Our weekly roundup of the key new releases this week.
C Turtle by Lucas Edwards | Words: Hazel Blacher, Lloyd Bolton, Brad Sked
This week's essential new releases, featuring Hank, C Turtle, The Cheeky Habibis, Tabitha Avanzato, Sculpture Park, Fergy LH and Milkweed.
C Turtle – '2001'
Imbued with the sort of rambunctious childhood innocence that hangs sentimentally in one's hippocampus like bunting made of Pokemon cards, '2001' sees London's C Turtle drawing open the curtains and letting in a potent, curative burst of depression-scorching daylight. Serving as the Blitzcat-signees' first single since last year's album 'Expensive Thrills', the track bristles with the brassy, ramshackle fuzz that has come to characterise their sound and cement their cult status on London's live scene. Perhaps the best comparison to '2001' is the hot, tingly feeling of a sunburn right before you realise and it starts to itch, or those jubilant few seconds after skateboarding off the roof of your parents shed in front of mates, beset with mid-air adrenaline and blissfully unaware of all impending limb fractures. In short, C Turtle capture so vividly the salad days' spirit of past glories that we may need never to yearn for it again. (Hazel Blacher)
Hank – 'Stand on Yr Star'
'Stand on Yr Star' is the epic single announcing the second EP from London quartet Hank. Drawing on the influence of Elliott Smith and his use of acoustic elements, the song opens with a melodic riff over raw guitar, before crunching drums and a driving bass part-swing the song into action. Vocals from Charlie Read Clarke crackle with the artificial closeness of a phone call, again recalling the spark-like immediacy of thought that invigorates Elliot Smith's songwriting. With the chorus, however, the band return to the fuzzy epic style that was their initial signature, distorted guitars blasting the song out of the water as Lola Stephen takes over singing duties. Bringing back the phone call motif, Stephen's verse seems to answer the previous one in its oblique unsettled detachment. The single challenges our structural expectations, unfolding as verse-chorus-verse-outro. It seems, in this sense, to represent a feeling that cannot be completed, like the cut-off spiral on the single's artwork. It nags at us with the distance felt in the closing repeated line, "How you loved that city", which can only be spoken as if across some insurmountable gap in space or time. (Lloyd Bolton)
The Cheeky Habibis – 'Being Human'
'Being Human' is the second single from Cardiff newcomers The Cheeky Habibis, who are steadily building a buzz in their home city and beyond. The candour of Gabriel Lester's self-analytical lyrics speaks of the admitted influence of Honeyglaze as he explores his experience of moving from London to Cardiff. The track's similarities to Honeyglaze are furthered by the urgency of the jangling backing music, though the production here is a little rougher around the edges, lending the song a certain human integrity. Guest violin from William Dadswell completes the tune, swinging between abstract blasts and careening melodic lines that gently lift the song to a place of cinematic wholeness. (Lloyd Bolton)
Tabitha Avanzato – 'Trust These Lips'
The debut single from Tabitha Avanzato is a strident, bewitching piece. You might know Avanzato from Bishopskin, and those who are familiar with the group will recognise in this single a similar 21st Century reinterpretation of traditional music and the folk horror overtones with which it can be invested. A plaintive, rootsy melody is imaginatively set against arpeggiated, flanged guitar, which, coupled with artificially looped vocals, brings the sound right up to the present. The single marks Avanzato's signing to Hideous Mink Records and we can't wait to hear more from this project. (Lloyd Bolton)
Sculpture Park – 'Monument to Effort'
Sculpture Park's 'Monument to Effort' released this week to announce the group's debut album of the same name. Built on a bed of stirringly epic keys and guitars that augment the insistent lead vocals of Ted Mair, the single is the group's most ambitious and unpredictable recording to date. Though it opens with a serene feel that harks back to the group's 2023 EP 'Lichtenberg Figure', scratchy guitars and wailing saxophones transform the song into a different beast over its brief two-and-a-half minutes. The lyrics set the narrator sitting in a tree whose "branches [are] not so strong", but this downtrodden motif juxtaposes against the insistence of the songs rhythm, conveying an optimistic trust in life's inevitable changes. With this single, the supergroup (composed of members of The Golden Dregs, Qlowski and Spirit Blue) seem to truly break into new territory, and we look eagerly ahead to the full album, which releases this April. (Lloyd Bolton)
Fergy LH – 'Talk It Out'
Hailing from Birmingham, garage-punk quartet Fergy LH have released their debut single 'Talk It Out' via Lovebuzz. The track is an absolute bulldozer, pulsing with pint-spilling adrenaline and fuzzed-out garage rock grit. On this mosh-ready debut, the group recall the raucous spirit of cult American garage legends like The Reatards and John Dwyer's Coachwhips, as well as early King Gizzard. Lyrically, 'Talk It Out' explores the unhealthy side of masculinity, and how many men opt to drink away their trouble instead of communicating with friends. Fergy LH will be showcasing this scuzzed-up garage rock spectacular to the lucky punters of The Shacklewell Arms on the 17th April. (Brad Sked)
Milkweed – 'Exile The Sons Of Uisliu'
Returning with the lead single from their newly announced second album Remscéla, due for release in May via Broadside Hacks, 'Exile The Sons Of Uisliu' sees London's Milkweed open up a folkloric portal of scrupulously crafted, transcendental lo-fi beats. The London duo are known for their experimental reconstructions of existing source material, and on this new project they spotlight Thomas Kinsella's translation of the Irish folklore epic Táin Bó Cúailnge. Reconstituting their transcriptions into a stumbling, narcotic pastiche of tape-like guitar loops and musique concrete, 'Exile The Sons Of Uisliu' is a track that swallows the listener up into its fabled abyss like shamrocks wilting their way back into the swampy grooves of the earth. (Hazel Blacher)
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