As if it’s bloody March already?! Alongside our bumper playlist for the year (bringing together everything we’ve been loving from January through to now), the ‘Listening Post’ returns this month and it’s full of the good stuff!
Ease into spring with our March playlist – 20 tunes, old and new – featuring everything that’s been tickling our fancy of late. Be sure to tell your friends / family / pets too!
Whilst you’re here, can we quickly draw your attention to the new podcast that we launched at the start of the year? ’60 Minutes or less’ has been up and running for over a month now, featuring interesting chats with Joe Casey (Protomartyr), Paul Hanley (The Fall), Philip Frobos (Omni) and Jonathan Higgs (Everything Everything)! When you’re done here, get yourself listening to the new episodes and give it a rating on your favourite streaming service!
Tapir! – My God
(The Pilgrim, Their God and The King Of My Decrepit Mountain)
The hype for South-London-based sextet Tapir! hadn’t gone unnoticed here at Birthday Cake For Breakfast HQ, and their brilliantly titled debut album ‘The Pilgrim, Their God and The King Of My Decrepit Mountain‘ is quite the triumph. With shades of BC:NR and Caroline in the mix, ‘My God’ is a heavenly heart-swelling piece that really hits one in the feels.
Corridor – Mourir Demain
(Mimi)
Having wooed us with their 2019 Sub Pop debut, ‘Junior‘, Montreal outfit Corridor reemerge in 2024 with a new album out next month (which rather cutely is named after the guitarist / vocalist’s cat). Whilst my Duolingo French hasn’t quite got me up to speed on the lyrics, the cinematic ‘Mourir Demain’ is a real slice of loveliness from the quartet where they ruminate on the march towards death.
How’s this for a speedy formation? Having met on a dating app in 2021, Aussie musicians Imogen Grist and Marcus Gordon not only tied the the knot in swift fashion, they also started a band too. Inspired by the likes of Nancy & Lee and Sonny & Cher, their latest single ‘Knife’ is a real hypnotic treat, like the track over the end credits of some bittersweet love story.
Lip Critic – The Heart
(Hex Dealer)
Having previously appeared on these very pages mid-Covid 19, around the release of ‘Lip Critic II’, New York electro-punks Lip Critic return off the back of signing to tastemakers Partisan Records with the head-spinner that is recent single ‘The Heart’. Rapid doesn’t cut it, this is one to get the heart rate up.
The Lovely Eggs – My Mood Wave
(Eggsistentialism)
Four years on from the release of ‘I Am Moron’ (with collaborations with Iggy Pop and Pigsx7 in-between), two-headed Northern noise makers The Lovely Eggs return to 2024 with a new album ready to go! Lead single ‘My Mood Wave’ is properly lovely and calls to mind the fuzz-pop we loved so much from Leeds lot Menace Beach.
Barry Hyde – Beautiful Cosmos
(Ivory Cutlery: A Tribute to Ivor Cutler)
Wait a minute, you’re telling me Barry Hyde – him out of our favourite group The Futureheads – did an Ivor Cutler covers record?! Big Ivor Cutler fan. Massive Barry Hyde fan. What a match made in heaven. Whereas Cutler’s original was a quirky twee thing, Hyde really puts a lovely spin on it. Magic.
Now this – this is your kitchen dancing DEVO record, I reckon. Just the other evening I was cooking in the kitchen, breaking off to energetically dance with our Plummer Terrier to cuts from the incredibly 80s sounding ‘Shout’. ‘Puppet Boy’ is catchier than that 100 day cough that’s been doing the rounds.
Due to the haze of the pandemic, it feels like the last METZ record ‘Atlas Vending’ came out only a few months ago, rather than almost four years ago (!) Time playing tricks the way it does, METZ returned at the tail end of February to take our minds off it with not one, but TWO new singles from a forthcoming new album! ’99’ just clinches it for us, a raging return with a chorus heavy on the repetition that just won’t quit!
A. Savage – Riding Cobbles
(Several Songs About Fire)
Upon hearing ‘Riding Cobbles’ for the first time, it came as no surprise to hear Cate Le Bon was involved in the making of A. Savage’s latest record, ‘Several Songs About Fire’. Full of quirks, this sounds very much like something you’d hear on a DRINKS record (the Le Bon collaboration with Tim Presley of White Fence), full of plink-plonk instrumentation and dreamy dual vocals.
