Tracks Of The Week: Connie Constance, Mia Wray and more

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The video for Connie Constance’s new single Hurt You has been self-directed, offering a chance to ‘live in a fantasy’.

“This video is about the four stages of healing/resurrection,” Constance explains. “Stage one being torture, the purge of everything that came before that could be holding me back, stage two is the healing process, stage three is training, I was lucky enough to have my uncle King Kenny train me in this video right in the middle of his own training camp for his upcoming Fight in Texas.”

“And the final stage being the rebirth, the Phoenix risen. My uncle Steve Power has a Pontiac firebird to he brought in the beautiful motor and it played the part of the symbol of transformation. A jump the fence imagination, made by my friends for the world.”

Italia 90 have shared their latest debut album track Tales From Beyond.

“By accident rather than by design, a lot of the tracks we had written for Living Human Treasure didn’t have a chorus, and with Tales From Beyond we wanted to give balance to the album and write something with a hook – written first on a synth, unusually for us – and a chorus, something that would work live as well as on record,” the band said.

“The lyrics are about the radical chic of those whose true intentions are just a milquetoast progressivism and a kinder capitalism, an idea triggered in part by the regular pledges from individuals in the music industry to ‘unlearn’ abusive or discriminatory behaviours and explain them away by claiming they are a ‘work in progress’, only to repeat the cycle.”

The Slow Readers Club have responded to the bleak picture the world has painted these past few years with an optimistic sonic outlook.

“The world had got so bleak it felt a little indulgent to paint apocalyptic pictures when they were out in the real world,” frontman Aaron Starkie said.

“I thought people would probably want to hear more uplifting things, it was my intention to be a bit more positive. There’s still a lot of melodrama in there and it’s still dystopian in places but there’s more positive shades in this record.”

Panda Bear & Sonic Boom have marked the physical release of their Reset LP with an expanded digital version which has added a bonus disc of instrumentals and remixes from David Holmes and London-based trio Voka Gentle.

Also out today is a video for Whirlpool from Studio Sparks and visuals for the new instrumental take of Everything’s Been Leading to This.

Meanwhile, after the duo played Le Guess Who? in Utrecht, Netherlands last week, they have more European outings booked for 2023 at Elevate Festival in Graz, Austria and Pop Messe in Brno, Czech Republic.

Death Valley Girls have set their new album Islands In The Sky for release on February 24th next year.

First single is What Are The Odds, cut with some classic Madonna in mind. “When we wrote I’m A Man Too we were trying to revisit No Doubt’s I’m Just A Girl but through a new lens,” Bonnie Bloomgarden explained.

“What Are The Odds is in the same way an investigation /revisitation of Madonna’s Material Girl but with a DVG spin.”

Back in Melbourne after recently playing her debut headline London gig, Mia Wray has set the new EP Stay Awake for release on February 10th next year.

The title-track is previewing the release, which is also set to contain previous singles Evidence and Rerun.

Wray will be touring Australia after the EP is out, playing gigs in cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, while there’s also appearance coming up at the Sydney Opera House Forecourt and Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl in support of Vance Joy.

Tempesst have shared their video for Rags Of Love with new album Prisoner Of Desire out on March 3rd, 2023.

“Above all else, we want this album to start an honest conversation about what love is: one that throws away pedestals and unreal expectations” the band have said of the LP.

“One that shows how demanding, complex, challenging, beautiful and incredible love can be. And why, ultimately, we’re all prisoners of desire.”

Giant Party have confirmed the release of their debut album Blue Hymn on March 3rd next year and marked the occasion by unveiling its next single Beyond Dreaming.

“I went into the process of making Blue Hymn with the feeling that I was missing something internally, but now my conclusion is that I’m actually OK,” Al Harrod has explained.

“Personally I always had this one thing that’s negative that I was trying to defeat and it takes over. Eventually I came to realise that it’s silly holding onto those problems where there are so many other good things going on.”