The New Smu: November 2022

One of the best new artists in my inbox this month

Discovering nice new artists is likely one of the most fun issues about music for me. Should you don’t champion the stuff you like, you possibly can’t complain once you solely hear the shit you hate on the radio.

There’s an infinite and thrilling sea of music on the market, however it may be bewilderingly huge and never with out peril. It’s important to kiss plenty of frogs earlier than you meet an artist previously often called Prince. I shall be highlighting a number of the most fascinating current releases I’ve heard by new and unsigned artists, wading via the audio slush pile so that you don’t must.

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Fe Salamon – Interstate 10

A sweeping, cinematic tribute to Americanna. Salomon’s vocals give the melody a craving, fragile high quality that blossoms into one thing extra highly effective and joyful within the second half. Interstate 10, because the title may recommend, has an air of highway music about it however would maybe be extra suited to sitting by the highway and watching the automobiles go previous.

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The Blue Highways – Tonight

A heat and romantic, stripped again nation/roots impressed monitor with lush vocal harmonies that bring to mind rock-ballad classics equivalent to Excessive’s Extra Than Phrases.

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Somebody – May You Go For Me

Ethereal, shoegazey electronica that may wrap you up in its galactic embrace. Described as evoking ‘aid, longing and trepidation for the way the fantasy will really feel when it turns into actual’ May You Go For Me actually has a fantastical and magical sound.

 

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Jango Flash – Killing Time

An earworm refrain nailed to a driving, alt-rock sound. Coupled with some nice snarling vocal supply, that is the sort of monitor that deserves to be big. Indignant however upbeat in precisely the correct manner for sing-shouting alongside to.

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The Well-known Daxx – Treetops

I featured Weatherman, the debut single by The Well-known Daxx, final yr and whereas Treetops is a smaller, much less intense affair than its predecessor it has a mild and complicated magnificence that shouldn’t be ignored. Fairly backing vocals and slide guitars are peppered all through what’s on the face of it a reasonably conventional nation ballad, however with a an edge to the vocal supply that nudges it right into a extra alt/indie sound too.

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Abbie Ozard – Ford (drive)

One other previous alumni of this column, Abbie Ozard returns with a retro sounding electro-ballad that evokes late evening driving on expansive, empty roads. Extra precisely, based on Ozard, it’s in regards to the pleasure and escapism that comes from being pushed. “I wrote this music earlier than I handed my driving check this yr, and I thrived off being a passenger within the entrance seat of the automobile.”

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Single of the Month

George Barnett – Black Tank Prime

Destined to get lodged in your mind and by no means go away, this can be a catchy as hell, deceptively euphoric anthem that oscillates from laid again electro-rap to indignant rock vocals and spacey synths. Lyrically opaque however unmistakably darkish, the subject material contrasts successfully with the air-punch temper of the music.

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Video of the Month

Le Junk – Some Monkeys

Sleazy sounding euro-rock with an digital disco edge, described by the band as sounding just like the ‘shard of a cracked glitterball left deserted beneath hazy lights’, Some Monkeys comes backed by a video that matches that description simply in addition to the music itself. An irresistibly tongue in cheek affair that comes throughout like a low-fi mash up of Saturday Evening Fever and Planet of the Apes. What may you presumably not like about that?

 

If you want to submit your music to be included in a future version of The New Smu please e-mail me at [email protected] and embrace a hyperlink to your monitor. I don’t care if in case you have 25k followers or solely your canine has heard it, so long as it’s fascinating, lovely, bizarre or great.

A playlist of songs featured right here, and in earlier months, may be discovered on Spotify and YouTube.

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All phrases by Susan Sloan. Extra of her work for Louder Than Battle is accessible on her archive. Discover her on Instagram as @thesmureviews and examine Susan’s web site right here.