New Tunes 24.2.2023

Hello music lovers! 🎵

The latest set of #newtunes music suggestions for the weekend!
A selection of well-known and lesser-known musicians from all the ones that have been buzzing in my ears this week.
They're trying very hard for attention and rightly so.

So, take a few minutes to listen, it costs you nothing, well, unless you like it so much that you vote 😎. I'll be glad I shared.
But if any of this is not to your taste, feel free to skip it.

Music4life!

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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Death Wish

Michael Jason Isbell and his group the 400 Unit announced "Weathervanes" the new album after three years, 7th in a row. It will be out in June this year. In the meantime, he has been more involved in politics than music and has also worked extensively in film (Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon, with Jack White, Sturgill Simpson, Robert De Niro, and Leonardo DiCaprio). Well, he's finally back to what he's good at :)
The first single is Dead Wish. A lyrical and personal-confessional song, the melody is quickly memorable. Recommended.

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Kelela - Enough For Love

Kelela Mizanekristos, from Washington, D.C., from a family of Ethiopian immigrants, sang jazz standards in Washington, D.C. bars as a student, performed in local indie rock and progressive metal bands, and later moved to L.A. to start her own original songs. Her first album, 2017's Take Me Apart, was a commercial success and received critical acclaim.
Well, after a five-year hiatus, she released her second album "Raven" and came out of obscurity again, making headlines as an alternative to the R&B mainstream.

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Ichi-Bons - Ich-I-Bon #1

Well, this is a new name for me and I'm really excited. Toronto-based Canadian band Ichi-Bons, which actually formed in 2019 to perform at a birthday party, has since gone on to support Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs) on tour.
They took the opportunity, and recorded the EP "Ich-I-Bon #1" and the door to fame is open for them. Listening to them I feel like I've been transported in a time machine to the days before I was born, the fifties, when garage rock'n'roll, obscure surf, and psychobilly music ruled the roost. I highly recommend everything you find.

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Kezz - Moj borije

Tamara Topalović, a Serbian artist living in Slovenia, has been working under the name Kezz for nine years and has recently released her third album "Elektroizvorika", where she remains faithful to her vocals and synthesizers.
In her own words, she "electrifies" or "reinterprets" traditional Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Albanian, and Gypsy songs, i.e. the whole Balkan melodies, into transcendental shamanism and a global new age sound with the help of rave, trance, house and ambient. Ok, why not.

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The National - New Order T-Shirt

The National, an American band, has been performing for over twenty years and won a Grammy Award in 2017 for their seventh album "Slip Well Beast". This April they will release their ninth album "First Two Pages of Frankenstein" and "New Order T-Shirt" is the second single promoting this album.
Emotive, warm, and personally confessional, the song is the singer's memories of someone he misses and the difficult decisions he has made.
I have no doubt at all that the band's ardent fans will embrace it.

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Jax Jones and Calum Scott - Whistle

Jax Jones, Grammy and BRIT Award-nominated producer, DJ, and multi-instrumentalist, and Calum Scott, the much-praised singer, have released a single together, "Whistle", which speaks of new possibilities and collaborations, which they are actually doing in practice.
Both Jack and Calum say they were motivated to write the song by London and the themes from their youth that they grew up with and identified with. Well, let's just say that's a pretty solid explanation for a cute and modern pop/beat/funky song that will go quickly into the ears of fans (and no doubt climb to the top of the charts...).

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Kerala Dust - Moonbeam, Midnight, Howl

Kerala Dust, a London band, a new name for me, has been performing since 2016 and in that time they have released two albums. I would classify them as a kind of electropop or synthpop, although there are influences of Tom Waits, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop, which are successfully combined, arranged, and enhanced with electronic sounds. Their latest album "Violet Drive" was released in February this year and in it, they move away from the American influences a little bit more to Europe and even further back in time, to the legendary German band Can.
Hypnotic, minimalistic, repetitive monolithic atmosphere, enhanced with dreamy, quiet vocals, slow tempo in a combination of African percussion and European understanding of electro music with artistic touches.
This song "Moonbeam, Midnight, Howl" is a good introduction to listening to the whole album. A steady, crystal-structured rhythm follows in the footsteps of Talking Heads and Kraftwerk with funkoid guitar interjections and a nice melody. I recommend listening to the whole album!

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Laibach - Oj Triglav, moj dom

And finally, something sport-related. I've mentioned Laibach, the most famous Slovenian band abroad, quite a few times in my #newtunes posts lately. Laibach are always been masters of covers and well-known manipulators of audience and philosophy, all their performances carry strong subliminal messages that they send to their listeners.
This song is performed live at the opening ceremony of the Nordic World Championships in Planica, Slovenia, this Monday. It's an adaptation of Jakob Aljaž's 1894 poem, Triglav, moj dom (In English: Oh, Triglav my home), which is an ode to Slovenia's highest mountain, Triglav. With the help of some well-known Slovenian musicians and the production of the national TV company, which calls itself public.
Very positive criticism, but as I mentioned before, Laibach are manipulators, they also use the audience/listeners as objects in their musical performances.