Watch: Dead Clade by HLLLYH

Back in 2008, I had just started working at a digital ad agency on Brick Lane, in London, and I was literally across the road from the East London location of music institution Rough Trade. Every week on music release day, which back in 2008 was Monday*, I would head to Rough Trade. Once there, I would flip through the new releases, listen to what the staff had playing over the shop’s speaker systems, and check out the CD listening posts. Most weeks I probably bought two new albums and, more often than not, these were releases I knew little about.

One of those little mysteries was HLLLYH, from LA outfit The Mae Shi. The group’s thrashy, trashy garage art punk shimmered with candy coloured neon, an energising combo of dirt and bright electricity. In mainstream culture, The Mae Shi’s closest brush with commercial success likely came much later, when HLLLYH’s opening track, Lamb And The Lion, appeared in the underrated Covid-era straight-to-Netflix gem, The Mitchells vs The Machines.

The Mae Shi have been teasing the potential of a new album since 2022, with founding member Tim Byron traversing California as he worked to engage former members and reassemble the band. In time, Jeff Byron came back on board as producer and engineer, as well as singer and guitarist. Ezra Buchla, Brad Breeck, and Corey Fogel also all return. The resulting forthcoming album, URUBURU, which was originally intended to be The Mae Shi’s last, began to feel less like the closing of an old book than the opening of a fresh one.

All of which leads us here, to the release of the new single Dead Clade, not by The Mae Shi, but instead by HLLLYH, which represents a step forwards into something fresh, yet still connected to the group’s past. As a song, Dead Clade is unmistakably the product of the same minds as The Mae Shi, with chunky riffs, Day-Glo melodies and an abundance of chaos and sugar.

It is unclear how representative of the forthcoming album Dead Clade is, and indeed it is the oldest song on the forthcoming album, with origins all the way back in 2009. Regardless, it hints at the fact that HLLYH’s sound has a little less of the overdriven electronic synths of the Mae Shi, with a feel that is just a touch softer in aesthetic. Which is not to say the chaos nor energy are gone — indeed they are here in abundance — they are just filtered through a slightly more naturalistic lens.

I sound my age in writing this, but I’m unashamedly an album person, and I miss the days of prising open compact discs and vinyl, with a sense of excitement at the possibility of what they contained. I’m grateful to have HLLLYH back, even if the medium of delivery lacks the mystery of my physical copy of The Mae Shi’s HLLLYH.

*It moved to Friday in 2015 and, arguably, the release of music took a further step towards irrelevance.

Listen: Oblivious by georgia, georgia

georgia, georgia is the musical pseudonym of Verona-born Italian artist Giorgia Piva. Having developed a passion for music in childhood, Piva is a self-taught musician, and she has just unveiled her new single, Oblivious.

Taking sonic inspiration from Phoebe Bridgers, Piva’s artist name itself is also both a reference to her own name, and Bridgers’ song Georgia, which itself opens with the line ‘Georgia, Georgia, I love your son’. Beyond Bridgers, Piva’s also draws inspiration from a cross-section of artists sitting at the intersection of rock and pop, all exploring a sense of emotional complexity, with influences that include boygenius, Clairo, The 1975, The Strokes, and Fleetwood Mac.

The result, here on Oblivious has all the deflated disappointment of Snail Mail at her best. What affects me the most here, however, is the beautiful fragility of Piva’s vocals, which evoke the stunning performance of the Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler. Despite these influences, georgia, georgia takes these touches of inspiration and combines them into something that sounds entirely her own.

Oblivious is very much a song about the internal experience, with Giorgia unpacking and exploring the process of learning how to work through emotional difficulties through therapy. Discussing the song, she says:

‘There was a moment during my therapy journey when I finally understood the nature of my problems, acquired the tools to face them, and realized what I needed to do to overcome them and grow as a person. But putting everything into practice is not always easy, especially at the beginning of a new relationship, with all the uncertainties and doubts it brings. I tried to appear strong and unshakable, but at the same time, not being known for who I truly am made me feel lonely and misunderstood. It's frustrating to know the right path to take but still find yourself stumbling over the same dysfunctional behaviors. oblivious captures this very feeling: my struggles with communication and facing problems during such a delicate time.’

Listen: Better Man by Egentid

The latest single from Malmö-based indie-folk band Egentid, Better Man opens with a harmonica, atop a gentle foot-tap of a beat and strummed guitar. That rasping cry feels appropriate aged, for a song that is all about the experience of growing, but perhaps also just growing older.

Egentid, which tellingly translates into ‘alone time’ or, perhaps, ‘me time’, formed last year out of meet-ups between dads based around an open preschool (i.e. one where the parents stay) in Limhamn. The impact of parenthood hums through Egentid’s music, and Better Man in particular. Written from the perspective of a new parent, now past 40, it highlights the desire to grow and be better, and how that pursuit benefits the self, and those around you.

