The New Cue #293 June 16: Simon Armitage, Sigur Rós, Bombay Bicycle Club, Sparklehorse, ANOHNI, Julie Byrne, Gengahr, Allah-La's, GAUNT, Devendra Banhart, Charif Megarbane

" I was at Portsmouth Poly in 1982, a proud melancholy northerner on the south coast..."

Good morning!

We made it! Yes, there were some minor scuffles, a pocket dial to someone I was trying to ignore, a mild bout of food poisoning, two small hangovers, one big hangover, and a hello to someone I thought was Big Jim from the café but it was just a lookalike, BUT WE MADE IT! Phew. When life gives you lemons, put them back in the bowl and have a beer instead.

This week, we’ve got two mind-blowers courtesy of the bleedin’ Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, and another from Gengahr’s Felix Bushe who is not the Poet Laureate but you never know Felix – hang on in there! In between, there’s a whole host of recommending going on but to get to that bit, you’ll need to be a subscriber. You can try scrolling down if you want, but it won’t be there. Unless we forget to put the paywall in, which has happened before. But don’t take advantage of us! Pay £5 a month and receive full access to every edition without praying that we’ll make the paywall mistake again. It’s bad karma anyway. Here, think about it over this week’s playlist:

Enjoy the edition,

Ted, Niall and Chris

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An Album To Blow Your Mind #1

Gengahr frontman Felix Bushe chooses the sixth album from Bradford Cox’s maverick crew.

London quartet Gengahr released their fourth album Red Sun Titans last week, a jubilant collection of pulsing guitar-pop that injects the wiry art-rock of their earlier work with a rhythmic swagger. Listen to it here:

Here, frontman Felix Bushe tells us why Deerhunter’s sixth record takes him back to late night FIFA fests…

Deerhunter
Monomania (2013)

“The album I have chosen to blow your mind with is Monomania by the might Deerhunter.  It is as warm and fuzzy as an album could possibly be and in all the best ways imaginable.  It reminds me of the very first months moving out of my parents’ house and living in a grotty flat share with an old school friend and a loose cannon from New Jersey, staying up all night smoking weed and playing FIFA with this album blaring out of a laptop plugged in to a guitar amp. For anyone who hasn’t heard it, Back To The Middle is the gateway track that will get you sucked in. It is beautifully simplistic and captures the mood of the record at its most playful and sunkissed. The Missing is another highlight. It nods towards what we will come to expect from a great Deerhunter song, both languid and dreamy but with a gritty, unsettled undercurrent. Enjoy!”