Slowdive by Parri Thomas
News of Slowdive and Soft Play‘s respective returns were among our biggest headlines last week.
Slowdive have set their new album ‘everything is alive’ for release on September 1st.
Six years on from the glorious return of their self-titled record, lead single ‘kisses’ is out with a video directed by Noel Paul, who said:
“If this video evokes emotion, it’s largely due to our excellent cast. In particular Charlie and Claudia, two courageous and beautiful souls who threw themselves into their roles and set a tone of fearless vulnerability.”
Following their tilt at Eurovision with Hawaii, Public Image Ltd have shared Car Chase from the End Of World LP which is due for release on August 11th.
“Typical PiL, unpredictable to the last,” John Lydon said. “It’s a fantastic smash and grab of a song.”
“It’s about someone who cleverly breaks out of the mental institution every night, unbeknownst to his owners. It’s based on having to go to shopping malls at night for cigarettes and wine, and seeing the vast carpark space and lighting surrounded by a little village and a lot of dark trees and country lanes. It’s a really creepy scenario, what if somebody creeps out of there, like a mad lunatic?”
Bloc Party have unveiled a new EP entitled The High Life following the recent Keep It Rolling single with KennyHoopla.
“When we were invited on the Paramore tour, we really wanted to get together and capture where the band was at and share that music,” Kele Okereke has said.
“We got in the studio with our friend Charlie Andrew and this EP was the result – we’re very proud of these four tracks and they hopefully offer a little bridge between Alpha Games and what’s next for the band. To me, it’s the sound of coming out of the wilderness and re-embracing life.”
Soft Play’s Laurie Vincent and Isaac Holman – operating as Slaves – live at the Bristol O2 Academy, Nov 2018 (Jessica Bartolini / Live4ever)
Soft Play (previously Slaves) will make their live return back in Tunbridge Wells at The Forum on July 2nd.
The gig is to act as a warm-up for Laurie Vincent and Isaac Holman’s bigger comeback at the 2000trees Festival in Cheltenham four days later, after which things will really hot up when they support the Prodigy on the band’s November UK arena tour.
A lengthy hiatus following the release of their 2018 third album Acts Of Fear And Love came to an end in December last year when the duo in turn confirmed their name-change.
Róisín Murphy has premiered the video for Fader, the latest example of the long collaborative process with DJ Koze which will inform her forthcoming Hit Parade LP.
“This idea came to me partly in reaction to making such surreal and ‘other’ imagery for the album artwork, and partly in response to the track itself,” Murphy said.
“I felt I needed a totally authentic space in which to perform Fader. The song is about life & death & music and so I went home to where it all started for me. Just as in the music there’s a huge HipHop influence on the video and for me to have the sheer front for that, it needed to ring true and so my home town, Arklow was in fact, the only option.”
The Smile have shared their brand new single Bending Hectic.
It’s the first bit of new music from Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and drummer Tom Skinner, since the debut album A Light For Attracting Attention played a big part in Live4ever’s 2022 end-of-year retrospectives.
“The ethereal piano on Pana-Vision is complemented by effectively used brass and strings, further prodding the anxiety levels, while on the beautiful Speech Bubbles the orchestra (the London Contemporary, no less) drift in and out of the song, as if momentarily moved to contribute before retreating into the darkness,” our review reads.