Better Man slowly builds towards a swirling chorus of overlapping falsetto vocals. The experience of what it means to be a man changes as you grow, and there is something of my experience wrapped up in the shifting experience of Egentid’s new single.

Better Man follows on from Egentid’s debut single, Call You Back, which was released back in on 6 March, and both come from Sail On, the band’s debut, out on 28 March.

Watch: Today by The Queen’s Head

Opening with a dead pan spoken word delivery and some anxious keys, the new single from The Queen’s Head, Today, is created as a suicide note for radio. It is something the band’s Joel Douglass describes as, ‘Well intended, but sharply manipulative’.

Bringing together sharp drums, glimmering disco touches and the angular structures of post-punk, The Queen’s Head create music in a melting pot of cultural touchstones. The video for Today, filmed by the band, edited by band member Tom Butler, and produced by Joel together with Andy Savours, beams a succession of images from working-class Britain into your eyeballs. For me, it draws on a similar feel of the arch artistry meets authenticity of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. Glimpses of Margate, and a sign, reading ‘For your pleasure & leisure’, even seeming to evoke Trainspotting’s Spud, whose crisp, almost textural interview line, ‘it’s like, my pleasure in other people’s leisure’ sublets a small heroin-filled studio flat in my brain. Describing the video, which itself forces a re-edit of the song, Tom says:

'I think we achieved the brief I set out, a video melancholic by its form and befitting of Today. My character reminisces about a seaside trip with Joel, seen through a dreamy montage of friendship captured on camcorder. In the present, in an apartment stressed in the brown and orange austerity of the 70s, my character sits in contemplation, haunted by a Joel-shaped figure, stark by its relative fidelity. A story of heartbreak and betrayal is revealed, exploring basic tension of the song — the disjunct between a loving friendship and a darker reality.’

There is a sad desperation thrumming through Today, as the vocals reach out for some sort of connection. I’m generally opposed to heavy processed vocals, but the treatment here on Today’s chorus is perfect, layered, and pitched in a way that evokes the cracking emotions of someone unable to hold their feelings any more. It paves the way for the spilt cacophony of the song’s bridge, where spoken words accelerate, slamming like fists into soft furnishings, walls, and television sets. This happens as synths swirl and dance, chaos unfurling in our minds, desperation, depression, love and hurt all smashed together in conflict.

The Queen’s Head are led by two frontmen, Joel, who also plays guitar, and Tom, who also plays bass. Today was inspired by a real-world letter Tom wrote to Joel, concerning Joel’s depression, entitled To a Fallen Friend. Joel describes the letter, saying “In it I detailed the sense of betrayal I felt at the hands of his depression, and the selfish act of withdrawal which is so often a symptom of that terrible disease”.

Today is out now, and represents the apex of the band’s forthcoming Titanic EP, due on 8 July.

Review: Better Place EP by Martin Oh

Following on from the song Better Place, featured on BlackPlastic.co.uk last year, Martin Oh is back with a full EP release, which shares its title with the previous track.

You can stream the full EP below, which expands the European-Mediterranean vibes of the song Better Place with four additional songs. All take the Martin Oh sound, developed in partnership with producer SOHN, in different directions. I particularly enjoyed the earnest sense of being emotionally overwhelmed that is What Am I Doing, a track that joyfully plays with the experience of feeling hooked on someone, and unable to move past them. The song builds these beautiful quiet moments, where Martin sings, “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you, it’s all wrapped up in you”, before the song moves to a chunky riff as he declares, “…And I just can’t seem to get you off my mind”.

Elsewhere, Same Song builds against a stripped back groove, up to the point where the song is enveloped in swirling melodies in its chorus. The contrast between the song’s quiet moments and the chorus creates a wonderful tension, the moments where the song lets go, in that chorus, feels like a moment of pure escapism.

The release ends with the new track Neverland, which acts as the culmination of both the EP, and Martin Oh’s catalogue to date. Inspired by the feeling of “being trapped in a life that doesn’t feel like your own, searching for an escape but never finding it”, Neverland is a deliberate reminder of possibility, as the artist describes:

“(Neverland is) a vibrant electro-pop track that reminds you the horizon is within reach. Heart-pounding bass, a sun-soaked melody rising like a wave… This song is a call to let go, to run toward the unknown, to dance until the weight of regrets disappears.”

As a song, Neverland pulses with energy and optimism, sunny melodies that play at the intersection of nostalgia and hope. The synths, guitars, and vocals all combine to create something warm and exciting, the emotional equivalent of blowing out the cobwebs and making a fresh start. Having started with an initial melodic idea, Martin Oh looked to layer more and more synths to give the song the energy it ends up creating in the listener. It’s a perfect close to the EP, and an exciting tease for what might come next.

Check out Better Place EP below, or on your favourite streaming service.