Another week, another few hundred (maybe even thousand) new singles to get into your earholes. We know it’s hard work, so we’ve done it for you! Check out a list of the best new songs from this week below:
PLGRMS, Fools And Their Gold
What do you get when you combine an exceptional singer-songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist/songwriter? Something like Sydney based duo PLGRMS, and their stellar new single, Fools And Their Gold. Indie pop at it’s darkest and most brooding, with a hint of mystery and intrigue, PLGRMS have really stepped up to the plate with this latest song. Following on from their previous single, Pieces, PLGRMS are just so damn impressive here. With so much going on, it’s a dynamic exercise that pairs flutters of percussion with heavy drums and staggered synths, all swirling together in harmony whilst vocalist Jacob Pearson’s stunning voice soars over the top. It’s a dream.
ABBE MAY, Are We Flirting?
Abbe May returns! And she’s got even more sass than ever before. Releasing Are We Flirting? to herald her arrival back on the scene and in our ears, this features a swaggering bassline, erratic percussion and intermittent electronic noises firing off whilst her voice shows off an impressive range effortlessly conveying her lyrics with just enough seduction to keep you hooked, but a certain nonchalance like the sonic embodiment of the “swerve” emoji (you know the one, with her hand at her shoulder smiling with her dead, not-caring eyes). Coming back after a triumphant battle with serious health issues that saw an untimely departure from the scene when it looked all but hers back in 2013, Abbe May is hungry to pick up where she left off, and Are We Flirting? (and by extension, her forthcoming record, Bithcraft) are definitely going to see her get there.
SAATSUMA, Floating
Saatsuma is a collaboration between Melbournites Memphis Kelly, Cesar Rodrigues and Joel Ma, and their latest single, Floating, is a beautiful take on solitude and the feelings that come with insomnia. Themes that are normally dark and alienating are given new life by Saatsuma, thanks to hypnotic electronica and soulful, enchanting vocals in this song, and proves the group aren’t afraid of tackling big issues – or their realities. As someone who struggles with these issues a lot, it hit particularly close to home, but it was more like a hug than a hit, and that’s exactly what you need sometimes. The trio are an exciting addition to Melbourne’s sonic landscape, and it will be really great to see where they go.
High Water, Changed The Locks
Released via Nicolas Jaar’s OTHER PEOPLE label, this bad boy is about the strangest song you would have heard this week. Described as “a mongrel, electro-acoustic jazz” in its press release, it’s the twisted brain child of one Will Epstein and is an experimental aural journey from start to finish. With pained, impassioned vocals over guitar loops and tinkering drums, Epstein sounds like a more electronic Nick Allbrook. Not down to compromise himself or his sound one bit, it’s one month until the release of his forthcoming debut album, Crush, and it’s shaping up to be a remarkable release indeed. Taking inspiration from his labelhead, Jaar, Epstein plays and experiments with sounds in a way that surprisingly works, combining a kind of controlled chaos that isn’t pulled off by just anyone. No, Epstein is onto something really good here, and Changed The Locks is a shining example of whatever it is he is trying to do.
Soto Voce, Better
Better is Soto Voce’s first single EVER, and it’s so impressive you’d think they’d have been in the game for much, much longer. It’s a slow burner, erring more on the pop side of the R&B spectrum, but captures a certain emotional element that is often missing from this kind of style. As it goes along, it continues to unravel itself revealing from brooding R&B to a soulful build before unleashing into a buzzsaw synth breakdown. It’s expansive, immersive and irresistible. It’s also incredibly ambitious and will serve them very well for future releases. I have very high expectations for this Oakland duo!
Arthur Wimble, It Breaks
Just one week out from the release of his debut, Hearts, the elusive Arthur Wimble has shared one more cut in the form of It Breaks. Pairing glitchy, upbeat, computerised beats with modulated vocals that almost moan the hook, Wimble plays with so many different sounds and styles, whilst keeping it tight and refreshing – always keeping an arm’s length from the fray on standard producers that make this kind of pixelated dance music. Out via tastemaker label TEEF Records next week, Hearts is looking set to see Wimble start to get some widespread acclaim, so I’m not sure how much longer he can try to remain elusive for. Enjoy it while you can Arthur!
