Round-up This Week In New Music (14th June 2014)

Neu rounds up the best new music of the past week, featuring FAMY and GEMS.

Words: Jamie Milton
14th June 2014

There’s been an onslaught, a veritable feast of great new music this week. Some of it’s come from acts who - 7 days ago - not a single internet-addicted sod knew anything about. There’s also been a welcome return from GEMS, who’ve been hiding under the surface recording their debut album, which is set to come out this year. Below you’ll find excitable prose on that, but you’ll also read a big fat sort of ranty piece on FAMY and why naysayers who snipe at these Londoners are, well, wrong. So it’s a slightly angsty This Week In New Music, but it’s also one that celebrates very good new things to have emerged in the past seven days.

SONG OF THE WEEK:
GEMS - Scars

The intimacy of DC duo GEMS’ music isn’t something to wince at. Yes, sometimes it’s like being a hotel cleaner who accidentally walks into a private room at the wrong time, but a track like ‘Scars’ weighs more heavily on the emotional side of a relationship. Lindsay Pitts’ vocals relate to the idea that, despite knowing everything about someone - warts and all - their strengths and their bitter weaknesses, the love’s still there. “You know all my scars / No we can’t hide,” she sings, admitting her weaknesses, before racing straight into her greatest strength; a stirring falsetto that makes ‘Scars’’ chorus so hair-raisingly effective. If it’s intimacy that helps forge music like this, long may it continue to be projected so visibly.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:
FAMY - Ava

Look, there’s no fucking around with this fact anymore, and a lot of people are using it as a basis for criticism: FAMY sound a bit like Mumford and Sons. You know, one of the country’s biggest bands in the world who would, honestly, be quite bearable if it wasn’t for the constant use of the word “heart” in their lyrics plus the whole banjo schtick. They write songs that, in another environment, might sit well with full-time snobs. But the banjos - that’s a deal-breaker. Luckily FAMY are more sensitive with these things. They just write massive songs that bound and pace around the place with all the life and energy of a stampede. And there’s a genuine emotional touch to a track like ‘Ava’ - none of that “heart” bollocks, just soaring, enlivening songs that should be screamed and embraced at festivals.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK:
Anna of the North

New label Honeymoon Recordings set up shop for this very purpose - to release the debut single from Norwegian musician Anna of the North. Her first work ‘Sway’ premiered on DIY earlier this week, and it’s a song that bends shapes out of strange, minimal parts. Playful to the extreme - like building a castle out of Lego and knocking the whole thing down in an instant - it’s the unveiling of an exciting new artists obsessed with invention and those priceless hooks.

Tags: FAMY, Gems, Listen, Features, Neu