There's something a little Pavement about snatches of the chorus of this new track from from New York four-piece Big Ups, but most of all it wreaks of Fugazi, hardcore and attitude. In comparison to preceding release Go Back, Wool is a slab of brooding discontent blues that should see in Monday the way it deserves.
Daylight savings and pencil shavings indeed. Fuck the fall.
Wool is taken from Big Ups' debut album, Eighteen Hours Of Static, due on Tough Love Records on 13 January 2014.
Cuushe, source: Dazed & Confused.
Butterfly Case is Cuushe's second album, following on from Red Rocket Telepathy and the Girl You Know That I Am Here But The Dream EP, and it is out now on Japan's Flau label.
Cuushe is inspired by dreams and that is instantly obvious in the starry-eyed and dreamlike melodies. Fuzzy ambience, layers of melodic vocals and distortion form a dense sense of otherworldly desire. It gives the sense of being locked up in the sometimes forlorn, sometimes enraptured and ecstatic doodling and daydreaming of a teenager or the subject of a Wes Anderson or Sofia Copolla movie.
This tangibly emotional edge is never far for the surface, etched out in broad daylight on tracks such as I Love You, Swing Your Heart and I Miss You. When Cuushe is up the melodies are beautiful and uplifting, I Love You dizzy in an excitable and heady rush of bouncing synths, reverb and intense feelings of caring for someone that are delivered with a sense that they are tumbling out of her mouth simply because she can't hold them in any more. It is mirrored by the distraught and broken I Miss You - a track ice-like in sound, creaking like icebergs that move so slow whilst Cuushe deploys emotions through the tracks of her tears, obscured beneath the layers of production but still audibly hurting.
There are some more intensely upbeat moments too. The track Butterfly is a breathy and uplifting burst of energy that shines with driving bass lines and a catchy vocal hook, creating one of the album's most instantaneously pleasurable sugar hits.
It is the almost overbearing sense of the saccharine that holds Butterfly Case back if anything. Much like the movie directors she is likened to, Cuushe won't suit everyone's palate, the emotions too rich and the melodies too light to grab, yet it is hard not to love the dreamy naïveté she offers up.
Butterfly Case is out now on Flau. Available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links]. Spotify users can stream in full below:
Very excited for this… You can currently stream Dev Hynes' forthcoming Blood Orange album in full on YouTube. Check it out.
This new sophomore release from Sydney's Movement has been out for a few weeks now but I've only just had time to really digest it and it's deserving of a listen.
Us is a deep and sexy tangle of 90s R&B and rough rumbling bass dance music. Movement wear their hearts on their sleeves and this is a record that gives a voice to the inner thoughts of one half of a couple on the brink of… well, something. A confidence exudes as the vocals define the inevitability of reciprocated feelings and yet there is a nervous anxiousness - "And I could take you right now", the falsetto male vocals assert one moment, shortly before questioning "Did I push it too much". As a result the track bristles with a sort of confidence undermined by a very real sounding uncertainty and a sense of gender politics, the hollow and ambient sound only adding to the sense of mis-firing connections.
Us also includes two remixes. San Francisco's Giraffage lays down a sea of complex synth stabs, bass and glossy funk keys that opens the track up to create something a little more sensual. Kowton provides the concluding mix, moving in the other direction, offering up an intense bass-heavy version threaded with steel drums and urban intensity.
Us is out now through Modular, available to purchase on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link]. Check out the video on YouTube above or listen to the EP in full through Spotify:
Exhale is the title track from London five-piece Ecstasy's debut EP, due for release on 9 December through National Anthem.
This kind of sounds like a noisy sound clash between the empowered female harmonies of Haim meets the aggression of the excellent CHVRCHES... Which makes sense given that label National Anthem is also home to both of those artists. There's a slight otherworldly feel to this - dream pop and candy all at once. Keep an eye out for the EP next month.
