September 30th, 2020
Wildcard (week 40):
Boo Seeka – Days Get Better
Boo Seeka are an Australian electro-pop duo featuring best friends Ben Gumbleton and Michael May. Their melodic beats and angular rhythms are both accessible and credible.
In their home country, they received praise ever since they broke through with their first single Kingdom Leader in 2015. Two years later, their debut album Never Too Soon resulted in them playing festivals and sold out shows all over the world.
Touring in support of their upcoming second album will be quite a challenge, but the new music is coming anyway. Their sophomore long-player is planned for early 2021, and Days Gets Better is its latest single. Not wasting any time on an intro, it gets to the point straight away. The track is another fine example of the dynamic energy the duo’s music possesses. Somewhere halfway The Weeknd and Twenty One Pilots, this will sound great on (radio) playlists.
This week, Days Gets Better by Boo Seeka is the Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2020 playlist you’ll find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Werner’s Weekly (week 40)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Pixey – Just Move (Wildcard this week)
- Penfriend – The Only Way Out Is Through (Wildcard last week)
- Django Django – Spirals
- Liza Owen – Getting Good
- Miss Machine – Tout Autour
- The Mountain Goats – Get Famous
- T99 vs. Youngr – Anasthasia [Youngr Bootleg]
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Bastille, Saint Motel, The Waterboys, and more.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
The Neighbourhood – Lost In Translation
In 2013, Los Angeles five-piece The Neighbourhood broke through with Sweater Weather. Originally, this was the AA-side of their 2012 single Female Robbery. Back then, they were a full-on rock band. In 2020 they’ve evolved into a proper pop band.
In the meantime, The Neighbourhood released no less than five albums. Their latest is titled Chip Chrome & The Mono-Tones, after an alter-ego of frontman Jesse Rutherford. Covered in silver paint, he introduced Chip Chrome last year, when the band shot the video for the single Middle Of Somewhere.
The first 20 seconds of new single Lost In Translation sound like a The Avalanches record. What follows, is one of The Neighbourhood’s poppiest affairs yet. A super catchy song about miscommunications and crossed signals between lovers, and easily one of the album highlights.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Red Rum Club – The Elevation
For a great live act like Red Rum Club, not being able to play live is a horror scenario. Especially with a new album coming up, that was meant to be heavily promoted by a large chunk of gigs. Obviously, the Liverpudlian sextet are not the only ones with this problem.
Luckily, the tracks on Red Rum Club’s upcoming sophomore album The Hollow Of Humdrum are not only future live staples. They are also very well tailored for radio airplay and inclusion in streaming playlists. The long-player (out on 2 October) contains a wide variety of songs. They range from acoustic ballads to disco themed festival anthems. Expect theatrical brass lines, pop choruses, rumbling bass lines, western guitars and Latin percussion. A melting pot spelled f-u-n.
Following former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard Ballerino, the band now put album opener The Elevation in the spotlights. Another euphoric and shamelessly funky pop tune that begs you to pump up the volume.
Recommended as well:
Red Rum Club – Ballerino
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Semisonic – Basement Tapes
Thanks to great tunes like Closing Time, Secret Smile and Chemistry, Semisonic are one of my favourite bands from around the turn of the century. In 2002, following their third album All About Chemistry, the band went on an indefinite hiatus. However, they never broke up. In the meantime, frontman Dan Wilson built a successful career of his own. He was a songwriter and producer for the likes of Pink, Dixie Chicks and Adele, as wel as a solo artist. He is quoted as saying he found it difficult to write new material that sounded like Semisonic.
In 2017, Wilson met Liam Gallagher with the intention to write new songs for the latter. Eventually, the two didn’t work together. Wilson felt the sketches of the songs he wrote for Gallagher were more suitable for Semisonic instead.
In the summer of that year, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their 2016 debut album Great Divide, Semisonic reunited for a series of shows. At these occasions, they played Great Divide in its entirety. At the end of that year, commemorating the upcoming 20th anniversary of their sophomore album Feeling Strangely Fine, they performed the whole of that album a few times. Last year, they came together again to do some more gigs. During these 2017-2019 shows, they also played some of Wilson’s new, previously unreleased ‘Gallagher’ songs.
