till then
by Tom Scott
Like all of us, Tom Scott contains multitudes: he’s revealed the mouthy angry young man (with Home Brew and @Peace) and his thoughtful and reflective side (the inventive jazz-rap Avantdale Bowling Club) but now comes something different again. This slow, emotionally spare and cleverly arranged piece which emphasises an emptiness, finds Scott – tellingly under his own name – dealing with the end of his marriage, toughing it out in a transparently macho way (“got a new girl, got a new style ... don’t worry ‘bout me, I’ll land on my feet like I always do”) but damaged deeply: “I promise you I won’t call no more ... I’ll let you be”. Lotta songs out there about a break-up but none quite like this. A genuinely moving first taste of a forthcoming, autobiographical album ANITYA (October 10) – Graham Reid
Feel Free
by Jeff Tweedy
Wilco leader Tweedy reverts to solo mode again for triple album – yep 30 tracks – Twilight Override and this the most promising of the five released so far. It’s a sweet, lyrically wry, list-song with Tweedy delivering an inventory of stuff that we should feel to do, should the urge take us. “Feel free/ Let it Be or Let it Bleed/John or Paul/ Mick or Keith,” he sings at the mid-point, then “Get yourself born in the USA/Love with a love they can’t take away” a few verses later, before concluding: “Make a record with your friends/ Sing a song that never ends.” – Russell Baillie
Everybody Scream
by Florence + The Machine
Hold on … that red dress in a video with credits which say those ruins are Castle Carr, a brisk walk from where the Brontë Sisters grew up. Is that where she and her grand guignol backing singers are headed? Why are they running up that hill? Has Florence Welch taken those career-long Kate Bush comparisons to heart? It’s all very wuthering and it doesn’t quite reach the heights. The song is a different kind of gothic melodrama. It’s one of these tracks that seem destined to open shows with a bang on a tour but then get shuffled to the back of the catalogue. It’s the title track to an album due out late October, by which time Flo’s clips will have worked their way through the Bush look-book. – Russell Baillie
We Gotta Get Out of This Place
by Brittany Howard
Occasionally, even movies no-one goes to see deliver an interesting cover version in their soundtrack. This scorching take by soul-blues singer-guitarist Howard, formerly of Alabama Shakes, on the song made famous by The Animals in 1965 qualifies as one of those pleasant surprises. It comes from the soundtrack to Honey Don’t, director Ethan Coen’s new noir comedy and the second in his “lesbian B-movie trilogy” after last year’s Drive Away Dolls (you didn’t miss anything). Also out this week from the soundtrack of Nobody 2, a cover of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire by somebody called Des Rocs. No, it’s not on the playlist in case the algorithm assumes we approve and wants to inflict more Cash classics done in a hair metal style on us. By all means look it up but then pray that Cash was cremated so he isn’t rolling in his grave. – Russell Baillie
Gold Standard Love
by Dion Lunadon
Formerly of local punkish rock’n’rollers Nothing At All! and the D4, the New York-based Lunadon remains faithful to battered-edge rock with this strident, pop-length single which gets underway with a hand clap beat and scratchy, static eruptions before arriving at a desperate yelp and intensity with skidding guitars. “Can I get a witness?” he yells, and we’d guess that would be a “yes” from student and rock radio. – Graham Reid
Bitter Every Day
by Wednesday
Out of North Carolina on the back of grunge, shoegaze and a drone-noise approach to alt-country, this band with M.J. Lenderman on guitar (for recordings only now) here deliver a rare kind of chaotic melancholy. Their fourth single – after the more measured Pick Up That Knife, Wound Up Here and the acoustic Elderberry Wine with prominent lap-steel – running up to their second album Bleeds (due September 19) on the hip Dead Oceans label. –Graham Reid
Are You Okay?
by Sam Charlesworth
The Ōtepoti Dunedin singer-songwriter on this percussively clattering swoon-folk – with passages of white-noise density and keening guitar – brings to mind the young Evan (Lemonheads) Dando in his songcraft. And the song’s sonic mood shifts match the lyric about keeping a meaningful human connection and concern for those who are a bit adrift. Charlesworth has released six self-produced albums and founded the Beatniks (whose Another Day single we recently featured). Big and prolific talent. – Graham Reid
Fundraiser
by bar italia
Almost keeping up a rate of an album a year since their 2020 debut, the provocative London post-punk band with the name that must make record shops file their records in the chill-out section is heading to a fifth long-player, Some Like It Hot, in mid-October. This compelling track, with a tag-team vocal between the front line of Nina Cristante, Sam Fenton and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi sounds like both sides of an unhappy break-up, or a terrible mix-up on tinder set to wiry guitars, a very Britpop beat and one of those singers – possibly not Nina – sounding lot like The Cure’s Robert Smith. Should be something to see, live, when they play Auckland and Wellington shows in December. – Russell Baillie
Empires (Sometimes We Fall)
by The Saints
The Saints are rightly considered one of the greatest of Australian bands and their single (I’m) Stranded is a punk classic. Their singer-writer Chris Bailey however moved quickly from thrash into nuanced songs (Just Like Fire Would, See You in Paradise) before embarking on a solo career. Bailey died in 2022 but four years previous he went into a Sydney studio with some former Saints, You Am I guitarist Davey Lane and others to record an album. Unfortunately, this advance, six-minute single with Spanish guitar doesn’t rise to the band’s previous heights and Bailey’s voice is a battered thing. The other single Break Away is closer to classic post-punk Saints and more of an enticement for the album Long March Through The Jazz Age due November 28. A line-up of the band featuring original members Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay, supplemented by Mark Arm of Mudhoney, and former Birthday Party- Bad Seeds member Mick Harvey and calling themselves “The Saints ’73 -’78” play Auckland and Wellington at the end of October. – Graham Reid
The Cowboy (Small Texas Town)
by Waylon Jennings
One of the original country music Outlaws alongside his wife Jessi Colter, Willie Nelson and Tompall Glaser, the late Waylon (who died in 2002) brought an honest earthiness to his work but was best known for his songs and voice-over for the television series The Dukes of Hazzard. In that distinctive voice for this autobiographical song – actually written by Johnny Rodriguez and recorded in 1978 – he speak-sings of his Texas roots and his audience of cowboys and long-haired hippies. This single announces his Songbird album of previously unreleased songs compiled by his son, the Grammy-winning producer Shooter Jennings. That’s due October 3 and is the first of three all-new collections from the vaults. Sure is a lotta Waylon comin’ our way, folks. – Graham Reid
Bonis – 5 Pièces, Op 109: No 5 in D-Flat Major, Mélisande
by Joseph Moog, piano
Belle Epoque, the recent album from pianist Joseph Moog (not directly related, alas, to the synthesiser guy), is an absolute gem. It does exactly what is says on the tin, with a collection of twenty-one short pieces from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. They’re almost all obscure, including this lovely, cascading miniature by Mel Bonis, a composer of whom Saint-Saëns once said, patronisingly, “I never imagined a woman could write such music!” – Richard Betts
