Hello world,
Yay – time for The Great Escape but before we get the beers in, here’s this week’s picks with fresh bangers fm CMAT, Panic Shack, NewDad & 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
Ugly (UK) – Next To Die
London-based band Ugly have shared a mesmerizing new single and state: “Next To Die was the obvious choice for Ugly’s return, a year after the release of our EP and a year of intense gigging – it’s a song we’ve been playing relentlessly for a while now. It is a story of compromise and trying your hardest to make something work even if it’s ultimately doomed. It feels rejuvenating and transitional – emotionally and also sonically for the band moving forward. Because of this we wanted it separate from the album which we’re currently writing.” Great to have the band back with their fantastic vocal harmonies, mixed with beautifully textured percussion and excellent acoustic guitar playing – what a banger!
NewDad – Entertainer
Galway’s NewDad have shared new single Entertainer, taken from their recently released EP Safe. The track emerges as an early EP highlight, building on synth-touched foundations while maintaining the band’s characteristic guitar work, creating a warmth that wraps around you like a familiar blanket at a house party you weren’t quite sure about attending. Fiachra Parslow comments on the new EP: “It just needed to be NewDad but better. Everything had to get elevated…” Intricate, but yet also more direct, the material on Safe is both a stepping stone, and a world unto itself.
Slow Fiction – When
New York City’s rising indie outfit Slow Fiction recently released the belter When, now available on Speedy Wunderground as part of the label’s celebrated Speedy Singles series. Vocalist Julia Vassallo states: “I think everyone has had a moment where their expectation of the world, a relationship, the audience they are performing for falls short, and it sends you into a wild spiral downwards. Losing faith feels so desperate, like falling into a pit of snakes. And the snakes all have faces that seem familiar, and they’re talking, but the words are all garbled. I guess this was trying to get to the bottom of that pit of disillusionment, or maybe get out of it altogether.” Their music blends elements of early 2000s guitar-driven indie with contemporary angst, resulting in a sound that feels both nostalgic and refreshingly current.
Coach Party – Girls!
Coach Party have released electrifying, intense new single Girls!, taken from their upcoming album Caramel and frontwoman Jess Eastwood states: “It’s a mosh-inciting, live hype song. Along the lines of: for the next three minutes, whoever you are, you’re all my girls and you’re all gonna fucking mosh. When it’s over, you can go back to being whoever you usually are, but for right now, let loose and have fun.” The album tackles the loneliness, rage and catharsis of existing in a hyper-online, burnout-heavy world, while celebrating the people who pull us back from the brink. The band describe it as a record rooted in real connection, honest, frustrated, but ultimately life-affirming.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw – MadDog
New track MadDog from Man/Woman/Chainsaw is part of a one-off double A side release with So Young Records. Its first song Adam & Steve was released earlier which the band described as “our own bittersweet take on the heart-on-sleeve love song.” The London-based quintet have now dropped MadDog, which matches Adam & Steve in its exuberant instrumentation. The band’s Vera Leppänen states: “MadDog talks about losing a friend and watching them become everything you thought they wouldn’t. We wrote the song as two parts, the pissed off bit and the sad/nostalgic bit, and recorded it with a quick turnaround which was fairly new to us.”
Panic Shack – Girl Band Starter Pack
Panic Shack recently dropped their rousing new single Girl Band Starter Pack, taken from their upcoming self-titled new album and it’s a pacy, punchy slice of garage-punk that takes its title from the band’s former Spotify “inspiration playlist”. Panic Shack state: “it’s had many deaths and rebirths but has been with us since the start, so it’s quite special to us. Not only because we’ve watched it morph into a certified banger (it was once named Banger Potential) but because it personifies our friendship and the electricity we feel when we’re together, whether that’s creating, playing or simply just grabbing a coffee … which as the song foretells, usually leads to a voddy.” Great lyrics on this highly infectious, upbeat earworm – way to go girls!
Garbage – There’s No Future In Optimism
1990s alt-rock titans Garbage have shared new single There’s No Future In Optimism, taken from their upcoming new album Let All That We Imagine Be the Light. Frontwoman Shirley Manson states: “I love the title. The band sent it me and I was like, ‘This is great. I’m keeping that.’ But the lyrics are an action against that title. Because if we allow our fatalism or our negativity to really take over, we will crumble. It’s about a city, in my case, Los Angeles, but it could be anywhere where bad stuff is happening. After the George Floyd murder, which is one of few things in my life that I wish I’d never seen: I was changed entirely by seeing the footage of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck.”
Beattie – Life With Her
Having initially made waves in the live circuit, landing slots at Live At Leeds and Latitude before she even had a single to her name Beattie has quickly become a hotly tipped newcomer. Now unveiling her debut EP All My Innocence Has Been Ridden, DIY‘s focus single Life With Her reaffirms why she’s been turning heads over recent months. Building from intimate, vocal-led verses into a cascading, riff-driven chorus, it’s a dynamic showcase of the Londoner’s versatility. Arriving off the back of support shows with Good Neighbours and Balancing Act, Beattie performs at The Great Escape this week and we can’t wait to check her out.
Getdown Services – Eat Quiche, Sleep, Repeat
Bristolian alt-pop outfit Getdown Services have shared their witty new single Eat Quiche, Sleep, Repeat, taken from upcoming EP Primordial Slot Machine, all about learning to accept life’s difficulties, and somehow maintaining your positivity. The band state: “This song is about accepting there’s a chance our bitterness won’t ever fully go away. Trying to wrap your head round the idea of learning to manage things as opposed to getting rid. We’ve spent most of our lives thinking one day we’ll somehow become these happy go lucky positive members of society and this song is about accepting that maybe we won’t and maybe we don’t have to. Maybe we’ll be fine as we are: Happy a lot of the time but always at least Semi-Miserable.” Poignant, relatable lyrics – great stuff!
CMAT – Take A Sexy Picture Of Me
CMAT can do no wrong and we love all the songs but she describes new single Take A Sexy Picture Of Me as “one of the best songs I’ve ever made.” The Irish country-pop icon states: “With the internet, every woman is now in the public eye. And no matter who you are, or what you look like, somebody will take umbrage with the fact that you even exist, and there’s no escaping it. Take a Sexy Picture of Me was born out of that, because I held back for so long; not out of frustration or sadness for myself, because I AM in the public eye, but I realised it’s actually like this for every woman. It’s all women, all the time. That song is me calling out anyone who criticised my weight or how I looked.” On listening again, we agree with CMAT – with its thought-provoking lyrics, this uplifting belter is right up there!
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