Lucky Number Music

Sydney-based three-piece Middle Kids (Tim Fitz, Hannah Joy and Harry Day) are about to enter a new chapter in their career with the release today of their latest single, “Bootleg Firecracker“.

In 2022, the band made an impulsive decision to decamp to Eastbourne, UK in order to spend an intense six weeks with renowned producer Jonathan Gilmore (The 1975). The goal was to transform their lo-fi demos into something fresh, dynamic, and innovative, and to collaborate with a producer who could push the boundaries of a traditional rock band format to its sonic limit while still maintaining the essence of classic pop songwriting.

“Bootleg Firecracker” is the first taste of new music from those intense sessions. The song features beautiful fingerpicked acoustic loops, coupled with an edgy, loping drum groove, unlike anything we’ve heard in the band’s previous work. Lead singer Hannah Joy’s honest lyrics explore the concept of the titular ‘bootleg’ firecracker, an explosive yet beautiful force that also carries with it the risk of causing harm. The result is a warm, delicate, and contemporary sound that showcases the band’s creative evolution.

Joy describes “Bootleg Firecracker” as “a song about the power, magic, and risk of intimacy…It started out as an up-tempo chorus about dancing, but Tim (Fitz – co-producer and bassist) slowed it down, and we came up with this idea of the bootleg firecracker. Fireworks can be dangerous and risky, but there’s something about their explosion of light and heat that brings people together in celebration. I think love is like that.”

The track also includes an artistic contribution from Middle Kids’ fans, who submitted audio recordings of their own fireworks celebrations which are seamlessly woven into the outro of the song. The explosive theme crosses over into the official video which was directed by Toby Morris and features firework programming by the company used for Sydney’s legendary NYE celebrations.

Today, Dream Wife take on capitalism and faux-activism with the latest single from their new album Social Lubrication. Titled “Who Do You Wanna Be?”, the track is “about running on the capitalist treadmill and falling face first on the pavement. Hollow slogans, social media activism without action, leftist infighting, monetising feminism, ‘girl boss’, all soul crushing nonsense. Capitalism consumes everything. We should tear down the unreachable anxiety filled idea of perfectionism and move from hyper individualised narrative to collective action to create hopeful, rebellious, collective, systems of care. This is a call to arms for change.”

The single releases alongside a performance video filmed in an abandoned leisure centre pool in East London, watch below now.

Today, London collective HMLTD have unveiled a new video for “Days“, taken from their widely acclaimed new album The Worm, described as “a triumph of ambition” by The Sunday Times, and “One of the most well-executed concept albums of recent times” by Loud & Quiet. The video arrives ahead of two special performances at London’s ICA this week (18th & 19th May), where the band will perform The Worm in full for the very first time.

The band have also confirmed two hotly-tipped special guests for their upcoming live performances – Heartworms (18th May) and Picture Parlour (19th May) – tickets are on sale now.

Born of his “failure to accept the impermanence of things”, ‘Days’ finds frontman Henry Spychalski detailing love and loss, memory and melancholia, and time and its unravelling – as he explains: “In “Days”, the Worm that stalks the album takes on a new, particular meaning – as that kernel of doubt which, like a parasite, can burrow in and bury itself inside a relationship – growing inside its warmth until finally it overcomes it.”

The song’s accompanying video, directed by Spychalski, is in part an homage to Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée, transplanted into the world of The Worm.

London-based trio Dream Wife have today announced their brand new single “Orbit” and tour dates across UK, IE and US. “Orbit” follows the previously released singles “Leech” and “Hot (Don’t Date A Musician)”, and is taken from their highly anticipated third album, Social Lubrication, which will be released on June 9th.

The band explain, “Written through the joy of jamming together and locking into the groove like a multi limbed space age organism, ‘Orbit’ has a dance rock edge from the early noughties of bands like New Young Pony Club and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Lyrically, it was inspired by post-lockdown London coming back to life and sharing a space through friendship and community. And how each day you never know what’s in store for you or how a stranger can become someone close to you -for a day, a heartbeat, a phase, or a lifetime.”

Watch the Sophie Webster directed video for “Orbit” below:

The band’s autumn tour kicks off stateside in September for a number of shows before their UK/IE leg in October, which includes their biggest London show to date at Electric Brixton. Ahead of the tour, they’ll also be performing at a number of summer festivals and have just been announced as special guests at Le Tigre’s London show. All dates below and tickets on sale HERE.

Ahead of the arrival of their new album – The Worm – due this Friday, 7th April, London collective HMLTD have today shared the record’s title track, “The Worm“.

Conceptually and musically, “The Worm” is the centrepiece of the band’s new full length. It’s the clearest distillation of its two major themes: the powerlessness of individuals stuck and suffering inside systems of power that they are unable to change, and the spiritual struggle to overcome one’s inner demons.

“‘The Worm’ is by far and away the most ambitious song we’ve made to date,” tells frontman Henry Spychalski. “We recorded it with a 16-piece string orchestra in Athens and, later, a small gospel choir in London. It was inspired by Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’. For the cacophonous outro which closes the song, we asked the orchestra to play the part with the ‘sensazione de un verme’ (the sensation of a worm). The lyrics are the clearest admission that the album is a symbol of my depression and battle with it.”

The track arrives alongside a new video directed by Spychalski. Set in Wyrmlands, the imagined future in which The Worm has swallowed England and society is split between those who support it, and those who have chosen to resist.

“The video for ‘The Worm’ shows the final stand of the resistance,” notes Henry. “We shot the video in an abandoned, desecrated church in London’s East End to emphasise the spiritual nature of the song and its themes of struggle and salvation. In the video, I wanted to show man’s inner demons physically manifested as real, living, breathing entities – the Worm within man.

It was inspired by the films of the polish auteur Andrzej Zulawski, and in particular his unfinished masterpiece On The Silver Globe. The chorus of extras which make up the congregation are all fans of ours who answered a general callout on Instagram, without whom the video would not have been possible – so our eternal gratitude to them here cannot be overstated”