.
Yorkshire-based MC Cheidu Oraka also makes our list this week. His new track ‘Wavey’ is well worth a listen, as Oraka continues to provide a brilliant voice Northern rap and the Northern Black experience in the UK.
Change of pace – Alfie Templeman. We spoke to the (somehow-still-only) 19 year old ahead of his new album, Mellow Moon, and you can find that feature… here! ‘You’re a Liar’ highlights so much of what the singer does well, as the young pop star takes the next step to the worldwide-teen adulation that surely awaits.
Emerging singer MTYBE is back with ‘moody’ – a predictably lo-fi new song chronicling new love. It’s fragile, authentic and a great introduction to a talented young artist. London electronic collective Sound of Fractures have dropped a really exciting new single in ‘Ultraviolet’, as has endearing Canadian artist Rachel Bobbit in ‘Gemini Ties’.
Canadian-Japanese singer-songwriter Saya Gray has released a melancholic new track, ‘EMPATHY 4 BETHANY’, ahead of her forthcoming EP 19 MASTERS, arriving the Friday after next.
Which just leaves two really exciting artists. DoomCannon is a London-based multi-instrumentalist and composer, who’s new track ‘Black Liberation’ is incredibly impressive. And Sad Boys Club – another London based artist, this band’s new track ‘Ignorance and Bliss’ is well worth a listen.
Happy Summer. Goodbye.
