The Neu Bulletin (Laurel, Hollowtapes, Frigs, Garden Centre & more) • Neu • DIY Magazine

Neu Bulletins are DIY’s guide to the best new music. They contain every single thing that’s been played at full volume in the office, whether that’s a small handful or a gazillion acts. Just depends how good the week’s been.

Alongside our weekly round-up of discoveries, there are also Neu Picks. These are the very best songs / bands to have caught our attention, and there’s a new one every weekday. Catch up with the most recent picks here.

Laurel — San Francisco

There’s an almost Florence + The Machine-esque hugeness to Laurel’s latest. A bluesy, strained ode to a lover who’s hopped the Atlantic - “I don’t really cry, but I fucking miss him,” she cries, a tad melodramatically - it’s when Laurel really lets those pipes loose in the chorus that she breaks through the navel-gazing and proves herself as something potentially main-stage bound. (TC)

Garden Centre — Riding

The new musical project of one Max ‘FKA King Of Cats’ Levy, Garden Centre’s self-titled debut album is being led by ‘Riding’. It’s a track that’s easily split down the middle - the front end as headrush inducing as a downhill free-wheel and the rear as tender as a grazed knee after one too many wheelies, it’s a promising, toothy-grinned next step. (TC)

Frigs — God Hates a Coward

God hates cowards, God loves Frigs. Just read The Bible, it’s probably in there somewhere. The Toronto group’s grandly-assembled, shuddering pop shares traits with TOPS and Lower Dens, strung out guitar lines being treated like marching orders, an all-enveloping race to the skies. They play The Great Escape next week, after London’s The Lock Tavern on 15th May. (JM)

Muskets — Drowsy

As bleary-eyed as that track title might suggest, Muskets deal in the gloomier end of the grunge spectrum, all earthy hues and sludge. If having actual fucking Super Hans in their ‘Drowsy’ video isn’t enough to shake off the cobwebs though, then the power behind everything when it all explodes should do the trick - from heel-dragging to uppercutting in a matter of seconds, they summon avalanches as well as angst. (TC)

Holy Now — Wake Up

It’s a fool’s game, trying to build an uplifting giant of a track when it’s called ‘Wake Up’. Arcade Fire have that ground covered, surely. But Gothenburg group Holy Now race into new territory with ‘Wake Up’, a gorgeous highlight from their breathless new EP, out via Lazy Octopus. Think Makthaverskan with an Alvvays influence. (JM)

Hollowtapes — Tall

Real Estate trick everybody by making sweet, serene lazy day music. It sounds too easy. But peer behind the curtain and they’re making meticulously construction dayglaze jams, impossible to replicate. Hollowtapes has a similar knack for giving smart songwriting a simple sheen. His ‘Tall’ track, taken from a debut EP out 20th May, finds Francis Shannon merging fluttering chords with harsh, ground-shaking feedback. (JM)

Husky Loops — Dead

Husky Loops sounds like the name for snazzy musical software, where you record vocals with a whiskey-soaked effect. As it stands, it’s the moniker for Pier Danio Forni’s sleazy, hot-footed noise, where downright disgusting riffs are forged into strange shapes. The delivery’s unorthodox, but don’t expect ‘Dead’ to avoid sweat-drenched festival tents, housing thousands. (JM)

Cerise — St. Nick

Cerise Leang sings about being “free to do as you feel,” and her music takes a similar course. Countless doors are open, but she’ll always opt for instinct over common sense. ‘St. Nick’ is a simple, humming number, but it follows a direction that only Leang could choose - a magical, grandly-arranged introduction. (JM)

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