Music. It’s great. We don’t mean to get pretentious or philosophical here on This Week In Records, but it is especially handy to think about just how lovely it can be when it can seem this exam season like every little thing is crumbling around us. If you know of upcoming new music that could be officially classified as load-bearing, our inbox is open at [email protected].
Loyle Carner – Yesterday’s Gone
One week to the day since we completed our rundown of the 10 acts you need to watch this year, we have our first artist to successfully lay an album-shaped egg. For Loyle Carner, following a process that he described to The Edge as “at times very, very easy, and at times very, very hard,” Yesterday’s Gone marks an inevitable beginning, laced with introspective chorally-aided numbers (‘The Isle Of Arran‘), nostalgic fire (‘NO CD‘), and occasional spots of more chilled funk (Tom Misch link-up ‘Damselfly,’ which you may be pleased to know hasn’t caught me out once in the last week).
LANY – ‘ILYSB’
Whilst we’re on the topic of members of The Edge‘s List of 2017, our roundup of everything new must continue with a song that has been out for so long that it convinced me nine days short of a year ago to go and see its creators in concert. LANY is the delectable trio of Paul Klein on voice and dramatic keys, Jake Goss on drums, and Les Priest on literally everything; ‘ILYSB’ is the track they first released to SoundCloud in July 2014 that now seems to be leading their album charge of 2017 with a shiny new video. Sure, re-releasing a bloody phenomenal pop song once you’ve accumulated a large enough audience from its non-chart success to break through with isn’t quite the same as releasing a new bloody phenomenal pop song, but it’s certainly no bad thing. Just look at how Dua Lipa is salvaging one of the most convoluted major label pop star launches with 2015’s utter anthem ‘Be The One’ right now.
Anyway, back to ‘ILYSB’ now that I have an incredible excuse to welcome you all into this blissful world. Last.fm, my resident statistical goldmine, reckons that I have listened to only two tracks – Gold Panda’s productivity fuel ‘Clarke’s Dream’ and Jamie xx’s incessantly optimistic ‘I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)’ – more often since signing up for the service in late 2013. I regret nothing. Not at all uncommon to the Make Out and kinda EPs of 2015 and 2016 that have preceded this new push, ‘ILYSB’ is a potent blend of bubbling instrumental delicacy and Klein’s ability to sing some of the most egregiously millennial soppy lyrics (“Mad cool in all my clothes / Mad warm when you get close to me / Slow dance these summer nights / Our disco ball’s my kitchen light / And ya need to to know / That nobody can take your place / And you need to know / That I’m hella obsessed with your face / Oh, my heart hurts so good / I love you, babe / So bad”) in a way that’s more overwhelmingly endearing every time.
Why yes, I am obsessed. Click play here and you almost certainly will be joining me in March for their three-night return to the UK.
Arcade Fire feat. Mavis Staples – ‘I Give You Power’
Gorillaz feat. Benjamin Clementine – ‘Hallelujah Money’
In case you’ve been living under a blissful rock for the past few months, today is the day that Donald Trump officially becomes the President of the United States. What those words should make you feel are more of an issue for our dear Wessex Scene friends to discuss, however a little look at the (per This Week‘s Jess Phillips) “hilarious and woeful” artistic collective lined up for his grand inauguration day depicts a pretty stark response from the entertainment community. (Personally, I would have thoroughly relished a headline set from YG, however it seems Trump’s folks didn’t quite have the capital.)
The event does, however, beckon two events of cultural significance: returns after three and five years respectively from Arcade Fire and Gorillaz in strikingly apocalyptic collaborative pronouncements. On ‘I Give You Power,’ the Butlers and co. join Mavis Staples and a disconcerting synth swamp thinkpiece on the strength of raw democracy, meanwhile Damon Albarn’s animated ensemble let Benjamin Clementine’s bizarre vibrato occupy the spotlight on ‘Hallelujah Money,’ a new album lead best reacted to with its own closing 10 seconds.
