Hello world,
Here’s your latest FP Picks update .. loads of great new music as always inc trx from Little Grandad, Bathing Suits, Swapmeet & 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
The Bernadette Maries – ESO
Brussels-based band The Bernadette Maries have just shared their new single ESO, taken from the upcoming debut album Soft. This layered, evolving track, unfolds in shifting sequences that feel like fragments of a dream and it moves from a textured nugaze foundation into fluid, immersive drum ’n’ bass. The track overflows with a beautiful weightiness, sentimentality, and softness, building an immersive wall of guitars while transitioning through various passages to create something distinct. The band sits within a newer wave reshaping shoegaze, part of a generation exploring what they describe as “post-digital rock,” drawing from their influences to arrive at something grounded in the present.
Swapmeet – Sand
Adelaide newcomers Swapmeet have released their latest single Sand, ahead of the release of their anticipated debut album Mount Zero in July. A perfect sense of melancholy is captured in pensive guitar strums, with Jack Medlyn and Venus O’Brien sharing vocal duty. O’Brien’s verse is a standout, adding depth to the remorse of the song. Medlyn shares the background of the track: “Sand is about wasting your own time, then being so, so mad at yourself. And a little bit mad at the people who make apps and phones so addictive.” Exploring themes of regret, passing time and blame, the track takes influence from an early 2000’s gloomy indie sound.
S.G. Goodman – Pepper
S.G. Goodman recently dropped the studio version of her Butthole Surfers cover Pepper. This swinging rendition filters the song’s deadpan surrealism and hypnotic groove through her own Western Kentucky lens, a testament to her fearless range as an artist and vocalist. She states: “Being I was a young child when I first heard Pepper, I am certain that I loved the excuse to request a band where I could say “Butthole” without consequence. To be honest, it still brings me joy. The adult me understands that the lasting appeal of the Butthole Surfers would melt into my own work, simply because of their distinctive approach to making music that felt right to them. The only covers that excite me are ones where the outcome is evident of the original’s influence on the artist as a whole. My cover of Pepper feels like me and it feels like the same intrigue I experienced when hearing the original: to be left wondering what is actually going on here?”
The Gulps – Got Ya!
Disco-punk trio The Gulps have dropped an explosive new single and state: “Got Ya! captures that strange, vulnerable and almost surreal moment of a couple lying in bed after a wild night out. Under the influence of drugs, unable to sleep or to connect physically, they find themselves trapped in an intimate limbo where all they can do is share chaotic thoughts, twisted truths and a kind of confused tenderness.” Produced by legendary Martin “Youth” Glover (The Verve, Pink Floyd, Guns N’ Roses, Killing Joke, Embrace, The Orb, The Fireman, The Charlatans, Dido, Cast), Got Ya exemplifies the band’s signature blend of raw energy, emotional honesty, and twisted humor.
Bugeye – These Walls Will Fall
Croydon queer electro-pop outfit Bugeye have shared their new single These Walls Will Fall, a defiant, politically-charged anthem about media control, manufactured division and the systems that thrive on keeping people isolated and distracted. It explores how fear and difference are amplified to fracture communities, keeping us focused on each other instead of those pulling the strings. Front woman Angela Martin says: “The song came from that feeling that we’re constantly being pushed to focus on what separates us; politics, culture, identity, while the real power structures, the real architects of it all stay hidden and out of sight. These Walls Will Fall is a refusal to buy into that. It’s a reminder that division is a tactic, and unity is a threat. And when people start seeing through the noise, those walls won’t hold.”
jasper dean – TELEMONKEY
Detroit’s jasper dean punches down on indie sleaze with electrifying new single TELEMONKEY. A bombastic four minutes of riveting and bold music production, the track hits hard, packing the attitude and punch of dance pop with the warped synthetic gloss of experimental electronic with an endless array of eclectic twiddly electronic noises, synth bursts, ragged guitar lines, and distortion. Lyrically, the track portrays a playful, slightly satirical character who, with a touch of style and a little confidence, can completely take over a room, turning the evening into a slice of debauchery. “I was very much an EDM kid,” dean says. “I also listened to a lot of rock and punk growing up; my dad is super into punk, and my mom is into all types of goth and new wave music. The album is all of that coming together into one.”
Bathing Suits – Swan Princess
Leeds electro-noise band Bathing Suits recently shared the abrasive new single Swan Princess, taken from their EP Kill Bathing Suits and it’s a chaotic, pulsating mess that isn’t afraid to provide a sensory overload in the best way possible. This is a band that isn’t afraid to get down and dirty in the mosh without a call to arms that most new bands have to resort to – they can generate moshes at will that rival the chaos of more established outfits. Louder Than War have called them a “disco version of Ireland’s Gilla Band”, cited as a direct inspiration for their creation in an interview with So Young Magazine. They’re now set to play tastemaker festivals like Left of the Dial and The Great Escape – we’re looking forward to seeing them there!
Aldous Harding – Venus in the Zinnia (ft. H. Hawkline)
New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding recently shared new single Venus in the Zinnia, taken from the forthcoming album Train on the Island and it’s a charming duet with Welsh singer-songwriter H. Hawkline, who also plays bass and guitar on the track. The video features the two on a seemingly endless FaceTime as they go about their sun-filled days. The 10-track Train On The Island was co-produced by long-time collaborator John Parish (PJ Harvey, Dry Cleaning) at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, where the pair recorded the New Zealander’s previous bodies of work, Party (2017), Designer (2019) and Warm Chris (2022).
Cinder Well – While the Womb Screams Silently
Cinder Well (aka Amelia Baker) has shared haunting new single While the Womb Screams Silently, taken from the upcoming album A Blooming Body and Amelia states: “This song is inspired by the movie Portrait of A Lady On Fire from director Céline Sciamma. In the film, a woman is arranged to be wed, and because of her intense resistance to the situation, a painter is commissioned to secretly paint her wedding portrait without her knowing. The song is about listening to your inner knowing, which often screams loudly but is ignored for the sake of conforming – constantly trying to break out of the restraints and projections of patriarchy while stumbling over new ones and internalized ones along the way – ‘pulling at an endless thread of thistle – whose hooks and briars they catch things you thought you couldn’t miss em / while the womb screams silently for you to listen.’” Fantastic songwriting on this beautiful tune.
Little Grandad – Sleepwalking
London’s hotly-tipped new band Little Grandad have dropped their captivating debut tracks Sleepwalking and Unmasked. Centring on brothers Jack and Harry Lower, the band sit alongside Divorce and Westside Cowboy as groups melting together UK indie with Americana aspects. Sleepwalking takes on a breezy, sombre feel throughout, with the singer crooning “I’ve been sleepwalking, through my life/ Yes I’ve been sleepwalking, drifting through time/ And I’ve been wasting away, I’m burning through the years,” in the atmospheric verse, backed by country-inspired acoustic guitar. Little Grandad headline The Shacklewell Arms, The George Tavern and The Windmill on July 8, 9 and 10 respectively and we can’t wait!
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