Young Greatness, Moolah Remix Ft. Yo Gotti & Lil Wayne
Mhm, this is a banger. Chasing those dollar bills comes naturally to these three, and together they hustle hard. The song is a bright, sunny banger; all three of them rapping about their love of all things $$$ with huge smiles on their faces. Recognising their struggle in the come up, Yo Gotti and Lil Wayne inject fresh life into the original, with their verses about getting “back in the kitchen for that moolah,” and being a “chef and a jeweller.” It was initially suspected Young Thug was going to share his own remix after teasing it online, and whilst that would be pretty great as well, Yo Gotti and Lil Wayne will do us just fine!
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, First World Problem
Unknown Mortal Orchestra share their first single since their 2015 widely acclaimed album, Multi-Love, and whether it was what fans were hoping for or not, their slightly more dance-y direction has been amped up in this new single. Titled First World Problem, it is definitely one of their most fun singles, all upbeat and groovy. It’s in the same vein as Can’t Keep Checking My Phone where it’s a total earworm that has an irresistible hook, and is exciting if it is signifying a slight deviation from their usual psych sounds. Although I never really pictured UMO being a must-have in a party playlist until last year, they’re doing a great job at making sure they stay there!
Bugs, Pretty
Brisbane band Bugs shared their latest album this week, and it’s yet another example of how strong the scene is in Brisvegas. Fronted by the prolific Connor White, who is involved in more bands/projects than I’ve had hot dinners, pop punk has never sounded so good. His deft lyricism is paired with in your face guitars and explosive choruses, and some lovely thrashy drums. With an impeccable knack for making really great songs, Bugs and by extension White lay down another impressive tune here in an album absolutely brimming with them. With a consistent output of quality music, Bugs are gathering a loyal following around their hometown, but it’s only a matter of time before that extends beyond and out into the rest of the world.
Cleopold, Not Coming Down
Cleopold burst onto the scene last year thanks to some fantastic singles and a few guest features (one particular one on a Miami Horror single), but he seemed to have disappeared towards the end of the year. Now it’s been revealed he was busy working on his soon to be released debut EP, Altitude & Oxygen – the first taste of which we have heard this week! Titled Not Coming Down, Cleopold’s new single is a reminder of everything he is about and everything he can do: exciting, upbeat electro beats, a stunning voice and deft lyricism that still fit in the pop world. Out June 10 via Chet Faker’s Detail Records, this could be the year of Cleopold, and I’m already loving the sound of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65zXUif2QvQ
Alex Cameron
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Can’t Keep Checking My Phone
Unknown Mortal Orchestra have released a beautiful, if not slightly bizarre new music video for their latest single Can’t Keep Checking My Phone. The video details different syndromes, emotions and phenomena, rendering it much more interesting and informative than the average music video. Some of the more notable phenomena include Stendhal Syndrome (a psychological disorder that includes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and fainting, Restless Leg Syndrome and Hybristophilia (in which sexual arousal and capacity to organism are reliant on the partner having committed an outrageous act of cheating, crime or violence). *Sidenote if you tend to be a hypochondriac watch this with caution… you may get ideas.
Le1f: Koi
Le1f has created an incredible music video centred around the idea of feeling a little cool towards someone who is hitting on you, that is, playing coy. Le1f performs in a whimsical beachside paradise, complete with swaying spouts of seaweed and large animated koi swimming around his head. Le1f’s joyful, cheeky lyrics are emphasised in his playful aesthetic, which incorporates colour, dance and animation in a way that is awesome to watch. Lyrics such as,
“I kiss boys but it’s just for stunts. I’m not giving them what they want.” and “You ain’t catching nothing but you keep throwing these lines out. I think you need some practice shutting your mouth,” cement his title as one of the best, and sassiest rappers around right now. He’s just so fab.
