Further Listening:

5. Fall In A Bad Kind Of Love With Jeremy Tuplin

We’ve long been fans of Somerset’s finest musical son, Jeremy Tuplin.  His most recent album, I Dreamt I Was An Astronaut, was a fabulous collection of articulate folk; songs about space for people with broken hearts. He recently showed a different direction with climate change bating single, Long Hot Summer, and it’s one he continued this week with the excellent Bad Lover, the latest taste of his upcoming album, Pink Mirror.

In the foreground as always, is Jeremy’s silken-baritone, yet its beneath that the changes are occurring. Jaunty guitars, group backing vocals so wonderful the Ronettes would be proud of them, and rolling basslines; it’s Jeremy Tuplin sure, but as we’ve never seen him before. Moving up, moving on, he may be a bad lover, but on this evidence there’s an awful lot to love about Jeremy Tuplin.

Pink Mirror is out in March via Trapped Animal. Click HERE for more information on Jeremy Tuplin.

4. You’ve Got The Right To Vote MOLAR

Surely everyone’s favourite, “Latin American/Euro, London based grunge-punx”, MOLAR are back, and by the sounds of things they’re wonderful angry! The band are set to release a brand new EP, Straniero in December, and have this week shared the first offering from it, Auslännerwahlrecht, translating as Voting Right for those of you not fluent in Luxembourgish.

One of the great injustices of the Brexit vote, was the dismissal of the voice of the people whom it will arguably impact the most, namely EU citizens resident in the UK. Collateral damage in the eyes of many idiots, but these are people with lives and jobs and rights, people like MOLAR, “ballot papers for the legitimate. Consider your language, Consider your audience. Not to worry our little haven is only for half the population. Come in all the way. Come in all the way, you can stay but don’t get comfy”. Auslännerwahlrecht isn’t even one and a half minutes long, yet it leaves an indelible mark, a howl of injustice that’s impossible to ignore, give MOLAR an EP’s worth of room to make their point, and they might just change the world.

Straniero is out December 14th via Everything Sucks Music. Click HERE for more information on MOLAR.

3. Faye Webster Is Your New King(ston)

What do you get if you cross the great American songbook with the Atlanta Hip-Hop scene? The answer might just be Faye Webster, although listening to her music you might not guess it. This week, Faye’s announced her signing to Secretly Canadian, and celebrated with a brand new, and delightfully slinky, new single, Kingston.

Kingston is Faye’s first new music since her second album, released back in 2017. It’s a track that instantly draws up images of hazy, summer evenings, to the point you can almost feel your toes starting to thaw as the languid guitar lines and smooth as silk vocals entwine and part. There’s even a gentle blast of smoky saxophone and buzzing Rhodes-like piano to complete the practically asleep levels of loveliness.

Kingston is out now via Secretly Canadian. Click HERE for more information on Faye Webster.

2. Pillow Queens Are Singing For The Gay Girls

Much vaunted indie-pop quartet Pillow Queens impressed many earlier this year with the excellent State Of The State EP.  Closing off the year with some of their biggest Irish shows to date, the band have celebrated this week by sharing the video to Gay Girls, their first new material since State Of The State.

The band have described the track as touching on, “feelings of intoxicating lust coupled with relentless repression”, themes mirrored in the video where four girls flea their communion day. Gay Girls is a celebration in many ways of the increasingly progressive nature of modern Ireland, a place that for a long time was shackled by the authoritarian nature of the Catholic Church, here represented in a thrilling choral outro where the band yell out it unison, “I won’t worry about the gay girls, I pray for them when I wring my hands”. A song that celebrates how far the world has come in terms of equality and simultaneously reminds us that the battle isn’t over yet.

Gay Girl is out now. Click HERE for more information on Pillow Queens.

1. Time To Keep Living On The Bottom Step

Winnipeg’s Living Hour started life a vehicle for the songwriting of Sam Sarty, before expanding into their current five-piece set up. After drawing plentiful acclaim for their self-titled debut back in 2016, the Canadian’s are set to return in March with their second offering, Softer Faces. This week ahead of that release, the band have shared a brand-new track, Bottom Step.

Bottom Step is a deceptively complex track, the multitude of layers, belying the delightful understatement of the sound. There’s the tranquil serenity of the almost lethargic guitar line, the washes of benevolent brass and the perfectly laconic vocals, all combine into something gentle and quietly beautiful. This is music to get lost in, for aimless Autumnal walks, full of unspoken melancholy and that most underrated of human desires, solitude. Living Hour’s music taps at the listener’s emotions, it doesn’t offer any grand statements, or resolutions, just a perfect distillation of, “the highs and lows of the hellos I’ll never know”. In it’s own ways, it’s utterly wonderful.

Softer Faces is out March 1st via Kanine Records. Click HERE for more information on Living Hour.

Header photo is Living Hour by Chelsea Neufeld