Hello world,
Sorry for the silence last week but Futureproof were running around at The Great Escape! This week, we’ve got a host of bangers fm Beck, Gurriers, Alfreda and lots 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
Pamela. – Better Than Before
Sydney-based indie-pop duo Pamela. share their uplifting new single Better Than Before, taken from the upcoming EP debut It’s Nice To See You Here. “It’s a heartbreak song,” they explain “but not the collapse – the exhale after, when it all starts to feel lighter.” Better Than Before is made for green fields and open skies, evoking the best of The Strokes, Dope lemon, and Primal Scream. Staples of a summer playlist now have a new mate, and Pamela.’s latest will sit comfortably with the classics.
Bleech 9:3 – Underrated
Dublin’s grunge-rock outfit Bleech 9:3 recently shared the single Underrated, taken from their self-titled debut EP. Vocalist Baz Quinlan states: “I wrote it at the end of 2024, it was one of the first Bleech songs that we jammed back then. Bad worship is a theme that runs through the EP. I felt driven to write about how it twists love into something else. How the twisting becomes the thing that you end up wanting.” The band are touring until September including support appearances with Keo, Wunderhorse and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and you can catch them at Reading & Leeds on August 28-29.
Beck – Ride Lonesome
Beck recently shared the captivating new single Ride Lonesome and it’s as moving and beautifully produced as any of his most beloved work. It’s gauzy and reflective, anchored by an acoustic guitar and full of deeply considered soul-searching. He told NPR how he came to write the track: “It was a bit of a lonely time. It was one of those times in your life when you’re taking things in, where you’ve been and where you’re going. You know, when you’re going through difficult things, often you have to get through it yourself. You just have to move forward through whatever landscape of your life and circumstances you find yourself in. And I think it’s sort of that dark comfort of pushing through the parts of life that are maybe not as comfortable or easy, and having some distant faith that it will pull you through to the other side.”
Band Of Revelations – All the way home
Tribes frontman Johnny Lloyd has returned with Band Of Revelations, a new project which sees the singer lean into a love of folk and classic songwriting and the first single is the warm and emotive All the Way Home which leans into woozy guitars and Motown-flecked piano as he dissects the end of his long-term relationship, which took place last year. He states: “The lyrics are pulling at my own pain, but I felt that grief is the thing that binds everybody together. Everybody loses the people they love. Everybody loses versions of themselves or whatever and it’s just a constant. That’s the idea of the record. Everybody experiences loss, but it binds us together.”
BODEGA – Pick up the Check
Brooklyn’s BODEGA have dropped their powerful new single Pick up the Check, a sharp-tongued anthem for leaving bad relationships behind. Vocalist Ben Hozie states: “This song is set at an imagined date at a faux fancy restaurant w/ art deco wallpaper and fish-tank ambience. I know too many friends who tolerate unfulfilling relationships (either romantic, platonic, artistic, or business) out of politeness or fear of letting others down. You don’t have to. The real danger of spending time with people who don’t inspire is how their way of being rubs off on your mind and persona. Strike the set, rewrite the draft, and pick up the (metaphorical) check.”
Gurriers – Nobody’s Coming To Save You
Irish alternative band Gurriers announce new album Nobody’s Coming To Save You with the intense title track. It opens with a melancholic, sinister riff that fades in and out throughout, and is taken to new heights with frontman Dan Hoff’s intense vocal melody that tiptoes towards the explosive, dynamic chorus. The band state: “It’s a song that feels hopeless on its first listen, but if you look at it more deeply it’s a call to action, no one is going to rise up if everyone expects someone else to do it. We all have to do our part in creating the change.” The album is described as channelling Gurrier‘s spirit of protest and resistance into some of their most ambitious work yet and they’ve confirmed a UK and European headline tour this autumn, which includes shows at London’s Electric Brixton on October 24 and two major Dublin shows at Vicar Street and 3Olympia Theatre.
Father John Misty – The Payoff
Singer-songwriter Father John Misty (aka Joshua Tillman) has shared baroque new single The Payoff, a bold, vintage-rock offering that touches on psych rock and late-period John Lennon. Tillman has also announced a huge ‘Evening With Father John Misty’ show at London’s O2 Shepherds Bush Empire for Friday, June 12, to make up for his cancelled appearance at LIDO Festival in the capital. Drew Erickson and Tillman produced the track, which was written and composed by Tillman and arranged by Erickson. Michael Harris and Jonathan Wilson mixed the song at Fivestar Studios in Los Angeles, and it was mastered by Adam Amyan at Ayan Mastering.
Kevin Morby – Javelin
Kevin Morby has just released the new album Little Wide Open and the heartfelt single Javelin was released from it at the beginning of the year. He states: “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone you keep circling around the globe, relentlessly traveling through the air and down highways, and then returning home alone to middle America. Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath shines here, with her incredible vocals. I had invited her into the studio and asked that she create a backing choir out of just her voice—but her presence is so special that her ‘backing vocals’ can’t help but take the lead.” The music video for the track stars Morby and comedian Caleb Hearon. Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield also makes a cameo.
Alfreda – Patsy
London’s retro chic pop artist Alfreda sat down with BEST FIT at The Great Escape to chat about the single Patsy and stated: “Most of my songs have a people pleaser aspect to them. I’ve been in so many relationships where I’ve been with kind of abusive people in the past, and I’m always the messy one, and I take the blame because it sometimes can make the conflict go away .. The content is very vulnerable. I’m very much giving everything on a plate. I’m telling you exactly who I am, but I’m just doing it through humour and bright colours.” “It’s a lot more poppy than the other stuff I’ve done,” she explains. On working with co-writer and close friend Oliver Sim, “We just met out and about, got on and talked about music. Oh, he’s so sweet. He knows me so well. We wrote a couple of great songs together.”
Sofia Cordoba – Symptom of Love
Colombian singer-songwriter Sofia Cordoba has shared the captivating acoustic ballad Symptom of Love, written after years spent away from home while studying in America and missing loved ones. She states: “I learned that you could turn the negative feeling into a positive one, by realising it’s love you feel towards people that you don’t know where to put, so it lives inside you. It’s a fortunate feeling to love and miss someone .. I love Shakira’s early music, it was my favourite growing up. It’s energetic and happy, but still has a certain complexity to the lyrics, a sadness and deepness. I find it hard to write these more upbeat, energetic, happy-feeling songs, I lean towards the slower, melancholic ones. I like it when a happy song is not necessarily always about a happy thing.”
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