Crepes: Size of Your Town
Crepes’ video for their latest track Size of Your Town is a gorgeous blend of nostalgia and melancholy. Featuring rare footage of the forgotten Ballarat 80s music icons The Teddyboys, the film cuts shots of the long lost band with images of Crepes during and after a live performance in Melbourne. The new footage is filmed on an old VHS camcorder, creating a hazy lo-fi effect that blends remarkably well with the Teddyboys clips. The films’ slow, fuzzy quality gives a dreamlike sense of calmness, which perfectly matches the tone of the song.
Jonny Telafone: Waking Up Crying
Jonny Telafone has made an awesome new music video to go with his new track, featuring a verse from LA rapper and A$AP Rocky collaborator Bones. The track itself is intense and brooding, with a strong beat throughout. Shot and directed by close friends Jonnine Standish and Frank Valo, the film plays with water to focus on the way that it moves in different circumstances. In the film Jonny is haunted by the psychic energy of a girlfriend from his past life, and therefore seeks relief under various sources of water. The film is beautiful, muddying the line between film for entertaining and art.
Chiefs: Demon ft. Beayz
Melbourne-based producer Sione Sisifa has added lyrical songwriting to his signature sound in his latest track Demon, which includes haunting lyrics from singer Beayz. Chiefs talked about how he chose an artist to turn the single into a dark animated video.
“I found (animation artist) JiJi Sama digging on Youtube and immediately hit him up to turn me into the sword wielding badass anime of my dreams. He saw exactly how the ‘Demon’ story should be played out and made it work really well.”
Undisputed kings of sometimes-sentimental, always-kooky electronica Unknown Mortal Orchestra have just announced an Australian tour, with dates in December. They’re hot off the heels of 2013’s II which brought us the nostalgic and very chill So Good at Being in Trouble, as well as this year’s stunning Multi-Love. We can look forward to hearing their billowing new work live, including the recognisable piano-based title track, as well as Ur Life One Night – the latter complete with a disturbingly kaleidoscopic video.
The Kiwi band will perform headlining shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, with the tour being rounded off by appearances at Meredith and the new Fairgrounds Festival in NSW. Not bad for a band that was literally conceived in a bedroom.
In this agonising four-month wait for their gigs, have a listen to their recent live performance on KEXP, featuring a very dreamy rendition of So Good at Being in Trouble.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the veritable gods of funk-infused synths and emotional, yet obscure lyrics, have released a video for the track, Ur Life One Night, off their stellar third album, Multi-Love. The video is a kaleidoscopic circus of Asian art forms and colours.
Director Manoj Leonel Jahson sought out inspiration in Traditional Asian Art through the incorporation of Mughal-era miniature paintings and more. Here is what he had to say about the film:
“When we first spoke with Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the idea of creating something abstract yet fun, for their single Ur Life One Night sounded very exciting. I am deeply inspired by the quirky Indian magical-realism from our mythology and wanted to create something rooted but still visually appealing. The music lent a dream-like quality and the lyric pushed us to the motif of the Goddess being pursued, yet always being out of reach.”
The video begins with the following quotation:
“Maya’s palace has a staircase where you can sleep and doodle your dreams. One night, Draupadi too fell asleep, down Maya’s stairs.”
It follows a Goddess who is pursued by two suitors (they all fail to obtain her of course). Most importantly though, it is an art-piece with figures and motifs that criss-cross and intersect in this beautiful imagistic dance. So step out of reality and enter this multilayered dream-scape rich with sex and humour.
Ruban Nielson, the band leader of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, spent most of last year in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and an 18-year-old woman. Multi-Love, the band’s third LP, is billed as a concept album about that.
“It’s not that this song’s about her/ All songs are about her…”
And with that throwaway on the title track, Nielson is pretty much done with the ‘concept’. It’s as expository as the album gets. Multi-Love is no Carrie and Lowell-esque meditation about one family, or even a To Pimp a Butterfly examination of an overarching issue. Nielson’s professions come shrouded and camouflaged in broader themes and innuendos, just as voice and melody here is camouflaged by UMO’s jungle of sound.
