SEE YOU MATE

Another retched revision of the annus horribilis that was; 2020 saw several attempts for us to clamber back onto our feet, all of which failed. Scratching our heads over how to continue to have an outlet to platform our favourite music, we spent the year in incubation ready to re-emerge brighter and with bushier tails than before. We have decided to start the year by looking back on all the great stuff we haven’t covered over the last 12 months. Firstly with our songs of the year, on Saturday, and now with our favourite albums of the year. Below are me and Hannah’s picks for the albums that really got us through the year that was. Below are our picks, together with Bandcamp links to support the artists that have given us something to look forward to time and time again. U.S Girls, Heavy Light Perennial See You Mate hero Meg Remy returns with a glossy scorcher of a record.  Liv.e, Couldn’t Wait To Tell You... At the apex of lo-fi RNB, jazz and soul, this delightful record teems with...

  Grazed and brazen we arrive from the smoking wreckage of 2020 with very little recollection of what happened. Productivity dried up mid-May, we awake unto a new beginning with thanks to the power of somnambulance for getting us this far. Simultaneously feeling years older, but with no experiences to back that up, we emerge into the New Year knowing only thus; 2021 has to be better.  Was 2020 that bad? Who cares. It was a grey year, but all years seem pretty bad these days. We lost Tony Allen, we lost Diego, hell, we even lost DOOM on New Years. I take that back. I care. It’s been shit. But when I personally reflect back on 2020, its characterised by an all-encompassing malaise, rather than anything dramatically bad; but good things certainly happened. We all made banana bread. I nailed down a Korean BBQ recipe, and finished second in every single Zoom quiz I entered. I spent whole mornings looking at the deer in Greenwich Park, and whole evenings learning to really play ches...

Arriving via SYM faves Sad Club Records, the latest single from Rosehip Teahouse is one hell of a charmer. Lilting melodies and glittering bells give ‘Thought Number 3’ an almost transcendental melancholia, as singer Faye Rogers vocals echo atop the band’s crystal horizons.  Of the track, Rogers says: “I wrote this song a couple of years back now. I was really struggling with my mental health, and this song was my expression of feeling as if my problems were stopping me from being able to live my life in the way I wanted to. “The version of this song on the EP is the one I recorded the day I finished writing the song in 2017, miserable in my room at my parents’ house using a cheap microphone and garageband on an old macbook that I was putting off returning to my ex. It feels like a long time ago now, but every time I hear it, it feels like 3am in that room that was too warm again.” This pre-empts the Cardiff DIY group’s new EP ‘Chillin in the Void’, also out via Sad Club, next mont...

Go Chi Minh have thus far performed every action of their career with the kinda malignant glee reserved for champion greyhounds and Danny Ings. From their zany infancy, they’ve blazed a trail of infantile destruction, taking in influences as varied as Devo, the Butthole Surfers, John Wayne and beyond, chewing them up and spitting something out super new.  New song ‘Trans-Human Express’ is no exception, as the band put their own spin on a Kraftwerk classic. What a lot of people misunderstand about the seminal German outfit are that regularly their songs are full of obscenely kitsch (‘Pocket Calculator’) and a deadpan sense of humour (‘Showroom Dummies’), but Go Chi Minh get this. It’s written all over this single; check it out below.  Stream it on Soundcloud and YouTube

Peckham’s vaudeville rock savants Black Bordello can today share a video to Backache as a precursor to their debut album, arriving next week (3 July). With influences spread as far as Ella Fitzgerald and Position Normal, BB’s sound is an infectious and novel one.  Watch the video below or at this link .  <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3y0JlazcZa4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ‘Black Bordello’ is out next week, and is a real album of the year contender. Swooning jazz, vaudeville quirks and cracking songwriting make them a wholly wonderful prospect. 

London quartet BUGS are among our favourite bands in the capital right now. Their nocturnal, lively take on garagey indie-rock is fresh, and for the last year they’ve caused quite the ripple with their live rituals. Supporting Pynch at our first show of the year, BUGS are one of the finest and most fully realised bands we’ve ever hosted – and now, they bless the quarantimes with their debut single. ‘Nick Gowland’ is a deathwish ode to school bullies, and with a droning, malignant stomp, it perfectly captures one of the capital’s premier live outfits at their brawling best. It’s one of my favourite singles of the year, vividly recalling the ultra-playful college rock of The Breeders and the droning country-garage of Bongwater. Singer Alice Western says of the track: “Nick Gowland is the boy at school who called you ugly and pinged your bra strap, the man in the crowed who says you’re good at guitar for a girl, and that guy that takes it upon himself to explain things to you that ...

Whilst creativity can be hard under isolation, London’s premiere technopop jam band PVA have emerged from their hibernation with a quarter of an hour of new music to satisfy the restless among us. PVA were set to release their second single today, but have instead saved that for a rainy day; but they’ve shared something for us to enjoy in the sun. The remixes see PVA’s Josh Baxter and Limezoda (Ella Harris) debut their solo monikers, as they joyfully mangle tracks from almighty bedroom producer Glows. They can both be streamed here . Baxter’s reimagining of  ‘Perla’ is bright and playful, whilst the Limezoda version of ‘Molina’ is brooding and far darker than Glows’ transportive original.