Hello world,
Check out this week’s FP Picks update with banging fresh cuts fm Fontaines D.C., PolSky, Dazies & 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
Fontaines D.C. – Marianne
Irish outfit Fontaines D.C. have dropped hypnotic new single Marianne, taken from the upcoming album Dopamine Chamber, with a mesmerizing hallucinogenic video. A song about utilising hedonism and escapism as identity, it deals in fleeting glances. Bassist Conor ‘Deego’ Deegan shared how its release was inspired by the band’s late manager, Trevor Dietz, who died in June: “Marianne is a song that never would have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for Trev. It was left on the cutting room floor of the 40 songs we wrote for Dopamine Chamber.” Trevor’s response was “‘yere absolute lunatics’ for wanting to leave this song off the album.” Grian Chatten’s vocals dissolve into a sea of echo and reverb, his cries seemingly swallowed by the atmosphere. Marianne feels far more relaxed and dreamlike than explosive previous single Starburster.
Greg Freeman – Indu
Vermont indie-rock singer-songwriter Greg Freeman has announced his new album All Set The Bone, and shared emotive lead single Indu, titled from the Sanskrit word for moon. Freeman finished the album quickly in a Hollywood studio, pooling experiences of moving, grief, and political tension into thirteen tracks and descibed it as a “reflection of a lot of change, and a lot of tension”. Freeman says: “I had this epiphany moment where I understood what the next record should be, which surprised me, because I thought it would take a lot longer to have the influences or inspiration required to undertake writing a new album. It should never feel comfortable .. Every album should scare you.” We’re loving Indu – an infectious, heartfelt toe-tapper with poignant lyrics.
Why Horses? – Yr Big Day
Cardiff quintet Why Horses? captures the brightest possible picture of youthful angst and emotional paradox on new single Yr Big Day: crying on your birthday. Bassist Les Davies says of the muscular instrumentation: “It’s got really aggressive guitars; when people say it doesn’t sound like a Why Horses? song, we don’t really know how to take it”. He later describes the tone of the guitar as “horrible, but really cool.” The band further pushed against their usual go-tos in post-production, adding synths to a track that had initially been the more traditional guitar, bass and drums affair. Davies calls the synth, the “underdog of the song”. Singer Gabriel Austin Lester states: “The song is a reminder of what a birthday should be about: a celebration of your life and how amazing it is that you’re still alive.”
Dazies – Get Lost
Brooklyn based Dazies (aka Eddie Gore), has announced his upcoming new album Eyes Repeating, alongside the release of new single Get Lost, which is accompanied by a Skyler Brown-directed music video. Eyes Repeating finds Gore exploring off-kilter song structures and strengthening his knack for soaring hooks, solidifying the unconventional indie pop he’s been crafting over the years. Gore says the track is “more vocally aggressive than I’ve really ever been on any other song,” which you can hear through the muffled vocals and repetitive, ranting phrasing. Gore talks of listening to Gorillaz before creating Get Lost, with the texture and looseness of the song fuelled by a desire to think quickly and dirty.
Deco – You’re So Beautiful
Nottingham’s indie-pop outfit Deco have shared an upbeat, summery new single and frontman Max Kendall states: “You’re So Beautiful captures the rush of realisation that hits when you finally understand how important someone is to you. At its heart, it’s a song about an emotional breakthrough. We wanted to take that feeling and turn it into something uplifting and euphoric that people could share together.” The vocals and synths are akin to rays of sunshine, and the sax is perfect for creating instant memories, even as the song is powered by a rumbling bass line and driving percussion. Deco teamed up with Ed Nash of Bombay Bicycle Club on writing and production duties.
Dina Summer – Rat Race
Dina Summer recently released their new single Rat Race and the track mixes taut synth sequences with post-punk guitar, sitting last on the running order of Children Of The Night, the Berlin trio’s upcoming nine-track mini-album. The label describes the song as “a tense and pulsing track” about “the claustrophobic grind of the 9-to-5”, driven by punchy synths and guitar riffs. The album title comes from Bela Lugosi’s line in Dracula (1931): “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” One to crank up loud and put on repeat – what a banger!
PolSky – Domesticating Foxes
Brighton based alt-pop act PolSky recently shared their iconoclastic single Domesticating Foxes – a track that questions the ongoing corporatisation of culture & free expression into sanitised & controlled versions of what they once were. Band member Kriss Warren explains; “on one level the song reads as a literal journey through the different places I’ve lived, being forced out from each area as the gentrification moves in, till the present day where I now live in a park home estate & not allowed roaming pets – but on a deeper level, it reflects on growing up through the optimism of the 90’s & the government’s ‘Cool Britannia’ PR blitz that eventually gave way to the subsequent gradual transformation of once-vibrant artistic communities into increasingly unaffordable spaces .. the song uses the metaphor of urban foxes becoming tame enough to potentially live as pets as an allegory for cultural domestication & gentrification itself”.
Captain Tallen & the Benevolent Entities – Spotted Lantern Fly
Captain Tallen & the Benevolent Entities confront temptation on the hearty folk-rock track Spotted Lantern Fly, taken from their upcoming debut album Earth, Swallow Me Whole. It features propulsive percussion and bouncy cello that provide a confessional edge to songwriter Tallen Gabriel’s narration. The album was written in a few months, following a sudden whirlwind romance – a stressful moment perhaps many of us have had. “That song is about the part in a situation where you realise, ‘I know this isn’t good for me, but I keep choosing it anyway,’” Gabriel says of the song’s meaning. The album embodies the band’s nautical aesthetics lyrically and physically, being recorded at Red Hook’s Harbor Studios. The waterfront location with a chilly breeze, ice drifting on the water, and a fireplace to keep cosy made the experience so magical. “I’m very grateful everyone was down to take that week out of their lives to do that,” Gabriel said.
Starcleaner Reunion – Lay on Plastic Moment
NYC indie outfit Starcleaner Reunion have shared Lay on Plastic Moment, taken from their debut album Umbrella. Blending hazy art-pop, psychedelic textures and a restless experimental edge, Starcleaner Reunion have built a reputation for making music that feels both familiar and otherworldly and the track leans into that tension, capturing the strange pull of returning to a place once called home. Vocalist Jo Roman describes the track as a reflection on returning to New York in 2023 after growing up there before moving away with their family — and the complicated process of reconnecting with a city that once felt entirely familiar. “Coming back to New York was at first exciting, but finding my grounding here was something that proved to be difficult. I spent my time re-navigating familiar corners of the city… there were always reminders that I can overcome whatever sadness I had around that time.”
Luft – The Punch And Judy Man
Berlin five-piece Luft‘s new single The Punch And Judy Man soundtracks a strange collision of England and Berlin, where seaside folklore meets Krautrock rhythms and off-kilter guitars. “Each song is a little story, stories about England and stories about being in Berlin,” former TOY member and Luft frontman Tom Dougall tells BEST FIT. “The album is kind of half of one and half the other.” The union between Haines (of The Auteurs) and Luft makes sense, given their shared interests in new wave and anecdotal references to suburban English life: “Working with Luke Haines was great, we’ve got very similar tastes which makes it very easy when we were mixing and recording. I hope we work with him more in the future. We didn’t have specific references, we just said ‘let’s make it heavy and weird.’ We know it’s a given that we and Luke like the same kind of bands.”
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