A busy week packed with essential new music, also including Platonica Erotica, Max Winter, Blood Wizard, Natalie Wildgoose, Top Shortage and Kiosk.

1000 Rabbits – ‘Virgin Soil’

Having already hosted them at our Great Escape stage last May, we’ve waited long enough for 1000 Rabbits to release some music. After a name change (they were previously known as Rabbitfoot), we finally have a debut single, and ‘Virgin Soil’ – released via the esteemed Young label (home to FKA Twigs, The XX & Kamasi Washington to name a few) – certainly justifies the long wait. Steady, askew rhythms groove between close control and jazzed up frenzy; violins sweep across our skulls like urgent strains of anxious thought; vocalist River guides us like a friendly stranger towards an unknown wonderland, the whole band rising towards an eruptive climax, as if to say, “we are here. We’ve arrived.” (Elvis Thirlwell)

My New Band Believe – ‘Numerology’

In music, many artists are plagued by what is commonly referred to as ‘the difficult second album.’ Following a triumph of a debut where freedom, hope and sheer grit has produced something exciting and promising, the pressures of the follow up can weigh heavy, sometimes too heavy. These pressures are even heftier when you replace the albums with projects. On ‘Numerology’, former black midi bassist Cameron Picton returns triumphant, confidently dashing all doubts of whether a new project could live up to the lofty heights of his previous work. ‘Numerology’ is somewhat of a contradiction in that it is both instrumentally stripped back and acoustic, yet incredibly thumping and dancefloor centered. Bright and choppy acoustic guitars are both the harmonic base and rhythmic backbone of ‘Numerology’, providing a new-wave-via-São-Paulo flash of bouncing, jiving vitality. Still compositionally maximalist but within a tighter, leaner instrumental framework, ‘Numerology’ proves Picton’s mettle as one of the finest songwriters and bandleaders working today. (A.L. Noonan)

Cola – ‘Hedgesitting’

Leaping beyond the “tasteful minimalism” that defined the band’s first two records, ‘Hedgesitting’ goes straight to the top of the pile for Montreal outfit Cola. Having built their sound on fragmented observations and knotty post-punk guitars (just like their direct precursor Ought), here they’re building something that sounds at once like a natural evolution, and also like something completely new. Tightly-wound guitar motifs are allowed to stretch out alongside organ melodies, resembling more the bouncy indie rock of The Orchids than the moodier outfits they’ve been compared to many times in the past. (Marty Hill)

Platonica Erotica – ‘Pawnshop’

After her 2022 EP release, Platonica Erotica, AKA Hannah Hayden, returns, via this edition of the Slow Dance compilation, with a new track, ‘Pawnshop’ – an elegy of self-sacrifice, grief and heartache. Hayden’s modular synthesiser is the siren call that inhabits ‘Pawnshop’, an evocative dystopian ambience that simultaneously feels all-consuming yet distant and intangible. Lyrics such as “you sold your head to the pictures” and “listening to your old album alone” express the anguish of self-worth in the face of commercial pressures. Hayden’s hypnotic, operatic vocals, layered with evolving sonic textures, compel you to face these disquieting emotions. As the synths abruptly fade at the song’s close, Hayden leaves us pondering an unsettling question: what remains to give when no one is left to take? (Grace Palmer)

Blood Wizard – ‘Lick The Big Star’

Shedding away some of the English eccentricities of 2024 album Grinning William and traditioning to a more transatlantic sound of cosmic shoegaze resonances and swirling emo contemplations, the ebbs and flows of ‘Lick The Big Star’ almost enter Sigur Ros levels of windswept euphoria as the track’s reaches it’s heady conclusion. The second teaser from Blood Wizard’s forthcoming EP ‘Lucky Life’ – due 16th April via Sad Club Records – ‘Lick the Big Star’ teases the band’s transition from a largely solo venture into an era of greater collaboration and experimentation. Gorgeous music for wistful dreamers, the band ready for a clutch of headlines in the spring, including at Hackney’s MOTH club. (At this juncture, Hard of Hearing magazine would like to warn readers not to attempt to lick any stars, regardless of their size) (Elvis Thirlwell)

Max Winter – ‘Candlelight’

