Playlist: New Tunes (September edition)
I know you are all very excited, but I continue with my mission to bring you new music!
Here we are again with ten tunes released over the last month or so - as ever there are some acts you may never have heard of, and a few that you will...
1. Johnny Marr: It's Time
Here's more rockin' times from the Smiths veteran and bona fide guitar hero, Johnny Marr. This one is the third effort from solo album number six, The Age Of Everything. The verse cranks up, this sounds a bit like Marr is almost trying to reinvent that Smiths sound - there is the traditional jangle, almost like Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. Then he starts singing, and wait a minute... a little bit Morrissey-ish? Oh, and then the chorus kicks in, with sunshine and even some oh-way-oh's, and the moment is lost...
(official music video)
2. Kamran Khan: 2 Late
Kamran Khan has his first album coming out soon and it will be called I Came From Nowhere & Nowhere Is Where I Am Going. The first half of that title is somewhat true for the Londoner who I had never heard of until this song came on the radio last week! This one comes at you at 100 miles an hour; furiously chugging guitars, trebly, swirly riff and breathless vocals. There are a few slower bits, but you have to pause for breath, and then he picks back up again. Nice little intro to his world.
(official music video)
3. Starter Car: Know What To Say
More new London music, this time from South London's latest cool emerging band. Starter Car blend some solid indie chops with some hints of country. There are hints of Rolling Blackouts in the squally intro riff backed by a driving acoustic guitar, and that's no bad thing. It all barrels along in a perfectly delightful way.
(official music video)
MY PICK OF THE PLAYLIST!
4. Mary In The Junkyard: Blood
What's this? More new London music! Mary In The Junkyard, barely out of their teens, bring us some sophisticated art-indie, perhaps with members Clari Freeman-Taylor and Saya Barbaglia's background in classical music peeking through. This is somehow both mellow and restrained, and heavy and forceful, at the same time. It is given some beautifully light propulsion by David Addison's restrained hi-hat rhythms, a guitar that has that perfect Kristin Hersh tone, while Freeman-Taylor's eerily sing-song voice has some Adrianne Lenker about it - but this is more than good enough to rise above all of these awkward comparisons.
(live session recording)
5. Jack White: Neighbors Blues
Okay, we are finally pulling ourselves away from London and over the pond to rock city, Detroit. Alright well, I'm not sure that's where Jack White lives these days, but that is where he hails from. This isn't the first tune we've reviewed from his latest album, Frozen Charlotte, and for good reason - as I said last time, he is proudly waving the flag for some good old-fashioned blues. Yes, there is a bit of a Purple Haze homage in the intro riff, but it's all Jack White - it's a white hot day mess of fuzzy, psychedelic, dirty blues.
(official music video)
6. Alabama Shakes: I Feel Hope Coming
After a seven or eight year hiatus, Brittany Howard and her soulful indie band Alabama Shakes have been back around for the last year or so. And now, they have a new record, I Must Be Dreaming, out at the end of last month - the first in eleven years. It's just what we needed - a big political - song with a sense of optimism - as although, "It's gonna take more than prayers to change this place," but also that "I feel hope coming, I feel love coming". A slow start eases into a mellow, soulful groove providing the perfect base for Howard's powerful, soaring voice.
(live in Raleigh, NC, April 2026)
7. Simple Minds: Beginner Boys
Glasgow's biggest musical export have some new music out, a precursor for Sacrosanct, a record which strangely doesn't drop until next January, which in turn sets them up for their fiftieth anniversary tour across 2027. I don't think this single is going to win any awards, but after a few listens it settles in fairly nicely, with some undercurrents (as the title might suggest) of their earlier days and works. Definitely a grower, but not a classic - this live version from the recent BBC Radio 2 In The Park event, gives you an idea that they can still sound dynamic and engaging live.
(live from Stirling, September 2026)
8. Queens Of The Stone Age: Easy Street
This is the teaser for QOTSA album number nine, Perfecth, which comes out next month, and includes extra vocals from Nikki Lane. Her addition might provide a clue that their direction might be changing, with Lane coming from the world of country music. Be prepared - if you are expecting some big slabs of drum and bass, with thundering riffs... this is a different QOTSA. This is a gentle, country-blues infused stroll along Easy Street, as it seems Josh Homme starts trying to come to terms with his somewhat eventful life to date. Lane's added vocals and big swathes of e-bow guitar add some ethereal, trippy tones as it fades away into the late summer evening.
(official music video)
9. Arab Strap: Glamour Magick
Here is one of those - 'bands you've heard of for years, but don't know much about them' - but now I know at least one Arab Strap song. It's possible that this song might have also passed me by, if it wasn't for the fact that when this came on the radio, the use of the word 'pulchritude' really caught both mine and my wife's attention. That and the fact that Aidan Moffat unrepentantly sings with his Falkirk accent shining through. Even with more than one listen, I am not sure what to make of this; an almost trip-hop, and certainly relentless, drum riff, with a big arpeggio guitar swelling up and down, and those aforementioned spoken-sung twisted lyrics. The video is also weird....
(official music video)
10. Soft Loft: Gravity's Pull
We head to mainland Europe for a change, and Zurich, Switzerland, for a single from Soft Loft's second album, Throw The Dice. Jorinna Stamm has a voice like a slightly melancholic Stevie Nicks, all over a carefully constructed, low-key rhythm - the rolling guitar line is punctuated by crashes and jabs of vibrant guitar.
(official music video)
11. Charli XCX: Camera
It's a bonus banger courtesy of the banger manufacturing queen of indie-rave-pop. Music, Fashion, Film, which came out a few months back, is already her eighth album, and she's only 34. That's not forgetting the stuff written for others (Iggy Azalea, Selena Gomez, Will.i.am, Shawn Mendes, Rita Ora etc etc) and acting roles in Erupcja, Sacrifice, 100 Nights of Hero and Faces Of Death. We are grateful that Charli finds time to keep on writing music though, and here she is with yet another vibrant storm of synth-pop, as she riffs on the pressures of being in the spotlight.
(official music video - with fruity language)
Comments