Hello world,
Check out this week’s FP Picks update for a host of banging new tunes fm Lime Garden, Getdown Services, Silvor Gore & 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!
Have a great Easter weekend – until next week.
Helen (Futureproof) x
Snowcuffs – Burst
Snowcuffs have shared their new single Burst – a kaleidoscopic blend of reverb drenched vocals, flanked by synthesisers and layered guitars, taken from their Sweet Gravity EP. Vocalist Stephanie Nikolas states: “It’s about the feeling of ambivalence, and not knowing what path to choose in life, how we fail to make choices when we are overwhelmed or what I like to describe as decision paralysis.” It’s inspired by the fig tree metaphor in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath where the fig tree represents all the different lives the protagonist could live. Each fig is a future – artist, wife, intellectual, mother –and the tragedy is that she wants all of them. But by refusing to choose, the figs rot and fall. Nikolas explains “I love her poetry, and it is an avenue that I will always explore in my songwriting, it continues to inspire and I think that will always be the case.”
Lime Garden – All Bad Parts
Lime Garden channel a dark time for their new single All Bad Parts, taken from the upcoming album Maybe Not Tonight. Vocalist and guitarist Chloe Howard states: “All Bad Parts was taken from the self help book No bad parts by Richard Schwartz and inspired by the saying ‘the life of the party always leaves alone’. I essentially channelled the darkest time of my life so far into a sarcastic pop song that feels light and fun but ultimately has a double meaning.” The album finds Lime Garden grappling with grief, drinking, body image and self-esteem, while leaning into a shared, self-aware hedonism and they state: “By making this record, we’ve come back to what it felt like when we started the band. When we were 17 and thought we were the shit, and nobody could tell us different. We’ve got this fresh feeling that we deserve to be here. That’s a special thing.”
Getdown Services – The Radiator
Bristol’s Getdown Services have shared witty new single The Radiator and state: “This song is about only picking fights that you know you’ll win. It came about because the heating wouldn’t come on once and I thought about when we bang things to make them work. Ben once told me that he used to threaten his PlayStation 1 when games wouldn’t load quick enough. The sense of victory you get when you feel like you’ve physically intimidated an inanimate object into doing what you want is bizarre and pathetic and really funny.” Getdown Services will play London’s LIDO Festival on June 12th, while a huge winter tour includes a show at landmark venue Bristol Beacon on January 16th. Don’t miss their chaotic, electronic sound that is full of energy and wit.
Gretel – Fire blooming trees
Gretel has shared new single Fire Blooming Trees, about finding humanity behind the algorithms, taken from her forthcoming debut album Squish. Gretel explains: “I love this one so much, it’s about overconsumption and over-saturation in our world and finding the humanity behind all the algorithms. I think the day I wrote it was the day I heard about the LA forest fires which is where the title of the song came from. That sounds kinda intense, huh?” Squish was recorded over five days at RAK studios. The album embodies themes of self-protection, girlhood, and love, while confronting external and internal challenges. In celebration of the album release, Gretel will headline a show at London’s Oslo on 14th April.
Silver Gore – Black Cherry Liqueur
London duo Silver Gore are back with the single Black Cherry Liqueur and state: “It’s about risk-taking, letting go and understanding that things will not turn out how you planned. It’s about being drunk on the absurdity and unexpectedness of life. But accidentally poisoning aspects of your life in doing this. Always welcoming surprise and the joy of the unexpected. Being destructive and building in the ashes.” With their obvious creative chemistry, the band know how to nail the bringing together of contrasting thoughts and parts to make something great. Silver Gore plan to release further new material throughout the summer, accompanied by a string of festival bookings across the UK and Europe.
Kat Duma – Lullaby
Toronto-based, Belgrade-born musician, producer and DJ Kat Duma’s single Lullaby embraces the hypnotic pull of the night, leaning into a hushed synth-pop incantation that moves like a dream you can’t quite wake from. The track further signals her affinity for cinematic textures and nocturnal romanticism. Built from exchanged vocal loops, the track unfolds like a descent into the night. Layered reverbs and phantom harmonies form what Duma describes as “a whole world” of sound. This time around, Duma found herself less focused on traditional instrumentation and more absorbed in crafting an atmosphere through voice and texture. “Because I didn’t do all of the production myself on this record, I leaned into exploring my vocal production in different ways,” she says.
Air Mail – Won’t You
Air Mail’s new single Won’t You, taken from debut album a.m. Continental, is a woozy, bleary-eyed ode to the American Midwest – its expansive beauty, and the climate of destruction lingering over it. Every guitar line twinkles like a mirror ball, each lyric a plea for love that survives uncertainty, for deep devotion when everything seems fleeting. Of the album, Air Mail (aka Niko Francis) states: “These songs are my attempt at trying to make sense of the crazy world we live in, trying to find beauty amidst massive amounts of harm,” he says. “I’m hoping these songs are a touchpoint of connection in a world that can feel disconnected and scary.”
Bloodworm – Alone In Your Garden
Nottingham’s Bloodworm share new single Alone In Your Garden, a moody track inspired by fall and folklore, and announce their debut EP, Blood & Lust. It follows Bloodlust, a single that was released before the band’s recent tour with Suede. They also are sharing news of a headline tour across the UK in April and May. Vocalist George Curtis states: “This song was written during Autumn over a particularly cold couple of days. I was inspired by the very unique feeling of that time of year, the smell of the air, the falling leaves, the damp stillness that all feels so specifically English. I was trying to invoke those feelings within a song. The song was an attempt at mixing old English folk, with all its folklore and emphasis on tales, with the gothic sound that I am drawn to.”
Mouth Ulcers – Prevail
Mouth Ulcers step back in time with dark post-punk single Prevail and take a more cinematic turn, with the track drawing directly from Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker, specifically the idea of “The Zone” – a hostile, reality-warping space that threatens both sanity and survival. “The lyrics are about the mental and physical struggle of ‘The Zone,’” say Mouth Ulcers. But the metaphor extends inward, into internal resistance. “Our songs frequently talk about emotional suppression, vulnerability and surviving your environments. It’s interesting the war we have sometimes with our mind, whilst it tricks you into thinking you are unsafe or in danger, whereas in fact you might be safe as ever.” The band’s atmospheric guitars, tribal percussion and cavernous baritone vocals provide a sound described as ‘music for vampires to dance to’ – moody, physical and irresistibly cool.
Blood Wizard – I Know You Well
Blood Wizard have dropped new single I Know You Well, the latest offering from their forthcoming EP Lucky Life. The band’s Cai Burns said: “I Know You Well is about the people that I know and love the most, and the side effects of having that almost psychic connection with them. It feels different to earlier Blood Wizard songs. We wanted to make something that sounded thicker and fuller, and bring in some of that hazy, shoegaze kind of atmosphere. I grew up on alternative guitar records, and this was me really leaning into that instinct, letting the guitars carry more weight and space than usual.” Blood Wizard say of the EP: “Lucky Life feels like a turning point for the project and we can’t wait to share what’s next.”
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