Neu This Week In New Music (8th June 2013)

It’s common instinct for Neu to root for the newcomers, and what with this weekend seeing in one of the most tightly-contested chart battles in months, we’re excited. Disclosure are likely to snap up the top spot, pipping Queens of the Stone Age to the post in the race for UK number 1. That’s some feat.

Sure, they’ve always been declared chart-ready so-and-sos, and maybe from ‘White Noise’ onwards it was always on the cards, but ‘Settle’ is a remarkable first work, one not even the most giddy of fans will have anticipated. While it’d be foolish to put similar expectations on the below, they’re all capable of doing something special, shaking up the charts because they bloody well feel like it.

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

TRACK OF THE WEEK
Lorde - Tennis Court


Look: Disclosure had to put up with this very statement for years, but Lorde is young. So young. And not to belittle the young, but it’s kinda awesome how a 16 year old has managed to make music as exciting as this.

It often takes a fresh-faced newcomers to shake up the system, and ‘Tennis Court’ achieves exactly this. Backed by trap drums that Purity Ring could’ve conjured up on the side, not a second goes by when the New Zealand ‘beauty queen in tears’ isn’t spitting some brave wisdom, tearing convention into sorry shreds.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Merchandise - Totale Nite


When a band emerges with a certain amount of backing, buzz, what have you, a select few will actively look for a reason to play the devil’s advocate, the hardy cynic. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. No newcomer is going to please everyone. With Merchandise, beyond the ‘oh they sound like the Smiths’ comments, it all fell down to their live shows when they made their first visit to the UK last month.

Merchandise stepped up to the chase, basically. A clear highlight from Great Escape fest, frontman Carson Cox plays a relentlessly energetic figure, and it’s something that translates into this ‘Totale Nite’ video. Shot after shot is overlaid, Cox’s snarling frame egging on the viewer to lose their minds in tandem. That’s a Merchandise show. And it’s captured brilliantly here.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK
Astral Pattern


Forgive the dodgy name and you’re encountered with something a little bit special, with Astral Pattern. Formed by three members of now defunct London group S*C*U*M, debut ‘Sitting In The Sun’ could’ve been taken directly from Swedish dream merchants like Taken By Trees, Korrallreven or the more unhinged jj. Its title is direct, an evocative no-brainer. And it captures everything it seeks out to latch onto in four effortless, simply gorgeous minutes.