Hello world,
Here’s your latest FP Picks update .. loads of great new music as always … 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
beabadoobee – Memories
beabadoobee recently shared bittersweet new single Memories, taken from the upcoming album Pylon, and it finds Bea caught in the unsettling limbo between nostalgia and regret. Despite describing it as “one of the happiest songs on the album”, Memories is ultimately about romanticising the past to a point that it begins to impact the present too heavily. She states: “I’m clinging onto ideas that should make me happy but actually make me feel sad, because I wish they were just moments I lived in forever.” The album feels like a marked expansion for the indie-pop starlet. Largely written in solitude in hotel rooms, Pylon returns Bea back to the way she wrote as a teenager, alone in her bedroom and feeling, in her own words, “sad as fuck”.
Family Stereo – DLR
Family Stereo (aka Blake Watt) has shared new single DLR, taken from the debut album The Thread. Led by lush piano, lap steel and xylophone twinkles, DLR wraps an upbeat indie-rock melody around contemplative lyrics about growing up, the youthful spritz of the playing offsetting the reflection at its centre. It comes with a charming video in which Watt is kidnapped and taken on a personal odyssey. “I think my writing has been getting more pared-back as I’ve progressed,” Watt says. “I find more and more that simple is better. I love telling a story in the simplest way or conveying a feeling in the simplest way, with not too many frills.” The Thread was recorded over nine months in the north London studio of producer Sam Hodder-Williams and Watt states: “I wanted to explore folk songwriting but with a kind of lush arrangement. We wanted to throw everything in the pot but keep it kind of natural.”
World News – The Way It Goes
London post-punk quartet World News have shared their nostalgic new single The Way It Goes, taken from the upcoming debut album In Purgatory, a track that epitomizes the band’s jangly retro-indie sound without feeling like a mere exercise in nostalgia. The track explodes with upbeat, sparkly guitars and the kind of rhythm that instantly lifts you up. Vocalist Alex Evans explains: “The lyrics don’t possess too much of a story, but are more phrases, thoughts and collections of words of how I was feeling at the time.” You can feel that in this track, that almost collage of raw emotion turns scattered reflections into something that feels so anthemic. World News are hitting the road this autumn for their biggest tour yet, capping things off at London’s iconic Scala on November 3rd.
Body Type – Sick Bag
Australian outfit Body Type recently dropped the single Sick Bag, taken from their new album Tally. Described by vocalist and guitarist Sophie McComish as one of the band’s most vulnerable songs to date, the track explores the fine line between devotion and self-erasure within an increasingly one-sided relationship. While Body Type may have their roots in punk, this track leans towards a more melodic post-punk sound. Conversational, almost spoken-style verses give the song an understated charm, allowing its sharp observations and dry humour to shine through. Sophie says: “It could be a beautiful thing, really. When someone loves you so hard it makes you feel sick. Someone make me spew!”
Julia Jacklin – The Hardest Thing
New album The Gem is out in September and Australian singer-songwriter Julie Jacklin has dropped heartfelt single The Hardest Thing from it, about a relationship on the brink, alongside a single-shot music video filmed entirely from a helicopter as it winds across the Melbourne skyline. Julia says of the album: “I want to love and be loved, but I also want to be free. The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life.” The Gem takes its name from a Melbourne bar that played an important role in Jacklin’s return to music-making. After moving from Sydney to Melbourne in 2017, she discovered the small Collingwood venue, where bands performed in an intimate setting among the tables and patrons. Years later, it became the unlikely home of her fourth album.
Blondshell – Violins
Los Angeles based Blondshell (aka Sabrina Teitelbaum) announces “hard-hitting” new album Violins with the anthemic & emotive title track. Sabrina said: “This song sums up the album in a lot of ways. When I was writing I felt really drawn to images of patience and kindness, for example putting your head on someone’s shoulder, alongside images of violence. I was also inspired by the idea of healing slowly and refusing to be rushed by any outside force. Things genuinely just take the time they take. I’m not at a point in life where I can have a no assholes policy yet, but I like the idea of weeding out people that aren’t going to let me have limitations … It feels like every time I make a record, I get closer to making the thing that I really want to make.”
WHATMORE – Last Time
New York five-piece WHATMORE soundtrack the end of the world with pulsating new single Last Time, which features warm bass, punchy drums, distorted guitars, and a music video cameo from the Alex Consani. During a week-long lockout at a studio in New York’s Greenpoint neighbourhood, the band were doing what they usually do – making a lot of things, very quickly. “We work in quantity over quality,” they laugh. “We just like to shit out ideas, and Last Time was one of those.” Most of the track was laid down that day, including three separate electric bass parts from Cisco; a verse arrived later, and they kept chipping away until a month before release. “It’s pretty spontaneous,” they explain. “That’s the key word for that song and a lot of songs that we make.”
Friendly Fires – Lose All Your Friends
Now operating as a two-piece featuring Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson, Friendly Fires have stripped things back for their newest work. Garage recordings, live drums and a leaner, instinctive approach replace some of the polish of their earlier work, giving Lose All Your Friends a loose, psychedelic energy that brings LCD Soundsystem and Panda Bear to mind. Built around the idea of taking the wrong turn, losing your mates and seeing where the night takes you, the track leans into going with the flow instead of worrying. “Sometimes you have to lose everything to start again,” the band say. “Embrace the chaos. Take a chance. Don’t be afraid of change.”
lifepath99 – Misfortune
lifepath99, the project of London-based Asheville musician Bex Vines, has released her first song Misfortune, on Mtn Laurel Recording Co and it’s an introduction to their dreamlike mix of pop hooks and spacey electronic textures. “Misfortune was born of a narrow path I had to walk down every day, and the fear that someone would be lurking there,” Vines says of the song. “The broader reality is that many people carry this awareness with them every day, especially in the political climate today. Writing this song became a way to process this fear and take some of that power back; while I can’t change people’s behavior, I can decide how much psychological power I let their presence have over me.” A poignant and relatable track.
Formal Sppeedwear – The Ballad of DCB
Stoke-on-Trent based trio Formal Sppeedwear recently shared latest single The Ballad of DCB, taken from their upcoming LP Punch Card, and centred around their trademark jagged, eccentric sound which joins the dots between new wave and post-punk. The Ballad of DCB has a lively feel thanks to the song’s bright, sparkly synths, driven bass parts and dynamic rhythms. True to the band’s style, the track twists and turns give it an off-kilter edge. The Stoke-on-Trent trio build songs from improvised collisions, digital experiments and an instinct for following ideas wherever they lead, creating music that feels meticulously assembled without ever losing its unpredictability.
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