Round-up Tracks: Coldplay, Santigold, & More
The DIY writers pick out the biggest and best songs from the last seven days.
Good noole, dear readers, and a happy Friday to you all. As usual, its been a busy week of new music, and up to their usual antics, artists have been releasing new songs left right and centre. We’ve picked out the biggest and best new songs to emerge this week, and there’s plenty to get stuck into. Santigold’s released her second ‘99¢’ preview on the highly appropriate commercial flurry that is Black Friday, and Coldplay have gone back to writing teary-eyed, piano-plunking ballads. That’s just for starters. In other words, this week has been chocka. For everything else out this week head over to the DIY Listening Hub, or hit play on our Essential Playlist.
Coldplay - Everglow
Coldplay teased every song from their upcoming album ‘A Head Full Of Dreams’ earlier this week. ‘Everglow’ was a highlight from those snippets, and the full, five-minute version is a much-missed slice of melancholy amongst their recent explosions of colour.
Based around the piano, all manner of synthetic drum sounds, reverb and breathy backing vocals skirt around the basics. Even though Chris Martin has said the song was inspired by a Ready Brek advert from the 1980s (we’ve absolutely no idea how, and it certainly isn’t a morning pick-me-up of a track), ‘Everglow’ is indicative of the band’s sky-high ambitions. (Will Richards)
Santigold - Who Be Lovin’ Me (ft ILOVEMAKONNEN)
Black Friday - the unofficial shopping holiday dedicated to ill-advised bargains and buying too many things off Asos - is a fitting release date for Santigold’s second preview ahead of ‘99¢’. Shrink-wrapping herself on the cover, and whacking an unbelievably cut price tag onto the plastic, this is an album concerned with big issues; how we consume music, and what the repercussions are when it comes to making art.
Santi might have her eyes firmly trained on consumerism, but beyond that, ‘99¢’ is shaping up into a gaudy, garish, leaping, bounding ball of fun. ILOVEMAKONNEN’s blazed up, dopey, half-arsed chorus conceals a deft verse. If Santigold’s brilliant infomercial is anything to go by, this song is in part about everybody incessantly ‘liking’ things on Facebook. It’s all the better for being packaged up in the guise of a laggy, trappy piece of pop gold. (El Hunt)
M.I.A. - Borders
For a minute there, M.I.A. looked to be losing her cutting edge. 2010’s ‘Maya’ album remains a confused internet-obsessed trip coming off like a broken hard drive being chucked from the 10th floor of a hotel. ‘Matangi’ saw her regaining form, but she’s rarely sounded as on point as with ‘Borders’. A new video (M.I.A. surrounded by refugees, huddled onto small boats) helps the cause, but this is a track that relies on staying sharp. Yes, it contains the lyric “Being bae / what’s up with that?”, but the majority of ‘Borders’ asks the same questions that every confused soul in 2015 troubles themselves with. There’s the opportunity to do everything, with every high-tech tool at our disposal, but the world has rarely felt as fucked up as right now. M.I.A. doesn’t provide the answers - she captures the calamity. (Jamie Milton)
DIIV - Mire (Grant’s Song)
In an extensive post to fans, Cole from DIIV says new track ‘Mire (Grant’s Song)’ is vital, because “it makes more plain the darkness and heaviness that defines a bulk of the album.”
Surrounding second LP ‘Is The Is Are’ is a whole lot of context, whether that’s Cole’s experiences with drugs, his relationship with Sky Ferreira, or the racial online abuse bandmate Devin Ruben Perez is associated with. Some of it will be tough to explain, other aspects don’t need to be dug into, but this latest cut from the LP feels like DIIV’s most open-wounded moment so far.
“I was blind but now I see, you made a river out of me,” sings Cole with a more than personal touch, referencing his struggle with addiction. Traditionally sky-reaching guitar instead sink into a bottomless pit, and there are piercing, shrill screams - unmistakably from Cole himself - burning in the background. This is the sound of a frontman telling all, and it’s what’s been required from a group who went into hiding between records. Lead track ‘Dopamine’ remains a crystal-clear rush to the head. ‘Bent (Roi’s Song)’ furthered the idea that DIIV were more purposeful than on debut LP ‘Oshin’. But ‘Mire…’ feels like a watershed moment, a key point in Cole emerging from the brink with light at the end of the tunnel. Suddenly, ‘Is The Is Are’ looks like being one of 2016’s essential records. (Jamie Milton)
MONEY - I’ll Be the Night
Grey and gloomy in its modernity though it may be, there’s almost a timeless hint to MONEY frontman Jamie Lee’s songwriting. ‘I’ll Be The Night’, the second cut from their new album ‘Suicide Songs’ is every bit as pained as that LP title might suggest, Lee’s open-heart reflections on life’s finality served up rawer than ever. But in his declarations of becoming one with the night, there’s a defiance deep within – a suggestion that really, that timelessness could finally feed into making MONEY a band for the ages. (Tom Connick)
Eddi Front - Goldie
The opening track from Eddi Front’s debut album, announced this week, is nothing if not immediate. ‘Goldie’ feels close enough to touch, with Ivana Carrescia’s vocals delivered as a friend would whisper in your ear. They’re impossible not to fully take in.
‘Goldie’ follows the previously revealed ‘Elevator’ in previewing ‘Marina’, which arrives in March. That first track was a re-recorded version of a scrappy demo from her Bandcamp days, and this new, slick production allows the heart of her songs to burst through and fully connect.
‘Goldie’ is dark, creeping and unsetlling, with Carrescia claiming “this will be our last meeting”. It’s a clear, unobstructed statement of intent, which shows that her debut album is going to be nothing but direct and true. (Will Richards)
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Santigold - Spirituals
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