A shorter-than-normal playlist this month as I think the pandemic has played havoc with release schedules and has obviously kept many artists out of the studio, but there are still some strong singles in advance of albums already planned for releases this summer and fall. As always, you can access the playlist directly if you can’t see the widget below.
Iceage – Lockdown Blues. Yep, he’s saying “Covid 19 lockdown blues/the only way out is through.” There have been some regrettable songs written and released during the pandemic; this one is actually good.
Space Above, So Below – Golden. Space Above is former The Naked & Famous keyboardist Aaron Short’s new project, with So Below (singer Maddie North) contributing vocals on many of their songs so far, including this darkly ethereal track.
Khruangbin – Time (You and I). This new single from the Texas-based funk/jazz trio features extensive vocals from Laura Lee Ochoa, a departure from their primarily instrumental work to date, and is the lead single from their third album Mordechai, due out next month.
Village of the Sun – TED. VotS is a new collaboration between Binker and Moses – as in Moses Boyd, whose Dark Matter is my favorite album of the year so far – and Simon Ratcliffe of Basement Jaxx. This track takes its name and inspiration from a song called “Dreamship” by the Ted Moses Quintet, which I only know from googling.
Talk Show – Petrolhead. I’ve enjoyed Talk Show’s snarling mix of classic post-punk sounds, more contemporary rock rhythms, and just a hint of the energy of dance music without heavy electronic elements.
The Wants – Clearly a Crisis. The Wants are pure post-punk, influenced by Gang of Four and other icons of the earliest new wave bands, and it comes through most successfully on this track and “Motor” from their debut album Container.
bdrmm – Happy. A five-piece shoegaze band from Hull, bdrmm released their debut EP If Not, When? in October, and have returned now with this subdued, swirling track that has some early Lush to it with a more upbeat tempo.
Everything Everything – In Birdsong (Edit). Lead singer Jonathan Higgs has described this song’s lyrics as an attempt to capture what it might have been like to be the world’s first self-aware human, although I find it more interesting for the highly textured keyboard layers below Higgs’ falsetto, crescendoing into a sort of wall of sound that seems almost tactile by the end of the song.
Jake Bugg – Saviours of the City. Bugg seems to have come back around to the Dylanesque sounds of his Mercury Prize-nominated self-titled debut album, eight years later, with this second single ahead of his fourth album, which is due out later this year.
The Naked and Famous – Blinding Lights. TNAF’s cover of the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” from his new album After Hours, beats the original for me – not least because of Alisa Xayalith’s voice.
Asylums – A Perfect Life in a Perfect World. The Southend rock quartet have produced a song that sounds like it could have been recorded and released in 1994, and I mean that as a high compliment.
Ministry – Alert Level (Quarantine). I’m not as big a Ministry fan as you might guess from my age and musical tastes, as I find a lot of Al Jourgensen’s work with the band after their shift from new wave to industrial designed more to shock than to entertain. “Alert Level (Quarantine)” is still harsh and abrasive, but also has one of the best guitar riffs of any song in Ministry’s catalog.
Pure Reason Revolution – Ghosts & Typhoons. I don’t know how to categorize PRR’s music, with its peculiar mixture of progressive rock, electronic, and extreme metal elements, often in songs that run six to ten minutes in length, but their new album Eupnea, their first LP in a decade, has really grown on me this year thanks to songs like this and “Silent Genesis.”
Katatonia – The Winter of Our Passion. These Swedish prog-metallers started out as a death metal act but have shifted to clean vocals and doom sounds that sometimes incorporate metal aspects, but often don’t – if you heard this without knowing who the artist was, I doubt you’d call it metal. It’s one of the most accessible things they’ve done but retains the sophistication of their most recent albums.