Browsing Category single track
Anna Sofia – No Fun
Only 16-year-old, Toronto singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Anna Sofia made a confident entrance into the pop world in 2019. No Fun is only her third single, which heralds the arrival of her forthcoming debut EP Self-Aware Bitch. Despite its title, it’s a fun track. Very modern-day bedroom-pop, but the horn parts give it a classy (and classic) touch.
Already signed to a subsidiary of major label Universal Music, it looks like Anna Sofia has a bright future ahead of her. Definitively ‘one to watch’, as they say…
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.
of Montreal – Peace Of All Freaks
For a long time, Athens, Georgia was primarily known as the hometown of R.E.M. and The B-52’s. But contrary to their name, of Montreal call Athens home as well. In fact, they’re named after a failed romance between master mind Kevin Barnes and a woman ‘of Montreal’.
Ever since forming the band in 1996, Barnes has surrounded himself with an ever-changing group of collaborators. And with every new guise, they adopted a new musical direction. In 2019, of Montreal are an electronic indie-pop outfit, with a 16th(!) album coming up. Ur Fun is due to be released on 17 January 2020. Like their last long-player, it’s inspired by Barnes’ relationship with his girlfriend, Locate S,1’s Christina Schneider. A press release also cites Janet Jackson and Cyndi Lauper as inspirations for the album’s up-tempo dance-party sound.
Peace Of All Freaks is the album’s synth-laden first single. A glorious pop moment.
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.
Hayley Kiyoko – L.O.V.E. Me
Hayley Kiyoko Alcroft is an American singer, songwriter, and actress, who is proclaimed the ‘Lesbian Jesus’ by her fans. According to Rolling Stone, her debut album Expectations placed her ‘at the forefront of an unapologetically queer pop movement’.
L.O.V.E. Me is the third single to be released ahead of her forthcoming collection of songs I’m Too Sensitive For This Shit. A heavily produced pop track with ‘hit’ written all over it.
Kiyoko says about it: “L.O.V.E. Me captures what it feels like to fall head over heels and want to shout from the rooftops about it. It’s showcasing the classic struggle we sometimes face when someone tells you they love you in private, but is too scared to express that love publicly.”
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.
The Lottery Winners – Little Things
2019 started with a bang, with The Lottery Winners’ That’s Not Entertainment as a (belated) Carte Blanche Music Wildcard. And now, the band have another go at the top prize. Little Things is the third single to be released ahead of their self-titled debut album, which is due on 13 March 2020.
The Lottery Winners is an album the band have spent the last two years recording tracks for, after being discovered by music industry legend Seymour Stein. You may know some of the other artists he signed, like a certain Madonna, and bands called The Ramones and Talking Heads (to name but a few). The album was produced by Tristem Ivemy (Frank Turner, The Holloways) and mastered at Abbey Road.
“This was a difficult song for me to write. It’s quite a sad one”, reflects frontman Thom Rylance. “It’s amazing how everything changes when you lose someone. Things become a lot more important. It does have a catchy chorus, and some nice ‘heys’ though, so don’t worry.”
This may very well be the track for The Lottery Winners to win them the jackpot. As they predicted themselves: ‘there’s nothing bigger than the little things’.
Recommended as well:
The Lottery Winners – That’s Not Entertainment
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.
Ride – Jump Jet
(Bass) guitarist Andy Bell (not the Erasure singer) has an impressive CV. After his band Ride demised in 1996, he formed the band Hurricane #1, played bass in Oasis and was the guitarist of its successor band Beady Eye. In 2016 however, Ride reunited as a live band. A year after, they released Weather Diaries, their first album in 20 years.
The follow-up This Is Not A Safe Place came out last August. Following Future Love, Repetition and Clouds Of Saint Marie, Jump Jet is the album’s fourth single. After an intro that moves from The Cure into Simple Minds territory, layer after layer it builds into one of the best songs in the Ride repertoire.
Recommended as well:
Ride – Charm Assault / Home Is A Feeling
Ride – All I Want
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.
MarthaGunn – Heaven [2019 Version]
MarthaGunn are a band named after the Brighton folk heroine known as the ‘priestess of the bath’. It features frontwoman Abi Woodman and her close friends Max, Humphrey, Ally and Frankie. They take inspiration from bands ranging from Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles to Mystery Jets and Haim.
Their debut single Heaven has grown into a live favourite since its release in 2016. The band just released a re-recorded version of it, which sounds fresh all over. When sharing the track to the band’s social media, Woodman explained: “When I wrote Heaven, I was playing out a fantasy in my head and exploring a path I could only dream of taking. A few years on and I have stopped living in fantasies. I go after everything my soul desires. Heaven is a song for anyone dreaming of something more.”
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.
The Twang – It Feels Like (You’re Wasting My Time)
In 2019, it’s 15 years since Phil Etheridge, Martin Saunders, Jon Watkin, Stu Hartland and Matthew Clinton formed The Twang. I’ve liked them ever since their 2007 debut single Wide Awake.
It took the band five years to come up with their fifth studio album If Confronted Just Go Mad. It marks a more poppy musical direction and the departure of Saunders. Also, it includes vocals from new female singers Cat Mctigue and Rio Hellyer. Both of them also perform for rising star Tom Grennan. Their contribution provides The Twang with a new optimistic sound, as you can hear on their new single It Feels Like (You’re Wasting My Time).
Recommended as well:
The Twang – Everytime
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.
Track Dogs – On The Last Night
Track Dogs are a four-piece, taking their name from the NY subway maintenance teams. Although its members are from Ireland, the US and UK, the band are based in Madrid, where they opted for cajón instead of drums and trumpet in place of electric guitar. However, it’s their four-part harmonies that steal the show.
Having recorded over 100 songs during their career, Track Dogs just released their new album Fire On The Rails. It’s only available in its entirety on Bandcamp, not yet on other platforms. The band recorded the album on a Studer A80 analogue tape machine that was recovered from the Abbey Road Studios.
New single On The Last Night contains all of Track Dogs’ trademarks. But the string arrangements by Eli Bishop (Grand Ole Opry, Wynton Marsalis) provide extra depth to their sound.
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.
Jaguar Jonze – Kill Me With Your Love
Born in Japan to a Taiwanese mother and Australian father, Deena Lynch currently lives in Brisbane. She is an Instagram artist (as Spectator Jonze), a photographer (Dusky Jonze) and a musician (Jaguar Jonze). But before she picked up the guitar herself, she managed other artists, like The Jungle Giants and Confidence Man.
As a musician, Lynch is influenced by the likes of Portishead, The Last Shadow Puppets, Nick Cave and Angel Olsen. Kill Me With Your Love is only her third single. A spacey spaghetti western rock song, which laments the downsides to love.
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.
Lauran Hibberd – Sweat Patch
Hot on the heels of her critically acclaimed debut EP Everything is Dogs, Lauran Hibberd serves a brand new tune. Sweat Patch is another slice of sparkling slacker pop, where she delivers the lyrics in her signature conversational style.
Discussing the tune, Isle Of Wight’s indie darling explains: “Sweat Patch is arguably a song about drugs, but it’s not like I’m trying to be cool about it. I’m pretty much frigid with anything unprescribed. But because of that, this song is based on my idea of that world. There’s loads of songs about getting high, not as many songs about watching and I guess analysing other people do it. I guess this is me, soberly sat in a room watching all of my friends take drugs. I guess there’s also a nod to the elephant in the room, A DUDE. There’s always a dude! And I guess this song stemmed from me being into this guy, but he was pretty much into other things more.”
Recommended as well:
Lauran Hibberd – Hoochie
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.
