Hello world,
It’s that time again and here’s this week’s Futureproof Picks w/ fabulous new trx fm Sleeper, Willie J Healey, SOAK & 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
YAANG – Leech
Manchester’s YAANG have dropped their new single Leech which blurs the lines between brutal techno and shuddering post-punk, resulting in something piercingly effective. Produced by Al Groves (Bring Me The Horizon, Cast) and mastered by DFA 1979’s Jesse F. Keeler, it’s a full throttle release, one honed during their feral live sets. YAANG state: “Leech has been a live staple since it was written, we’re happy to have a definitive version that hits as hard as we’d hoped. This is our dancefloor call – you should make the most of it because we won’t ask twice…” It tackles the push and pull between sober thoughts and drunken ego, according to its announcement.
GANS – MY GOD IS A STRANGER
West Midlands duo GANS have shared their new single MY GOD IS A STRANGER. Produced by YOUTH, the band’s second LP sees Thomas Rhodes and Euan Woodman push further into electronic music, exploring a broader dancier sound while retaining the raw energy of their earlier work. The band state: “During the writing of the album, we broke up with our partners, so that played a part on the narrative of what it’s about. MY GOD IS A STRANGER is an embodiment of pursuit of an individual trying to find belonging within casual relationships and flings .. A cauldron of casual sex and witchcraft – with us chopping our way through that all trying to figure out meanings in it all as we grow further into our lives.”
Sleeper – End Of The World
Sleeper neither ignore their history nor dwell on it here. Their upcoming album’s title track End Of The World is the sound of a band acknowledging that they had changed, life has too, and that we need to look to now and the future, not the past, to come to terms with ourselves. “It’s a song about breaking free,” says the band’s Louise Wener. “The moment you turn round and say, ‘Enough,’ I’m done. Whoever is hurting you – a partner, a family member, a way of life that no longer fits – leaving may feel like your world is ending. It might also be the most liberating thing you can do.” The band say in their recent email: “We’ve all come a long way together. To old fans and new, if you’ve ever loved an album of ours or connected with a Sleeper song, we think you’re really going to love this record.”
Lo Moon – Satellite
Lo Moon have shared a new single and frontman Matt Lowell states: “Satellite is an exploration of fatherhood, loss and life’s challenges. The constant feeling of working toward figuring life out, yet being unable to grasp how to do that in this ever-changing world both personally and externally. We tried to capture the anxiety and fear that comes with that using a more direct and new sonic landscape for us.” Working alongside producer Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Hotline TNT, Wednesday), the track was originally released as an exclusive, limited edition 7” featuring an earlier mix by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine). “Early in the recording process, we decided we wanted the first taste of new music to be available on physical long before it’s out in the world,” shares Lowell.
Friendly Fires – Lose All Your Friends
This track marks a “rebirth” of Friendly Fires, who are now a duo comprising Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson. The creative process for their new material “shifted toward a return to their roots”, according to a press release. The resulting songs consist of garage recordings, more live drums, less polish, and are more human and raw, as the pair embrace organic and natural sounds. The band state: “Sometimes you have to lose everything to start again. Embrace the chaos. Take a chance. Don’t be afraid of change.” In the euphoric and optimistic chorus, Macfarlane sings: “If you lose all your friends tonight, it’s alright/ Don’t be afraid of change…” The dazzling instrumental brings a blend of shimmering synths and guitar, backed by a groovy rhythm section.
Glasshouse Red Spider Mite – Ride or Die
Glasshouse Red Spider Mite are one of the most consistently interesting underground bands in London, carving out a niche somewhere between post-rock, shoegaze and slowcore that has no right to feel as fresh and urgent in 2026 as it manages to. One might argue that we’ve had enough slowcore and shoegaze revival bands in recent years, but GRSM more than justify themselves when their singles, like the recently released Ride or Die, are as well-written and propulsive as this – it’s lean, hooky, emotive and sincere without being saccharine.
Willie J Healey – Benjamin
Willie J Healey has shared uplifting new single Benjamin, taken from his upcoming new album Lucky. While the album looks at life’s biggest issues (death, God, religion), the single is a simple, acoustic piece that has an ‘off-the-cuff’ feeling as Willie asks to be saved by ‘whatever’s out there saving things’. Willie says: “It felt good for me to get back to some real deal stuff. I really sat down and worked through everything on an acoustic guitar, feelings too – which is why most of the songs have very little electric guitars on them .. I wrote Benjamin really quickly, it was one of those gifts. Just came right to me! We tracked all of these acoustic guitars and I did this big gasp at the beginning because I think the song kinda feels like somebody who’s asking to be saved by whatever’s out there saving things. It’s got this hopeful desperation thing going on.”
Marsy – Miss Wave
Marsy have announced their Miss Wave EP and shared its hypnotic title track. Hannah Rodgers, Marsy’s lead vocalist and songwriter, states: “Miss Wave was written at a time when I was really struggling to deal with massive feelings that were essentially drowning me. It was like a mantra back when I was finding it harder to manage life and needed a reminder not to give in and act out on impulse. I think that night I wrote it, a few glasses of wine in, somewhere in my subconscious ‘It Be’s That Way Sometimes’ by Nina Simone was probably playing in my head.” For Hannah, a song often comes as a moment of clarity in a world of chaos, a purging of feelings that are hard to describe day to day. “I find it hard to imagine getting on with life without this creative process, I might combust.”
Star Moles – Born Again
Philly songwriter Emily Moales (Star Moles) marked her signing to Dead Oceans with a conversational, captivating new single, which contends with a distinctly Gen Z predicament: Your parents poured their hearts into raising you to reach your full potential, and now you work an email job. “We kiss you on your head, we dress you up real nice,” Moales laments, her use of first-person plural pronouns tilting into the Lovecraftian, “So you can send some emails and pencil in your life.” Moales and her regular producer Kevin Basko have the locked-in chemistry of lifelong friends; her piano and his guitar chatter back and forth like they’re catching up over the punch bowl.
SOAK – decembers
SOAK (aka Derry singer-songwriter Bridie Monds-Watson) has announced their upcoming album, decembers, and unveiled the emotive title track. The album came out of a period in which Monds-Watson was grappling with an autoimmune disease that prevented them from singing, and sees them move through different locations, from traversing America to returning home to Derry. “When I try to describe the album, I always go back to a quote from Thomas Wolfe‘s novel You Can’t Go Home Again,” Monds-Watson explains. “I think for a long time I wanted to disprove that concept, I don’t know why I was so determined — maybe the familiarity of before felt safe. In the end I realised that was no way to live and had to learn how to lean into the rest of my life. In a way, I think decembers is about forgiveness.”
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