The New Cue #466 February 14: Richard Dawson, Thom Yorke & Mark Pritchard, Horsegirl, Doves, Chimers, Yoshika Colwell
"Less reverb please"
Good morning,
Welcome to another round of Recommender shenanigans. Lots to get stuck into today, including a very enjoyable Release Valve Q&A with Richard Dawson. Shall we just get stuck in?
No, we shan’t, because you know the rules: we need to remind you that today’s edition is for paying subscribers only and that paying subscribers are the legendary bunch who keep TNC’s plates spinning. It costs £5 a month and it really helps in making us sound like we are not just doing this for a laugh when people ask.
It is a laugh too, though. But more of a laugh if you become a paying subscriber:
Here’s this week’s playlist:
And here it is for the Apple Music mob.
We’ll see you on Monday for an epic Life & Times chat with Waterboys don Mike Scott.
Enjoy the edition,
Ted and Niall
Recommender
People like me (this is Niall, hello) moaning how the members of Radiohead need to stop mucking around and get back to the dayjob are probably the reason why they keep extending their hiatus. No, I’m not saying that they all subscribe to The New Cue. But can you 100% say that they don’t? Well then, let me whine. The announcement from Colin Greenwood last week that he would be joining Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on bass duties in the spring and then also playing with Cave on a solo tour throughout much of the summer seems to have knocked the possibility of any Radiohead activity this year on the head and to add insult to injury, they keep putting out really good music, just not together. Yesterday, Thom Yorke released a collaborative new single with electronic producer Mark Pritchard, with whom he made this brilliant song back in 2016 as part of Pritchard’s excellent Under The Sun album:
Now the pair have teamed up properly on a song titled Back In The Game, a pulsing ambient techno number featuring delightfully barbed vocals from Yorke and an excellent and eerily psychedelic video to accompany it:
There’s nothing eerie about the new album from US trio Horsegirl. Titled Phonetics On And On and produced by Cate Le Bon, who by law has to produce at least 20% of all music releases these days, it features some dusty folk (like Frontrunner, which sounds like it’s been made only using the sort of instruments you used to get in primary schools in the 80s), some lo-fi indie gems, some wiry art-rock and, connecting it all, some very lovely and hooky melodies, mostly delivered with a bit of a give-a-shit shrug. Even better.
The press release that accompanies the new single bringing together Lust For Youth and Croatian Amor explains that the roots of their union are in the two artists sharing a stage at the Sydney Opera House during the Vivid Live Festival in 2023. But a rapid round of Googling from me revealed that Croatian Amor, aka Danish producer Loke Rahbek, actually used to be in Lust For Youth, a Danish-Swedish duo who make moody synth-pop. Maybe the guy could just rejoin the band properly and I could call off this wild goose chase and write about the song I’m supposed to be writing about. Here goes: Kokiri is an atmospheric electro banger, beats slowly building around chopped-up vocals and spidery, Depeche Mode-style guitar lines. Very good.
No such vagueness about the collaborative new single from George Daniel and Oscar Farrell. I don’t even need to Google this one: Daniel is the drummer and production mastermind in The 1975, Farrell is an electronic dynamo, a member of Sampha’s band and one of the first signees to The 1975’s dance label dh2. Together, they’ve made a glitchy, hypnotic dance tune titled volc3:
The feisty new single from Californian trio L.A. Witch is called 777, which is like the number of the beast if the beast was bad at maths. It’s a punchy garage-punk rattler that sounds a bit like Warpaint taking Immigrant Song apart with a sledgehammer. It’s taken from their forthcoming album DOGGOD.
The new album by Doves was supposed to be out today but recently got pushed back to the end of the month instead. To tide us over, they have put out the alt-country sway of Saint Teresa, its rolling drums, warm keyboard lines, jangly guitars and wistful Jimi Goodwin vocals a proper winter warmer.
Over its ten songs, the second record by Aussie-based duo Chimers does not let up but sometimes you need the hairdryer treatment. Although that’s probably the wrong phrase for me to use cos I love hairdryers, the sound of them makes me feel warm and cosy and sleepy, I’m getting a bit dozy thinking about it. But Through Today is not warm and cosy, it’s a furious meld of Sonic Youth at their punkiest and Trail Of Dead… with all the proggy bits stripped away.
