Hello world,
Here’s your latest FP Picks update .. loads of great new music as always inc tracks from Gilla Band, Henry Nielsen, Jackson Roy & many 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
7ebra – Dinner and a Movie
Swedish duo 7ebra (twin sisters Inez and Ella Johansson) have announced their new album How To Land a Plane and shared new single Dinner and a Movie. The pair state: “Dinner and a Movie is about all the different things that can happen when you postpone going home from various parties and situations. You end up feeling very sad and dumb. And with little money left. It’s about those hell hole feelings you get after.” On the album, the duo are maturing into their late twenties, learning how to navigate adulthood. Catch 7ebra in London at The Shacklewell Arms on 21 October.
sundayclub – Sad Summer
Winnipeg dream-pop outfit sundayclub have released wistful new single Sad Summer, taken from their upcoming self-titled LP. The track captures the frustration of waiting all year for summer only to find yourself unable to enjoy it once it arrives. The band state: “In the third and final instalment of sundayclub’s music video trilogy, our lovers’ story comes to an unexpected and melancholic end. Hosted in the same dingy garage as “Act I – The Party,” the band takes the stage one final time: this time, for a makeshift funeral in honour of “The Guy.” Amid the dreary, somber tone, tension appears to build around The Girl and a new love interest as the video comes to a close — will this new relationship blossom or wither out of grief?”
Talia Rae – Julia
Written from her father’s perspective, London singer-songwriter Talia Rae’s captivating new single Julia reflects on familial love through the everyday gestures that often matter most. “I thought it was a more interesting spin on it from a songwriting perspective,” she explains. “I feel like a lot of people usually write about themselves and I kind of wanted to have a different perspective on it.” Rather than simply documenting her own feelings, Rae attempts to inhabit someone else’s emotional world, imagining the anxieties and protective instincts that accompany fatherhood. In doing so, she transforms the track from what would’ve been a straightforward tribute into an exercise in empathy. Heartfelt lyrics and beautiful vocal – loving this one!
Jackson Roy – Natural Cause
Jackson Roy has released his debut EP Natural Cause and we’re loving the title track which weaves between a sweet balcony serenade and dramatic bursts of indie rock. The EP was written without any plan to release or perform it, a creative freedom that Roy says is audible throughout: “I could just start again or completely change it. That was actually really freeing, and I think that is reflected in the music because it is far more free than what I’ve made before.” The Birmingham-raised, Peckham-based multi-instrumentalist is not easily categorised. He plays guitar, bass, saxophone, piano, synths, flute and whistles, studied in a symphony choir, played smooth jazz in his mid-teens and spent time in an indie-rock band before beginning his solo project.
Kurt Vile – Zoom 97
Kurt Vile recently shared the single Zoom 97, taken from the new LP Philadelphia’s been good to me and it finds Vile taking us for a spin on Lincoln Drive, a windy, river-bending stretch of highway between KV’s home in Mt. Airy and the City of Brotherly Love. Kurt states: “This was the first song that came together on this record that we knew was real special, like we knew we were on the right track ya know… I could reminisce out loud but for now we takin it inward… “jump in my whip… my engine whines, yeah… zig zag my way… down Lincoln Drive, yeah…” The LP sees Vile returning to his home-recording roots while also coming into his own as a producer, using time-tested and world-worn tools to fill the album with more warmth than you can fit into the back of a touring band’s van.
Henry Nielsen – The Way
Mid-Tier 1970s styled singer-songwriter Henry Nielsen‘s captivating track The Way is taken from his recently released debut album Hollyhocks and it has a Paul Simon flavour, reminiscent of Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel. The intimate homespun sound of the song complements its lyric which explores the protagonist’s idea of a quasi-religious conception of what love is & what it demands of us. Hollyhocks traces the stories of a series of lonely characters, drenched sonically in lap-steel textures, spacey organ riffs & jangly folk-rock guitars and Henry states: “you’re at a family party when you realise your uncle hasn’t talked to anyone in over an hour… Hollyhocks is for them”.
Ea Othilde – I Forgot You
Oslo artist Ea Othilde transforms hurt and frustration into atmospheric indie-rock on new single I Forgot You. Atmospheric guitar textures pulse beneath a shoegaze haze as stripped-back instrumentation and raw songwriting steer the track between vulnerability and grit. There is a quiet bitterness running through the track as Ea Othilde revisits the aftermath of a relationship in which she found herself cast as the villain, grappling with the tension of having her story told by someone else. “I write very personal music, and this song is about something very concrete. It is a strange side to releasing music, that suddenly all the emotions are out of your head and in everyone’s hands. I feel very vulnerable,” Othilde shares.
GB – Starsound
Copenhagen’s GB (Gustav Berntsen) crafts texture-heavy, adventurous guitar music cut with a pop sensibility and here is the anticipated second single Starsound, taken from upcoming new album Herzsprung via AD 93. On the track, GB’s baritone vocal yearnings meet his lush, intricate guitar playing and melt into languid textural drumming and collaged saxophone choirs. The album draws together a wide spectrum of influences; from the groove-driven fusion jazz of the 1970s to Japanese noise-rock psychedelia, anthemic grunge, and outsider pop. There are traces of the alt-pop qualities that GB shares with his Copenhagen peers, but you hear London’s influence too, an urge to stretch rock tradition and break with form.
Pain Gain – Prizefighter
Pain Gain have shared experimental new single Prizefighter, taken from their upcoming self-titled album. The project is a deeply collaborative affair, bringing together Chloe Kaul (Kllo), Hamish Lefevre (SWIM), and Samuel Cooke (CRUSH3d). The band states: “Prizefighter is a centrepiece to the record. Conceptually it’s about being coaxed into a cycle that never breaks. It’s always the same fight.” The trio of genre rejectors told BEST FIT: “A big part of it was wanting to step outside of electronic music to experiment with something less controlled and more alive.” Not indie rock, nor expansive pop, though somewhere in the ether of in-between balladry. A slow build of synths and layers of vocals culminates in a dramatic crescendo.
Gilla Band – Giraffe
Dublin’s Gilla Band face “feeling unloved and finding it difficult to articulate what I’m actually thinking” on first new song in four years, Giraffe. The track is typical of the band’s experimental, boundary-pushing approach to guitar music, with distortion and atonality at the fore, and singer Dara Kiely’s tortured, yelled vocals spilling out an internal monologue. Kiely has said: “In this track, the first few sections represent what my general headspace is like. It can be a very scattered and sometimes lonely place. Feeling unloved and finding it difficult to articulate what I’m actually thinking. The outro on the other hand indirectly details a kind of confirmation that affection towards me does exist. While I appreciate it, I still find that hard to believe.”
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