5 songs you should hear this week - w/e 26 January
Every day we play you a track that has just grabbed our attention. As soon as we hear it, we send it into the digital ether for you all to enjoy. Sometimes it's an exclusive, sometimes it's a favourite artist and, at other times, it'll be someone brand new. Here's this week's choice selection. Just click on the links to see the full Just Added playlist:
Whyte Horses – Empty Words
The Mancunian group return with an Ian Parton (The Go! Team) co-write. It’s the first taste and title track from their second album, which follows on the 9th March. Whyte Horses trotted out of the brain of Dom Thomas, who wanted to create a “girl group playing songs in a Mexican church” sound. Having previously founded the re-issue label Finders Keepers, his crate-digging past audibly influenced Whyte Horses’ debut LP, which embraced indie pop, psychedelia, Tropicalia and more. This one continues in a similarly dreamy girl group vein, with definite Go! Team vibes.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – American Guilt
This track was unveiled on Tuesday, alongside a series of live dates across North America and Europe. If you discovered UMO via their last album (which was inspired by the end of a poly-amorous relationship), this might come as something of a surprise. Ruban Neilson has left behind the super-smooth production and soulful sounds of Multi-Love, harking back to earlier work with brilliantly fuzzy guitars and a driving, yet funky, bassline. Out now on Jagjaguwar, we’re looking forward to see if this indicates the sonic direction of the, as yet unknown, new material to come.
Nathan Fake – Cloudswept
The Norfolk-born synth-fan is set to release a brand new 4-track EP, via Ninja Tune, on 23rd February. And it’s called Sunder so we were destined to like it (given Lauren’s Mackem roots). While Nathan’s 2016 album Providence was characterised by widescreen, detailed arrangements, he says that the new EP will be rougher and more beat-oriented: “These four tracks are like snapshots captured in a single moment. They were all recorded on an old Marantz tape deck, Jupiter 6, broken Akai drum machine and a Yamaha Reface DX. Basically just hitting record and seeing what happened, not worrying about making mistakes etc. There are no post-edits - they are left completely as they were recorded - so they're quite messy but I love that energy.”
Nils Frahm - #2
This isn't the second track on Nils Frahm’s brand new album - but the eighth. All Melody is out now on Erased Tapes and it’s the first Frahm’s recorded in his new studio in Berlin’s historic Funkuas, a 1950s Bauhaus structure that used to house the largest broadcasting-site in the world, and which continues to attract creative types like Nils, from around the world (we want to visit...field trip, anyone?) Nils has said that he finds it hard to capture the music inside his head, on recordings, but that doesn't stop him trying and this album “includes what I think sticks out and describes my recent musical discoveries in the best possible way I could imagine.”
Wooden Shjips – Staring At The Sun
We finished the week with close-to-eight minutes of dreamy psychedelic loveliness from West Coast quartet Wooden Shjips (that’s a superfluous “j” - it’s pronounced “ships”). Staring At The Sun is the first taste of their album V (represented on their cover artwork by a hand forming the peace sign) which will be released by Thrill Jockey in May. There's bit of pathetic fallacy at play in the album's creation: the songs were written by singer Ripley Johnson, with wildfires raging close by, and he wants his music be a balm against the noise, negativity and anxiety of the day: “We had huge forest fires just outside of Portland and there was intense haze and layers of ash in the city. I was sitting on my porch every evening, watching ash fall down like snow, the sky looking like it was on fire. It was an apocalyptic feeling. Summer in Portland is usually really chill and beautiful, and we were working on a ‘summer record,’ but the outside world kept intruding on my headspace.” Apply this balm liberally and relax.
You can hear all the tracks via the Just Added Playlist
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