After that, maybe turn your attention to the new single by British singer-songwriter Yoshika Colwell, a dreamy folk number that will slow your pulse and see you right.
There’s been a lot of collaborations in today’s Reccie, hasn’t there? I think I’ve accidentally done a collaboration special. This one will see you to the finish line, an atmospheric and very enjoyable merger (yeah, I’m really running out of synonyms for collaboration) between Immersion, aka Wire’s Colin Newman and his wife, musician and artist Malka Spigel, and US ambient collective SUSS. It’s called Nanocluster Vol 3 and takes in a bit of Air, bit of Brian Eno and a bit of Secret Machines-style psychedelic-rock to wake you up just when you’re nodding off:
Release Valve: Richard Dawson
Newcastle-upon-Tyne native Richard Dawson releases his new record End Of The Middle today, one of the cult hero singer-songwriter’s most stripped-down albums yet. Travelling round the UK this week for a series of in-store dates, Richard found the time to tackle our RV queries:
The first record I loved was: Bad by Michael Jackson, or Marching Out by Yngwie J Malmsteen's Rising Force.... I can't remember which order they came.
The last record I loved was: a toss up between Aesthesis by Thorn Wych, and Discipline by Shinichi Atobe.
The musician I grew up most wanting to be is: 12 - 14 years of age: Dave Murray from Iron Maiden, 15 - 17: Mike Patton, then Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's mate.
My fantasy band would feature: just drummers - Ikue Mori, Tomi Leppanen, Andrew Cheetham, Valentina Magaletti, Will Guthrie, Julian Sartorius, Steve Noble. If the dead are allowed please can I also have Tony Oxley and Max Roach. The band is called Heavy is the Head of the Policy Makers.
The greatest gig I ever saw was: Group Doueh and Omar Souleyman at the Star and Shadow in Byker way back when, close runners-up being Faiz Ali Faiz at the Newcastle Civic Centre and Lankum at last year’s End of the Road.
The greatest gig I ever played was: Stewart Lee's ATP was pretty special, being on the bill with The Fall, Sun Ra, Boredoms. Certain gigs with Circle and Hen Ogledd stick out too. Last year supporting Mitski at Dublin Arena was 'off the hook', as they say. A great feeling to be such a tiny mouse on stage in front of 8000 people. Mad. I came offstage completely wired then watched Mitski and her band deliver an astonishing, beautiful show. It was surreal but quite life-affirming.
My favourite group when I was 13 was: Iron Maiden, I think.
The story of my new album goes like this: I made it from air, then Domino Recs made it into molecules, molecules which as we speak are dispersing about the world, and will soon become air again - which is where the story begins.
I couldn’t have made it without - my partner Sally, Sam at Blank, Andrew and Faye who play on the record.
The one song everyone should listen to that isn’t on one of my albums is: All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix.
The song I wish I’d written is: I honestly can't think of one. I guess I don't covet my neighbour's ass!! I did hear the following line from Kath Bloom's song 'We crossed over' the other day and thought damn! that's good! - 'like an arrow in a quiver, waiting for a bow / you touch me and I shiver, then you let me go'....
The film everyone should see is: How to pick one? Impossible. Let's say.... The Red Shoes. Or maybe Red Beard. In fact, let's make it a trio of incredible red-titled films: Le Cercle Rouge.
The book that changed my life is: Ben Okri's 'incidents at the shrine' got me back into reading when I was 19-ish, thank god. More recently Thomas Pynchon's 'Against the Day' and 'Mason & Dixon' have radically altered/enriched my perception of the world.
The person who is making my favourite music in the world right now is: Eliane Radigue.
The one thing that would improve music is: There's reverb on everything, smoothing out all those lovely creases. Less reverb please.
And Finally…
Steve Mason on what he’d do if he met an alien…
“I’d probably just take them to the pub. They could see you there with all your mates and see how the conversation goes.”