A Place To Bury Strangers prove that might makes right, Kid Kapichi don’t want to miss a thing, Rise Against use their words, Cadence Weapon is on — and so is your Tuesday Roundup. Ready, set go:
1 | A Place To Bury Strangers | I Might Have
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A Place To Bury Strangers’ I Might Have is the second single and video from their upcoming EP Hologram, out July 16. I Might Have is a fuzz-soaked sonic disaster in the best possible way. Past reflections collide with the brutality of a disintegrating world, stories of personal trauma, acceptance, and human failings emerge from the rubble of noise and destitute motorik rhythms. This is A Place To Bury Strangers at their most honest and unfiltered. Hologram serves as an abstract mirror to the moment we live in and I Might Have smashes that mirror into a thousand pieces.”
2 | Kid Kapichi | Fomo Sapiens
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “We’re delighted to share with you the official video for Fomo Sapiens,” U.K. rockers Kid Kapichi say. “We know a lot of you love this tune and it was so much fun to film a video for it. Massive thanks and love to Ben Pierce and everyone involved in making it.”
3 | Rise Against | Talking To Ourselves
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rise Against introduce Talking to Ourselves, a new song from the imminent album Nowhere Generation. With its surprising pop candor, Talking To Ourselves is about wanting to be heard and wondering if anyone is listening. Over the years, many journalists have identified Rise Against as “controversial” or “radical,” their music being “bold” and “brave.” But the band’s lyricist Tim McIlrath begs to differ, and Talking to Ourselves is a prime example of that point of view. “I’ve never thought of our songs as ‘brave’ or bold,’ ” he said. “I think of them as just common sense. When you feel that no one is listening to you, you tend to talk louder, and when you feel no one notices you, you start doing things to get their attention. That’s what this song is about.”
3 | Cadence Weapon | On Me (ft. Manga Saint Hilaire & Strict Face)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Cadence Weapon, the moniker of Edmonton-born, Toronto-based rapper, producer, writer and poet Rollie Pemberton, continues to fill airwaves and digital realms following the release of his album Parallel World. Today, he shares the video for On Me, featuring U.K. Grime MC Manga Saint Hilare and produced by Australia’s Strict Face. “When I wrote On Me, I was inspired by reading about how face-recognition technology was being used by law enforcement and then that got me thinking about the myriad ways surveillance has become normalized in everyday life,” Cadence says. “It was amazing to get Manga on the track because he’s a grime legend and member of Roll Deep and I was really inspired by them back in the day. This song is musically a homage to classic grime, a genre of music that has been prosecuted and surveilled from its inception.”
4 | Fhang | Something Real
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “How can we refresh our capacity for wonder while the supersaturation of endless change dulls our senses? Fhang — the duo of Mishka Stein and Samuel Woywitka — channel the energy of pandemic-induced uncertainty into thunderous grooves and cinematic soundscapes with the gravity to absorb your entire attention. The single Something Real showcases an explosive chemistry and the musicians’ commitment to exploring unexpected textures and grooves. The immersive rhythm and textures invite listeners to leap inside to a shared landscape of awe.”
5 | The Joy Formidable | Back To Nothing
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Joy Formidable share the video for their latest single Back To Nothing. The song reflects on where you’ve been and how grief can heal and illuminate the future. Lead singer and guitarist Ritzy Bryan says, “Back To Nothing takes a stance on self-compassion, realizing your worth and your boundaries and deciding not to give your love to an undeserving other.” The haunting video was created by Ritzy & Rhydian Dafydd in Southern Utah & described as a “beautiful challenge.” Ritzy adds, “We’ve always enjoyed making our own visuals, this was a bit more ambitious in the way of getting to the location & tasking ourselves with editing huge 360 files. I’ve learnt a lot about keyframing in a very short amount of time.”
6 | Superbloom | Leash
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Superbloom is Brooklyn’s latest entry into the alternative rock scene. Their debut album Pollen is a 12-track love letter to heavy alternative music that spans infectiously bouncy hard rock, instantly nostalgic acoustic songs, sing-along choruses, and undeniable hooks. While the album’s feedback-laced instrumentation is hard-hitting at every turn, the band’s sonic signature is embedded in the vocal performance that fills each track with complex layering, earworm melodies, and lush harmonies that deliver discoveries of nuanced detail with each listen.”
7 | Matthew E. White | Genuine Hesitation
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Matthew E. White announced that his new solo album K Bay will be released on Sept. 10. The kaleidoscopic first single Genuine Hesitation is out today alongside a video. “For me, one of the most exciting production techniques from this record was this idea where I’d record the song twice,” explains White. “First, in a more traditional, band-in-the-room, work out the parts and sounds, nail it, kind of way. Secondly, I would distill the concept of the song one way or another into an instrumental composition. I had a much larger band (based off of Miles Davis’s On The Corner bands) play this kind of new-music/improvisational piece at the same tempo as I had recorded the first, more ‘normal’ take. The goal was to be able to cut across between the two pieces, and/or layer them and have them fit together in wild ways. To a large degree it worked, which was pretty exciting for me. The intro to Genuine Hesitation is an excerpt from the much longer improvisation based instrumental.”
