The New Cue #394: Lana Del Rey, Mermaid Chunky, Human Interest, Dirty Three, Crows, Honeyglaze

"I had a punk philosophy about not selling out"

Good morning!

Is it? We hope so. We’re writing this on Thursday so we can’t say for sure. Oh god please make it be a good morning, please make it be the sort of morning where you’re in a great mood and the birds are chirping and the hangovers are chiming and the sun is shining and the Recommenders are rolling and the playlists are playing.

Unless you are not a paying subscriber to The New Cue in which case you do not have full access to this edition and you’ve ruined it all.

Here’s this week’s playlist:

And here for the Apple Music crew.

Enjoy the edition,

Ted, Niall and Chris

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An Album To Blow Your Mind

Self Esteem’s Rebecca Lucy Taylor on how Björk’s voice-crafted dazzler taught her how to use her “gob”.

Self Esteem, aka Sheffield pop artist Rebecca Lucy Taylor, recently put out her excellent new single, a collaboration with Moonchild Sanelly titled Big Man. Have a listen:

And here’s Taylor on how Björk influenced her as a solo artist…

Björk
Medúlla (2004)

“The fact she had given the whole record a remit – almost entirely no sounds used other than those made by the voice – really inspired me. I’m a songwriter with very basic guitar and piano skills which used to feel like a brick wall, but this album became the beginning of me realising I could create alone and using the instrument I can play the best – my gob! Successfully creating such a diverse and arresting piece of work with any kind of perimeter is an incredible feat. This isn’t just a load of slow songs with ‘ooooohs’, Triumph Of A Heart is an absolute club banger.”

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Recommender

Ted Kessler

My former colleague and good friend from the dogdays of NME in the 1990s, Neil Thomson, apologised for not coming to my book launch last night (which I’m writing about in the past tense even though it is yet to happen, hopefully it went well and this is not a jinx). He said he had to… “drive Mermaid Chunky to Holland”.