Internet Songs Of The Week
The most important musical creations from this week’s web.
Another week, another internet songs of the week. This week’s selection of tunes aren’t likely to defeat ISIS like Shaggy claimed his music could do, they’re too new to feature on the pages of the recently unearthed Slash Zine and absolutely none of them will make you as happy as listening to metal might.
They might, MIGHT, just open your ears to something new, send you on a path of self-discovery or provide a soundtrack to your next afternoon in the sun.
We hope you’re feeling them as much as we are.
Julia Holter - Feel You
Domino RecordsThe return of Julia Shammas Holter is Very Good News. Each of the LA native’s three albums to date have been texturally sublime, intellectually challenging but still playful examinations of personal and literary themes. She’s established herself as one of the most consistently challenging and idiosyncratic artists currently operating in the experimental indie/baroque pop ballpark.
Her albums tend to take a while to fully sink in thematically, but initial listens betray Have You In My Wilderness (out in September) as probably her most lyrically intimate record to date, and opening track Feel You immediately stood out as single material, joining Horns Surrounding Me from 2013’s Loud City Song as immaculate distillations of Holter at her best. Matching grandiose ambition to addictive melody and involving performativity, the opening, medieval-tinged clavichord-esque notes hint at her academic fixations, but the swoop of strings and vocal hook are right there in the moment: “Figures pass so quickly that I realise my eyes know very well / It’s impossible to see who I’m waiting for in my raincoat.”
It’s magnificent. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Plus look at that dog in the video. He’s so grumpy! Nice dog.
Ought - Beautiful Blue Sky
Constellation RecordsMontreal’s multinational Ought are a glowing phenomenon. Just over a year ago they meant nothing to me at all and then without warning they were one of my top ten bands of all time. Their sweeping, shallow-yet-hefty lyrics and off-kilter, apparently unintentionally jazzy songs are just perfectly modern and somehow landlocked in a distant past.
Beautiful Blue Sky is taken from their upcoming album Sun Coming Down and it’s absolutely wonderful. The lyrics end, as Ought songs often do, with an obtuse excavation of the kinds of thoughts we have when we’re alone, “I’m no longer afraid to die tonight / that is all that I have left”, singer Tim Darcy hollers, “I’m no longer afraid to dance tonight / that is all that I have left.”
Intriguing, relatable and everything I’d hoped for from Ought’s sophomore album.
Micachu & The Shapes – Oh Baby
Rough TradeMica Levi’s BAFTA-nominated Under The Skin soundtrack might have led her to the red carpet, but fortunately she remains exclusively focused on doing exactly what she wants.
This week, Micachu and The Shapes announced Good Bad Happy Sad – the art-punk trio’s first album since 2012’s criminally underrated Never. The press release claims that the LP is based around a loose jam that drummer Marc Pell secretly recorded, and the poignant Oh Baby sounds so casual that Pell could fall off his stool at any moment.
There’s no real structure or direction to Oh Baby. Instead, an austere arrangement loops Levi’s distressed vocals like snippet of an argument that’s endlessly replaying in your head. The Shapes may be Mica Levi’s most accessible platform, but it’s still a flagrant disregard for pop conventions that makes it so special.
Shopping – Why Wait?
FatCat RecordsPost-punk trio Shopping invoke the best of the flip attitude of Delta 5 and the stark yet inherently danceable beats of Gang of Four in this preview of what’s to come from their forthcoming sophomore album WHY CHOOSE. It’s a hymn to the virtues and having it all – and why not? It’s bloody 2015 after all.
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