8 | Monograms | For Safety
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Monograms — aka New York ‘Nuke Wave’ artist Ian Jacobs — is back with the compelling single: For Safety. Scouring the skies for silver linings from the darkness of a nuclear winter, For Safety muses on our warped perceptions of positivity whilst the doomsday clock ticks silently on. “For Safety started a chapter that gave a glimpse of a hopeful, yet ironic and strange future where things are starting to wake up, but have morphed into all these odd new normals… But, you’d have to be a world champion optimist to ignore that it’s been a pretty dark world out there.” jokes Monograms. “A lifetime’s worth of issues slingshot to earth in a single year. Pandemics, insurrection, the reality of social injustice, and on and on.”
9 | Supermilk | Cease To Exist
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Supermilk, the solo project of ex-Doe drummer Jake Popyura, has shared Cease to Exist, the latest single from his album Four By Three, coming July 2. Arriving just over a year after his debut Death Is The Best Thing For You Now, the album showcases a more gentle and personal side to Popyura’s songwriting whilst retaining the urgent fuzz-pop and post-punk of previous releases. Cease To Exist is “about the global feeling of powerlessness experienced as the pandemic began to unfold at the start of last year, as well as the shared anger and frustration of watching our governments downplay the severity of the virus to catastrophic effect.” The track’s driving rhythm and razor-sharp guitars twist these frustrations up, Popyura’s yelped vocals cracking as he shouts ‘and it’s clear in every warning on the radio; they tell you that you cease to exist.’ ”
10 | Haley And The Crushers | Cul-De-Sac
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hayley And The Crushers’ first new single of 2021 is a testament to how even the most sugary pop artists are feeling the collective COVID-19 hangover. Inspired by the eerie 1972 book The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, Cul-de-Sac is a moody exploration of the feeling of being trapped by both internal and external forces. “2020 was a bitch, so it’s probably somewhat expected that the ‘summer jams’ of 2021 would be tinged with a bit of PTSD,” said front-woman and guitarist Hayley Crusher Cain. “My bassist and I were literally stuck hanging out in the cul-de-sac where we live. I’d walk the dog 10 times a day, waving to the same neighbors. The paranoia and despair of a global pandemic unfolding day-to-day became part of the daily ritual, like watering the vegetables. This song reflects that silent screaming feeling that so many of us now know so well.”
11 | Pearl Harbour | I Wish I Were You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “U.S. new wave original Pearl Harbour has released her new single I Wish I Were You. It brings some catchy punk ’n’ roll. The story behind I Wish I Were You: “She’s driving to lovers lane in her cool pink caddy and missing out on some fun while waiting on your man,” says Pearl. “Again he’s missing in action so I put on the radio, turning the dial and listen. This song makes me fuzzy all inside, I’m in control: ‘I wish I were you, so I can make love to me.’ ’’ Vocalist Pearl E. Gates, more commonly known as Pearl Harbour, formed this band in 1988 with Buck Naked from Buck Naked And The Bare Bottom Boys.”
12 | Moon Coven | Further
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Up-and-coming Swedish psychedelic doom band Moon Coven take you deeper into their dream realm with their Further video. Their third full-length Slumber Wood is available now. Bathed in a sublime pink aura, Further unfurls a dark, forlorn number with soaring vocals and deadly downtuned leads, as acid bubbles blossom around dreams of solitary walks through the cold, lonely woods. This new video is a perfect example of the occult energies Moon Coven are able to deploy to mesmerize their audiences. Moon Coven’s third album Slumber Wood is eight confident and mind-infiltrating steamrollers, a spectacular, tombstone-heavy journey abounding in motions and emotions, that will appeal to fanatics of Acid King, Mars Red Sky or Monolord, while taking its cue from more alt-psych acts à la Black Angels or All Them Witches.”
13 | Lump | Climb Every Wall
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Lump — the product of London singer-songwriter Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay of the band Tunng — return with Climb Every Wall, from their upcoming sophomore album Animal. Marling elaborates: “I’d watched a film called The Perverts Guide to Ideology about how ideology is woven into Hollywood cinema, and there was a bit about how in Communist countries they cut out the song Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music because it’s too much of a personal, individualistic ideology, so that’s where I got the title.” Lindsay adds, “I spent hours trying to find a bassline that would work. It was a real headache. Then when I got it, I just loved it and I made my girlfriend come downstairs and dance in the room for about an hour.”
14 | VC Pines | Concrete
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “VC Pines releases the video for his EP’s title track Concrete. VC Pines (aka Jack Mercer) says, “This was the first song I wrote during lockdown. I thought back to nights out and all the different emotions that rise up and die down on a heavy night out. It’s inevitably a love song. Love for romance and a love for the night together. When you find a sense of love that stops you in your tracks. … I love the image the saxophone paints of a lonely sax player playing under a streetlight in thick London fog.”
15 | Karmacoda | Traps
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Award-winning pop trio Karmacoda share the video for Traps, a single featured on their upcoming album Slow Down, Melt and Catch Fire, which will be released on July 2. The tell us: “Traps is about being trapped in a relationship as well as being trapped in general, a perfect response to this past year. Working with Gianfranco (Bichine), we wanted to convey that feeling, make it visceral, and centred on the use of encroaching, ‘trapping’ computer graphics and a look and feel inspired by the classic film Blade Runner, whose characters themselves are, in a way, trapped.”
