Singles Spin #12
So what’s the latest singles in Singles Spin #12? Check out the latest from:
Katy Perry returns with her second single of 2019, Small Talk. The sparkling track is a poignant acknowledgement of the emotional distance that develops after a break-up, with Katy observing, “We had conversations about forever now it’s about the weather okay/I just can’t believe/We went from strangers to lovers to strangers in a lifetime.”
She wrote Small Talk with Johan Carlsson, Charlie Puth and Jacob Kasher Hindlin. Johan Carlsson and Charlie Puth produced the track with Peter Karlsson producing the vocals.
Australian songwriter Andrew Farriss’ country music single Come Midnight may be his debut solo offering, but it has been years in the making. An industry stalwart with more than three decades of accolades under his belt, Andrew is most well-known for the plethora of hits he penned for his band INXS, but it is with the rhythm influenced track Come Midnight that returns to his early roots, keeping firm to his ethos of it always being about the music.
Come Midnight is the first solo release ahead of a full-length album. Recorded between his home-studio and Nashville, it embodies the old-school country vibe that Andrew envisioned. He wanted to capture the days of Slim Dusty and Johnny Cash, and follow that flavor and style. “I played some guitar riffs in Australia and then tracked other parts in the US,” he says. “I’ve been really lucky to have an amazing group of musicians to work with,” he says. “The people coming on board and rallying around what I am doing have been great. Hopefully it will be something that people will really like.”
Vera Blue shares her incredible video for The Way That You Love Me, directed by Benn Jae (Boy & Bear, The Veronicas, Jessica Mauboy). Filmed in Melbourne at ‘the facility’ big warehouse, we get to see a darker side of Vera Blue.
A departure from Vera Blue’s usual work, the video brings a maturity and sexuality we haven’t seen from her before. The Way That You Love Me has a driving beat that undeniably points to a stunning visual story told by dance.
Celia says, “When I was writing this song I had a vision of the video already, wanting a really strong, tough and dark video that incorporated lots of dancers. I grew up dancing so it was really nice to be able to express the feelings of this song with beautiful strong dancers and push my own boundaries a little. I loved working with so many different characters and personas in this video.”
The Underground Lovers are thrilled to share Seven Day Weekend, the latest cut from their upcoming new album A Left Turn. Due for release on October 11, A Left Turn is the tenth long play from the Underground lovers.
Following the melancholic rock tones of the first single The Passer-by, Seven Day Weekend continues with the Undies’ unique blend of guitar-driven indie-pop, mixed with solid electro based grooves.
Fresh from performing a staggering run of Australian headliners last month, Ohio rock act Beartooth have shared a live performance video for single You Never Know — taken from their 2018 album Disease —captured at Germany’s Rock Am Ring music festival in June. The performance of You Never Know was taken during the band’s electrifying and pyrotechnics-enhanced set in front of over 70,000+ music fans from across Europe — one of the largest crowds to date during the annual outing.
Acclaimed Seattle band Chastity Belt have returned with their first new music since 2017’s I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone. This heartfelt new record, simply titled Chastity Belt, is due out on Friday 20 September on LP, CD and digital via Milk! Records/Remote Control in Australia and New Zealand licensed from Hardly Art. Chastity Belt was co-produced by the band and Melina Duterte aka Jay Som.
Chastity Belt are sharing Elena, the second single from this new record, which features vocalists Lydia Lund and Julia Shapiro exchanging winsome harmonies over a bed of lush instrumentals. Bassist Annie Truscott says of the song, “Over the past year, we all read and loved Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. We individually related to the ways in which the main character’s sense of self is inextricably linked to her desire for love and validation both from lovers and friends. The overlapping voices on top of the whimsical wave-like instrumentals captures the universal feeling of having a conversation with yourself about yourself.”
City Calm Down also reveal the third song off their new album: Flight was recorded with producer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, DZ Deathrays, Julia Jacklin) at The Grove Studios in NSW.