Listening to this band has always been a hazy, psychedelic affair. Its output has been full of hazy elongations and compressions of strange pop, purpose-built for your weed-smoking afternoon sessions. Multi- Love sees a shift to being more accessible without sacrificing the quirks and essence of what made UMO good in the first place. Strip away all that haze and I’d back Nielson to stack up with most pop songwriters. And this isn’t a new thing; take Ffunny Ffrends, the gargantuan romp of catchiness that put UMO in the spotlight, or So Good at Being in Trouble; nothing but an absolute jam off 2013’s II.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/189137400″]
Now, have a look at this acoustic version of Stage or Screen, done for The Line of Best Fit, in the back of a London cab. The song is barely more than a snippet; an idea. But that hook – “act up, but never for stage or screen!” – is just irresistibly pure, and the ease of delivery in the cab ride shows how well Nielson’s ideas hold up without the myriad effects and wobbles the studio version gives it. The same could be said of his voice; listen to any of Nielson’s live performances, and you’ll find his high register is smooth and easy-listening, not a million miles from any decent soul act of yesteryear. On record, though, he delights in mangling and hiding that voice with all manner of distortion, effects, or simply just relegating it down somewhere lower in the mix.
As you or I can imagine, being in love with two people and having a happy relationship with them, which is then ripped apart by circumstances beyond your control, would be a harrowing experience. Nielson’s voice oozes through some kind of warped stereo, lamenting, “Multi-love checked in to my heart and trashed it like a hotel room…” It’s the first line on the album, and for another band, would set the tone for a downbeat, sombre trudge through Nielson’s deepest hopes and fears.
It’s never that simple for UMO, though. Rather, Multi-Love represents something more akin to a gleeful dig through a dusty old crate of your old records. On each track, scattergun emotions and fragments of memories whizz in and out of focus. Necessary Evil certainly sounds like something from an old crate of records. It shuffles along a retro-tinged groove. The hook, which consists of the two-word title and a woozy horn riff played by Nielson’s father, is one of the most infuriatingly catchy things you are likely to hear this year or any other.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/196826455″]
Can’t Keep Checking My Phone finds Nielson crooning over an irrepressibly funky disco beat, but still finds him torn between pining for his absent loved one, while also wanting to spend time with the one he has close to him. On this track, like many others on Multi-Love, Nielson is a man in limbo; reflected in the kaleidoscopic effect you get as the track list progresses. The biggest curveball of the lot is actually the most subdued track here: Extreme Wealth and Casual Cruelty. Every other song has one big, noticeable hook at the forefront, but Extreme Wealth ambles along at an almost melancholic pace. Nielson mumbles (again, deliberately) but gives one of the more explicit allusions to his remarkable private life. “If we were just strangers/ then we’d fall in love again…”
It’s a comforting, and strikingly idealist, perspective of an artist playing out his innermost confusion. We all have the confusion in some form. But Nielson’s insight into his third dimension of love is something to admire; a thing of beauty that never gets too caught up in a moment to enjoy itself.
Multi-Love is out now on Jagjaguwar.
Another new single has been released from Unknown Mortal Orchestra‘s forthcoming album Multi-Love. The album is the follow up to their fantastic 2013 release II, and is said to be delving further into the roots of psych rock, but also encompassing some sentimentality from the bonds of the band.
These news songs are said to “channel the spirit of psych innovators without ignoring the last 40 years of music, forming a flowing, cohesive whole that reflects restless creativity.” The new material is said to be from frontman Ruban Nielson reflecting “on relationships: airy, humid longing, loss, the geometry of desire that occurs when three people align. Where he addressed the pain of being alone on II, Multi-Love takes on the complications of being together.”
The latest release is titled Can’t Keep Checking My Phone is a funky, psych dream about the absolute need for people to remain connected via technology. You can stream the track below, and join us waiting very impatiently for May 20 when Multi-Love is to be released, via Jagjaguwar.
