THE PLAYLIST
Two Pills After Meal/ Ror For Tor (Prompt) After having their single Khem Cheed Ya (Needle), included on Smallroom’s compilation Fang Pleng Thai Kay Kai Mai Muen Krai last year, Bangkok-based indie duo Two Pills After Meal are back with an indie-pop ditty called Ror For Tor (Prompt). The song is mainly about being brave enough to make a journey to your destination on an empty train (“Be ready, be ready, ready, no need to wait for anything else/Go forth, even when there’s no one around you”). With only keyboard and drums at play, the band produces a surprisingly wellrounded sound that has us really excited about its future. Duran Duran (featuring Janelle Monae and Nile Rodgers)/ Pressure Off Ahead of the release of their 14th studio album, Paper Gods, the long-serving ’80s band gives us a taste of what’s to come in the form of disco-funk lead single,
Pressure Off. Joining forces with funk R&B songstress Janelle Monae and legendary guitarist Nile Rodgers, the synth-pop quartet are breathing catchy new life into the ubiquitous template of slinky retro guitars. “Everybody everywhere, feel it in the air/ It’s time to take the pressure off,” goes the buoyant chorus assisted by Monae. Paper Gods marks the group’s first new music in five years and is due out in September. The Chemical Brothers (featuring St Vincent)/ Under Neon Lights Apart from Duran Duran, revered rave duo The Chemical Brothers are also poised for a comeback. Having emerged from a fiveyear hiatus, the pair previously announced their new LP, Born in the Echoes, and shared two tracks: Sometimes I Feel So
Deserted and Go (featuring Q-Tip). Here, we have another offering, Under Neon Lights, a collaboration with the wonderfully eccentric Annie Clark of St Vincent. “And she moves to suicide, in and under neon lights/ Got no husband, got no wife/All I want’s a view tonight,” Clark offers in the chorus, staying true to her offbeat ways. Neil Young/ Wolf Moon Lifted from Neil Young’s highly political and environmental latest record The Monsanto
Years, Wolf Moon finds the iconic singersongwriter teaming up with Promise of the Year, a band made up of American country legend Willie Nelson’s sons. Kicking off with lilting harmonica, the track is a delicate ballad whose title refers to January’s full moon in the Farmer’s Almanac. Young expresses his gratitude to the Luna, crooning: “Wolf moon, thank you for risin’/Big sky I’m grateful for your parting clouds/ Seeds of life your glowing fields of wheat/ Windy fields of barley at your feet.” Pharrell Williams/ Freedom In case you missed it, the launch of Apple Music last month also saw Pharrell dropping his new cut, Freedom. While some sonic similarities to his 2013 smash hit,
Happy, can be detected, the song is much more serious in its overall tone. “Your first name is Free, last name is Dom/We choose to believe, in where we’re from,” Williams sings in the opening verse before asserting his message in the horns-heavy chorus, “Man’s red flower/It’s in every living thing/ Mind, use your power/Spirit, use your wings/Freedom!”