Yasutaka Nakata feat. Charli XCX & Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – ‘Crazy Crazy’
With ‘After The Afterparty’ still hanging around from 2016 even though everyone else has toddled home through the darkness and left Lil Yachty to awkwardly mope in the corner mumbling to himself, one of my great hopes for 2017 was that Charli XCX would do something bonkers and genuinely fantastic in equal measure pretty quickly. Enter Yasutaka Nakata, a Japanese electronic musician whose only previous brush past my ears was a cracking remix for Madeon’s ‘Pay No Mind’ in 2015: his new single brings Charli to the lead role alongside longtime collaborator and kawaii institution Kyary Pamyu Pamyu for the greatest bubblegum flash of the year to date.
Jillionaire feat. Fuse ODG & Fatman Scoop – ‘Sunrise’
Here’s an odd one: with Major Lazer’s big new single with Nicki Minaj and PARTYNEXTDOOR supposedly only a week away, Capital’s new playlist shows a solo record from Jillionaire getting a direct add even though it doesn’t quite appear to exist on the internet in legal form beyond this image posted to Facebook last Friday.
(Yes, that does say Fatman Scoop. He of the greatest single of 2003. He of the two quite suitable Skrillex collaborations. He of the greatest Spotify playlist I have ever curated.)
With Scoop in tow to provide the same growly clamours he’s been flourishing upon for the last couple of decades and Fuse ODG obviously on a bit of a good run that included jumping on Major Lazer’s own ‘Light It Up’ remix to prove the viability of Diplo, Walshy Fire, and Mr. Jillionaire himself as a commercial triumvirate post-‘Lean On,’ the idea of ‘Sunrise’ is quite an intriguing one. Unfortunately, it seems as if he wants This Week In Records to wait up until such a time in order to find out, and we most cordially refuse. For one, Jillionaire’s most resonant solo moment to date is probably when he walked around Wembley Stadium lackadaisically flailing his arms to try and get people to jump to ‘Where Are Ü Now.’ Add in his ploy to entice us to Sheeran-esque times when Tinie Tempah has already jumped the gun by teasing his new record, due next Friday after a ‘Mamacita’-shaped flop-related delay, with two new tracks including one (albeit horrendous) record with Tinashe, and I’m off to bed.
Selected Other Releases
Albums
Austra – Future Politics
Courtney Marie Andrews – Honest Life
DaVinChe – #POWERS
Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes – Modern Ruin
John Mayer – The Search For Everything: Wave One EP
Last Night In Paris – Pure EP
Modern Baseball, The Superweaks & Thin Lips – Split 7″ EP
Tycho – Epoch
Singles
Alex Mills – ‘Be Somebody’
Astronomyy – ‘Don’t Need U’
Big Sean – ‘Halfway Off The Balcony’
BT – ‘The Upside Down’
Chloe Martini feat. Chiara Hunter – ‘Change Of Heart’
CocoRosie feat. ANOHNI – ‘Smoke ‘Em Out’
Conor Oberst – ‘A Little Uncanny’ / ‘Napalm’
Dirty Projectors – ‘Up In Hudson’
DJ Zinc – ‘Feel The Love’
DubVision – ‘Geht’s Noch’
Dutch Uncles – ‘Oh Yeah’
From First To Last – ‘Make War’
J. Cole – ‘High For Hours’
Johnossi – ‘Hands’
Lady Antebellum – ‘You Look Good’
Louis Berry – ‘She Wants Me’
Lower Than Atlantis – ‘Boomerang’
Maggie Rogers – ‘On + Off’
Mallory Knox – ‘Citalopram (Better Off Without You)’
Maxïmo Park – ‘Risk To Exist’
MUNA – ‘Crying On The Bathroom Floor’
Myah Sky – ‘Would You Say’
Paces feat. None – ‘Savage’
Rationale – ‘Reciprocate’
Rejjie Snow – ‘Crooked Cops’
Ryan Adams – ‘Doomsday’
Shy Girls – ‘Say You Will’
Shy Luv & JONES – ‘Shock Horror’
Sofi Tukker – ‘Johny’
The M Machine – ‘Voyeur’
Tinie Tempah feat. Nea – ‘Chasing Flies’
Tinie Tempah feat. Tinashe – ‘Text From Your Ex’
Tom Tripp – ‘Aurelia’
Wale feat. Lil Wayne – ‘Running Back’
WSTRN – ‘On The Go’
One More Thing…
Yet again, we haven’t forgotten. Give our shiny new Spotify playlist a follow and all this musical newness will be right there in time for breakfast every Friday morning.
