Neu The Neu Bulletin (Gabriel Black, M. T. Hadley, Current Affairs and more!)

After building buzz online over the past year with his blend of emo, hip-hop and indie, Gabriel Black’s new one is a sad boy banger about feeling trapped in a boring relationship. Featuring California indie artist phem, the brooding song is the perfect anthem for anyone wanting to bemoan the actions of their SO. Having previously hidden behind a cartoon version of himself, ‘Dead Yet’ also works as the first time we see the man behind the music. Hey Gabe!

Back in 2016, Frank Ocean aired M.T. Hadley’s ‘Janet’ - a song written the year after the death of his mother - on his blonded Beats One radio show, and now he’s back with this first new music since that momentous moment. Sharing ‘Rattle’, it’s a shimmering dream-like pop number detailing how life won’t be all sunshine and rainbows. Delivered with M.T. Hadley’s beautiful falsetto, the lullaby-esque song even makes the fact that life is sometimes shit sound good.

Glasgow newbies Current Affairs are back with their latest sizzler ‘Cheap Cuts’. The latest track from their forthcoming record ‘Object & Subject’, elements of new wave and pop are thrown into the post-punk number, which was one of the first songs they wrote as a band. “It demonstrates a lot about the sound we want to explore and the way we interact musically,” lead vocalist Joan says. “When we wrote it public services were facing a round of cuts, so the song is a nudge at that.”

Brooklyn quartet Roofers Union have shared an ode to difficulties in friendships with new track ‘Friends’. An ever shifting and pulsating track, it subconsciously mirrors the push-and-pull subject matter of the song, creating a glistening ear worm that is equal parts weird and wonderful.

Rising Scouse superstar, Brad Stank is back with his latest taste of self-described “sexistential pop”. Think a Mac DeMarco slacker-rock jam but with added 70s grooves and you’ve got the idea. A chilled out and charming tune, ‘Watering The Garden’ is made for sunshine-soaked hang outs, with the former-Trudy & The Romance drummer crafting the perfect mellow pop.

After stealing the show at this year’s Great Escape, Tasmanian punks A. Swayze & the Ghosts back up the hype with raucous new cut ‘Connect to Consume’. “We have exchanged honesty, beauty, ugliness, boredom–reality–for an abstract museum inside a digitised screen, curated by big business but sustained by us.,” they say of the punky track. “We have volunteered to pace the halls blindly, loudly. We are promised the pain of life will numb. We are given a rule for everything. We submit, we succeed. We do not feel; we do not need to anymore. We have accepted the prison and adorned the uniforms under the guise of convenience. We have connected and now we will consume.”

“BEHOLD THE MIGHTY MUCK SPREADER. FILL PILLOW CASES WITH CEMENT.” That’s the most we’ve been told about newbies Muck Spreader. For now. Releasing their jazz-tinged debut track ‘Having Fun’, it’s a high-octane hit from the improvisational 6+ band who “hope to encompass the community spirit of struggling societies and give a voice to those who can’t speak and be heard for themselves”.

Tags: A Swayze & The Ghosts, Brad Stank, Current Affairs, Gabriel Black, M.T. Hadley, Roofers Union, Listen, Features, Neu, Neu Bulletin