New Tunes 16.6.2023

Hello music lovers! 🎵

It's Friday again and time for #newtunes.
This week, we've got quite a few suggestions to listen to over the weekend. Of course, summer is here, with musicians presenting their new creations at open festivals and concerts, hoping that listeners will remember them. Well, I wish them every success in doing so, especially the ones I've chosen.

As usual, the #newtunes selection is from a variety of music genres with well-known and unknown (yet) musicians. If you don't like something you can skip it or comment. Well, you can comment anyway :)

Music4life

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The Fall - Gray

The Fall is a post-punk band from Manchester, England, which ceased to exist in 2017 after the death of frontman Mark E. Smith, who was also the only constant member throughout. It was active from 1976 to 2017. They were very productive, releasing over 31 studio albums. They have been very well supported in their career by John Peel, the most famous BBC DJ.
The last label they recorded for, Cherry Red Records, recently released an EP of unreleased tracks from their 2013 album "Re-Mit" called "O-Mit".
The whole EP is more for the fans, I've chosen the song "Gray" which best defines them as a post-punk band and maybe someone else will like it besides me.

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King Gizzard And Lizard Wizzard - Dragon

KGALW is one of the best bands for me at the moment, very active, always touring, and really energetic, releasing albums like clockwork, and yesterday I got a message from Bandcamp that they released a new album called "PetroDragonic Apocalypse". I haven't listened to the whole album yet (I'm still waiting for it, probably tomorrow when I'm going home from work, I'll be standing in the queue, because Tour Slovenia is going on, a bike race at this very time on this route :)), but there's a video for the song "Dragon" out there. Again in their specific, microtonal, unrecognizable style, I know they are KGALW mainly by the vocals. Or, as a comment on YT:

It’s like Motörhead, Tool, and White Zombie had a baby while having an acid bad trip. Love it.

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Greta Van Fleet - Sacred The Thread

Grammy-winning rock band Greta Van Fleet presents a new song "Sacred The Thread". The new song follows the already successful "Meeting The Master", and is also the single from the long-awaited upcoming third studio album Starcatcher, announced for July 21st.
I know a lot of people don't like this band because they say they're copying Led Zeppelin, but I think they have a unique rock style, a kind of guitar gothic of monumental epics, and they are successfully continuing the direction that Led Zeppelin started with their mystical stories.

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YUNGBLUD - Lowlife

Yungblud, an artist who has united today's youth with his music and has surely become the voice of Gen-Z, has released a new single "Lowlife". With this song, he continues his journey through the alt-rock cosmos and heralds a new era in his career, visually, sonically, and creatively.
An energetic and rebellious anthem that combines sharp melodies, powerful bass lines, and raw, vulnerable lyrics.
Yungblud returns to its alternative roots while taking creative risks with an unusual yet detailed production. Of course, for the Gen-Z generation... it's good to know what the youth are listening to...

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Schroothoop - Tanz der Quallen

The Belgian name Schroothoop, literally means dump or waste. The trio has pulled everything from cans to shopping trolleys out of the streets and cranked out an eclatant sound that leaves the saturated urban environment and puts us in a new story.
Their debut album "Macadam" is out, and as a new band I'm not (yet) familiar with, I was pleasantly surprised. The mix of Afro-Cuban musical practices, Moroccan gnawa music, vuvuzela, and jazzy phrases promises a new quality that hasn't been heard in mainstream media yet but is well on its way to making a name for itself.
The musicians are surprise with their knowledge of the diverse musical practices of multiculturalism. I recommend the whole album, which is rich in different tunes, and this song "Tanz der Quallen" could be a hit anywhere.

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Baaba Maal - Yerimayo Celebration

Baaba Maal is a Senegalese superstar and "Being" is his 14th album. I didn't know him until now. Although music reviewers mention him in the context of African urban music, which does not define anything, because the interest of Western music consumers who seek the exotic in the term world music coincides with the activities of the music corporations that serve them (us) so-called otherness and cultural excitement.
Well, it's certainly true that his music is playful, exuberant, and danceable, with the accentuated sound of the traditional tam percussion, or so-called talking drum.
By the way, his London concert a month ago was completely sold out.

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Protomartyr - Make Way

Protomartyr is a post-punk Detroit band that has been performing since 2010. Through poetic language, instrumental backed by guitars and percussion on their latest, post-pandemic, sixth album "Formal Growth In The Desert", they continue to critique capitalism as a social devastation, an apocalyptic era with police brutality, a cultural obsession with technologies of the self and deceptive promises to be fulfilled by the market.
The album was recorded on a Texas ranch in the desert, which exists as a space of passage that is imposing and overwhelms the individual with a sense of smallness. An escape from an absurd and parodic reality? Maybe. But in context :)

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Rufus Wainwright - Harvest feat. Andrew Bird & Chris Stills

The Canadian-American singer-songwriter has turned 50, and on this occasion, he has released an album of duets, "Folkokracy", on which he performs covers and hosts veterans of the folk scene as well as some new up-and-comers. He says the album takes him back to his youthful days, to the music he grew up with.
I've chosen a cover of Neil Young's "Harvest", in which the great Andrew Bird joins Rufus on vocals and fiddle, and Chris Stills, son of the much more famous Stephen Stills, also appears on stage. Well, this is a classic in the true sense of the word.