Kyoko Takenaka x Tomoki Sanders – Grow
(Planet Q)
I don’t know how it happened, but BBC Radio 3 is now a regular fixture in my weekday mornings and Saturday afternoons. Love that ‘J to Z’! ‘Grow’ was a recent discovery from it, a riveting jazz bopper from the team at Planet Q, the collaboration between players Kyoko Takenaka and Tomoki Sanders, two artists from the Japanese diaspora.
Ex-Easter Island Head – Norther
(Norther)
All this talk of artists not having released a record for three or four years – Liverpudlian lot Ex-Easter Island Head have not had a new album out since 2016! Last month saw the quartet release the title track from their forthcoming new album ‘Norther’ (out May via Rocket Recordings) and first impressions call to mind the type of instrumental wizardry that blew us away on that last Horse Lords record. Spellbinding bit of kit, this!
The Fall – No Bulbs 3
(Call For Escape Route)
Fell into a bit of a Mark E. Smith lyrics rabbit hole just the other day learning about ‘No Bulbs 3’. Is it about a junkie? Is it really about someone unable to find a belt to hold their trousers up in a messy flat? Whatever the case, it’s an infectious piece from one of my favourite lineup eras of the Northern leg-ends.
Tony Njoku – La Ruée
(Last Bloom EP)
What a dream this is from British-Nigerian artist and composer Tony Njoku. From a new EP out this May (via the ever dependable PRAH Recordings), ‘La Ruée‘ is engrossing from note one, a classical piece that isn’t afraid to blur the lines with electronic and ambient leanings.
Vanishing Twin – Life Drummer
(Life Drummer)
Part of the Sub Pop Singles Club to start off the year, it’s always a joy to hear new music from London based trio Vanishing Twin. ‘Life Drummer’ is a moody banger that hardly lets up, its abstract lyrics adapted from a chapter from ‘The Listening Book’ by W.A. Mathieu.
Following the release of their debut single ‘The Giant‘ in October 2023, Southern lot Pencil set phasers to stun with their delightful new single ‘The Window’. The first act from Moshi Moshi Records’ relaunched Singles Club, the new single reminds us of some of the loveliness encountered on Modern Nature records. Nice to see Cai Burns in the mix too, the ex-Kagoule guitarist / vocalist whom we’ll always have time for.
The Garment District – Moon Pale and Moon Gold
(Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World)
Hearing this for the first time the other week, I thought Ouija Psych Pop super group The Moonlandingz had a new single out! Sadly not, but this is just as good – a trippy, psych adventure called ‘Moon Pale and Moon Gold’ from multi-instrumentalist Jennifer Baron and all her mates.
William Doyle – Now In Motion
(Springs Eternal)
We loved William Doyle’s ‘Great Spans of Muddy Time’ record from 2021, so were chuffed up to hear the Londoner had a new album on the way this year. The snappy ‘Now In Motion’ is a cucumber cool burst of wonky art-pop that sounds like Field Music at their best.
Yeti Bones and theOGM, the New Jersey duo Ho99o9, explode into 2024 with the nails ‘A Machine Of’, a brutal blend of hardcore, industrial and hip-hop that makes one want to punch a hole in the sun on its heaviest moments. Ahead of its release, the pair’s socials suggested we “brace for impact” – too right!
English Teacher – R&B
(This Could Be Texas)
It’s getting silly now with Leeds, isn’t it? For years now, all the new and super exciting outfits seem to have emerged from Leeds and we can’t get enough of them! On ‘R&B’, taken from their forthcoming debut album ‘This Could Be Texas’, band of the moment English Teacher explore ideas of imposter syndrome on a moody post-punk number that calls to mind fellow Leeds lot Drahla.
Dana Gavanski – Ears Were Growing
(LATE SLAP)
Yet another wonk-pop winner from the forthcoming Dana Gavanski album ‘LATE SLAP’. We’ve compared the London based artist to Cate Le Bon before (and to be honest, I can see us doing it again and again), but we can assure you that such a comparison is a huge compliment. Funnily enough though, it’s actually Talking Heads that provided the influence on this one, which is just as good!
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