Loud And Quiet

If you’re on the hunt for information about Manchester threesome W. H. Lung there’s very little out there.

In fact, in terms of music, until today, just one song to this point, ‘Inspiration!’. Even the photo of the band you see above doesn’t give much away.

But you get the sense this doesn’t come out of any deliberate plot to be evasive, they’re just taking things steady. They only formed in the middle of 2016.

Off the back of the single track that’s already out there they’ve been booked up to played at a number of major summer festivals, including Blue Dot and End of the Road.

Now, ‘Inspiration!’ will get a release as part of a new 10″ coming out on Melodic on 12 May (pre-order). It was recorded at The Nave in Leeds and produced by Matt Peel. On the reverse is a new track, ‘Nothing Is’, a cosmic, multi-layered, driving pop song.

You can listen to it below.

Here, too, are some details about W. H. Lung’s first ever live show. It’ll take place at Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester the day the 10″ comes out.

Here’s where else you’ll find them:

Blue Dot Festival, Jodrell Bank Observatory – 8 July
Sea Change Festival, Totnes – 25/26 August
End Of The Road Festival, Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset – 1-3 September
International Festival Of Psychedelia, Liverpool – 22/23 September

Have you ever met an estate agent who isn’t a total toad? If you have, then well done, I haven’t.

London band Tangerines pull off a cartoonish and entertaining portrayer of your favourite local Foxton’s rep in their latest video for ‘Peckham Boys’. It obviously a bit of a laugh, but some of it’s only funny because it’s true.

“It’s an aspect of living in London that is very evident right now and you can’t ignore it, whether you’re poor or rich, it’s a two headed snake that’s primarily fucking with the working class and the younger generation,” say the group.

“We go through the motions of a day in the life, though we went for the more ‘estate agent gone wrong’ roles, we surround ourselves in small time comfort with the one goal in mind of shredding the city apart to fill our own pockets.”

‘Into The Flophouse’ is Tangerines’ debut album, it comes out on 12 May on RIP Records. ‘Peckham Boys’ is the opening track.

If you want to see Tangerines play live they’re doing the following shows:

Reading, Purple Turtle – 23 March
Brighton, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar – 24
Southampton, Joiners – 25
London, Montague Arms – 29
Bedford, Esquires – 31

Kevin Morby was first known for his involvement in back-porch folk band Woods, and then his group with Vivian Girls’ Cassie Ramone, The Babies (an excellent group).

Both acts schooled him well for a solo career that hit a high last year with Morby’s third album, ‘Singing Saw’ – a record that followed stylistic suit in as much as its classic American songwriter feel: a distinctively country-led record that tied in with his move from NYC to LA, and ‘Singing Saw”s theme of solitude in the wilderness.

The guy shouldn’t really be releasing a new album so soon, but ‘City Music’ (out June 16th via Dead Oceans), is ‘Singing Saw”s companion piece – a record about urban life in the States and loneliness in crowded spaces.

This first track, ‘Come To Me Now’, gives you a taste of Morby’s new, less-earthy direction. Turns out that voice of his voice belongs in an apartment just as much as it does by a campfire.

‘Singing Saw’, says Morby, was imagined as “an old bookshelf with a young Bob and Joni staring back at me, blank and timeless. They live here, in this left side of my brain, smoking cigarettes and playing acoustic guitars while lying on an unmade bed.”

For ‘City Music’: “Lou Reed and Patti Smith stare out at the listener,” explains Morby. “Stretched out on a living room floor they are somewhere in mid-70s Manhattan, also smoking cigarettes.”

Los Angeles is a long way (roughly 5,300 miles) from the quaint Pembrokeshire market town of Narberth, west Wales, but those were the opposing destinations H. Hawkline retreated to in order to record his freshly announced new album, ‘I Romanticize’. You don’t find castle remains and sweet teashops in one. And you definitely don’t find many topless roller-skaters in the other.

Anyway, for his new album Huw Evans had good reason to journey to the west coast. It was to work on new music with long-term collaborator Cate le Bon, who’s based there now. She forms part of the band who perform on the new LP’s 12 tracks, along with Warpaint‘s Stella Mozgawa and composer Josiah Steinbrick. It’s co-produced by Samur Khouja.

“This has been the first record I’ve made where I’ve felt as if everything came completely naturally, like post that comes with a handwritten address,” says H. Hawkline. “To my ears it’s pretty accessible pop music, but maybe there’s something wrong with my ears.”

He’s already shared ‘Last Thing On Your Mind’ from the album, but now comes new track ‘My Mine’. Listen to it below.

‘I Romanticize’ forms the follow-up to 2015’s ‘In The Pink Of Condition’ and will come out on Heavenly Recordings on 2 June. The album is available for pre-order now.

