Further Listening:

5. Tigerblind And Me Are Just Meant To Be

Most stuff that pops up in my inbox comes with a press release, some images maybe, some clues as to who is making the music they’re submitting, and what it might sound like. You know basic stuff to make you think listening to the song is going to be worthwhile. Tigerblind’s latest single, Meant To Be arrived with a single line, “I am putting out a new song. It is a twee-ish singer-songwriter, indie pop cutesy type thing”. With not much to go on, I’m slightly surprised I even clicked on, but thankfully, for once, this stab in the dark paid off.

Now I’ve been at this game a while, I know sometimes you’ve got to go digging to find out much about a band, and sometimes there just isn’t much. Tigerblind is from Dallas, Texas, a review on Jangle Pop Hub suggests he might be called Cameron, and about a year ago, he released a genuinely quite charming lo-fi record, It’s All Gonna Happen To You. What else? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Let the music do the talking I guess, and maybe there’s nothing at all wrong with that. Meant To Be shuffles into your ears, a jangle of guitars, a vocal that’s the middle ground of Alex G and Mercury Rev, and as if to just highlight the breeziness of the thing, a bit of whistling. It’s one of those songs that sounds distinctly upbeat, yet you get a feeling that something darker is hiding underneath. The lyrics are every bit as mysterious as the artist themself, “everyone can find some solace in exchanging glasses, putting hearts on the mend, and everyone says that it’s meant to be”. In some ways, it almost feels like a throwback to the pre-Internet days when you put a record on, not really knowing what you were going to discover within, whether by design or accident, Tigerblind found a way to make music mysterious again, and in its own simple way, it’s very charming indeed.

Meant To Be is out now. For more information on Tigerblind visit https://tigerblind.bandcamp.com/.

4. Let Me Shed Some Light On Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies

Fifteen-plus year veterans of the Liverpool music-scene, Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies have dubbed their musical output, “Kitchencore”, a suitable moniker for their distinctly British tales of working class living. Relentlessly touring, alongside their drag queen backing dancers, Cantina Turner and Tash Potater, aka The Dinnerettes, The Dinner Ladies have built a reputation for hard work and theatrical eccentricity in equal measure. As they prepare to hit the road once more, the band recently found time to share their seventh album, Art, Religion and Chocolate Biscuits, and marked the occasion with a new video/single, Shed.

A typical dollop in The Dinner ladies style, Shed walks the line between the absurd and the meaningful. On the one hand, it’s a love letter to the Garden Shed; on the other, it’s a reflection of mental health struggles, and searching for easy answers to complex problems. Musically, Shed is a beautiful combination of the playful naivety of The Undertones or Half Man Half Biscuit with the angular artsy flourish of The Fall. The primal patter of the drums overlain with choppy, distorted guitars, squalling saxophones, and Pete’s vocal cry for “space away from the human race”. The message is pretty on point throughout. We all need somewhere to escape and sit with our thoughts away from the rush of the world, whether it’s a garden shed, a rehearsal room, or a music blog (remember those!) So wherever you choose to escape, I hope it means as much as Pete’s Dad’s shed meant to him, “shed is shelter, shed is home, shed is a space you can be alone, shed has your things in it, shed is a tool, shed is place where you can be cool, shed is peaceful, shed is quiet, shed is escape from the daily riot”. Now lets all go form an orderly queue at B&Q, there are surely plenty of sheds to go round.

Art, Religion and Chocolate Biscuits is out now via 9×9 Records. For more information on Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies visit https://linktr.ee/pbdinnerladies.

3. Scott Lavene Brings The Muscle

Perhaps a South-Eastern equivalent to Pete Bentham & The Dinner Ladies’ Liverpudlian musings, Basildon’s Scott Lavene was last heard from on 2023’s Disneyland in Dagenham, a record of East End poetry set to a post-punk backing. For his next move, Scott teamed up with acclaimed producer Stew Jackson, as well as Ryan Rogers from the excellent Mumble Tide, taking just five days to record his new album, Cars, Buses, Bedsits & Shops. With the record arriving later this month via Nothing Fancy, Scott recently shared the excellent Muscle Car, a song whose chorus won’t get out of my head ever since.

