New Music Weekly: Tune-Yards, Franz Ferdinand, Brian Eno
New Music Weekly is your one stop shop for new releases in the world of music. From the best of the best, to some of the rest, Mark Conroy is here to give you the lowdown on what you might have missed. This week: Tune-Yards, Franz Ferdinand, Brian Eno and more..
S U R V I V E ‘Other (Justin K Broadrick Remix)’
Synth-wavers S U R V I V E may be synonymous with Stranger Things—the hit show which 2 of its members score—but unsurprisingly they also release music outside of their soundtrack work. In November S U R V I V E will drop RR738, a new EP of remixes of tracks that was on last year’s RR7349 album. Justin K Broadrick has taken a crack at ‘Other’, and it’s a sinister slice of industrial dance music. The reworked track is heavy, like a photonegative version of a Jamie XX track. The brazen reverb of the central beats bulldozes the lighter touches that surround it and dragged them into the gravitational pull of it’s musical black hole.
Tune-Yards ‘Look At Your Hands’
Returning with the project’s first piece of new music in over four years, Tune-Yard’s latest release is one of 2017’s most intriguing pop singles. Calling it pop might be a bit of a misnomer however, as ‘Look at your Hands’ is harder to pin down than Tuvalu on a map. The vibrancy of the disco beat is incessantly catch but the song seems intent on never finding a true sense of harmony, perhaps in attempt to mirror the disquiet found in the words.
Franz Ferdinand ‘Always Ascending’
Since their inception, Franz Ferdinand have always been purveyors of dance rock but here they seem to have gone full blown LCD Soundsystem and in doing so, have dropped their best single in eight years. An exhilarating floor-filler, ‘Always Ascending’ justifies its name. Perhaps recalling the endless drudgery of the rat race or existential struggle of just existing, the lyrics describe a ladder than you can never climb but really, it’s the beat that counts. The song makes use of the Shepard’s Tone, an auditory illusion that makes it appear that the notes are constantly rising even if they are not. The result is a thrilling musical mad house, a sonic detour into the depths of Willy Wonka’s Boat ride tunnel, and it’s a hell of a time.
Brian Eno / Kevin Shields ‘Only Once Away My Son’
High profile collaborations in music can often offer a vision that is the distinct from the styles of the artists that create them; a product that is wholly original with each player bringing out a new, fresh side of the other. This is not one of those times. Rather Brian Eno and Kevin Shield’s ‘Only Once Away My Son’ sounds exactly how you think it would sound, and that’s a good thing. Adding Eno’s trademark wallpaper ambiance to the My Bloody Valentine Mastermind’s droning serenity is the kind that obvious equation that feels like it’s been around for years, and when you hear it, you wonder why It hasn’t. Clocking at just over 9 minutes, the reigns seem to passed back and forth throughout as the mammoth score oscillates between the oceanic intensity and influence of two sonic geniuses. Even if this titanic union happens ‘Only Once’ as the title suggests, we would still be getting more than we deserve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6wN9by6zJ4&feature=youtu.be
Julien Baker ‘Claws in your Back’
Singer/Songwriter Julien Baker released her quite impressive sophomore effort Turn Out The Lights dropped this week and it’s closing track ‘Claws in your Back’ is a standout. An heart-breaking introspective ballad that documents the invisible and sometimes visible scars of living with a debilitating mental illness, Claw in your back is about using every fibre of your being to resist the urge of taking “The easy way out”.