Exacting Gorillaz’ style collaboration-maxing –  but for ultra ‘with it’ culture vultures who swear by all things Scenic Route, NTS radio, and the ‘Copenhagen Scene’  –  the new single from London experimental-pop savant Max Winter packs more in than a greedy child’s crêpe on Pancake day. Featuring the iconic nonchalance of Sorry’s Asha Lorenz, the sticky-tangy rap of Rael (Nukuluk), and tasty contributions from Will Lister (Max’s partner in crime in his other project, Thredd), tune in for robot trip-hop beats, snaking acoustic guitar, freakish sampling, a string-pad breakdown bit, plus a whole jazzed-up trumpet/piano switch up at the end. Every listen reveals a new detail in this immaculately woven three minute tapestry of sound. (Elvis Thirlwell)

Natalie Wildgoose – ‘Nobody on the Path’

Nestled beyond the chaos of the city lies a tranquil landscape of Victorian mills, deserted chapels and sprawling hills. This pastoral vista is captured in singer-songwriter Natalie Wildgoose’s latest release via state51, ‘Nobody on the Path’, a soliloquy for the lowly traveller. Set amidst the isolated scenery of the Yorkshire Dales, the track opens with her characteristic gentle acoustic guitar and wistful vocals. Intertwined with slight piano notes, Wildgoose’s voice dances alongside her instrumentation, guiding you along the banks of a murmuring creek. Elongating the ends of words like “honey” and “music”, she creates a soothing lullaby, lulling you to rest with its melodic violin. Grappling with the “quarry of lead” we carry within, ‘Nobody on the Path’ is an ode to the solitary journey of self-discovery in these Arcadian surroundings. As Wildgoose wisely notes, “sometimes the path wanders, and you will wander with it.” Wildgoose brings her transportive explorations to London, performing at Stoke Newington Old Church on 19^th May. (Grace Palmer)

Top Shortage – ‘Susan Stryker’

The debut single from one of the most exciting acts in Oxford right now, Top Shortage’s ‘Susan Stryker’ is an argument in song form, adapting the titular theorist’s 1994 essay ‘My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamonix’ into an anthem challenging gender norms and advocating for trans liberation. From the beginning, the lull of Harris Ferguson’s spiralling jangle guitar-playing is offset by the wavering vocals of lead singer Noa Laquéche. The two reconcile in tight breaks orchestrated by the rhythm section (Rosemary Corin and Mila Fitzgerald), which owe something to the disciplined groove of Wire. The band do not settle for this relatively simple structure, however, pushing the song’s discursive potential beyond the limited space afforded to a chorus shout of, ‘You are as constructed as I am!’. The band proceed to break the song apart, allowing for the more detailed critique of a verse that hinges on the call for the listener ‘to investigate your nature as I have been compelled to confront mine’. The fragmentary nature of this section echoes the call for the dismantling of norms of identity. Appropriately, for a song based on an essay, the piece is structured somewhere between argument and pop song, musical elements enlisted in the service of rhetorical points before finally dissolving into a triumphant concluding jam, vocal howls making for a defiantly celebratory close. (Lloyd Bolton)

Kiosk – ‘Heaven Sent’ / ‘Sure Shot’

Rolling through with the bleary-eyed, fresh-faced nonchalance of your cool-as-fuck mate that just sparked up a massive post-afters fatty at the kitchen table, Kiosk are dead set on keeping the party going on brand new double single ‘Heaven Sent / Sure Shot’. The Leeds-based duo – comprised of Isabella Alcock and Rory ‘Maz’ Maslen – are stalwarts of the city’s flourishing DIY scene, and their latest release arrives, produced by DJ Suburu, via the city’s premier grassroots tastemaker label Private Regcords (also home to Bathing Suits and Rhiannon Hope). Recalling the ice-cold vocal stylings of PVA’s Ella Harris, unflappable electro-pop opener ‘Heaven Sent’ swaggers hazily with a shades-in-the-club poise. ‘Sure Shot’s subsequent stream-of-consciousness spoken word parallels The Orb’s ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ – that is, if it were to instrumentally untether into a pummelling, frenetic techno fervour. In celebration of their release, Kiosk will be playing a string of dates across the UK, including a show at the Brixton Windmill on the 26th of February. (Hazel Blacher)