Round-up Tracks: Wild Beasts, Shura & More

Through collaboration with visual artist and animator Mattis Dovier, Wild Beasts shared a pair of new tracks this week. ‘Blood Knowledge’ and ‘Soft Future’ were chopped up to soundtrack an interactive ‘GIF-Novel’ that confronts the relationship between the organic and the digital through depicting a human and a robot exploring each others worlds. Original versions can be heard in full, too. The groggy opening to the former proves befitting of the kind of jet lag you’d probably experience when touching down in another world, but once that gives way you’re treated to a more tranquil exploration of these themes. A telling observation among the heaps of praise for ‘Present Tense’ was the elegant balance that Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming struck vocally. Where their distinctive tones might have resonated with a competitive edge on previous records there was a synergy that exuded from Present Tense, one that’s been taken forward and shines on ‘Blood Knowledge’. They’ve come to harness one another’s most alluring vocal attributes, and how stunning it sounds. (Liam McNeilly - @liammcneilly)

You can watch Wild Beasts’ ‘GIF-Novel’ in full here, which includes both ‘Blood Knowledge’ and ‘Soft Future’

Anyone familiar with Youtube’s most crackers tribute to pop, - The Nekci Menij Show - probably won’t be able to look at this meeting of poptastic minds without thinking “featuring Bayonse’. Though guest backing spots are on every corner of her new album ‘The Pink Prints’, ‘Feeling Myself’ is firmly about Nicki, though. Kendrick Lamar might’ve brought self-love back into ego-busting fashion with his “I love myself” antics, but meanwhile Nicki Minaj is taking things to new heights. She’s feeling herself, apparently - and take that how you wish, with or without the sexual undertones. “I am a rap legend, just go ask the kings of rap/ Who is the queen and things of that” she states outright. Minaj has previously shared her ambition to become the biggest rapper in the world. And, yep, that’s biggest rapper, not biggest female rapper. Nicki Minaj is not the kind to settle for second best. (El Hunt - @whattheel)

A day after performing a Maida Vale session for Huw Stephens, Shura’s newest track ‘White Light’ got its first radio spin. There is absolutely no way of telling whether ‘White Light’ is a recording or a performance, and a feature of her flawlessly put together live shows, it’s a result of being “jammed out” with her two bandmates. Unlike any of Shura’s tracks before, the mood is sombre, the guitars are glacial, and her vocals have more of a melodious effect on the track, breathing her delicate voice into a nocturnal atmosphere. The track’s tone changes towards the end, when the full capabilities of instruments rise to the occasion and capture the live aspects that the track was born from. Shura’s next step into the world is a dauntless one. (Sean Stanley - @SeanPStanley)

Listen to Shura’s all new track ‘White Light’ here - it kicks in around 1:03:53

Ditching the ‘The Party Line’’s electronic razzmatazz in order to cuddle up to the familiar prance of piano keys, the second track to be taken from ‘Girls in Peacetime Want To Dance’ marks Belle & Sebastian’s return to a more recognisable style. Trouble is though, the Scots have never been straightforward. Their latest single is anything but comforting. Billed by Stuart Murdoch as “absolutely the most personal song I’ve ever written”, ‘Nobody’s Empire’ harks back to the debilitating illness that originally triggered his songwriting ambitions. Narrating from the suffocation of the bed clothes, his fragile voice speaks the words of someone pining for escape from their own personal purgatory, a melancholic sighing away of the days that eventually veers towards death-wish. An unstable mind that sees positivity in “hell” and “darkness”. Tackling rape and abuse in older songs, the band have always excelled at spinning whimsy out of despair. And, when all seems lost, they repeat the trick once more. Stretching to encompass honeyed backing vocals, the fanciful parp of brass and a xylophone gone rogue, Murdoch signs off the ballad by “leaving that vision of hell to the dying.” There’s pain here. But there’s resolution too. A cathartic triumph. (Dan Owens - @DanOwens_1991)

Your boyfriend bailed. Your best friend is busy. Let’s face it: you’re either staying home, or you’re going to the show alone. But what if love is waiting for you there? Luckily, Los Angeles duo Girlpool fully understand this common quandary. Both still in their teens, Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker blend the quaintness of twee with the ethics of punk, an amusing mix that works wonders on their latest single, “Alone At The Show.” Through characteristically shrill harmonies, the ladies dish about harboring secret crushes on band dudes. Ah, to be young again. (Loren DiBlasi - @lodibz)

While other producers continue further and further down 2014’s digital rabbit hole, Oisima instead opts for that warm, tangible take on dance music that has taken Bonobo all the way to Alexandra Palace. It’s little surprise that Oisima supported the aforementioned Si and co. in his native Australia, and in ‘Sun Of Truth’ he harnesses every ounce of that influence – sticky and predominantly acoustic in its production, the track weaves around a thudding bassline lifted straight from the West Coast hip-hop playbook. With a fittingly hypnotic vocal from Mei Saraswati accompanying the flourishes of live saxophone and flute, it’s a pulsating showcase of potential for his upcoming debut full-length ‘Nicaragua Nights’, highlighting a tasteful restraint missing from so many young producers and their boxes of bells and whistles and marking Oisima out as one for 2015’s dancefloors to prepare for. (Tom Connick - @ginandconnick)

Tags: Shura, Wild Beasts, Listen, Features