New music guide The Neu Bulletin (Trudy, Pouty, Jouk Mistrow & more)

DIY’s weekly guide to the best new music.

6th January 2016

Neu Bulletins are your weekly guide to the best new music doing the rounds. They’ll 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. This week, we’ve hosted everything from the mind-bending synth-pop of Bad Wave to guttural hardcore gang Terrible Love.

Catch up with all our Neu Picks here.

(Photo: Trudy)

Heavy Springs - Running From The Jag Jag

Like a kaleidoscope put through a blender, there’s a disorientating feeling to Heavy Springs’ ‘Running From The Jag Jag’, numerous shimmers of brilliance cascading past as it twists and turns like a light-sleeper after an ill-advised 11pm coffee. Leaping from ballroom waltz to jarring, Halloween-esque noise in the space of seconds, it’s a hop-skipping introduction to a brilliantly restless group, who are sure to harbour more evolution than a hacked Pokémon game in the months to come.

Trudy - Baby I’m Blue

Trudy are one of a kind. They’re romantics without a final cause, blokes who’ll pick flowers from parks, collect them in a rucksack and let petals rot until they find their one true love. There’s a rich, honeyed aesthetic running through each one of the Liverpool group’s early recordings, and it doesn’t let up for ‘Baby I’m Blue’. Produced by Spring King’s Tarek Musa, the track arrives ahead of a slot on DIY’s Hello 2016 nights at The Old Blue Last, 12th January.

Smerz - Because

Norwegian duo Smerz have one foot in a futuristic club, the other in the vibrant present day. Their fidgety, dance-informed pop is a twisted extreme. “I want you to feel blue,” Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg sing in alien tones, constantly shuffling between reality and distorted truths. It’s the most 3k16 thing we’ve heard so far in 2k16.

Tender - Afternoon

Smooth, steamed-up blog pop has had its day. The only exception? When robots appear to be at the helm. There’s a sad static to ‘Afternoon’, the latest funk-fledged track to emerge from North London duo Tender. Earnest, loved up and box-ticking to some extent, it still sounds akin to an android’s tears dripping onto Planet Earth, and that’s a very good thing.

Pouty - Take Me to Honey Island EP

Rachel Gagliardi’s first work as Pouty sees the Slutever member bringing techincolour fireworks out of everyday frustrations. Tracks on the EP carry simple-as-it-gets titles like ‘Sad’, ‘Moody’ and ‘Awake’, but buried within is a bright, ever-shifting suppply of ideas, forced forward with razor sharp guitar parts. A vital shock to the system.

Jouk Mistrow - Deers

Jouk Mistrow are one of those bands who magically take you straight into the studio. No fancy gimmicks, just a direct route - everything is audible, guitar leads being plugged in, heads nodding in sway to a new idea. Their ‘DEERS’ number comes off like an ultra-wired version of Warpaint, raising life out of an eerie, post-punk nodding back and forth. The Brisbane trio have all the ingredients for something special.

Tags: Trudy and the Romance, Listen, Features, Neu, Neu Bulletin