H. Hawkline is playing the following shows, too:

Berlin, Columbiahalle* – 20 June
Copenhagan, Vega Main Hall* – 22
Milan, Auditorium di Milano* – 24
Brussels, Botanique Orangerie* – 26
Vilanova i la Geltrú, Vida Festival – 30

Madrid, Noches del Bontanico – 2 July
Sete, Worldwide Festival – 5
Belfort, Les Eurockeenes – 7
Brescia, Anfiteatro del Vittoriale, Tener-a-mente – 9
Cesena, Rocca Malatestiana – 10
Rome, Ostia Antica – 11
Pori, Pori Jazz Festival – 13
Vienna, WUK* – 15
Munich, Muffathalle* – 16
London, Hackney Empire* – 18
Paris, Bataclan* – 19
Port Eliot Festival, Cornwall – 27-30

*Supporting Devendra Banhart

Idris Vicuña – the Filipino bedroom producer known as Eyedress – has spend years popping up in the all the right places, only to drop a frazzled track or phone-filmed video here and there, and then duck away again. When his name comes back around – like now – you think, ‘Eyedress… yeah… that guy who was picked up by XL? I liked him.’

Today he’s back, finally with news of his debut album on Lex Records, confirming that freebie ‘Shapeshifter’ in 2015 was a mixtape.

This ‘proper’ album is called ‘Manila Ice’ and will be released May 12th. But first, here’s the album’s title track – Eyedress’ best blend of mellow RnB and Mac Demarco-ish guitar echo. Fall out of bed to this one.

Producer and sound artist Luke Abbott‘s decided to change lane for his latest project.

2010’s ‘Holkam Drones’ released on James Holden’s Border Community was great. So too as ‘Wysing Forest’ a couple of years back. But now, the Norwich artist has shaken things up, releasing material under a new alias.

“There’s a road near my new house called Earlham Road,” he explains. “I dreamt one night soon after I moved there, that I visited a shop on that road which was full of these colourful glowing eggs, about the size of the dragon eggs in Game of Thrones, but glowing with blue and white light, the shop was called Earlham Mystics.”

The first thing he’ll put out as Earlham Mystics is the ‘Truth EP’. Like some of his previous releases (‘Modern Driveway’ and ‘Object Is A Navigator’) it’ll come out on Gold Panda‘s NOTOWN Recordings label.

We played the first track to be taken from it, ‘Stolen Hearts’, recently on Loud And Quiet Radio on Resonance FM.

‘Truth’ is the EP’s knotty, echo-y title-track. Listen to it below.

A cool thing is happening, too. On Saturday 15 April, Earlham Mystics and Gold Panda will DJ at London’s biggest independent comic book store, Orbital Comics, in Covent Garden. It’s free, and happening between 7-9pm.

Back sometime around 2009 no-one was really releasing the music of garage-rock bands coming out of Lisbon and the surrounding areas. Portuguese sisters Júlia Reis and Maria Reis decided to do something about it by starting their own label Cafetra Records.

Alongside that, the pair (a couple of years in age apart, but who share the same birthday) have also been making a steady stream of great records as part of their own garage-rock duo Pega Monstro.

Now, they’ve readied a new album called ‘Casa De Cima’ – their third – set to come out on distinguished London label Upset The Rhythm on 2 June.

They’ve just shared a new track along with the news. It’s called ‘Partir a Loiça’ which by all accounts translates as “break all the dishes”. A popular Portuguese exclamation.

Guitarist and keyboard player Maria explains: “It’s a Portuguese expression meaning to shake things up, to take a fiery U-turn on a path that has been misconceived by those in power for instance. On this song this meaning is explicit and on the record articulated in other ways – voice melodies and its references, song composition and the nakedness of the productions approach – an overall attempt to punk shit up and still sing what beauty means to us.”

The track is three and a half minutes of feverish, snappy, cartwheeling garage-rock.

 The album is available to pre-order now

Twitter’s been a much more boring place since Father John Misty gave himself a break from it back in the summer of 2016.

On Sunday (19 March) he popped back online to answer some fans’ questions and share three new songs.

He’s titled them ‘Generic Pop Song #3’, ‘Generic Pop Song #9’ and ‘Generic Pop Song #16’.

You’ve gotta wonder whether these are off cuts from some of the sessions where he’s written for huge international pop stars (like on Lady Gaga’s last album) or whether he’s just proving how effortless he finds cooking up a radio-ready pop song?

For example, ‘Generic Pop Song #9’ could easily be Ellie Goulding’s big comeback single and ‘Generic Pop Song #16’ wouldn’t be out of place on ZAYN’s next album. Maybe they still will be.

This is stating the obvious for those who pick up the magazine regularly, but the new issue – issue 84 – contains some diverse sounds. To start, there’s Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzalez’s new project, ‘Room 29’, a “songbook” inspired by a storied piano sat in the corner of a hotel suite at Hollywood’s famous Chateau Marmont. But elsewhere you’ll find the thumping duel-bass driven electronica of London’s Kite Base, the itchy melodies of Cameroonian indie star Vagabon, Russian psychedelic trio Gnoomes and the girl-band pop/hip hop of 15-strong Icelandic collective Reykjavíkurdætur.

Below is a playlist which features those artists, plus others who’re featured, reviewed or just inspired us to create this latest edition. First, here’s our favourite track from ‘Room 29’.