The New Cue #484 April 11: Pulp, Loyle Carner, Lifeguard, The New Eves, Lana Del Rey, Vegyn/Air, Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke, Craig Finn, Fat Dog, Porches, SYML, Juan Wauters

"Beer prices at venues have gotten out of control."

Well hello there,

It’s us, your old friends at The New Cue, Ted and Niall. Except Niall is on holiday with his family in Sorrento, asking lots of people “dov'è il bagno?” - because that’s a phrase I know he’s nailed - and no doubt eating some really good food in excellent company amidst picturesque surroundings.

So, you’re stuck with me this week. Niall did manage to write his recommender on holiday, the ledge, but I can’t remember the Spotify login so you’re just getting a playlist from my account.

I don’t speak Apple Music, but Niall can add that when he’s back. In the meantime, feast upon two Release Valves with Craig Finn and SYML, plus all the usual high calibre nonsense in one of the best weeks for new music that I can remember in 2025. See you on Monday for a very spiritual Life & Times with John Power of Cast. It was a really beautiful Zoom hour we spent together.

Enjoy the edition,

Ted and Niall.

(You’ll need to be a subscriber though, as a paywall will turn up fairly soon)

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Recommender #1

Ted Kessler

I wonder if we’ll hear a better chorus this summer than Spike Island (“come alive!”), the initial signal sent from Pulp’s first album since 2001’s We Love Life? Probably not until the second single from More (out June 6) is issued into the world. There’ll no doubt be lots of words written about Pulp over the coming months, lots of thoughts shared, so let’s not add to the typographical weight this early on unduly other than to remark how comfortable and persuasive Jarvis Cocker sounds back in these old robes. They suit the charming old goat so well (“I exist to do this, shouting and pointing”). And to pause to pour one out for Steve Mackey as well.

I’ve been fortunate/unfortunate enough to interview many music stars who are much brighter, better-read, and far more eloquent than me. This is not a humble brag. This is a confession. I’m an idiot; they might be Chuck D or Lana Del Rey. None has been quite as emotionally intelligent, as multi-skilled, well-informed, or quick-witted as Loyle Carner. I did a podcast with him in 2019 and the journey he led me through his experiences of grief, hip hop, cookery, youth work, writing, ADHD, love and psychoanalysis was so overwhelmingly charming I almost asked him out on a date. It is no surprise to now learn that he's about to make his acting debut this June in a BBC drama called Mint, made by the director of the excellent Scrapper, Charlotte Regan. I wouldn’t be surprised to soon learn Loyle’s been accepted by NASA for the next manned mission into space. In the meantime – before he headlines the second stage at Glastonbury, of course – two new tracks of poetic, soft-focus, atypical hip hop: all i need/in my mind. Love that guy.

Exquisitely dressed skinny kids making scratchy, melodic garage rock will always hit hard as a hammer. Chicago’s Lifeguard are that band, an obscenely young trio who’ve released a series of great singles and EPs (including amazingly faithful covers of The Jam’s debut In The City single – right down to the sleeve photo – and Wipers’ Telepathic Love), but It'll Get Worse is the first taste from their June 6 debut album and suggests something uniquely fresh may be approaching.

Speaking of garage bands making new music that seems to appear from out of the creative ether, The New Eves are an all-female quartet from Brighton whose stark retelling of Alfred Noyes’ 1906 poem Highway Man recalls the dark, primal power of The Birthday Party, Throwing Muses and PJ Harvey. Stick them on a bill with Lifeguard and let’s build a new movement.

Two fairly depressing if nonetheless enjoyable new tracks from Aaron Maine aka Porches this week, the pair of songs grouped together as Shirt Expansion Pack, a follow-up to last year’s Shirt album. Lunch is like an emo-goth Phoenix – two great minutes - while Shirt’s an emo-goth Kurt Cobain, a bit longer, not quite as immediate but insidiously catchy. Porches are playing here next week.

Between 1998 and at least 2000, it was impossible to go after the pub to a house with decent soft furnishings and not hear Air’s Moon Safari album. It was the album that finally allowed Portishead’s Dummy to finally come off the night shift. Consequently, I thought if I ever heard it again it would be either too soon or I’d be in a Mediterranean beach bar at sundown. However, the highly skilled London producer Vegyn known for his work with the likes of Frank Ocean and Dean Blunt (and whose storied old man Phil Thornalley played the bass on The Cure’s Lovecats) has performed the impossible by delivering an entire remix of Moon Safari for its 25th birthday, and here I am playing and enjoying the album once more, almost as if I didn’t know its smooth grooves off-by-heart.

Let’s all listen to another drop-dead Lana Del Rey torch song which has fallen from the email heavens ten minutes before our edition hits the press with the barest of information, but already answers the question of whether we’d hear a better chorus than Spike Island this summer that I posed at the top of today’s releases. Lana, come on. Go on and giddy up. More, please.