Ostensibly a song about buying a car number plate, with the hope of one day finding the car to go with it, Muscle Car takes us on a trip through some of Scott’s most wild adventures, from a trippy traipse around Graceland, to the questionable bonding experience of a, “father-son trip to a strip club next to a mall”, with his step-dad. For all the questionable antics, there’s a distinctly romantic undercurrent here, Scott noting that ultimately it’s only love that matters to him, not cars or a house in France, “now you see, you mean more to me than any muscle car, you’re my French Riviera”. Musically, this is probably Scott at his most anthemic, like an Essex Tom Petty, or Ian Dury fronting The Magnetic Fields. Scott Lavene is one of those songwriters who does a great job of flipping your expectations. There’s a grimy humour here, but polish it up and you’ll find a golden heart underneath, a romantic soul in a coat of comic swagger who, with repeat listens, you’re bound to fall in love with.

Cars, Buses, Bedsits & Shops is out August 22nd via Nothing Fancy. For more information on Scott Lavene visit https://linktr.ee/ScottLavene.

2. Westside Cowboy Hit The Waves

One of the year’s most talked about new bands, it’s probably quicker to list off the people who aren’t raving about Westside Cowboy. The Manchester-based quintet might have only shared a handful of singles, yet have already played with everyone from Ezra Furman to English Teacher, had two playlisted singles on 6Music, and won the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Contest – so far so good, you might say. They recently took a big step forward with the release of their debut EP, This Better Be Something Great, which they previewed with the release of the excellent, Drunk Surfer.

While we’re used to bands trying to explain what their songs about, vocalist Reuben Haycocks is refreshingly honest when he admits Drunk Surfer, “was about a time that I have since forgotten”, something he sees as a positive, “the song is now free to take on new meanings depending on the context of my life. I hope it can work like this for others also”. It might seem an odd idea to throw at a band only just getting started, but Drunk Surfer already feels like quintessential Westside Cowboy. A winning blend of urgency and contemplation, resplendent with hooky riffs, yelpy choruses, and some of the best false endings since The Strokes’ Hard To Explain. There’s a certain freshness about UK guitar music at the moment, and alongside bands like Divorce, Honeyglaze, and English Teacher, Westside Cowboy feel at the vanguard of something, a reminder indie music never dies, it just morphs, regroups and comes back around in a new shape for a new generation to discover on their own terms.

This Better Be Something Great is out now via Nice Swan x Heist Or Hit. For more information on Westside Cowboy visit https://www.westsidecowboy.com/.

1. Ada Lea Cuts To The Chase

Ada Lea is an artist I’ve long admired, with both her 2021 debut, What We Say In Private, and 2021’s brilliant follow-up, One Hand On The Steering Wheel The Other Sewing A Garden, digging their way under my skin in their own strange and beautiful ways. The moniker of Montreal-based musician and visual artist, Alexandra Levy, Ada Lea’s next offering seems to find Alexandra bringing the two closer than ever. Her latest record, When I Paint My Masterpiece, was written in a period when she began to wonder if the life of a touring musician was really the one for her. Prior to the album’s release, she shared the remarkable and superbly titled Bob Dylan’s 115th Haircut.

Bob Dylan’s 115th Haircut comes from the slightly unlikely place of feeling particularly uninspired, as Alexandra explains, “I get into these moods where I feel like there will always be a gap between what I want to say, and what I actually end up writing”. At these moments it’s easy to slide into comparisons, “the mood that evening was comparing myself to Bob Dylan. And why not?” After the inevitable self-flagellation and feelings of inadequacy came a revelation, sure we can’t all be Bob Dylan, but he can’t be us either, as she sings in the chorus, for better or worse, “Bob Dylan couldn’t have written this song, not even if he wanted to, not even just for fun”. Perhaps fittingly, the song does have a certain Dylan-esque quality, yet skewered with a distinctly Ada Lea flourish. We get a fabulous blast of Blood On The Track-like Harmonica, but we also get those nimble dancing vocal melodies, warm pulsing bass lines, and tumbling guitar work that are distinctly Ada Lea. It’s very tempting to declare Ada Lea’s new album her masterpiece; it makes for a neat soundbite after all, however, it would probably miss the point. This is an album about doing the work, not chasing perfection, but being happy with where you are. In that happiness, Ada Lea has produced something thrilling; her masterpiece will only become clear when she calls it a day, hopefully a very long time from now.

When I Paint My Masterpiece is out now via Saddle Creek. For more information on Ada Lea visit https://www.adaleamusic.com/.

Header photo is Ada Lea by Monse Munro