Essential new releases also featuring Charlie Franklin, King Tuff and Nation of Language.

RIP Magic – ‘5words’

RIP Magic surface from a murmur of underground buzz, cloaked in neon-tinted urban grit and a quiet confidence that speaks louder than hype. Their latest single, ‘5words’, surges on industrial production and motorik drum rhythms; each note a discordant confession disguised as a dance-floor command. The track marks the third single from the London four-piece comprising Marco Pini, Felix Bayley-Higgins, Beth Boswell-Knight, and Pedro Takahashi. While supporting LCD Soundsystem last December, RIP Magic were also quietly selling unmarked white-label copies of the then-unreleased track, produced by LCD Soundsystem’s own James Murphy. Pini’s raw vocals are deliberately slurred. Each line is threaded with measured distortion, cutting through an urban glitch of synthesisers and screeching basslines, as RIP Magic fuse post-punk’s serrated edge with grainy trip-hop textures. Gliding through jagged rhythms, a self-possessed confidence hums beneath every distorted line. With ‘5words’ RIP Magic do not chase attention; they already know who they are. (Isabel Kilevold)

Holly Head – ‘No Country is an Island’

It had been a while since we’d heard anything on record from Holly Head. With Paddy Murphy leaving the band last year to pursue Westside Cowboy full-time, the band were without a permanent guitarist for most of last year and ended up going almost exactly a year without releasing any new music as a result. With ‘No Country is an Island,’ they mark their return in real style. It has all the hallmarks of what has made them one of the most in-demand live bands in the Manchester scene and beyond: searing guitars, a hypnotic agitated groove that marches the song forward and a snarled delivery on a vital message from frontman Joe Moss. “The song is a reaction to the rise of anti-migrant and refugee views in England where news and debate are framed to divide and conquer,” Joe explains. “We seem to have come to this point through the underfunding of public services and higher living costs leaving people hanging on for their lives.” (Marty Hill)

Sunglasz Vendor – ‘Was On Fire’

Sunglasz Vendor outline the excruciating banality of not quite cutting it in ‘Was on Fire,’ tapping into a feeling where everyone feels they should be saying, doing and making something that is going to change the world. On the new track from the Bristol experimentalists, bare vocals feel exposed within the sparse, distinctly Slint-ish mix. Singer/guitarist Rafi Cohen’s tone, cynical and distinctly bothered, outlines the feeling of being ‘past it,’ like your ideas just aren’t hitting anymore. The beige sadness of the song’s ‘Samsung TV dinners’ feels as uncomfortable and uncanny as our saturated cultural landscape, in which it feels like either everything’s been done before, or as Cohen explains, even ‘veterans’ have to ‘Shapeshift just to float’. With the promises of 21^st century innovation disintegrating beneath us like wet cardboard, this song speaks ironically to the pseudo-embarrassment of even having a creative idea in the first place, its momentum instead carrying us through the heartbreak on an exquisite wave of nihilism and detachment from reality. (Eva Karl)

Charlie Franklin – ‘Julius’

Like wind whipping through your hair with the windows rolled down, Charlie Franklin’s beguiling new single ‘Julius’ quietens the urban noise, the restless chime of the city crossfading into the hinterland’s winding, verdant embrace. Serving as the debut release from the London-based folk newcomer, ‘Julius’ was produced by Natalie Wildgoose, a cross-pollination of spellbinding acoustic beauty between two artists sowing the rich undergrowth of a flourishing UK folk scene. Delicately plucked acoustic guitars flicker in a dewy half-light, draped in gossamer silk string accoutrements and guided by the velvety stillness of Franklin’s vocal. Thematically, ‘Julius’ is rooted in the soft tranquility of mutual devotion, which Franklin elaborates: “Julius speaks for itself as a lustful poetic declaration of love settled in this feeling of peace. A kind of love filled with delicious strong desire but also an unquestioning security and calm..” (Hazel Blacher)

King Tuff – ‘Twisted On A Train’

King Tuff – the moniker of Vermont musician Kyle Thomas – has returned with ‘Twisted On A Train, a garage fuzz-pop fireball for the whiskey bars. The new single arrives alongside news of forthcoming album ‘MOO’, due for release on the 27th March via MUP Records. A sun-tinged rock’n’roll thrill ride, ‘Twisted On A Train’ sees King Tuff’s signature honeyed garage-pop stylings coalesce with 60’s esque psychedelia and elements of blues, brewing up a glorious sonic stew of 13th Floor Elevators and The Murlocs. Alongside the new single, King Tuff also shares a self directed and edited black and white psychotropic video. Mega stuff from the garage-rocker. (Brad Sked)

Nation of Language – ‘Inept Apollo (Tom Sharkett Remix)’

Those who clocked onto the swirling, shepherd’s-delight elation of Tom Sharkett’s LCD Soundsystem ‘Home’ remix last summer are in for an instant midwinter mood boost this week – with bonus joy also up for grabs if you’re a Nation of Language fan. When Manchester-based Sharkett isn’t brewing up krauty synthpop grooves with his band W.H Lung, he’s laying down stratospheric disco belters in the studio. His latest rework of Nation of Language’s ‘Inept Apollo’ – the lead single from last year’s ‘Dance Called Memory’ – shimmers with a starry analog warmth. Bringing the euphoric glassy-eyed thrills and prismatic dancefloor illuminations of disco reverie to, well, wherever you are – raving in your kitchen, power walking to the bus stop, or actually being in the club –  this latest remix sees Sharkett well on the way to cementing his status as one of the most thrilling new underground producers around. (Hazel Blacher)