What We've Been Listening to This Week...

By Jon Milton and Mark Glenister

Links to music and articles in blue

You’d think that the lockdown might stem the tide of new music coming through, but it appears as though bands are still finding ways of creating new tunes and getting them out. Take workfriends for example, a Sheffield based band who came to our attention last week with their excellent debut single ‘Man on the Run’, which was recorded in the kitchen of their house and produced by their bassist Jamie. The band met at Sheffield Uni last year and are made up of members from York, Stockport, Wirral, London and Bristol. Despite only starting gigging recently and mostly in Sheffield and York, the band have amassed a sizeable following on Spotify. Man of the Run has a real Velvet Underground feel to it, it’s a top tune and you can hear it here.

Another set of artists finishing off their tunes remotely are those that feature on the debut EP by Kitchen Practice Records ’Let it Bleeds’. The EP features cover versions of songs called Let it Bleed performed by Spider Noises, Women’s Fashion, Friends of the Monday Table and Pink Poison respectively, and its fun! We had a chat with Kitchen Practice impresario Lloyd Bolton and reviewed the EP on Friday, which you can read here.

Ian Charles Carter also made his debut as a solo artist this week, releasing his ‘New Teeth’ single. Ian is also a member of Human Pet, who released the cracking AA single earlier this year Itch/Scratch and Automated and by all accounts he has more solo music in the works as well as more material with the band. New Teeth starts off like the Damned’s New Rose, goes trippy in the middle before resuming the garage rock / punk. Its good, and you can hear it here.  

South London's finest Sleep Eaters sound like they have spent their lives in backwater bars of the American deltas, and their new single 'In this Town' cements that image. Already a favourite of their live set, this dark brooding bourbon-soaked slice of Americana will have you bingeing on David Lynch box sets, with the line 'Stuck in this town' resonating ominously during these days of lockdown. One of London's best live bands, their fanbase and reputation will grow later this year with a support slot on rescheduled LIFE tour. Get this track and go see them live before America claim them for their own, and read our Bands in Lockdown interview them here.
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On the ‘bands to keep an eye out for’ front we came across Anyone’s Ghost and Spherical this week. Both bands look incredibly young, and their music shows a lot of promise. Anyone's Ghost are a 4 piece post punk band from Hertfordshire taking influence from the likes of IDLES, Shame, Fontaines DC and Joy Division. They released three songs at the start of April – MAN which begins sedately before exploding into a crescendo and No God and Greens which thrash along at a canter. Spherical are from Peterborough and they released their latest single Embers on Friday. Embers has quite a commercial indie sound about it, mixing spoken and sung vocals with neat, lively instrumentation.       

A more established act with new music out that we came across this week was Sunstack Jones. Anyone who appreciates the Verve’s superb debut album and early material, and bands like House of Love should appreciate their wonderful new single Glass Boat, taken from their forthcoming album Golden Repair. Unsurprisingly there is a Verve connection, with Glass Boat produced by Simon Jones of the band, and Nick McCabe has also worked with them in the past. Listen to it here.

Concluding our recommendations for the last week is the new single by Cross Wires, Distraction Technique. Distraction Technique was our highlight from the bands debut album ‘A Life Extinct’ which we reviewed last year. Its now been released with three new tracks as an EP – ‘I wanna be your man again’, ‘Vultures’ and Shades of Light and Dark’. We saw the band play earlier this year (remember gigs?) and you can see our footage of the band playing Distraction Technique here.