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Dream Wife – Love You More

Dream Wife released their electrifying third album, Social Lubrication, earlier this Summer to critical acclaim. Known for their explosive live shows, Dream Wife go stateside later this week with a string of dates kicking off in NYC at Brooklyn Made. To celebrate their forthcoming run of live shows, they today share brand new track “Love You More”, recorded during the Social Lubrication album sessions. Drawing from the likes of Pixies and Hole for inspiration, the band says, “‘Love You More’ is not your typical love song, but a love song to the self and choosing to love perfectly imperfect bodies. It has a gritty underbelly, dealing with self-acceptance, body dysmorphia, disaster capitalism, climate collapse and depression. From the micro to the macro, the song explores the relationship between the self and both the body and the earth as experiences of home, as a vessel for feeling.

Dream Wife - Love You More (Audio)

The band have also today announced a handful of new European shows and festival appearances, and five further UK headline dates for early 2024. This October and November they will be touring widely across the UK and Europe, including performing at Pitchfork Paris and their biggest London show to date, at Electric Brixton. See all their tour dates and get your tickets on their website here.

Samantha Urbani – Showing Up

Today Samantha Urbani unveils “Showing Up“, the title track, and Prince-inspired opener, of her forthcoming debut album (out September 22nd).

“Showing Up” follows the release of recent singles “One Day at a Time” and “More Than a Feeling” and introduces the album’s prevailing lyrical preoccupation: the fraying of personal and professional relationships – often leading to unequal power dynamics – and her continued commitment to showing up when it matters. “I’ve always been the tough one, to take care when you’re tired / Suck it up and hold your trembling hand when you’re out there being admired,” she coos over tubular bell effects and raspy bass guitar, later confessing, “Sometimes I wish I had more of a taste for vengeance / Sometimes I wish I’d been born more of a capitalist.

For Urbani, it was crucial to emphasise the importance of being emotionally present, be that by showing up for a romantic partner or by rejecting the toxic individualism of capitalist society to help affect positive change. Samantha says of the single:

It took many iterations to find its most final form of power, just like me and anyone else who’s been thrashed around again and again. I always believed in it though, and finally re-recorded the intro verse during mixing, just as we were considering scrapping it. Counted it in like Prince, and cranked up the backbeat. Pretty simple and classic formula: power in vulnerability.

The accompanying self-directed music video follows Samantha on a tender, near melancholic solo travel day from LA to NY- seemingly unsure of what or who awaits her. Filled with easter eggs that call back to Friends’ 2011 “I’m His Girl” music video and style choices reminiscent of ‘90s New York City music culture (including Samantha’s Coogi sweater, a nod to Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighbourhood and the Notorious B.I.G. – and an original bomber jacket from Madonna’s ‘Blonde Ambition’ tour), the DIY video is a multi-layered testament to the deep intentionality and razor sharp creative vision that shapes every facet of Samantha’s artistry.

Watch the video below, listen to the track here and pre-order the Showing Up album here.

Samantha Urbani - Showing Up

To celebrate the release of Showing Up, Samantha has announced an album launch show at The Market Hotel in Brooklyn, NYC, on Friday 20th October. Tickets are available now.

Middle Kids – Highlands

Sydney-based three-piece Middle Kids today release their latest single “Highlands”, which showcases everything that has made them such a formidable force in recent years. The band take the bare-bones of indie-rock (guitar, bass, drums) and elevate their songs with an astonishing and euphoric vocal performance, scorching production and an incomparable pop-sensibility. The result is a song which grabs the listener from the opening bars and doesn’t let go for a thrilling three-and-a-half minutes.

“Highlands” is the band’s second song to be produced by Jonathan Gilmore, who is renowned for his work with The 1975 and Beabadoobee (amongst others). The song follows their recent single “Bootleg Firecracker” which weaved together intricate acoustic melodies and unconventional drum production which set it apart from their previous repertoire and ushered in a new era for the band.

The new single is accompanied by an extraordinary video directed by Toby Morris who took the band to shoot in the New South Wales highlands surrounding Jindabyne. The spectacular beauty of the region is offset by stunt driving, helicopters, horses, motorcycles and the Southern Hemisphere’s largest car-wrecking yard. The visual feast matches the ferocious immediacy of the song.

