Hey Gigantic Gang,
We’ve got a bumper edition of #NewMusicFriday, with a HUGE playlist packed full with 31 fresh tracks of killer tunes out this week that you need to know! And whilst you are digesting that massive music meal, keep browsing to enjoy the best selection of tickets and festivals right till the end of the year – and beyond!
Enjoy the weekend xx
SINGLES
LOW HUMMER – “The People, This Place”
Post punk quintet Low Hummer have proven to be the most exciting breakthrough band of the past 12 months. Combining synth pop with roaring guitars, they tear apart petty frustrations, small minds and social decay with the casual disdain only a true northerner can carry off. Now, the Hull based band drop new single “The People, This Place” whilst announcing that their first album will be titled Modern Tricks for Living and is set for release on 17th of September via Leeds label Dance To The Radio - CLICK HERE to pre-order.
“We can’t wait to release our debut album! Our album of isolation during such overwhelming times. The record captures how us bunch of misfits have felt isolated from popular culture, isolated from love, and how we all have been getting through physical isolation! ‘Modern Tricks for Living’ does not provide any kind of wisdom for navigating through modern society, but maybe just shows how a bunch of strangers from Hull get by. “The People This Place” was the final piece we needed to make ‘Modern Tricks For Living’ complete so it feels like the person song to launch the album with.” - Daniel Mawer
Low Hummer join the mighty line up for KARMA WEEKENDER – the unmissable festival hitting hot Nottingham venue The Chameleon on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of October.
Low Hummer tickets are currently available.
ALBUMS
RODDY WOOMBLE – Lo! Soul
Following on from his experimental EP Everyday Sun; Scottish songwriter Roddy Woomble expands on the strange synth soundscapes on new album Lo! Soul to create a new sound called “Dystopian Pop”. Stripped down and alien in nature; it’s distinctly different to the angled riffs or anthemic feel of Idlewild and a huge shift from the folky feel of his previous solo work. Yet the weirdly wonderful abstract corner he has cast himself into somehow works, thanks in large part to his close partnership with bandmate Andrew Mitchell (aka Andrew Wasylyk) who helps expand on the prose and pieces of ideas passed on to him
“I’m a collaborative songwriter, used to working in a room with one or more people, or a band, and I think my songs benefit from that human connection and response.”
“Gradually though, I started developing songs on my acoustic guitar which I would record on my phone and send on to Andrew in Dundee. Around then, my friend and musician Danny Grant, based in Glasgow, began sharing his wonderful electronic grooves and rhythms with me. I started improvising over these with my poems. It didn’t feel like an album we were creating at this stage though, more a scrapbook of this particular moment. As restrictions eased in the summer I spent three days in Andrew's studio recording vocals and developing these ideas. Other than this, the album was all recorded remotely - Dundee Glasgow, and the Hebrides".
Roddy Woomble tickets are currently available.
GRUFF RHYS – Seeking New Gods
Super Furry Animals singer Gruff Rhys returns with his seventh solo album Seeking New Gods. Recorded after completing a US tour in a L.A. with master producer Mario C (Beastie Boys); Seeking New Gods first began life as the story of Mount Paektu, before evolving into a high concept album which sees Rhys create a new mythology exploring our place in the world and our relationship with it.
“The album is about people and the civilisations, and the spaces people inhabit over periods of time. How people come and go but the geology sticks around and changes more slowly. I think it’s about memory and time. It’s still a biography of a mountain, but now it’s a Mount Paektu of the mind. You won’t learn much about the real mountain from listening to this record but you will feel something, hopefully.”
See the welsh musical magician shows off his wonderful new material when he tours in October. Plus, Gruff Rhys will also appear at Towersey Festival – tickets on sale with Gigantic.