New music guide The Neu Bulletin (Weirdo, Her’s, Gunk & more)

DIY’s essential, weekly guide to the best new music.

4th May 2016

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.

Her’s - What Once Was

‘80s throwback is a done-and-dusted game, and anyone who so far as approaches pop of yesteryear needs to rip up the rulebook. Thankfully, Liverpool duo Her’s sounded like nothing else on the planet with ‘Dorothy’, their debut track. ‘What Once Was’’ steely poignancy isn’t from Planet Earth, either. Stephen Fitzpatrick and Audun Laading’s oddball slant goes way beyond mere nostalgia.

Gunk - Rabbit’s Lung

“Tonight, I think I took too much,” ponders Eric Zidar on his first track as Gunk. It’s easy to see where that worry might spring from - ‘Rabbit’s Lung’ is laced with it. Shivering and shaking like UMO after a week-long bender, it’s a fragile take on psychedelic guitar-pop that reaches its apex with a screeching solo, Gunk’s simple bedroom instrumentation bent out of all recognition. As anxious - and as captivating - as they come.

WEIRDO - ARMANIO

WEIRDO’s sleazy crush is the slick product of a post-Blood Orange pop landscape. Dev Hynes would likely kill to get his hands on ‘ARMANIO’, a playful latest cut from the mysterious newcomers, who make it their mission statement to flip formula on its head.

Francisco Pereira - Develaciones

For all we know, Chile’s Francisco Pereira could be singing about tragedy, but the escapist instrumentation on his latest EP suggests otherwise. Schooled in the same makeshift-psych aesthetic defining Tame Impala’s ‘Innerspeaker’, there’s a gorgeous headrush in songs like ‘En el Silencio’ and ‘A Casa’. It’s due time we brushed up on our Spanish.

HOTEL BIBLES - 1926

HOTEL BIBLES is a musician going by the name of “noah”, with nothing but the most fragile recordings to work with. The songs on ‘1926’ are like a house of cards built with feather-light paper, but buried deep is a heart, the kind that sounds best in these delicate-as-it-gets productions. Opener ‘0317 (the mailman)’ is a glistening introduction.

Leggy - DANG

Hard luck if you just missed Leggy on their first visit to the UK. But there’s such a momentum behind these Cincinnati punks, chances are they’ll be roadtripping for decades. Latest EP ‘DANG’ is a fizzing call to arms, twisting the California’s-so-great-isn’t-it, life’s a beach ethos into a new form.

Tags: Her’s, Listen, Features, Neu, Neu Bulletin