Remembers singer Jack Bourke of the track:
“‘Flight’ taps into themes I’ve explored on previous City Calm Down records – social media consumption and developing an opinion in an echo chamber – but it’s more scathing and cynical. The middle of this song was really difficult to execute. We were still working on it while we were in the final stages of mixing the new record, and starting to feel like we weren’t going to make it. But then Burke [Reid, producer] came down with a brutal bout of the flu. We all felt very bad for poor old Burke, but it did allow us an extra couple of days to finish it off.”
Australian purveyors of emotional club anthems ALTA share their pensive new track, Twisted. An ode to the all-encompassing cycle of a disaster relationship, Twisted reminds us of moments we’ve convinced ourselves the cycle is broken, only to be dragged right back into it.
On Twisted, ALTA explore the uncontrollable pull a person can have, for better or worse. Even after going to extreme lengths to overcome its prise through strength and resilience, an enticing magnetic attraction causes us to question our decision. It’s a familiar paradigm and an addictive game of risk – letting go is hard. We’ll get there one day, but not tonight.
More than a year since the release of her ground-breaking EP, In The Sky, Australian indie-pop sensation Mallrat returns with a brand-new single, video, and news of her third EP.
The new song, Charlie, is arguably the most heartfelt and illuminating of her career. Stripped bare, the song is largely a gentle combination of woozy piano chords and Mallrat’s subtle, vulnerable vocals – her patented lackadaisical and charming delivery style at the forefront. The song gradually gathers steam as it progresses, picking up pitter patter beats, bass thumps and heavenly harmonies as it reaches its crescendo, while simultaneously lyrically peeling away layers of the Mallrat persona we’ve grown to love, and revealing a greater glimpse of Grace Shaw – the person – in a way that we’ve never really seen before.
Part Time Records and Remote Control are thrilled to release Plane Spotting – the debut single from Siberian Tiger. Siberian Tiger is a new project of partners in music and life Bree Tranter (The Middle East, Matt Corby) and Chris Panousakis (Timberwolf).
During time off together between tours, they bring you their first collaborative expression of experiences with tradition, ritual, loss and devotion from their home and studio on the South Australian coastline.
Chris Panousakis explains – “This song was born when Bree and I were sitting in our backyard as we normally did, watching the planes pass over and listening to the birds come and go. One afternoon I had my guitar while Bree had made us her famous chicken sandwich and we wrote the song together on the spot. The idea behind the film clip was to let the listener feel and experience seeing the beautiful connection you have when you can sit with someone you love for hours on end and watch the world go by.”
Melbourne rockers The Ugly Kings have just released a video for Black Widow from their acclaimed debut album, 2018’s Darkness Is My Home.
The band comment: “Black Widow is about seduction and manipulation. It’s about someone you love to hate and hate to love. It’s about someone that pulls you in with promises of affection and uses that to pull your strings. Ultimately the message is uplifting as it’s about having the strength to walk away from something so toxic and stand on your own two feet again.”
Dot Dash Recordings and Remote Control Records are excited announce the signing of Melbourne’s Obscura Hail. They release the first single Swear Jar from their new EP Zero out Friday 25 October.
Conceived on NSW’s South Coast, and now buried alive somewhere in Melbourne, Obscura Hail (Sean Conran, Tamara Issa & Steven West) are sneaking into Melbourne’s intimate spaces and filling strangers with relative truths. The somewhat serious themes of ontology, existentialism, love and loss are framed with sincerity by the lush, but gentle classical guitar work, and the motif of almost whispered, though richly layered vocal harmonies.
Conran says of the video: “Swear Jar is about the dumb stuff we fight about in the heat of the moment, and having the patience to find out what the other person really means without judging them on the language they used initially, on the premise that hindsight is the mother of foresight.”
Rising 19-year-old Filipino-Australian R&B artist Lara Andallo releases her major label debut, Confidential.