Middle Kids - Highlands (Official Video)

Lead singer and songwriter Hannah Joy said of the song: “Since I was young, I’ve had this yearning to be free. In this song I used an image of the ‘highlands’ as a euphoric place where I have the space to be me, and you have the space to be you. Part of the imagery comes from my Scottish heritage, which my grandmother was always so proud of. I recorded some big slow piano chords which Tim mangled into the atmospheric hits in the intro.

When we finished the song with Jon Gilmore in the UK, he thought it was important that the song felt punky, like a bunch of teenagers practising in their garage. So, there are these 2 energies fighting it out – the constricted energy of the domestic space and the wide open energy of the highlands. We have a friend who calls this kind of music ‘yearncore’. It’s that impatient energy that says, ‘I can’t keep waiting, I need a change’.

Samantha Urbani – Showing Up + One Day at a Time

Today, Samantha Urbani has announced that her long-awaited debut album Showing Up will be released on 22nd September, and shares lead single “One Day At A Time“.

Showing Up finds the former Friends-frontwoman pouring a decade of experimentation and personal growth into the sort of irresistibly loose-limbed, retro-leaning alt-pop that has always been her specialty. Co-produced by Urbani with Nick Weiss (aka Nightfeelings) the album is in keeping with Urbani’s predilection for spontaneity, with an organic approach to collaboration and contributions from close friends including Eric Cross, John Carroll Kirby, Shane Mckillop, Rostam Batmanglij, Molly Lewis and Sasha Desree, as well as Sade’s right-hand man Stuart Matthewman.

Sonically, the album captures a wide range of vintage influences, from Jam & Lewis to Tom Tom Club, halcyon 80s Madonna, 90s R&B to celestial disco and grooved out guitar-pop. Urbani’s innate ability to hit the sweet spot between heady pop melodies and unfettered experimentation makes ‘Showing Up’ such a compelling collection, whilst also encapsulating universal themes for both the head and the heart.

Lead single “One Day At A Time”, with shades of Rapture-era Blondie meets LCD Soundsystem, finds Urbani declaring “I’m immune to guitars, I’m immune to cool” over louche slap bass and sliding, Talking Heads-esque synths.

Samantha says about the single: “Ok, ok. I am the tough guy and I am dead serious. I am an advocate, a protector, and an activist. I’m also a total crusher and yolo’er and I take the sweet risks and I justify it all to myself even when I know I myself am being the idiot. This is basically the cutie goofer song about wanting the player and drawing it out. Kissing you FEELS vital to my survival! I know its NOT! It’s just a FEELING! BUT THATS A BIG FEELING! THATS A HUGE LONGING! THATS A LONG ACHING! Urgh, can’t we just ween it off little by little? Once a week act in love? Fuck it up one day at a time? Not fuck it up all at once?

The track’s fantastical music video, created by Urbani alongside VFX Artists and Animators Leon Knight and Corrinne James, features cameos from Samantha’s close friends Georgia Jagger (angel/devil), Avery Tucker (cameras), Chloe Saavedra (drums), Isis Cahuas (raspberry beret), Yony Leyser (phones) and Nick Robinson (motorcycle). Watch it now, below.

Samantha Urbani - One Day at a Time

Charly Bliss – You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore

Today, New York pop savants Charly Bliss are back with “You Don’t Even Know Me Anymore“, their first new music since 2019’s critically acclaimed album Young Enough, and its subsequent Supermoon EP. The track, produced by Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus and Caleb Wright, ushers in a new, more playful era for the band.

“I moved to Australia and felt a million miles away from who I had been in New York. Like I had been reborn happy, carefree, and slightly less pale,” explains lead singer Eva Hendricks. “I was convinced that I had totally bypassed the ‘wherever you go, there you are’ thing. Lexapro also helped. I think this song is a farewell to how sad and tortured I felt during the Young Enough album cycle. It’s like the ‘fuck it!’ that you earn after burning your entire life down and starting over. Sam sent me the track and it felt exactly as joyous and silly and giddy as I felt inside. It came together quickly and set the tone for a new CB era.”

Charly Bliss - You Don't Even Know Me Anymore