Hello world,
Here’s your latest FP Picks update .. loads of great new music as always inc trx fm St. Catherine’s Child, Royel Otis, Sports Team & 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
Jehnny Beth – Broken Rib
French post-punk artist Jehnny Beth has shared new single Broken Rib, taken from the forthcoming album You Heartbreaker and she switches between belting and whispering over brooding guitars, repeating “we learn to breathe with a broken rib” until it gets spooky. “I knew I wanted to make an aggressive sound and for the record to start with a scream on the song Broken Rib,” Beth said in an interview with NME. “This is how I felt: the world was broken, I was broken, but it’s not a sad thing. How can a song recompose those fragments? Is it like a Frankenstein beast? I’m not trying to polish it or hide it.”
Alexandra Leaving – The Wall
Following on from the highly emotive Hold The Sugar earlier this year, West Midlands artist Alexandra Leaving returns with The Wall – a raucous record produced by Jack O’Hea that sees her on top form and singing about overcoming a metaphorical ‘wall’ (we’re all battling with that one in some way or another!). A flatlining melody in the verse works well at reinforcing the chorus melody hook when it comes in and amidst it all, tremolo guitar lines weave in & out to great effect. As for the outro, the energy goes up another gear when a ‘Spector-esque’ wall of extra guitars kick in to close things off nicely. When watching an artist over time, it’s great to see their sound evolve as elements of Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Grace Slick & other trailblazers come together as an original voice in its own right – she ain’t leaving!
Viagra Boys – Waterboy
Stockholm reprobates Viagra Boys have dropped new album viagr aboys – a fun, funny and wise portrait of contemporary anxieties. Frontman Sebastian Murphy states: “the whole political thing was exhausting”, implying that these 11 new tracks represent his lyrical voice turning inwards, away from socio-political madness and onto the simple stupidity of day-to-day existence. The anthemic electro-rock of Waterboy and indescribable jazz-punk of Best In Show Pt.IV are evidence of a band as curious and contradictory as Murphy’s lyrics. They’re constantly searching, with similarly admirable zeal, for new ideas, but sometimes revert back to what they know best; manic, bass-lead, post-punk pit-starters in the form of The Bog Body and You N33D Me.
Momma – Stay All Summer
Brooklyn rock band Momma recently released their album Welcome To My Blue Sky, inspired by chaos, turmoil and infidelity. The track Stay All Summer describes the intoxicating pull of a summer stranger and the temptation of throwing everything away for one person, including the life you’ve shared with another. Principal songwriters Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten evoke and excavate their respective pasts, pairing tales of fractured relationships with wistful vocal harmonies and ear-burrowing guitar hooks, alt-rock tropes that were amped up to eleven on 2022’s breakthrough record Household Name.
Sports Team – Sensible
Sports Team have dropped their introspective new single Sensible exploring modern pressures, ahead of their third album Boys These Days and the band continuing to develop their signature blend of Britpop and art rock. Rob Knaggs states: “Sensible is a song about the myth of betterment. ‘Go to the gym. Get ripped! Get rich! Get ahead!’ I think being young now, it feels like you’re trapped in someone else’s nostalgia. Primed. Groomed. Glistening with youth and vigor. What for? Staving off the grim reaper with Haeckels face creams and expensive candles. Adopting the aesthetic of liberalism while running an air bnb empire, flying 10 times a year and working for Helsing AI.” Great lyrics on this infectious banger – another winner from Sports Team.
Home Counties – Spain
London six-piece Home Counties share new single Spain, exploring themes of moral decay through British expats. “Spain is essentially an argument with yourself,” frontman Will Harrison explains. “It’s about growing older and fearing the person you might become, or are already becoming. Taking the form of a conversation between a starry-eyed idealist and life-weathered realist, it imagines watching an argument between a younger and older version of yourself. It’s about figuring out if you can grow up without losing sight of your values or if it’s just a worthless endeavour.” Built around glowering synths and a darker, more expansive palette, the song captures a volatile internal dialogue between two versions of the same person – one idealistic, the other world-weary.
Cerrone, Christine and the Queens – Catching feelings
French disco legend Cerrone and Christine And The Queens reportedly made a four-track EP together, and the first of its tracks is out now. Catching feelings is a pulsing, shimmering club-jam that hits hard right away. It easily could’ve come out in the early ’80s, which somehow makes it feel more contemporary, not less. Christine and the Queens directed the track’s dance-heavy video. This project is a unique crossover between the legacy of disco and a completely liberated approach to desire and intimacy; capturing the raw, organic chemistry between a groovy, dancefloor-ready production and a message of honest, unfiltered emotion. It expresses a form of intimacy that is free, joyful, and fully embraced.
Royel Otis – moody
Sydney pop-rock duo Royel Otis recently shared infectious new single moody – an honest look into a relationship, where the singer acknowledges their partner’s flaws yet continues to overlook them. Otis Pavlovic (vocals) begins, setting the scene with his “good intentions.” The first verse lays out some points of tension, with the conclusion that he’s in trouble ie: “I’m in the doghouse again.” It’s a laid back spring into summer track. Written alongside Grammy-winning writer Amy Allen (Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter) as well as writer/producer Blake Slatkin (The Kid Laroi, SZA), it’s an earworm for sure with an effortless late ’90s slacker groove.
Gracie and Rachel – WTF
Brooklyn based piano-violin duo Gracie and Rachel have shared folk-pop new single WTF which sees the pair explore the feeling of hopelessness, and the sense of falling into a rut that you just can’t, despite all your might, fight your way out of. Anchored by a smooth percussion line throughout, Gracie and Rachel’s vocals soar melodically over the minimal instrumentation, with the eventual addition of strong plucked strings levelling up the sense of catharsis as the track crescendos. They state: “We wanted to explore a feeling of cyclical stickiness in the verses, and expand into a sort of sensory release of catharsis in the choruses. We hope there’s some humour found in singing the words “what the fuck” angelically.”
St. Catherine’s Child – The Other Side of Twenty Five
Indie-folk artist St. Catherine’s Child (aka Illana Zsigmond) reflects on her own innocence lost in her affecting new single The Other Side of Twenty Five. Driving acoustic guitar sets the foundation for the track as twangy guitar, buzzing synth, and mid-tempo percussion form the rest of the ethereal soundscape. Illana states: “This song is a letter to my younger self, wrapped up in the things that are important to someone before they’re faced with life and death. Everything at that moment felt so important, when all that really mattered was my Dad and how he showed up for me, and the people who had my back.” Poignant lyrics on this beautiful, vulnerable track.
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