The New Smu: July 2024

The best new artists in my inbox

Discovering great new artists is one of the most exciting things about music for me. If you don’t champion the stuff you love, you can’t complain when you only hear the shit you hate on the radio.

There is an endless and thrilling sea of music out there, but it can be vast and not without peril. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet an artist formerly known as Prince. I will be highlighting some of my favourite recent releases by new and unsigned artists, along with occasional treats from the box of obscure, forgotten or under-rated gems-of-the-past that still occupy my headspace. Wading through the audio slush pile so you don’t have to.

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NOANNE – Careless

A heady, intoxicating mixture of gothic soul and pulsing electronica, Careless has a classy, dark elegance. This is personified by NOANNE’s gorgeous vocals, calling to mind the warm, gentle power of Toni Braxton, mixed with a dash Lana Del Ray. Described as exploring ‘the harrowing depths of obsession, rejection, and the eventual path to self-destruction’ the evocative lyrics encapsulate the turbulent journey from the seductive appeal of an idolised dream to the inevitable realisation that such ideals are unattainable.

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Xan Tyler – Ziggy

The final single from Xan Tyler’s recent album, Holding Up Half the Sky, Ziggy is an ebulant feel- good track with a sweet, tropical, pop-reggae vibe, reminiscent of Blondie’s The Tide is High. Written as a note to her younger self Xan say’s “I wanted Ziggy to try and capture that feeling of youthful naivety and exuberance about the possibilities of life”.

 

Rear Window – Running Away

A moody, elegant, mid-tempo affair soaked in rich melodic harmonies and set to a smooth Bossa nova beat. Running Away is sophisticatedly catchy with a melancholic, introspective tone. Singer John Sterry says of the track “(it’s) about a restless life – that feeling when everything is going well – you feel yourself start settling down but somehow it all gets claustrophobic, and you want to just run away from it all. Call it self-sabotage, call it following your heart, I don’t know, but it’s a life lived I guess”.

Teenage Waitress – Cry Cry Cry

Witty lyrics pepper this bouncy, ear worm whose sonic landscape traverses everything from a brass-backed Beatleseque bridge to the post-punk pop of Squeeze and the cheeky, upbeat charm of Mika. “When me and my producer Mike were working on the lyrics, we were thinking about those late-night adverts you see on T.V. And we wanted the lyrics to feel like one of those adverts, but an advert for crying.” Ash explains “Crying is way more important than some new flash car or sofa, and sometimes it’s the only way to get something out of your system. Hopefully this song helps people to see crying in a different light”.  It didn’t make me cry, quite the opposite, but I will say this – I listened to it once and couldn’t stop singling it for days.

 

Lloren – The One

British pop singer Lloren has spent the last few years making cinematic music for film & TV and you can hear that experience bleeding through into this epic track. Retro, electronic pulses and spacey bridges lead up to a satisfyingly giant hook, punctuated by Lloren’s glittery vocals. This anthemic banger deserves to be as huge as its chorus – fist in the air pop!

 

Single of the Month

The Colour Blind Monks – Mechanical Bull

Opening with crunchy grunge rock guitars and lead singer Pheobe’s fabulous, swoopingly gothic vocals Mechanical Bull immediately grabs hold of your attention and won’t let go. While the verses have a louche, dirt-track sensuality the chorus goes ball to the wall with the kind rock and roll howls that could (and should) fill arenas. Following on from their, equally great, releases Vampire and Forget Me Not, The Colour Blind Monks have shot up my ‘ones to watch’ list this year and I highly recommend giving them your time.

Follow the Colour Blind Monks on Spotify

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Video of the Month

Nude – Alfreda

The deceptively sweet and simple vocal melody is a trojan horse for a wittily told cautionary tale of online hook-up culture. Starting out a glossy, sunny sounding vignette the track begins to seesaw discordantly, lending a sickly, queasy feel to to the tune as it reaches it’s bittersweet conclusion. The video that accompanies the track is a perfect fit. We find Alfreda decked out in Marie Antoinette boudoir glamour, complete with matching diamanté nails and anachronistic smart phone, preening for the viewer as well as her online crush. Like the music, our heroine’s teasing becomes increasingly erratic, desperate and ultimately quite sad. A brilliant video that makes it’s points skilfully, with a bleak humour, while sumptuously lit by the glow of a vlogger’s ring-light.

 

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Pick of the Past

Darlingheart – Smarthead

Haling from the same tiny corner of Scotland as myself, lead singer Cora Bisset was a mythical and somewhat iconic figure of my teenage years. Only seventeen when Darlingheart started making waves, they looked set to be huge, touring with bands like Blur and The Cranberries. This track, along with it’s parent album Serendipity, were regular features on my record player, sandwiched between musical bedfellows like Belly’s Star, The Breeder’s Last Splash and Become What You Are by The Juliana Hatfield Three. It’s spiky, caustic indie-pop is stuffed with immaculate harmonies and a raw, female sensibility. Darlingheart may not have weathered the rigours of the music biz as well as some of their aforementioned contemporaries, but as a one-album legacy it’s a great one. Today, Bisset is a successful director, playwright and actor, with her time in the band forming the inspiration for her autobiographical play, What Girls Are Made Of. She also remains the first woman I ever saw to pair Doc Martin boots with a floaty dress. Like I said, iconic.

Visit Cora Bisset’s website

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A playlist of songs featured here, and in previous months, can be found on Spotify and YouTube.

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All words by Susan Sloan. More of her work for Louder Than War is available on her archive. Find her on Instagram as @thesmureviews and view Susan’s website here.