Hello world,
Here’s your latest FP Picks update with great new trx fm Getdown Services, Mystery Jets, Grandmas House & 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
Grandmas House – Blue Oblivion
Bristol outfit Grandmas House have released new single Blue Oblivion, taken from their upcoming debut album Baby You’re A Winner. The band state: “Writing Blue Oblivion was a pivotal moment for us as a band. It made us realise that we didn’t have to write music within any boundaries. It opened up the way we would go on to write the rest of the album, encapsulating feelings of love and loss with a balance of light and dark.” The yearning verses, danced atop by a singular, slithering guitar line, recall early PJ Harvey before exploding into intensely physical choruses. The beauty of the track lies in its contrasts and dynamics, the “light and dark” as the band put it. “We wrote this album about the existential crisis of going through life,” explain the band. “It’s about love and infatuation but also about grief and loneliness. It’s emotional, powerful, sad and a good time all at once.”
Getdown Services – Cha Cha Slide
Latest single Cha Cha Slide, taken from forthcoming album Massive Champion, shows that Getdown Services just keep getting better. Not only does the accompanying visual embrace the Minions revolution and nod to the artistic genius of WordArt fonts from the ’90s, but the song itself captures the scary isolation and routine of the child mind that never leaves us. The band’s Josh Law explained that the song’s earnest nature reveals a deeper hunger for human connection that never goes away: “This song is about the feeling of everyone else somehow knowing what to do. It’s about a feeling I’d get as a child that has never quite left me; that I just don’t really know what to do at social occasions. It’s about realising that trying to connect with and understand people is a lifetime of trial and error. It’s probably the saddest song we’ve ever written.” Witty yet poignant, heartfelt lyrics on this infectious new single from Getdown Services.
Radio Free Alice – Kick in the Shins
Australian post-punk outfit Radio Free Alice have dropped their captivating new single Kick in the Shins and singer Noah Learmonth says: “Kick in the Shins is a fusion of two songs that never felt all the way complete. We loved the verse of one of them and the chorus of the other, and it worked when we combined the two. At its core, it explores the feeling of being confused by the culture around you, and the isolation that often comes with that confusion.” It is led by upbeat, summer-inspired guitar melodies, paired with Noah Learmonth’s distinctive, charismatic vocals. Rolling Stone stated: “Paying homage to bands of the ’80s like The Smiths and The Cure, their brand of post-punk is energetic and playful, prioritising hooks and fun over dark atmospherics. It’s a nostalgic sound which never comes off as pastiche.”
Amelia & The Housewives – Narcissist
Brighton’s indie-pop act Amelia & The Housewives recently shared their infectious, touching new single Narcissist. Written largely through the band’s WhatsApp group during a boiling-hot bus journey from Brighton to Eastbourne, it turns the grim experience of loving a narcissist into two-and-a-bit minutes of sparkling pop. Anyone who has endured that particular emotional circus will relate. Sometimes you either laugh or cry, and this is much more fun than crying. Fantastic witty lyrics about a sad situation on this absolute earworm: “I should be jumping on your bones. But you left me in the rain outside of Waterstones.”
Gravy – We Could Win
Leeds’s latest offering, the interestingly named Gravy have been piquing our interest of late, first for the odd name but then the music’s pretty wonderful too. A classic post-punk vibe with touches of The Jesus and Mary Chain in there at points, here’s a band that knows how to record a decent record. The production feels so natural, almost like it was fully formed in the ether, and the band just plucked it out of thin air – I find all great tunes have an element of that going on with them if you get me. Lyrically, it speaks of a doomed relationship that going nowhere and despondency is creeping in all around, although the song title injects a level of optimism in there for good measure – but the great thing about this record is, having set the scene it then explodes halfway through with a shift of rhythm and takes it all to another level. If this is where they’re at after a couple of releases, I can’t wait to see where they go next. Great stuff… I could finish with a joke about a Sunday Roast but I’ll resist… go listen!
Mystery Jets – Flea Joint
London quartet Mystery Jets have shared the tracks Flea Joint and the tongue-twisty Anaglypta by way of previewing their seventh LP A Hole To See The Sky Through. Of Flea Joint, frontman Blaine Harrison states: “We wanted to create something which felt really linear and hypnotic, so over several hot summer nights we set about improvising melodies and hooks over a layered patchwork of jittery, skippy loops. That process of gradual refinement reminded us of how a piece by Fela Kuti or Can might have been written, yet something about the cyclical riff evoked 80s Manchester, and that steered us back a little closer to home.” The track leans into repetition and groove, gradually unfolding through hypnotic rhythms and euphoric melodic payoffs.
The Sovereigns – Smoke ‘n’ Drive
Hull-based indie outfit The Sovereigns come of age with the release of their debut EP Everything In Moderation & from it the ethereal track Smoke ‘n’ Drive. Released on local youth project The Warren’s own record label, Warren Records & produced by Adam Pattrick, the track’s dreamy atmosphere & filmic imagery is a break away from the band’s previous indie-pop singles, showing the great breadth of flavours & styles this bunch of multi-instrumentalists play with. Lyrically the song is about that summer road trip you took with your mates, where you take the time to live in the moment, coming to realise that it’s OK to be unsure about what you want out of life or where you’ll be in 10 years’ time & not have to worry about societal pressures.
Maripool – Favourite
Lisbon-born, London-based songwriter Maripool’s new alt-rock single Favourite, taken from the debut album Rotten Luck, explores the soft yet painful unravelling of a relationship through poignant chords and riffs. The track blends 90s indie rock with elements of shoegaze and a ragged unravelling towards the end. “You are my favourite one,” Natacha Simões, aka Maripool, first sings along to her swaying musical rumination. “You don’t even know it,” she repeats, a chorus of voices echoing behind her, as the intensity of her blend of shoegaze and indie pop rises. Her voice finally ends up screaming restlessly: “You don’t even know me!”
Tommy WÁ – Will You Wait?
Tommy WÁ has shared the new single Will You Wait?, taken from his upcoming EP Hope Our Paths Cross which finds the artist doubling down on his folk-hewn influences, while continuing to explore aspects of West African life and culture. Evocative track Will You Wait? reflects the ongoing shifts in Tommy’s life. Supple and pure, the song is “anchored in intimate details of the journey, asking whether love can sustain or find us while we’re still becoming the people we’re meant to be.” Tommy says of the EP: “These songs were written from that crossroads. They ask what happens when adulthood quietly replaces possibility with responsibility, and whether the people we’re meant to align with can still recognise us as we become who we’re supposed to be.”
CUSP – Me and Lily in the Falling Rain
CUSP have shared the new single Me and Lily in the Falling Rain (from their debut album English Country) which starts as a gentle slowburner, all delicate strings and understated guitar lines, before gradually opening into something much bigger. There’s a proper cinematic feel to it but it never loses the intimacy at the heart of the song. Dan Stock’s vocal carries that yearning, reflective quality that makes you lean in rather than wait for a massive chorus. He says: “This feels like the most ambitious thing we’ve done. It’s my favourite on the album both in terms of the song itself and the way it sounds. We were really inspired by Urban Hymns – timeless songwriting but with a really expansive, cinematic sound. I was thinking about Burt Bacharach with the end section but it ended up almost like late Arctic Monkeys. There’s a scale to it but behind all of that, the story is really small. It’s just about how a person can give meaning to an ordinary life.”
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