The New Cue #501 June 20: Loyle Carner, U.S. Girls, Isaiah Hull, Cass McCombs, Africa Express, Just Mustard, Four Tet

"Our loins are girded for it"

Back once again with the recommend masters!

Apologies about the lack of Recommender action last week, I had to dash to a funeral. Luckily Ted was on hand with an excellent excerpt from his forthcoming Oasis book. He’s got more of them hidden down the back of the sofa too, maybe I’ll go AWOL a few more times. But not today. Today we are back in the thick of it, recommending like there’s no tomorrow, but hopefully there will be a tomorrow otherwise this edition will never get sent.

Hey, you know how you’re always saying ‘I wish I could become a paying subscriber to The New Cue because those guys deserve to earn some wedge for all the hard work they put in to the world’s best music Substack publication’? Well, now you can live out your dreams, subscribe here, go on, make us proud:

Here's this week’s playlist:

And here it is for the Apple Music crew.

See you on Monday TNC crew, enjoy the edition,

Ted and Niall

---

Recommender

Niall Doherty

Only the most dexterous of artists can get away with writing about becoming a parent. In the wrong hands, it can become a musical version of a comedian who’s thrilled that he’s got some new material to draw on, staring round the audience and going, “Babies, what’s that about, eh?!”. Or it can come across as overly earnest when anyone who’s been a new parent knows there is no time to be overly earnest, you’re too busy having a nervous breakdown that you’ve had the theme tune to In The Night Garden stuck in your head for six months. Over three excellent records, South London rapper Loyle Carner has proved that he is the most dexterous of artists and he comes through his fatherhood record, titled Hopefully ! and out today, with flying colours. Maybe that’s because of the way he infuses these songs with a sense of childlike wonder, stripping out the urgent angst of his previous work for something a lot more serene. Musically he changes things up too, working with his live band and emerging with a sound that resembles the hazy, psychedelic jazz of King Krule with its edges cleaned down, mellow but never less than gripping. Brilliant album.

There is an obscene amount of good releases to get through this week so I’ll try and keep it short and snappy. Next up is the really great new album from U.S. Girls, aka Toronto-based singer-songwriter, author, indie auteur Meg Remy. Over a number of records now, she has refined her abstract experimentalism into something increasingly poppy and accessible but Scratch It puts her lovely way with a hook into a different setting. Recorded with a crack set of Nashville musicians, it’s one of her best, hazily sauntering between dusky alt-country and soulful, rock’n’roll grooves.