The New Cue #536 October 10: Madi Diaz, Gorillaz, Geese, Hannah Frances, Blawan, Joyeria, Westside Cowboy, Sorry, Beguiling Junior, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Nightmares on Wax, Insecure Men

"Sometimes I just wish I was in a speed metal band."

Hello, alright, how’s it going, wotcha, top of the morning, G’day, howdy, yo, Kev, you’re on mute.

So many different ways to greet you and so little time. We have a Recommender edition to be cracking on with. Heaps of good gear to get your ears round today, with a nice Release Valve from Madi Diaz as a little pitstop in the middle.

You know what we’re about to say, and still we’re going to say it, but this week we’re going to say it in Spanish and see if that sparks a more successful conversion rate. You gotta be willing to try anything in the Substack game, it’s brutal out here:

La edición de hoy es solo para suscriptores de pago. Cuesta £5 al mes, lo que te dará acceso completo a todas y cada una de las ediciones, así como a nuestro archivo absolutamente enorme, y nos dará la excusa perfecta para seguir ofreciendo el mejor boletín musical del mundo entero. Puedes convertirte en una de estas auténticas leyendas haciendo clic aquí:

Here’s this week’s playlist:

And here it is for the Apple Music crew.

Enjoy the edition, we’ll see you on Monday for a Life & Times chat with Emma-Jean Thackray.

Ted and Niall

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Recommender Pt. 1

Ted Kessler

At NME in the olden days, there was a maxim that if you could find three acts doing the same kind of thing then you could editorially package them up as a scene or a movement, like Grebo, Shoegazing or The New Wave of New Wave. This week, there are two really good, minimalist and repetitive pop songs released with the word “cocaine” in their titles. I don’t think it’s a scene. But one more and we can call it that. The first is A.I On Cocaine by the duo of Oli Burslem (former front person of excellent underachievers, Yak) and Okay Kaya, now trading as Beguiling Junior. This is their first single, which they are supporting with four London shows this month, starting on the 16^th at The Shacklewell Arms.

The next cocaine number this week is Au Pays Du Cocaine, the gently skew-whiff lullaby taken from Geese’s recently released masterpiece fourth album, Getting Killed. In a fit of spontaneity, I voted for Getting Killed as my album of the year in the Mojo magazine writers’ poll a couple of weeks ago – and I’ve liked a lot of albums this year. Let’s see where it lands, bearing in mind my vote for Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee as my favourite of 2024 still wasn’t enough to see it placed at all by Mojo. Jack White came in at number one. That’s democracy.

I totally forgot to vote, however, for the Nightmares on Wax album, Echo45 Sound System, which is also a strong contender for my album of the year. I probably forgot because I was voting in October and the album is out in mid-November, so I won’t beat myself up about it. Maybe I can vote for it next year. The latest blast of squidgy funk hop from it is True (ft Sadie Walker). Brilliant record. Put it in your diary.

Few critical devices are more cringe-worthy, cliched or lazy as comparing music to drugs or drug-taking. For an example of this truism…I’ve had acid trips which feel as hectic, as ecstatically revelatory, as traumatic, as beautiful and as horrifically confusing as listening to Hannah Frances’ new album Nested in Tangles, which is out today. Mercifully, it’s not nine hours long, though, but a more concise forty minutes. Nested in Tangles is a perfectly judged title for the mesh of folk, jazz, avant-garde instrumental pieces, experimental rock and intimate finger-picking that the wordy 28-year-old singer-composer from Vermont unleashes here, often supported by Daniel Rosen, whose Grizzly Bear can be heard in some of the melodic echoes, alongside Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and other song-writing hire-wire acts.