The New Cue #458 January 17: Ela Minus, Songhoy Blues, My Morning Jacket, Yukimi, Hotwax, Samantha Crain, Perfume Genius, Lucy Dacus

"Environmental issues"

Good morning,

Well, that was a week alright, yep seven days, 168 hours, let’s firm that up, it was a week. There are 15 songs in this week’s Recommender playlist, meaning a good new track was released every 12 hours. 2025 is not in the mood to muck around.

And judging by the extremely concise replies in today’s Release Valve Q&As, neither are Songhoy Blues or Ela Minus. Both are very efficient with words, unlike me, I could do this all day, I live for the intro.

Amongst this week’s playlist picks, there’s an enjoyably garage-punk number from Hastings trio Hotwax, some 80s-style airy pop from Lucy Dacus, an excellently twanging, Americana-ish return from Perfume Genius, a song from Rocket From The Crypt frontman Swami John Reis that sounds like it would be good to have a fight to but only hypothetically because in real life I’d get my head kicked in, a sage ballad from Edwyn Collins and much more. Get your kicks here:

Or here if you’re an Apple Music sort of person.

Full access to this edition is for paying subscribers, so if you like what we do and would like us to keep doing what we do, then you can become a TNC ledge for a mere £5 a month:

Now, onto our laconic friends below. We’ll see you on Monday when we’ve got a Life & Times chat with Inhaler frontman Eli Hewson.

Enjoy the edition,

Ted and Niall

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Release Valve #1: Songhoy Blues

Today Mali’s Songhoy Blues release their excellent fourth record Héritage, an album that reshapes their frenetic desert blues into something more mellow and acoustic. In the run-up to release, guitarist Garba Touré took on our RV queries:

The first record I loved was: 10 Ans de Succés by Bembeya Jazz National of Guinea Conakry.

The last record I loved was: Blur’s The Ballad Of Darren.