Zola Jesus - Desire (Official Music Video)

This beautifully stark piece is taken from the new Zola Jesus album, Arkhon. In a marked departure from her previous albums, Nika Danilova has collaborated in the creation of Arkhon and the sound seems at once both lighter and more textured as a result. Interesting times.

Florence + The Machine - Free

When this, the fourth, of Florence + The Machine's pre-album release singles emerged in March, it seemed a marked contrast, both visually and musically, to it's three predecessors. The video made to accompany 'Free' embraces the natural humour of this frenetic electro pop song, which concerns itself with the day to day realities of anxiety. It is marked by the interplay between Welch (As Herself) and Bill Nighy (As Her Anxiety), and is refreshingly lacking in grandiosity. I like a bit of grandiosity in a Florence + The Machine video as much as anyone, but with 'Free' it feels right to be messier, and to strike a relatively unglamorous, funny and matter of fact tone.

As with all of the videos made to accompany tracks from Dance Fever, the video to 'Free' was filmed in Kyiv last year. Before the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian capital was making something of a reputation for itself as a video making destination. It's not clear at this stage whether the rest of the videos for tracks on Dance Fever have been filmed or not. This is not a minor point because, given the shared locations and characters featured in the four videos so far, it seems likely that a longform film was intended to be the eventual destination. This was also the case with the videos released to accompany the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, which were eventually linked, added to, and released as the film The Odyssey in 2016.

We'll just have to see what happens next.

The Regrettes - Anxieties (Out Of Time) [Official Music Video]

The Regrettes third album, Further Joy, was released earlier this year. As with many artists during the pandemic, Further Joy sees the band in a more introspective writing space than previous. Following on from the pensive girl crush ode that was 'You're So Fucking Pretty', the band released 'Anxieties (Out Of Time)', which saw them reflecting on the unbearable pressures of modern life in a video that seemed to make an elegant salute to the imagery of the B52s. A modern pop classic.

Harkin - Here Again (Official Lyric Video)

A standout track from June's Honeymoon Suite album, 'Here Again' has a quiet, calm understated charm that feels uniquely Harkin. It builds gradually into an anthem, one that should endure.

PIT PONY - Black Tar (Official Video)

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne band Pit Pony were making a lot of noise (in every sense) a couple of years ago, then they seemed to go quiet on us. This month has seen the release of their debut album, World To Me, a clear eyed, scathingly punk rock take on life in 2022. 'Black Tar', with its Stooges esque rhythms was an early single, and is still one of the strongest tracks on the album. It's a release that should see the band capitalise on their early momentum, and grace multiple venue and festival stages in the near future. 

Bloom Twins - Set Us Free

Last year I included two Belarusian acts in my end of year songs list. At the time, I still had hopes that the opposition (widely believed to be the true winners of the 2020 presidential election) would prevail in Belarus, but I see now that I underestimated Aleksandr Lukashenko's grip on power and his ability to terrorise, torture and suppress the population of Belarus.

What does this have to do with anything? Nothing very much really, but it provides a bit of context as to how the war in Ukraine has permeated everyday life, up to and including what we choose to listen to. 

I first became aware of Bloom Twins, a pair of Ukrainian twins now making music in London, as a result of an article the NME published just after Russia invaded Ukraine back in February. The article was basically a well researched list of Ukrainian artists readers should be supporting, and it included Bloom Twins.

'Set Us Free' was released after the Maiden protests and after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, but before the full scale assault on Ukraine this year. The twins wrote of the motivation for writing the track over on Soundcloud when they released in 2016:

It was the first track we wrote after returning from Ukraine where we got stuck for half a year during the uprise. The track is not political at all, rather a call for freedom, but it was certainly influenced by everything that was happening in Ukraine and the fact that we couldn't come back to our new home - London.

It's an incredibly uplifting, anthemic piece so you can see why they'd be keen to contextualise it as it certainly has the potential to be a rallying cry for a number of causes. Not so much political as life influenced pop, but one that certainly packs a punch. 

Lynks - Hey Joe (Relax) [Music Video]

Released earlier this year as part of the MEN trilogy, the enigmatic Lynks mashes up the doctrines of the wellness industry with this tale of introducing their latest guy to their friends, then coming to the conclusion as time progresses that said guy is a total douche. Because this is Lynks, they don't hold back, and the resulting address to the no longer wanted partner is refreshingly, eye wateringly honest in tone ("This is my house and I don't want you in it" being an oft repeated anchoring phrase). Tremendous.