Each week the Music Feeds team gathers their favourite new tunes from around the world, hurls some hopefully sensical words at them and presents them for you. It’s Music Feeds favs.
Swimwear – Heartbroken
Slip on your togs and dive right in because Swimwear – the solo project of Dappled Cities’ Tim Derricourt – has just dropped his new EP High Summer, the second in Swimwear’s summer series. This new record is a lighter accompaniment to its predecessor, and is filled with such sun-drenched, infectious pop tracks, it’ll make you forget it’s actually Autumn here now. (Someone pls DM the weather gods, they don’t seem to have gotten the memo).
My personal fave cut is its opener, Heartbroken: a jaunty track that defies its nomenclature. Built around catchy hooks, disco vibes and honey-toned vocals, a broken heart never sounded so, well, fun really. / Nastassia Baroni, Editor
Dope Lemon – Uptown Folk
Folk-blues singer-songwriter Angus Stone (of Angus and Julia Stone fame, of course) has rebranded himself Dope Lemon and just released his first single under the new moniker.
Uptown Folk is a melancholic track, as uplifting in its sincerity as it is downbeat in its minor key setting. Stone picks out pretty melodic fragments on his acoustic guitar over murky, rocky chords and it’s all instantly appealing. He sings of delirium and going “back to the garden” in his signature raspy voice, a failsafe guarantee for a soulful track.
This isn’t the first time Angus has released solo stuff, nor the first time he has released solo stuff under a different name: he was Lady of the Sunshine in 2008 when he released his debut solo record and just plain old Angus Stone for Broken Brights in 2012. / Rosie Pentreath, Staff Writer
AWE – Chex Loop
Chances are you may not have heard of AWE before he dropped a huge mix-up exclusives mix on triple j early last year. It was a proper announcement to anyone bothering to listen that here was a dude that was worth taking notice of. If you’re still not familiar, think of some of Hudson Mohawke’s more abrasive stuff but with catchier vocal samples and you’re pretty much there.
Since then, AWE has been hard at work, regularly dropping glitchy originals and dope remixes of people like Jack Ü and Hermitude on his Soundcloud. It all seems to have culminated now, and he really seems to have found his range with this latest effort Chex Loop. It’s his clinkiest, glitchiest tune to date. Chex Loop is everything you didn’t know you wanted, but you most assuredly do. / Zanda Wilson, Contributer
Walken – Eagle Eye
There’s something in the water up north in Queensland that seems to foster the kind of energetic punk music riffs that you can’t find anywhere else. Following in the ilk of Violent Soho and Dune Rats, comes the scintillating garage rock licks of Walken, whose latest single Eagle Eye, is an impressive, dense follow-up to last release Even If It Kills Me.
Kudos needs to be given firstly for lyrics which rhyme ‘procreate’ with ‘masturbate’, but the new song splooges more then just killer lyricism with one of the catchiest guitar riffs of the year so far and some on point falling and rising percussion which give you just enough breathing room to gather yourself before being hurled into the next block of unadulterated thrash. I’m all boned up over here tbh. / Mitch Feltscheer, Creative Director
Nico Ghost – Night Terrors
So Sydney has been proven inferior to Melbourne on multiple occasions. Us Sydney-siders live in an oversized cage fashioned by a heavy-handed, probably diabetic Religious Studies teacher (NSW Parliament). Whilst, our Melbourne counterparts frolick free until dawn. Now Melbourne-based word player Nico Ghost has released Night Terrors. I can imagine that if a song of the same title was released in Sydney, the video would be entertaining – ghostbusters in the ghost-city.
Night Terrors is a powerful song. Nico Ghost floats over a minimal beat-structure that rumbles rather than roars. His flow whips and turns with subtle ferocity; it’s both an anaesthetic and a euphoric. Ghost paints vivid pictures of his darkness, of his death-in-life. In an interview with Noisey, Ghost said that he was the only survivor of four brothers. “Two were murdered, the other committed suicide. This all happened before I was 13. I died emotionally after that, that’s why I go with the name Nico Ghost. I was a ghost for a long time.” / Luke Bodley, Presenter & Contributer
WARHOLA – Lady
There’s some really dark, demonic electro-pop coming out of Belgium right now and this man WARHOLA has a lot to do with it. He’s produced for a number of Belgian artists but now he’s turned his attention to his own project and this latest cut Lady is a slam-dunk. It’s a haunting tune but it’s sweetened with WARHOLA’s vocal manipulation which pairs his perfect falsetto with Bon Iver-tinged auto tune.
It’s almost as if James Blake spent a whole year in a dark room and starting speaking to dark spirits and while that’s a weird thought, it actually sounds damn good on record. It’s not likely to aid your sunny Friday disposition but it is likely to hit you right in the feels. Tip for young players – hang out for the horns right at the tail-end of the track. / Sam Murphy, Staff Writer
