by Joss Croasdale, Philip Moss, Joseph Purcell and Phil Scarisbrick
Anna Burch – With You Every Day
After releasing her debut album, Quit the Curse, in February via Heavenly/Polyvinyl Records, Detroit native Anna Burch this week releases the album’s final track With You Every Day. In an interview, Burch describes the track as focusing on the fluctuations in a relationship once it passes the honeymoon period.
Burch continues the steady stream of outstanding female vocal talent to emerge in recent years along with the likes of Aldous Harding, Nadia Reid and Haley Heyndrecikx. Anna Burch will be extensively touring the UK in May.
Beach House – Dark Spring
Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, better known as Baltimore indie heroes Beach House, this week shared the opening track, Dark Spring, from the forthcoming highly anticipated new album, 7.
This – the third single to be shared from the album after the previously released Lemon Glow and Dive – encompasses a driving drum sound that’s gorgeously intertwined with the exquisite vocal cacophony that has become Beach House’s trademark. Ever since their emergence twelve years ago, Beach House have continually excelled with albums of effortless beauty and soaring scale, and 7 promises to be no different.
Beach House’s new album, 7, is released on 11th May via Sub Pop/Bella Union/Mistletone.
Bob Dylan – He’s Funny That Way
Alongside St. Vincent, Kesha, Kele Okereke, Ben Gibbard and Valerie June, Bob Dylan has contributed to a new compilation called Universal Love. The concept of the record is to turn classic tracks into ‘same-sex wedding anthems’.
Using music popularised by Frank Sinatra, as he did for last year’s Triplicate record, Dylan has changed popular America standard, She’s Funny That Way to He’s Funny That Way. Dylan’s own daughter, Desiree Dennis-Dylan, married her partner in 2014, so it is clearly a subject that is close to his heart.
The six-track EP is available now.
Johnny Marr – The Tracers
The Tracers is the first single to be taken from former Smiths’ man, Johnny Marr’s new album, Call The Comet.
Since his last solo album, Playland, in 2014, Marr has published his superb autobiography, Set The Boy Free, as well as a spoken word collaboration, The Priest, which features actress, Maxine Peake, and deals with the increasing problems facing homeless people in the UK.
Call The Comet is out on 15th June.
Friendly Fires – Love Like Waves
Yesterday’s release of Love Like Waves sees Friendly Fires active again after a lengthy hiatus – in fact, it’s just a week short of seven years since their second album, Pala, was release.
Now, having made a live return last week (check out our review of their Leeds show here) they are look to build on their previous works. Fans of the band will be happy in the knowledge to see them pick up where they left off after albums one and two.
Discussing the extended break, the band stated, “Creativity can be an ephemeral thing. Sometimes ideas flow. Other times it’s a struggle. But you battle through it. Well, we feel like we’ve reached the end of a long period of the latter scenario and are much closer to the former. We’re making music that is meeting the standards we’ve set in the past; the relationships between us are good, and we want to write a new chapter for the band that has been our lives’ most significant work.”
Love Like Waves hints that the album will, once again, be a mix of 80’s disco/funk, 90’s acid house groove’s and carnival vibes throughout. However, no further details have yet been released regarding the LP.
DJ Crytical Hype – The DAMN. Chronic
Although mash-ups tend to be made all the time, they rarely feel like anything other than quirky sound trickery. Sometimes though, you occasionally get one that feels a bit more important than that. Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album for example, merged The Beatles’ White Album with Jay-Z’s Black Album to create something very enjoyable that still stands the test of time now.
Unveiled online this week, DJ Crytical Hype has melded together the unforgettable hooks of one of West Coast Hip-hop’s pioneers, with the rhymes of one of its brightest stars. The result is a vision of the city that birthed them both, in a way that neither have sounded like before. Compton’s Dr Dre and Kendrick Lamar are both global superstars now, with careers borne out of humble beginnings. This project feels like an even greater tribute to those beginnings, and that city, than Dr Dre’s N.W.A. biopic soundtrack album: Compton.
Listen to the full mashup below-
Drinks – Corner Shops
Tim Presley has always been a musician unafraid to present new creative ideas and immerse himself in unexpected collaborations. After his previous stints alongside the dearly departed Mark E Smith in The Fall, and his 2012 collaboration, Hair, with Ty Segall, he has now enlisted the help of Welsh female vocalist extraordinaire, Cate Le Bon.
The pair, under the moniker of Drinks, release Hippo Lite via Drag City on the 20th April. This week they share the second track from the forthcoming album in the from of Corner Shops- a quirky single that showcases the fantastic talents of Le Bon and building anticipation for the album’s release later this month.
Tyler, the Creator – Okra
Fresh off the back of 2017’s incredible Grammy nominated, Flower Boy, the founding member of hip hop collective, Odd Future – Tyler, the Creator – releases new track Okra.
Only surpassed in recent times by the flawless Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator again shows his effortless ability to create a track sure to receive endless plays this summer.
Unfortunately, Okra does not appear to be the precursor to more new material, as Tyler, the Creator (real name Tyler Gregory Okanma) referred to the song as ‘throwaway’ and with no new album promised this might just have to be a release to tide us over.
Elke – Without The I
Without The I is the lead single taken from Kayla Graninger aka Elke’s (pronounced el-key) forthcoming debut EP, Bad Metaphors.
Raised on a mix of Top 40, classic rock and doo-wop, Graninger calls the track “an exploration of memories and moments that I needed to make sense of. I really have owned the fact that I kind of sound like a man. I didn’t do that for a really long time. Now I have this and I can be really loud, and the songs are super emotion-filled with the way that I sing. That’s what I hold closest.”
The EP, which has been produced by Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, Weezer, Perfume Genius) is out on 20th April through Kobalt Records.
