Further Listening:

5. Keep Your Hands To Yourself And Your Ears On Goodnight Louisa

Goodnight Louisa is the project of Edinburgh-based artist and producer Louise McCraw, former frontwoman of indie band SKJØR, and now a solo portrayer of synth-pop wonderment. Having drawn Scotland-wide acclaim for her brilliant single Hollow God, this week Louisa has shared her latest single, Get Your Hands Off My Girlfriend, the first track from her upcoming debut album, Human Danger.

The song is Louisa’s attempt to highlight the hidden abuse of gay women, reflecting on a lived experience, where Louisa’s partner at the time was assaulted by a man after the pair refused to perform for his entertainment. Discussing the track, Louisa has suggested this has partly resulted from the mainstreaming of gay culture, “Gay culture is not as secretive as it was before, and people want a part of that. But they forget the sheer brutality that can come along with that“. Musically the track is a brilliant fusion of icy electro and driving, clattering drum beats, the combination resulting in a sound that’s slightly oddly, but also brilliantly, like the middle ground of Sparks and The Twilight Sad. Wonderfully straight-talking, raw and honest, Goodnight Louisa seems to have tapped into something very special indeed.

Get Your Hands Off My Girlfriend is out now. For more information on Goodnight Louisa visit https://twitter.com/goodnightlouisa.

4. Colleen Green Is Smashing And Nicey

It was back in 2015 that Colleen Green came crashing into the indie-pop community’s collective conscience with her brilliant album, I Want To Grow Up. A record of existential crisis it charted the difficult water of being, “too young to be free of insecurities but old enough to be sick of them running her life”. Some six years on, Colleen’s new album, Cool, due out this September, is a celebration of being a grown-up, and realising that actually, that is pretty cool after all.

Ahead of the album’s release, this week Colleen has shared the second track to be lifted from Cool, It’s Nice To Be Nice. Described by Colleen as a reminder to herself that you get what you give, It’s Nice To Be Nice is a celebration of emotional maturity and the ongoing struggle to be the best person you can be. Set to a wavering synth and delightfully driving guitar line, Colleen’s lyrics are both self-admonishing and yet willing to be better, “it’s nice to be nice, it’s good to be good, I recite and memorise my lines, why do I need a reminder?” So much music has been written with a dewy-eyed nostalgia for youth and young romance, Cool contrastingly is a celebration of growing up, learning to be yourself and casting out the doubts of adolescence, and whether she’d admit or not, in my book that makes Colleen Green very cool indeed.

Cool is out September 10th via Hardly Art Records. For more information on Colleen Green visit https://www.colleengreen420.com/.

3. th’sheridans Share Their Awesome Summer Anthem

Relative veterans of the UK DIY scene, th’sheridans are the fabulous duo of Adam Karenina Sheriff and Julia Oertli. Freshly signed to Reckless Yes and with an eclectic back-catalogue spanning their decade-plus indie career, the band have this week detailed the release of a retrospective collection, Pieces of General. Ahead of that release this Autumn, the band also shared a brand new single from the album, Awesome Summers & Kate.

Coming from a band who’ve never attempted to fit into a specific genre, Awesome Summers & Kate is a track that showcases their indie-pop side, combining handclap drums with distorted guitars, coming across like the middle ground of Trust Fund and Le Tigre. Lyrically, it’s a track laced with anticipation, fizzing with retrospective teenage hormones, long summer evenings and a subtle longing for innocence long-lost, “Kate and I, we pass the time trying not to roll in the hay”. A look back on a decade of wonderful music, as the band put it, “this album is who we are, who we’ve been, and a glimpse of who we’re gonna be”, so whether you’re exploring, or re-exploring their music, this is an opportunity any music fan isn’t going to want to miss.

Pieces of General is out this Autumn via Reckless Yes. For more information on th’sheridans visit https://thsheridans.bandcamp.com/.

2. People Mover Are A Joy To Behold

A hot-off-the-presses indie-punk duo hailing out of Brisbane, finding anything out about People Mover isn’t particularly easy. Thankfully their music, in the shape of a fabulous debut single The Joy, does a lot of the talking for them.

Released this week via Little Lunch Records, The Joy more than lives up to its name, with three and a half minutes of unforgettable melodies, impatient drum rhythms and wiry, The Strokes-like guitars. To the fore throughout is the lackadaisical vocal, dissecting the experience of, “full-time life getting ya down when everything else was already pretty sub-par”. Sitting in contrast to the urgent music, as the band sing, “the joy that came before I don’t feel any more”, it’s not histrionic or dramatic, just crushing in its matter-of-factness. I can’t really tell you who People Mover are, let alone what they’ve got planned, yet if they’ve got songs this good in them, who really cares? I for one am looking forward to finding out a whole lot more about People Mover in the years to come.

The Joy is out now via Little Lunch Records. For more information on People Mover visit https://peoplemoverbris.bandcamp.com/.

1.Ailsa Tully Pulls Back The Sheets

Based out of Wales and signed to the fabulous Dalliance Recordings, Ailsa Tully has been one of my favourite discoveries of recent years. After bursting onto the scene last year with the gorgeous Drive, Ailsa has already shared two singles this year, the atmospheric crunch of Parasite and the most ethereal charms of Greedy. With her debut EP, Holy Isle arriving next month, this week Ailsa has shared the latest offering from the record, Sheets.

Sheets is a wonderfully delicate piece of songwriting, a reflection on the moment after waking, when the mind starts whirring with all the ideas of where the day might take you. It’s something of a plea for a lack of responsibility, Ailsa’s playful vocal melody, adding to the feeling of wanting to go back to a simpler time. As the song progresses though, the anxiety of reality beings to take hold, as the relative breeziness of the electric guitar is punctured by the low-end unease of waves of rich clarinet and dissonant cello. It feels like running on quicksand, knowing no matter how softly you tread, you’ll eventually be pulled back into the depth. Another intriguing offering from a songwriter who already feels like a star in the making, when Holy Isle arrives next month expect an awful lot of people to sit up and take notice.

Holy Isle is out August 20th via Dalliance Recordings. For more information on Ailsa Tully visit https://twitter.com/AilsaTully.

Header photo is Ailsa Tully by Adam Whitmore.