Ian Sweet – Spit
Ian Sweet is the project of LA’s Jilian Medford, she recently shared the video for ‘Spit’, the latest from her upcoming album Crush Crusher. This unfurling track simmers with an emotional intensity that envelops and winds into a self-empowered statement. “don’t get swallowed by someone else’s spit,” she sings words tumbling out as guitar riffs and percussion wash in and out of subtle sonic textures, with shades of Metric and PJ Harvey it’s effortless yet evocative and powerful all at once. Her new album Crush Crusher will be released via Hardly Art on October 26th.
Last month Ian Sweet shared ‘Hiding,’ the lead single from Crush Crusher, she embarks on a US tour this October, with UK and EU dates soon to be announced.
(BC)
Phosphorescent – C’est La Vie No. 2
To coincide with the release of the new Phosphorescent album C’est La Vie this Friday, 5th October 2018 – their first album in five years – Matthew Houck (the man who is to all intents and purposes Phosphorescent) has unveiled what is the record’s nominal title track.
Carried along on a delightfully simple synthesiser melody, the familiarity of Houck’s torn and frayed voice inflects the song’s words with even greater resonance as he seems to teeter emotionally on a precipice that lies somewhere between him searching for greater meaning and reaching a resigned acceptance of what life and love are all about. (SG)
2018 UK Tour dates:
26th Oct – Liverpool @ Grand Central Hall – TICKETS
28th Oct – Leeds @ Brudenell Social Club – TICKETS
30th Oct – London @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire – TICKETS
Kero Kero Bonito – Make Believe
Kero Kero Bonito recently announced that they’ve signed to Polyvinyl, their colourful new single ‘Make Believe’ is typically imaginative and playful, laced with a Wurlitzer of bubbling synths and Sarah Bonito’s bouncy vocals that shift from wistful to buoyant in the blink of an eye ‘Make Believe’ is both infectious and transformative. They released their second full-length, Time n Place this week: ‘an album ineffably shaped by the subconscious. Lead singer and chief lyricist Sarah Bonito (who was raised in the suburbs on the Japanese island Hokkaido) found herself rattled in recent years by recurring images in her dreams: a water park from when she was little, a hallway in her primary school.’ (BC)
Go Dark – Violetest Red
Sante Fe-via-Oakland duo Go Dark shared details of their debut album, Neon Young, which is due for release on 18 January 2018 via Bella Union this week.
‘Violetest Red’ the first single to be taken from Go Dark’s Neon Young LP, is a rolling potpourri of sounds from crunchy industrial electro-pop to simmering industrial hip-hop cut-ups, imagine a future where The Go Team are jamming with Peaches and you might get somewhere to envisaging their vibrant, exciting genre-blurring sound. Discussing the track in their typically fantastical fashion, Go Dark say: “‘Violetest Red’ is about villain saturation in our lives and singing while you slay your demons. If you are forced to have villains in your life, at least you can love to hate them.”
“Go Dark is music for women of my kind, the striving maniac animal,” says Crash, “bitches that wear skirts and knives who can go into the woods and track things.” Dose adds: “A lot of music is meant to take you to a place you’d rather be, but this is meant to be a score for the way it is.”
Jessie Ware – Overtime
Jessie Ware unveiled her excellent new song ‘Overtime’ this week. Produced by Andy Ferguson & Matt Mcbriar of Bicep & James Ford, the track is her debut release via a new partnership with PMR/Virgin EMI Record
‘Overtime’ is Jessie’s first release in a year and the follow up to her third album, Glasshouse in 2017. With its slinky sound and pulsing rhythms ‘Overtime’ channels the sound of classic UK house and dance music and provides a platform for Ware’s exquisite soulful vocals that pop with a fantastic melody that speaks of late night parties and rhythm of the dancefloor.
Speaking of the track, Jessie said, “Overtime is a taste of what’s to come. It’s been really fun being back in the studio and I’m so excited to share this track. I worked on it with some of my favourite producers; James Ford & the guys of Bicep. It feels like I’m going back to my early days; it’s a late night song to flirt too. Whilst I carry on working on new music, I hope you really enjoy this one.”
Adwaith – Y Diweddaraf
Adwaith release their debut album, Melyn, which translates as “Yellow” in Welsh, later this month. An outstanding document of a swiftly evolving band, that are redefining Welsh music. Ripe with themes of uncertainty, heartbreak, and the pains of growing up, leaving the certainties of childhood and stepping into the unknown adult world.
Their ace new track from the album, ‘Y Diweddaraf’, is a post-punk rippled exocet laced with chunky baelines, eneveloping melodies and a defiant message about rejecting those who say you can’t achieve your goals, as the band explain…
“We wrote the music and lyrics together as a band in our rehearsal space, jamming the opening hypnotic riff over and over. The song is a reaction to everyone saying leaving uni to do music was stupid! It’s about feeling empowered to do whatever you want regardless”. (BC)
Live dates:
12th October – Thekla, Bristol*
13th October – Now Wave, Manchester*
17th October – Tramshed, SWN, Cardiff*
18th October – Islington Assembly Hall, London*
19th October – The Loft, Southampton*
20th October – Falmouth University*
21st October – Exeter University*
November 17th – Aberystwyth, Students Union
* Supporting Gwenno
Laura Gibson – Domestication
‘Domestication’ is the second single to be taken from Laura Gibson’s forthcoming album, Goners, which will be released on the 26th of October 2018 via City Slang.
Speaking about the song, the American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist explains that “‘Domestication’ took form as a fable, the story of a wolf trying and failing to live as a woman.” By the time that the song was accompanied by it’s impressive, though equally unsettling cinematic video – directed by Gibson and Alicia Rose – Gibson’s interpretation of the term ‘domestication’ had shifted from that of the animalistic to one of homemaking.
Ahead of her one scheduled UK live date on the 13th of November at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, where she will co-headline a show with her City Slang labelmate the Canadian Juno Award-winning singer, songwriter and experimental musician, Dan Mangan, you can see and hear exactly what Laura Gibson means by ‘Domestication’ right here: (SG)
