Hello world,
Check out this week’s FP Picks update for a great mix of banging tunes fm Squirrel Flower, Aldous Harding, Bloc Party & 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
Déyyess – She’s The Only One
Déyyess has shared the atmospheric new single She’s The Only One accompanied by a visualiser shot in Los Angeles and she says it’s about “that feeling when you’re so entangled with someone, yearning for them so much that nothing will ever be enough. Holding their hand is never enough, feeling them is never enough – it’s more about wanting to hold the hand inside of them, the Mazzy Star effect”. Shimmering alternative pop collides with fuzzy guitars, dreamlike textures and diaristic queer storytelling, balancing infectious hooks with emotional depth. Déyyess has carved out a sound that sits somewhere between the wistful melancholy of The Cranberries and the fearless pop immediacy of Chappell Roan, pairing heart-on-sleeve lyricism with the hazy romance of ’90s alternative music.
Essence Martins – Red Velvet
London singer-songwriter Essence Martins is able to turn the bad into the beautiful and haunting new single Red Velvet showcases this talent, transforming her “first intense heartbreak” into three minutes of ethereal vocals and folky guitars. The track follows the aftermath of a breakup and how Martins began to steadily feel more disconnected from her lover, commenting that “it’s the classic lovers-to-strangers story, reflecting on a relationship that was good, though not perfect, and the emotions that come with losing that connection, even when it may have been for the best. It’s kind of like a grief that you feel even though they’re physically still here in the flesh.”
Squirrel Flower – Not Me
Squirrel Flower (aka Chicago-based artist Ella Williams) recently shared Not Me and Sick Tooth, the newest singles from her upcoming fourth album Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going. Not Me arrives as a heartland rock song inspired by a dream that Williams had in New Mexico – “I literally rolled out of bed, having had a dream about somebody, grabbed my guitar and pressed record. I’d been reading ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves,’ my grand handbook for life. I was reading a passage about not compromising. Not ‘taking what you can get,’ but taking all that you wish for. Not in a gluttonous way, rather refusing to deprive yourself of desires and the intuitive flow towards those desires. I’d been listening to so much Linda Ronstadt when I wrote it, and I think that really came through. I wanted to let myself really sing, and produce and arrange the song in a way that allowed that.”
Starcleaner Reunion – Never Odd or Even
New York’s Starcleaner Reunion recently shared new single Never Odd or Even, taken from the upcoming debut album Umbrella. The band explain: “Never Odd or Even is about the anticipation of sharing secrets. Some of them can be entertaining while others could reveal dark things. This song explores the experience of a personal secret leaving that protective space in someone’s mind. The push and pull dynamic of the music, bouncing between propulsive motorik rush and 5/4 waltz, mimics that trajectory between that excitement and unimaginable darkness.” Art-pop psychedelia that sweeps you off your feet and straight into a daydream.
Aldous Harding – Coats
In May, New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding released the single Coats, taken from recently released album Train on the Island and it moves from disarming directness to surreal whimsy, held together by the engaging musicality of Aldous Harding as a performer. Harding co-produced Train on the Island with long-time collaborator John Parish (PJ Harvey, Dry Cleaning) and it was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. They were joined by pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte, harpist Mali Llewelyn, synth artist Thomas Poli, drummer Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear), and Huw Evans (H. Hawkline) on bass, vocals, acoustic/electric guitar, and organ.
Bloc Party – Love Bombs
Bloc Party have shared emotive & electrifying new single Love Bombs, taken from their upcoming album Anatomy Of A Brief Romance. Frontman Kele Okereke states: “At the start of a new relationship our feelings of connection can make us do dramatic things. Love Bombs is the sound of a new love flowering, in beautiful romantic gestures. But under the surface is the ever present fear that maybe this new love, although shiny and great, maybe this new love might not last forever.” Okereke says that the album features the most personal songs he has ever written. “Every lyric you’re hearing on this record was something that actually happened to me. I had to tell the story, from start to finish,” he says.
8485 – Buzzbands
8485‘s raucous track Buzzbands is a shouty, punky vocal over a gloriously chaotic electro track recalling both the riotous spirit of Le Tigre and, more recently, the explosive energy of Fcukers. 8485 states: “Buzzbands is a song about the cult of cultural relevance. It’s also my application for an executive position.” A sharp little takedown of the never-ending chase for cultural relevance, Buzzbands feels like a club track having an existential crisis — all jagged synths, sarcastic hooks and a delivery that demands your attention. It’s messy, fun and completely in on the joke.
Los Bitchos – Hang Up (Pt. 2) ft. Adrian Quesada & Sinkane
Los Bitchos have shared Hang Up (Pt 2) and it’s the first tease of an upcoming studio album featuring vocalists and guest performers. Hang Up (Pt 2) features the Grammy-winning psych/soul pioneer Adrian Quesada and Sinkane who perfectly embody Los Bitchos‘s sun-drenched fusion of cultures. The track is undoubtedly a Los Bitchos song: scorching licks playing against funky bass and hip-swaying drums. But this time sprinkled with Quesada‘s cosmic vocals and Sinkane‘s infectious groove-driven rhythms. The upcoming album is described as “a celebration of shared humanity and a testament to the idea that when cultures meet, they don’t clash, they dance .. If we don’t learn from each other, we can’t progress,” Los Bitchos say.
Vehicle – Escalators
Rising rock band Vehicle rewire guitar pop history on their modern eccentric single. Frontman Michael Cable states: “Escalators is a song that exists in its own imaginary musical landscape. Our music rejects most of the dominant British indie music of the past 20 years, and lives in an alternate reality where only our influences exist. I don’t think any good band writes with anybody else in mind.” According to Cable, Vehicle’s influences are scattered throughout time and location. Though in live performance, he hopes, the band sounds like they would “go down well after The Beatles at the Star-Club in 1962 .. It’s our attempt at a classic guitar pop song, but it’s about a very modern sense of chaos.”
Mallory Hawk – Superhighway
Philadelphia-based songwriter Mallory Hawk’s spirited debut album Chinook features surprising left turns such as this nod to Eastern European darkwave. The effortlessly replayable tune came from Hawk’s reinvigorated new wave phase during the pandemic. “My friend Joe Sutkowski from Dirt Buyer sent me a video of the band Alyans performing on Soviet public access television in the ’80s,” she recalls. “I wanted to support musicians the best way I could, so I was ordering a lot of cassettes from Russia and Belarus.” One may expect the song was first written with synthesisers, but that’s not true. “I was using my guitar in a synth style and layering the song until it turned into the dance hit that I wanted it to be,” Hawk explains with a laugh.
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