It’s autumn and the temperature has taken a sharp jolt towards cold. The question is, is cold wave and goth-rock now in season? Do those jangly summer number take us through the colder months quite as well? It’s 2020, the forgotten year, none of this matters. We’ve chosen a mixed bag of new tracks from new artists for you to scroll through, and perhaps find something that turns your head. All of the below choices will find their way into our Hard Of Hearing Spotify playlist which you find below.
Hideous Sun Demon
Distractions
Melbourne outfit Hideous Sun Demon are hard to pin down sonically, fusing the lines between electronic-led dark wave and in your face modern punk, Distractions is a beautifully complex experience. The band unearth the psychedelia in normality, ripping through the mundanities of everyday existence with vocal performance that flick between hypnotic spoken word and innate rage. It’s courageous, aggressive and thoughtful – passionately arriving within four psychedelia-stained, anxiety-inducing minutes. Truly one of the most exciting and genre-bending releases I’ve heard in a while. Find the band on Spotify here.
The Strange Ones
Don’t Let ‘Em Get You Down
Out of Oakland, California come The Strange Ones, their brand of lo-fi garage rock is what dreams are made of. Guitars fire on all cylinders, unafraid to pick up scratchier sounds in the live-leaning, DIY recording process, Don’t Let ‘Em Get You Down really does do everything you want from a debut single. Overlapping vocal parts provide devastating emotion, drums hold steady as razor sharp guitars dominate a full throttle chorus that recalls anything from The Drums, Spring King to Splashh. It finishes as quickly as it arrives, leaving a heart-shaped hole on the knees of your favourite denims jeans. Find the band on Spotify here.
TEMPESST
High on My Own
The sprawling and dreamy instrumental textures on High on My Own by London outfit TEMPESST are truly godly. Hypnotic bass grooves and a rigid drum structure blends krautrock-feel rhythms with spaced out guitars, the result is a unique brand of driving psychedelic rock that get it’s hooks in deep on a first listen. The shining light of High on My Own has to be it’s chorus, the pace drops and a soaring chorus enters the heavens of pop music, leaving us with the perfect highs and natural lows that life brings. Find the band on Spotify here.
DISCHAAAGEEE
Harench Skirt
Hailing from Fukuoka, Japan DISCHAAAGEEE are quite the genre-bending outfit. New single Harench Skirt opens as a bass driven dance number, shimmering synths meet a percussive approach that echos ESG or Shopping, all within a wonky pop song structure. The vocal is seeped in 80’s new wave influences and sang in Japanese, it sits at the centre of what is an experimental electronic track that holds straight up pop and oddball electronica dear. For further listening, do not miss the B-side Donkey Kong Beach Party. Find the artist on Spotify here.
Dayweaver
Swear
On a first listen Dayweaver remind me of Play-era Moby, the Utrecht trio bring an epic late 90’s sadness to their very personal brand of slowly sprawling electronica. While the overlapping vocal parts might reflect the husky and emotive ways of The National’s Matt Berninger, instrumentally it sounds like The xx at their most danceable. A flurry of synths bubble, gurgle and develop like romantic love from a friendship, leaving Dayweaver untying the knots in your stomach with a subtle and incredibly pleasant euphoria.
hardofhearingmagazine.com 