New music round-up This Week In New Music (31st May 2014)

Neu rounds up the best new track, video and discovery of the week. Featuring Broods.

Words: Jamie Milton
31st May 2014

Every one of the artists that swept up our attention over the past seven days started - and continue to exist - on the internet. The new issue of DIY has a big fat cover feature about music discovery and whether or not ‘buzz bands’ are even a thing anymore, and if artists that begin online have the potential to go further without having a story or a cause behind them. Thinking back to last year, NZ duo Broods kicked things off with ‘Bridges’, a track produced by Lorde collaborator Joel Little. It was destined to go far. This next year is all about taking things further, playing shows, delivering a brilliant debut album. So far so good. With NYC musician Locke, everything you need to know is online. So far that information amounts to absolute zero. Whether the artist’s two head-turning songs so far will be the be-all and end-all is anyone’s guess. Then there’s our discovery of the week, an East London artist who again has no background and who again is making just one exciting baby step. The future’s bright for all of them.

Here’s the best of what happened this week in new music:

Track Of The Week

Locke - O Boy

Whatever this is, it’s deadly. The way the beats crackle and snap, the way Locke’s unidentified vocalist twists and turns and practically seizes up when prompted with a microphone. This is tense, distinctly uncomfortable music and it sounds positively terrifying. Locke - a new NYC project with zero details beyond its statue imagery - has been picking up Portishead comparisons right, left and centre. That’s not to reduce it in the slightest. While the more established group’s ‘Third’ still stands tall in the present day, this feels like a more modern weapon. More worn, more ready to splinter off into any direction, ‘O Boy’ is a malleable mission statement.

Video Of The Week

Broods - Bridges

Making two music videos for one song isn’t a regular thing, but Broods - ever the creative-types - have outdone themselves with ‘Bridges’. The first video for this song showed a London-based couple holding hands, hanging around ice rinks, being intimate but also a bit weird around each other. This new take is the opposite - it’s all about communion. Naked, healthy, attractive people run towards a lake, hold hands, run into the water and look up to the skies. No idea why, but if this isn’t a very subtle American Apparel advert, it’s probably the better video of the two. Mostly because it features the talented siblings behind it all, Georgia and Caleb Nott.

Discovery Of The Week

Tygress

It’s been a busy, scattered week at DIY, but if there’s been a constant throughout the past seven days, it’s been the odd, eerie balearic debut from Tygress. An East London project, ‘Bombay’ is their debut track. Mixing house rhythms with a keen melodic twitch, the song begins with regretful lines about “drinking bombay”, before switching its attention towards becoming a monstrous, exciting dance number. It’s slick, doused in sadness, and it’s probably the most promising debut we’ve heard this side of TOKEN.

Tags: Broods, Listen, Features, Neu