Hello world,
Check out this week’s FP Picks update with another great selection of banging tunes fm Lime Garden, Shelf Lives, Dutch Interior & many more. If you like what you hear please follow and share this playlist, it helps us keep doing our thing by getting the algorithms on our side. Also please support the artists featured in any way you can!
Until next week
Helen (Futureproof) x
Dutch Interior – Ground Scores
Californian outfit Dutch Interior recently shared the captivating track Ground Scores, taken from their upcoming EP It’s Glass and they say it’s about “how silly it is to be in love like this when the world is falling apart” – a great example of the kind of dusty, twangy, lightly psychedelic music they do so well. “Ground Scores is a love song, but it’s also a song about stumbling through the end times into something good,” the band comments. “It was inspired by finding something valuable and unexpected on the ground one night. I realized that this chance occurrence represented how life felt when things were going well: finite happiness left behind by someone else, only to be inevitably depleted.”
Lime Garden – 23
Lime Garden recently dropped their highly infectious new single 23, taken from the upcoming album Maybe Not Tonight. Vocalist and guitarist Chloe Howard says the song was ‘born from a dream I had where I was talking to my younger self. In the dream I was essentially ripping into my own personality and lack of success’. According to the band, the song is aimed to capture the feeling of “fizzing with the anticipation of stepping into a club at the very start of a night out”, and this exciting toe-tapper has certainly achieved that. The album, vocalist and guitarist Chloe explained, is about “a night out, from start to finish.” If the rest of the album is like this track, we can’t wait – what a banger!
ugly ozo – hi, how are you?
ugly ozo (aka Jessica Baker) has shared the track hi, how are you? and states: “I wrote hi, how are you? at a time when everything felt pretty hollow and grey. I felt like I really was running on empty, just plodding through the motions of every day without really feeling any fulfilment or satisfaction. This track is kind of like a conversation between myself and my inner rival, like I’m playing tug of war between self-doubt and determination.” It begins with entrancing vocals, echoed by a strange looping sound behind Jessica’s voice. She begins to sing over atmospheric guitars before the song launches into a powerful vocal-led chorus filled with layers of rock guitar. Joined by her sister Boo Baker on bass and Tristan Northard on drums, the trio continue to break boundaries with their raw, innovative sound.
corook – Scooby
Pop singer-songwriter corook – who first broke through with the viral self-acceptance anthem if i were a fish – is sparking another major viral moment with their new single Scooby. A darkly satirical, self-reckoning track about modern complicity, critiquing consumerism, performative politics, algorithmic rage, and class division, where the narrator realizes they’re not outside the system they’re judging, but actively funding and feeding it, Scooby has immediately proven an online phenomenon, with its TikTok teaser video earning 1.7M views in less than 24 hours after posting. Great songwriting on this catchy slice of pop.
Dead In Blue, Chiedu Oraka – Bite The Hand That Bleeds
Taken from the Warren Records album collaboration, which brings together a diverse range of artists from Hull & the surrounding area to collaborate on tracks which are written & recorded in two days, this hip-hop & rock mash-up sees ‘The Black Yorkshireman’ Chiedu Oraka come together with local heavy rockers Dead In Blue. Chiedu’s socially aware verses are juxtaposed with Dead In Blues’s declaration of inner scars in the chorus, all underpinned by a guitar-led groove interspersed with blistering blues solos. Chiedu states: “Absolutely loved working with Dead In Blue .. They took me out of my comfort zone & brought out a different side to me & I can’t wait for you all to hear it”. Dead In Blue say: “To work with Chiedu was a game changer – one of Hull’s biggest & the best! The writing process flowed naturally & we riffed off each smoothly, even though musically we were both out of our comfort zones.”
Shelf Lives – tone deF
New single tone deF is taken from London-based electro-bass punk duo Shelf Lives’ upcoming album HypernormaL. Described by the band as “unfiltered, confrontational, and impossible to ignore”, they state: “tone deF is kind of the sum of it all. We start with a bit of an ‘everything sucks, and I’m angry yet indifferent’ rant and end with an existential-esque ‘this has really fucked me up, but I won’t talk about it and be the downer’ rant, cos ultimately, nothing’s real and nothing matters. Nobody wants to poop at the party.” Of the album, they say: “Beneath all the noise, HypernormaL is our attempt at trying to feel real again. It’s our way of asking, ‘what does it mean to be human when everything around you is pretending to be?’. We’re trying to stay sane in a culture that is overexposed, exploitative, and performative.”
Lala Lala – Arrow
Lala Lala (aka Lillie West) has shared Arrow, the fourth single/video from her new album and Sub Pop debut, Heaven 2, out February 27th. Arrow marks a moment of bold joy, capturing the escape that happens when one is freed from pain. The song samples French electro-pop band La Femme and moves fast – its swiftness and pleasure feel like running towards something, not away. For many years, West lived in Chicago, where she established Lala Lala as an integral part of the city’s indie scene, releasing two albums. They were powerful statements from a curious artist: catchy guitar-pop songs about being stuck in the ups and downs of life, the struggle to stay sober, to leave town, to blow up your life. West left Chicago to search for more, and in the process, wrote Heaven 2.
Blossom Caldarone – Wreck
Wreck is the captivating new single from Blossom Caldarone and the second track to be revealed from her forthcoming EP Might Smash A Window. During the writing process, Blossom began to notice a shift from protagonist to narrator, stepping back from situations she might once have written about as deeply personal, and instead observing and documenting them with a perspective that can only come through self-reflection. Of the single, Blossom says: “Wreck is a tantrum song; it’s the end result of months of turmoil.. Its meaning has changed for me since writing it. Upon reflection, what once felt accusatory now feels like a play-by-play of my own downfalls. It’s the epitome of projection. I’m singing ‘you don’t care’, but the truth is, I don’t think I cared.”
Pem – (easily) moved
The track (easily) moved is taken from Pem‘s recently released EP other ways of landing and the high, quivering vocals feel confessional as she admits how sensitive she is to what’s around her, both in body and mind. She reflects on how easily emotion can pass through her, an ability that she feels in tune with now more than ever. The EP continues to nurture her relationship with the natural world while deepening her exploration of grief, love and separation. Grief can linger, but it does not always have to weigh things down. Instead, Pem considers what it means to fall back to earth after loss, and whether landing is ever quite the same twice. other ways of landing does not offer neat conclusions. It coaxes us into sitting with uncertainty and learning how to deal with it.
Damon Albarn, Grian Chatten, Kae Tempest – Flags
War Child Records have released collaborative single Flags by Damon Albarn, Grian Chatten and Kae Tempest, taken from the upcoming HELP (2) album. Flags is a collaborative effort that features notable musicians including Johnny Marr, Dave Okumu and Adrian Utley, alongside Gorillaz bassist Seye Adelekan and Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso. The track also incorporates a 43-piece children’s choir and an additional ensemble featuring artists like Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barat (The Libertines), Declan McKenna, Marika Hackman, Rosa Walton (Let’s Eat Grandma), English Teacher, Black Country, New Road and Nadia Kadek. This single teases listeners into what they can expect from this new album of hope – an album which is much needed, in a time of so much turmoil and collective despondency.
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