FUTUREPROOF PICKS 01-10-26

Hello world,

Here’s your latest FP Picks update .. loads of great new music as always inc trx from Prima Queen, Placebo, cosign & 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

Prima Queen – Dirty Rascal

Prima Queen are back with their new single Dirty Rascal and they state: “It’s about trusting a quiet knowing that you need to let someone go and the feeling of freedom you feel after it; there’s a type of peace that comes after a breakup when you both know you have your own version of events which can both be true and co exist simultaneously because you no longer have to.” Produced with Oli Deakin (CMAT), the track follows spring single Crumb and 2025 debut album The Prize, which reached the UK Independent Albums Top 10 before UK/EU touring, Islington Assembly Hall and All Points East with The Maccabees and Bombay Bicycle Club.

The War On Drugs – Who’s That

The War On Drugs return with rousing new single, & the first in five years, Who’s That. Written and produced by frontman Adam Granduciel at his Burbank studio compound, the track is a rousing, synth-drenched anthem that finds him in a reflective state, as he acknowledges his mental state. Granduciel states “Who’s That was written in 10 minutes somewhere between first coffee and school drop-off. It’s a song about trying to love yourself despite things we can’t always control, like the anxiety, depression and self-doubt that may stand in the way of living the life we truly desire.” The single is accompanied by a Max Flick-directed official video, following Granduciel on a surreal late-night stroll around the streets of Burbank in Los Angeles County, California.

Mogwai – Underground (ft. Iggy Pop)

Scottish post-rock warriors Mogwai have been releasing bangers for over 30 years and early next year, they’ll release a career-spanning collection under the title Happy Tears. That will include a new track called Underground, a collaboration with Iggy Pop, who started twisting loud rock ‘n’ roll into strange new shapes decades before Mogwai got started. In his memoir Spaceships Over Glasgow, Mogwai leader Stuart Braithwaite wrote about how exposure to Stooges records was “life-changing” for him as a kid. Iggy states: “I’ve always liked Mogwai. The opening of the track reminded me of the crushing modern loneliness. The sung vocal, which was arranged by Matt Sweeney, felt like it was made for someone who is pissed off and doesn’t mind saying so.”

Placebo – HELEN KELLER

Placebo are just about to head off on their 30th anniversary tour, but they’ve also recorded the brooding new single HELEN KELLER, which sees Placebo referencing their self-titled debut and its hidden track H.K. Farewell. However, instead of revisiting the original recording, the band have created an entirely new song anchored around the track’s keyboard melody with some extra angst. The band’s Brian Molko says: ‘‘This is a new rock song inspired by the piano melody from H.K. Farewell and named after one of my favourite people from history.”

Radie Peat – The Moon and Stars

Radie Peat recently announced the debut solo album No Human Tongue Can Tell & shared the haunting new single The Moon and Stars. On this folk track, she states: “There are coded references to unwanted pregnancies and abortions within the song, as well as references to rue, a herb which was used to cause miscarriage. I wanted to represent these experiences from the woman’s perspective – to connect us with her experience.” For those that may recall, Radie was also a member of a short-lived Irish folk trio called Rue, alongside Cormac Mac Diarmada of Lankum and Brian Flanagan. They released a cover of Katie Cruel, a well-known folk song of a woman rejected by society, and described as one of the most stark, claustrophobic laments in folk music.

Forest – Vulture

On the grunge-tinged opening track to her debut album Swan Dive, Forest turns the growing pains of early adulthood into something visceral. Vulture is the opening track and emotional doorway into Swan Dive and one of the rare songs on the record where Forest knew exactly what she wanted to say. She describes it alongside Bodies as being concerned with “womanhood in relation to other people,” including “my relationship with my body” and the pressures projected onto it. “I really love the writing on it,” she says. “I loved how the production turned out. I think it was very well-rounded.” There’s a darkness to Vulture, but Forest has always been interested in making ugliness and beauty coexist: “Writing about things that are kind of dark and a little bizarre and weird… that’s my forte.”

Why Horses? – Cat’s Cradle

Cardiff art-rock quintet Why Horses? recently announced the EP These Hands, and shared new single Cat’s Cradle, which fuses jungle-inspired drums, cryptic lyrics referencing Kurt Vonnegut and David Byrne. Singer Gabriel Austin Lester states: “At its core, Cat’s Cradle is about rejecting absurdism. I wrote it after reading Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut which explores lots of absurdist ideas. I loved the book but I’ve always hated absurdism because being brought up Christian, I’ve always believed that everything has a purpose.” Of the EP, Lester says that the songs are grounded in “trying to understand the world around you through the lens of your experiences. Hence the title: you use your hands to touch things, you shake people’s hands, you type and text with your hands. They’re a bridge between yourself and the world.”

cosign – Too Far For What

Leaving folk conventions of old behind, Belfast producer Martha Greer is piecing together the strange, electronic world of cosign. The first taste of forthcoming EP This Is What It Feels Like, the track pairs cosign’s restless electronics with a more self-destructive kind of compulsion. “It handles the friction of self-awareness versus self-destruction,” Greer explains. “It’s about knowing exactly how a compulsion ends but choosing to do it anyway.” Co-produced with Chris W. Ryan, whose credits include fellow Irish acts NewDad, Just Mustard and Chalk, the single continues a creative partnership that began before Greer had really figured out what cosign was going to be. Ryan has also become useful for encouraging Greer’s worst, or perhaps best, impulses.

KID 12 – dreams

While lockdown for many of us was either a terrifying view into the fragility of humankind or an extended period to smoke weed and play The Last of Us Pt. 2, some good did come from it. A morsel of that good came in the form of KID 12, a teenager who began experimenting with DAWs during quarantine. Six years on at the age of 21, she has released her first single ​dreams. A nocturnal spirit of a tune, ​the track takes alt-pop dexterity and combines it with an indietronica palette of muted drums and skittering guitar trots, all while maintaining a trip-hop swagger that pulls it from the brink of being bedroom-pop 101. Mystical but effortlessly cool, ​dreams is a decision to jump on your bike at 11pm and see where the night takes you.