Lara’s crisp vocals soar over minimal production and the result is an R&B heater that oozes soul and confidence. Written in her bedroom studio and produced by her friend and collaborator EDY, Confidential sounds like a poised middle finger to fake friends. But it’s more than that, and it started in a dark place. “Confidential started as a sad song about being an outsider. When I wrote it, I wasn’t dancing very much, I’d lost some friendships, and I was processing that,” she explains. “But over time, it changed from being a sad song to an empowering one. Now it’s about feeling different but not giving a fuck.” Lara hopes that when people hear Confidential, they will feel comfortable with themselves too.
Dayseeker return this September with the release of their fourth studio album Sleeptalk. The album drops September 27 through Spinefarm Records. The band debuted the video for the title track.
“‘Sleeptalk,’ as a single and album, is our proudest work to date,” said singer Rory Rodriguez. “We’ve never felt more confident in our music than this very moment. The music video explores a toxic relationship with a couple who have separated but continue seeing one another after the fact. The underlying message is how we sometimes would rather live in misery than separate from someone we love so dearly.”
Bat For Lashes, aka Natasha Khan, has just revealed the video for new single The Hunger, which is the third track following Kids In The Dark and Feel For You to be lifted off from her forthcoming album Lost Girls out on September 6 via AWAL.
The Hunger, which Khan directed and stars in, is shot in an otherworldly nowhere place, and reveals Khan’s character Nikki Pink’s rise as the head priestess of the Lost Girls, spreading magic and light through a sensual ceremonial performance. A meditation on love, grief, release, and redemption, the video was produced in collaboration with her production company Lief.
Melbourne based punks, Press Club, have released the official music video for single Thinking About You.
“The idea for the ‘Thinking About You’ video clip came to me as we touched down from a 20 plus hour transit home from our first European tour in May this year,” explains guitarist Greg Rietwyk. “I pictured a surreal retelling of the story of a stalking stranger that is told within the song lyrics, with Nat being tormented by masked freaks. We enlisted the help of our good friend and filmmaker Gina Somfleth from Popcandi productions. We are all massive fans of Gina’s keen eye for cinematography.”
Continuously proving themselves as one of Adelaide’s premier indie-pop exports, The Montreals have doubled-down on the fun and careening melodies with new single, Lilac, I Think. Navigating themes of conflict and personal resolution, the band uses their usual bright musical disposition in putting otherwise darker material at the core of their songwriting. A step forward in the band’s creative evolution, Lilac, I Think launches The Montreals into exciting new territory as a band.
“Lilac, I Think’ dabbles with issues of intra-personal and interpersonal conflict, but in a super fun, approachable way. We are all pretty darn good at handling ourselves when things are going well, but how we deal with conflict is really defining. Are you a pacifist? Do you embrace conflict? Do you avoid it entirely? Conflict is a motif that sort of dances through the entire Horror Movies EP.” The Montreals
Electronic masters Nadisko have today announced their iridescent new single Take Me Away, a track made to be spun in the summer (or to heat up the winter months!) out August 9. The group, consisting of Alex Hopkins and Blake Wood, have also released a stunning lyric video to accompany Take Me Away.
Take Me Away is the much-needed antidote to a chilly Australian winter. Hypnotic percussion percolates underneath wistful, beautiful vocals, and it’s a masterclass in electronic dance production and arrangement. Offering a little insight into the inspiration behind the track, Alex Hopkins says, “Take Me Away is an intimate, summery, poolside tune with a hypnotic guitar riff and dreamy soulful vocals. It is a new direction of what we are vibing musically, and in that, something we have only recently tapped into. It was inspired by equality and relationships. With the world being so busy and with so much division, we often struggle and forget to spend time with those closest to us. It was inspired by a very tough time for us in our lives and was used as a form of escapism. It comes back to the idea of a ‘perfect’ dream or idealism of what relationships should be like. It brought us back to the things that are important to us in life.”
Alison Wonderland and some local friends and musicians met up recently at Hollywood studio, Gold Diggers, for an intimate recording of current single Peace. It was arranged, rehearsed, and recorded all in one afternoon.
For more news, interviews, live reviews and live photos stayed tuned at Hi Fi Way.