These tracks have now been properly recorded and released on the EP You’re Not Alone. This is Semisonic’s first collection of new material in 19 years. It contains five fine examples of craft song-writing, as we’ve come to expect. Basement Tapes is my favourite. A great pop-rock song, very well sung and executed by Wilson and his band. A welcome return.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Smallpools – Cycle
When I first heard of American band Smallpools, via their debut single Dreaming, they made infectious, rocky radio pop. This led to slots as opening act for the likes of Twenty One Pilots, Grouplove and Two Door Cinema Club. In 2020, their music is as contagious and radio-friendly as ever, but with the guitars further down in the mix.
New single Cycle is a high-energy track with a dynamic, groovy sound. Speaking on the track, the band shares: “Life is full of beginnings and endings. We cope with the ‘endings’ and carry on until we are forced to accept pushing the reset button. Cycle is a song about starting over, the inevitability of change, adaptation and the cycle of perpetual highs and lows.”
Cycle follows Slowdown as the second single off the band’s upcoming sophomore album, due out in early 2021.
Recommended as well:
Smallpools x morgxn – Slowdown
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Tessa Dixson – How High
Tessa Dixson is a young British-Belgian singer, who has grown more and more confident over the years. She bundled her singles from 2017 to 2019 on last year’s EP Abyss. Her debut album Genesis, released earlier this year, only contained new material. It was produced by Das Pop icon Reinard Vanbergen and his wife Charlotte Caluwaerts. A diverse and adventurous record, which is impossible to pigeon-hole.
One of the album highlights is Dixson’s new single, appropriately titled How High. It’s an understated, yet exciting dance track with a prominent role for violins. Top-notch!
Recommended as well:
Tessa Dixson – Beautiful Pain
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Sacropolis – For You
Sacropolis are a young, Frankfurt-based quartet with French and German roots. It features brothers Jean (guitar) and Leon (bass) and long-time friends Ben (vocals, guitar) and Tom (drums). They formed the band in 2013, after Ben caught the other boys’ attention during one of his street performances.
The music they make today – a straight-forward, guitar-driven hybrid of indie-pop and indie-rock – is a result of the music enthusiasm their parents raised them on. Now, it’s up to Sacropolis themselves to spread their passion for music.
For You is their promising debut single. A light-hearted, catchy song that tackles an unrequited love confession. It’s dedicated to ‘all those who were blinded by love, but have nevertheless managed to see and accept reality in order to close up with the past’.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Crocodylus – Social Climber
Sydney garage-rock trio Crocodylus describe themselves as ‘Northern Beaches most disappointing band’. Well, if the band was already surrounded by disappointment, they definitely shake it off with their new single.
‘New’ is relative, by the way. Social Climber was written four years ago. It was recorded right before Sydney went into lockdown earlier this year. A jangly garage rock anthem-in-waiting, it’s the band’s most dynamic and poignant song yet.
Crocodylus frontman Josh Williams offers some insights… “This song’s about being in a relationship with someone who’s climbing the non existent social ladder. It’s about trying to make the relationship work but it all becomes too much. Manipulation and jealousy comes into play as well as some 12 string and organ action. The song was written a few years ago and it’s sick to see it finally recorded with a full band.”
Social Climber is one half of a double A-side 7″. The other half, Camouflage, will come out on 16 October. Crocodylus have used their recent downtime well, working on their forthcoming debut album. The long-flayer is slated for release in 2021.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 39):
Pixey – Just Move
Pixey (born Elizabeth Hillesdon) is a DIY artist in the true sense of the word: she literally does everything herself. She writes and produces her own songs, plays the drums, bass and guitar, and sings.
Listening to her music, you can hear she doesn’t try to hide she’s from North West England. The influence of other bands from Liverpool and Manchester is evident. With it’s lush guitars and breakbeat-like drums, her new single Just Move has a distinct Madchester sound. Think The Stone Roses, for instance. On top of that, the opening guitar riff sounds like it’s borrowed from King Bee’s Back By Dope Demand and part of the vocal melody comes straight from Madonna’s Material Girl. Further referencing the queen of pop, she even urges the listener to “get into the groove”.
However, with all of these ingredients, Pixey mixes an energy drink that’s very much her own. It’s fresh but spicey, and highly addictive.
Talking about her euphoric single, she says: “Just Move was written and recorded in my bedroom at the beginning of lockdown. I thought it would be ironic to write a dance tune when the last thing anyone would be doing is going out and actually dancing. (…) With the last few months feeling so complicated and unprecedented I thought it would be refreshing to write something with a simple request, as dancing and moving is in (most) people’s nature!”
This week, Just Move by Pixey is the Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2020 playlist you’ll find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