Is it just me or has this week been one hell of a week for new music?! With artists releasing more and more music, tracks can get lost in the masses, thus making the concept of the video clip all the more important in making a track stand out. We’ve narrowed it down to just six new clips we think you’ll enjoy, varying from the tripped out dream of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the AraabMuzik collab with Azealia Banks, powerful clips from JOY. and Nocturnal Sunshine, as well as a Drake cover by EMRSN and the newest single from Hot Chip‘s forthcoming LP. Yahoo!
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love
The title track from Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s forthcoming LP has been given the accompanying visuals that dreams are made of. Literally. The surreal, tripped out clip is a kaleidoscope of visuals surging and pulsing as it goes along. Apparently based on the idea that each sound should be unique, director Lionel Williams said of the clip, “It is meant to represent the vacuum of space by impressing upon inter-dimensional unfolding, immaterial objects, and time-driven reverberation of events. The virtual space allows for most 3D objects to trail in time – based on the directions one moves. You can construct & paint the objects in space to stretch them in any direction, to create infinitely vast compositional spaces.” Sums it up quite nicely.
Azealia Banks – Ice Princess
Fuck the haters, I love Azealia Banks and this is an awesome clip. Depicting Banks as a frozen medusa, she wages war with her army of what looks to be robotic ninjas. It was directed by We Were Monkeys and features scenes of her flying through the sky on a basilisk, blowing up airborn glaciers with her eyes. SLAY!
EMRSN – Hold On, We’re Going Home (Drake cover)
Melbourne future soul artist EMRSN was the sole support act for D’Angelo last year at his Soulfest sideshow. That alone should make you sit up and listen, but when you actually do you won’t look back. His voice is incredibly captivating, and his 2014 release About Love that saw him sing his way into our hearts. Now he’s back covering one of Drizzy’s biggest tunes, taking it from the club to the couch in it’s acoustic and intimate way.
Martin Gore – Europa Hymn
In conjunction with the announcement that Depeche Mode co-founder Martin Gore is to release a new self-titled solo album –MG by MG – Gore has also released the film clip for the album’s first single. Titled Europa Hymn, the clip is equally as peculiar but strangely captivating as the song it’s paired with. All 16 tracks on MG by MG will be instrumental numbers, with Gore saying, “I wanted to keep the music very electronic, very filmic and give it an almost sci-fi like quality.” Sci-fi indeed, this could easily be the soundtrack for a journey through space.
Nocturnal Sunshine – Take Me There
Maya Jane Cole‘s alter ego takes a turn for the strange with Nocturnal Sunshine. This bass driven track has been teamed up with equally strange and eerie visuals, to make one dark and hypnotic package. Directed by The Fashtons, this is the first taste off Nocturnal Sunshine’s forthcoming debut album and has us all kinds of excited for what is still to come!
JOY. – Weather
Brisbane’s JOY. is quickly becoming one of my favourite artists in the local scene, and her latest track Weather only reiterates that. This gloomy, intense track has been paired with a stunning and highly emotive clip. The slow motion clip sees JOY. frantically trying to protect her family from authorities. Scenes of her struggling with a police officer, ripping bags out of removalists’ hands and the family yard littered with belongings, the clip is gut-wrenching and totally enthralling.
Hot Chip – Need You Now
One of the most exciting albums set to drop this year comes from Hot Chip (read our recent interview with them here). Titled Why Make Sense?, the album is scheduled for release on May 18 via Domino Records, and is already looking like one of their best yet. First single Huarache Lights only sated our thirst for more for a limited time, so thankfully they’ve dropped another single to keep us happy for a little while long. Need You Now is a darker, deeper number that features the meticulous percussion the band is known for. The clip is equally deep and dark, and features front man Alexis Taylor chasing himself through time, running behind the actions he had just done moments before. It’s a strange but seriously cool clip, as is to now be expected from the band. I’m placing a lot of hope in these cats returning to Aus for Splendour.