Sorting through the week’s new singles and songs that have surfaced online over the last seven days, Jamie Skey (@jamie_skey) presents five songs you need to hear this week…
Lo-fi rockers Mazes turn in a tripped out video for their booze-soaked new single, Salford, in which the spirit of the north west city is captured via grainy footage of a proper local pub chock with aging metallers smashing pint glasses.
Having enjoyed a career in politics for two-and-a-half years, Manchester-born folk-soul strummer JJ Hodari clearly knows a thing or two about conflict, a subject which he explores on his new single Break Our Bones. “It’s about the nature of aggressive ideologies clashing. Many conflicts are between two rights, not a simple right and wrong,” explains Hodari, who graduated with a First Class Honours in History. While his debut single’s hardly a Dylan-esque surge of righteous indignation, it will certainly strike a chord with fans of Fleet Foxes and armchair politics alike.
Liverpool has become a nexus for psychedelia in Britain, and blissed-out quintet Gulf are at the vanguard of their city’s kaleidoscopic network. Their latest single Emitter establishes a gauzy mind-link with aussie inward rockers Tame Impala, albeit with an (third) eye on the dancefloor, thanks to some spaced-out disco throbs.
Though summer’s virtually over, Norwegian grunge-pop revivalists Beezewax keep plugging away at their warm, hazy sound as if they were completely baked and carefree on a bright day in July. Hazzard sounds like Dinosaur Jnr sharing a peace pipe with French chic rockers Phoenix.
Psychedelic synth-pop trio Apollo Gets The Girl reportedly hail from Newcastle, but judging by their entrancing and otherworldly vibes on Strange Girl, they could just as conceivably be Chvrches assuming an astral projection.