Have you ever wondered how many music singles are released on average every month? I had never done it, then the other day I came across the catalog of February music releases on AOTY and I was stunned: in February of this year alone the website reports the publication of 2361 singles, and scrolling through the previous months it is easy to see how this number fluctuates between 2000 and 3000. It’s a lot of music, of course: it made me think that, with these monthly summaries, I make a truly limited selection. There is obviously no way to actually listen to all that music, but this simple observation alone made me think about the bubble we live in, this “virtual” bubble, I mean: compared to a few years ago, when music shops were still widespread, I discover online most of the music that I will listen to. It never ceases to surprise me how narrow our panorama is if compared to the web’s mare magnum. Obviously, these are pointless reflections: there’s not much you can really do about it. The best (and rightest) thing would be to go back to populating the spaces where live music and original music are made; and to have the courage to listen to something else than what we are used to. In the meanwhile, let’s pick some memorable moments out of thousands of new music singles published during February.
On February 2nd Everything Everything released The End of the Contender, another single taken from their new album Mountainhead (while I’m writing, the album has already been published: the scheduled release date was in fact March 1st). The End of the Contender revolves around the same themes of radical criticism of Capitalism which constitutes the theoretical basis of the entire album (Jonathan Higgs cited Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher as one of his major references while working on these songs): with lyrics full of sarcastic bitterness, The End of the Contender seems to draw a bit from a sound even close to that of old works such as Get to Heaven (2015). As always, very classy and thought-provoking indie-pop rock.
From the upcoming album Light Verse, out on Sub Pop Records on April 26th, Iron & Wine released on February 7th the first single You Never Know. As you may know, Iron & Wine is the stage name for American singer and songwriter Samuel “Sam” Ervin Beam, a name that has been around on the indie-pop scene for more than twenty years: for You Never Know (and for the whole new album), Beam gathered back his usual bandmates (among them, Sebastian Steinberg on bass and Tyler Chester on keyboards). You Never Know is a delicate indie-folk ballad leading to a gorgeous final crescendo, dealing with disillusionment and sense of humanity (You could make gray and call it gold/ Let it fool your eyes/ Follow any wave crashing down to size/ You could be wrong, don’t you wanna know/ Deep into the night/ Like a little stone thrown across ice), the search for a meaning and the ability to accept (and learn from) our own mistakes.
Last month also marked the return of Lizzy McAlpine, who announced her third, new album Older (out next April 5th) by releasing the title track on February 13th as a single. Ever since I came across McAlpine’s music two years ago, I have always thought that she is a world-class artist, with mature and emotional songwriting and a truly beautiful voice: and Older doesn’t make an exception, being a sublime piano ballad built on a fascinating and melancholic harmonic progression and lyrically focused on the difficult transition to adulthood while having unresolved issues with youth (pretty much the same topics covered in her previous, beautiful work Five Seconds Flat). If it’s about me, then, it will be enough for you to know that when I hear all the nuances and colours in Lizzy McAlpine‘s voice I always feel like a shiver run down my spine: and there’s not so much music out there that have this effect. Can’t wait to hear the whole album.
A few years ago, on these pages I talked about an album by a Texan band with a somewhat difficult name (a Thai word standing for flying machine, or airplane) who however makes some really crazy music, simple but very colourful, a modern and very personal re-edition of instrumental funk-rock and psychedelia from the seventies mixed with Thai-funk influences. Since then, I haven’t much followed Khruangbin‘s musical adventures, but this February they came back with a new single to launch their fourth studio album A LA SALA, due on April 5th via Dead Oceans. Donald Ray “DJ” Johnson Jr (drums and keyboard), Laura Lee Ochoa (bass, voice) and Mark Speer (guitar, voice) marked their return with May Ninth, a nostalgic and tender slow ballad built on the precise drumming by Johnson and the deep and groovy bass lines sculpted by Ochoa, a perfect backdrop for Speer‘s blooming electric guitar melodies. The song is accompanied by a beautiful animated video directed by Jenny Lucia Mascia and Jeremy Higgins and based on a story wrote by the two directors together with Nathaniel Murphy.