New Pharaohs – Empire
Empire is a lovely slice of swirling melancholia, a tale of romantic woe set to a mid-tempo rhythm and strings. It comes courtesy of Maya Marie, who grew up in Beirut, formerly known as the Cannes of the Middle East, but a city ravaged by war: as a girl, she grew used to bombings from Syrian, Israeli, French, British and US forces, forcing her to take cover in her home’s sandbagged hallways. Fleeing to Cyprus, she formed New Pharaohs, and this is their debut single, a song about “love, loss and what could have been”, as she explains. It’s a deftly constructed affair, not surprising considering her track record: she was a member of the bubblegum punk band Sohodolls, whose songs featured in Gossip Girl, Californication, Nip/Tuck and Vampire Diaries, and she co-wrote Beat of My Drum for Girls Aloud’s Nicola Roberts. Now she’s channelling Lana, Stevie Nicks and the Cardigans for her latest project, where pop hides a multitude of sorrows. “Seeing war unfold all over again in neighbouring Syria has brought back too many memories to ignore,” she says. “I think of the classmates I had in my little convent school run by nuns in the Lebanese mountains. I know some of them died in the war. I think about the life I’d be living if there hadn’t been a war. I would surely be someone else.”
Folded Like Fabric – Hunting for Reason
Connor Sims and Jay Mooncie come from Hastings but the singing voice is cockney – the kind that has been prevalent in pop since Jack Peñate, which is strange because Peñate never really made it big. It’s a gently vernacular soul warble that works well with the delicate, intimate music – a wispy, ethereal kind of electronic R&B with an accomplished production, lush layers of guitar and bass, glockenspiel and ambient sighs. Hunting for Reason is taken from the I Tried EP, released on 25 September by Beauvoir Records.
Airbird & Napolian – J Park
Airbird & Napolian are producers Ian Evans and Joel Ford, one half of the Software Recording Co alongside Daniel Lopatin AKA Oneohtrix Point Never. J Park is released by the wonderful Cascine, one of those labels whose output continues to be desirable and collectible well into their sixth year of operation: imagine Postcard still putting out great records in 1986. J Park – which may or may not stand for Jurassic Park – is a heady, heavy storm of beats and samples, psych interference and insect chatter, which is somehow at once chilled and charged. It’s the first release from their November album, Mr Foolish.
Pretty Vicious – National Plastics
Pretty Vicious, straight outta Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, are one of those outfits that come along every once in a while and supposedly signal a return to “proper” music, a four-square rock’n’roll band talking about teen anger and frustration using the tried and tested format of guitar/bass/drums, topped off with phlegmy, belligerent vocals. They’re the Oasis/Manics amalgam of the NME’s dreams, a bunch of 16- to 18-year-olds singing about “Moping around … hangin’ about don’t bring no opportunities!” like surly delinquents, with a rising “woaaaah!” that Kaiser Chiefs might take umbrage at. National Plastics is their third single, making it their Live Forever – and indeed it mentions living “for the moment”, almost an inversion of Noel’s lyric. The single is released on 2 October on Virgin/EMI, one of the few signings to a major label by an actual, you know, band, one with a shouty vocalist and everything.
Heman Sheman – Haven’t Got You in My Heart
Heman Sheman offer an appealing brand of slow-motion funk. Haven’t Got You in My Heart, the latest single from the four-piece, is like Happy Mondays with their hearts broken. They, too, are from Manchester, although they currently live in London, and there is a charming scruffiness, even shabbiness, to their sound. They have been making music together since they were 14 – apart from the time one of them was briefly detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. They cite as influences “Beatles, Bowie, Biggie and Bob” (Dylan, one assumes, not Holness), but really they take 70s funk and late-80s indie-dance and put them through a blurry, bleary Heman Sheman filter.
