New Tunes 14.7.2023

Hello music lovers! 🎵

Yes, summer is here and high temperatures too. The open-air festivals have started and there are as many musicians as you want.

Just in case (if you're not going anywhere), here's #newtunes with the latest news on the music scene.

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Well-known, lesser-known and unknown musicians are fighting for our attention in every possible medium. I support them in this effort, of course, especially in the summer when I have the time to go and see someone on purpose.
As usual, if you don't like something in the selection, just skip it.

Music4life!

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PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old I Dying

New album of my favourite female artist is out! I have followed her for many years and she has never let me down. She is still caught in a fluid atmosphere of quiet noise, new voices, stories, music, and poetry. This song is called the album, "I inside the Old I Dying". An eclectic and at the same time melancholic confession about childhood, adulthood, and the passage into eternity.
The whole album is great for me, and, I'm sure, for all who follow her also.

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TV Girl - Grapes Upon the Vine

I didn't know this band at all and I would probably have skipped them if I had ever met them, but I read somewhere that someone was asking, "Where the hell have they been so far? Basically, they were completely unknown for 10 years, with very few gigs, never in the media, and then all of a sudden, when someone posted an older song on Tik Tok, it went viral. Currently, Spotify counts over 1.6 billion streams of their songs. They released a new album "Grapes Upon The Vine" and went on a global tour, 60 shows. Yes, they are all sold out. The closest one to me is Sziget Festival, 12 August, in Hungary. But I probably won't be there :)
And the music? I have to admit it's catchy, a mix of gospel and indie pop, and the lyrics are about love problems, broken relationships, and strained male-female relationships. Maybe that's why Tik Tokers love them?
Here's a taster of the album's title track.

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Tash Sultana - Bitter Lovers ft. BJ The Chicago Kid

Australian singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana is a master of combining different instruments such as guitar, drums, synthesizers and loops with a voice that has a range of six octaves.
She has a new single as a prelude to an EP, which she is presenting on tour. Usually completely alone, she orchestrates the stage with technical precision and infectious rhythms. Tash has been ranked in the top 5% of live performers by Liverate.com's concert reviews.
So if you're anywhere near where she's concentrating, don't miss her. The closest one to me is on July 19, in 5 days, in Zagreb, Croatia.

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Lifeguard - New Age (I've got a)

A new group for me. Lifeguard is a young trio from Chicago, they've been performing since 2019 and have released one album and two EPs. They are basically a punk band. Their music is loud, energetic, hypnotic and full of improvisation. They manage chaos, rhythm and noise very well in their songs, and you can feel a special youthful energy with an attention to detail.
I'm not surprised when some music critics are already hailing them as the new up and coming of rock. Well, it used to be Interpol. But I'll definitely keep an eye on them, we'll see where they get to.
This song is from the EP Crowd Can Talk.

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London Brew - Raven Flies Low

In August 1969, Miles Davis created the album Bitches Brew, opening up new dimensions of jazz and taking it into uncharted territory. The fiftieth anniversary of that album was the occasion for London Brew, a group of famous London jazzers and an album to celebrate and perhaps potentially point jazz towards the future. According to Shabak Hutchings, one of the players, they took the time to play for the love of playing, and to look to the future of modern London jazz, which is like a Babel of multicultural influences.
Groove, fusion, uncompromising improvisation and avant-garde psychedelia as a homage to Bitches Brew and the new history of jazz that is being written now. Recommended!

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Cable Ties - Perfect Client

The Australian trio Cable Tries are from Melbourne. They have been around for eight years and are known for their energetic blend of post-punk and garage rock, interspersed with politically engaged lyrics. They were nominated multiple times at the Music Victoria Awards between 2017-2020, and their second album Far Enough won the Punk Album of the Year award in Australia in 2020.
This June saw the release of their third album All Her Plans, still featuring drawn-out punk riffs and rhythms, repetitive drums, and the singer's remarkable vocals, which reach for the heights of the tonal scales, reminiscent of some heavy metal singers from the 1980s.
Perfect Client is a song from this album that speaks about the imperfection of all of us, listeners and writers...

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Codex Serafini - I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust

This is a new band for me, and it's from the UK. They take their name from the 1981 illustrated encyclopedia Codex Seraphinianus, after its creator, the Italian visual artist and architect Luigi Serafini. The book is written in a fictional language, with unusual serpentine letters and conceived as a collection of diverse living beings, people, animals, plants, objects, things. A collection of strange, Kafkaesque metamorphoses, weird explanations, puzzles and exhibits. The members of the band are (for now) successfully anonymous.
The Imprecation of Anima is the name of their debut album from June this year.
The music is psychedelic, sprawling, built on repetitive guitar, drums and saxophone, which sometimes blends into this noise, and sometimes meanders upwards. Death, life, fire, water and so on. The songs are still quite long, I chose the shortest I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust because the sound of the saxophone smacks strongly of the new London jazz scene. It's danceable and jazzy but still psychedelic.

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John Zorn, Trevor Dunn, Dave Lombardo - live at TennesseeTheatre, Big Ears Festival

And to end today's #newtunes with a special treat, well, maybe not for everyone :)
I was about to post the news that Dave Lombardo, drummer of Slayer, has released his first solo album, but then the YT suggestion algorithm (hi Hive account@whywhy I'm using it too, sometimes, hahah) suggested this one. And I went straight to check it out.
John Zorn, still avant-garde, especially in jazz, but also in all other genres, for me personally one of the most important live musicians, the first time I saw him live completely changed my perception of music, Trevor Dunn, bassist of the legendary experimental band Mr.Bungle and the most famous metal drummer at TennesseeTheatre, Big Ears Festival. Exceptional musicians, pure power of sounds, and that's why I share.