THE PLAYLIST
The Charapaabs/ Sawasdee Wan Chan (Hello Monday)
For those peeved by those daily well-wishing images shared on the LINE app, the latest offering from Bangkokbased elderly-themed band The Charapaabs is just for you. Titled Sawasdee Wan Chan ( Hello Monday), the song features guest vocals from Auntie Sunisa Thamrongrattanarit who sings from the perspective of someone who sends those photos on a regular basis.“Hello Monday, happy Tuesday/Please don’t get annoyed/It’ll bring me joy if you’d just read it,” she muses over searing guitars.
Beach Fossils/ This Year
With lines like “This year I told myself it’d be a better one/ Try not to fall back onto the knife/I never told myself I’d be a better friend,” Beach Fossils’ latest cut, This Year, would have been much more perfect had it been released back in late December/early January. But hey, we can’t really complain because it’s been a solid four years since we’ve heard new music from these guys (and since they graced our shores in late 2012). As far as the track goes, it’s a classic combo of breezy and jangly, only this time with a sprinkling of strings thrown in to make things sounding slightly more hi-fi.
Portugal. The Man/ Feel It Still After sharing Noise Pollution with us last year, indie rockers Portugal. The Man unveil their follow-up, Feel It Still, the lead cut lifted from their forthcoming eighth album Woodstock. Here, the Alaskan outfit is jumping on the political music bandwagon as vocalist John Gourley sings (in a jaunty falsetto, no less) about being “a rebel just for kicks” and that he’s been “feeling it since 1966” over a funky brass backbeat. This is perhaps the most upbeat jam the band has put out, and, come to think of it, the whole thing could actually pass off as a song by LA-based outfit Electric Guest. Alt-J/ 3WW
British indie-rock trio Alt-J are back with a new single,
3WW (short for “3 worn words”), off their forthcoming LP,
Relaxer. The five-minute track marks the band’s first new music in three years following 2014’s This Is All Yours and offers something entirely different from their previous two albums — it’s as if they spent the last few years listening to the entire discography of the renowned Tuareg band Tinariwen. “Oh, these three worn words/Oh, let me whisper like the rubbing hands/Of tourists in Verona/I just want to love you in my own language,” goes the chorus sung by Joe Newman Gus Unger-Hamilton. The song also features Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell whose whispery vocals give it another layer of dreaminess.
Father John Misty/ Total Entertainment Forever
Total Entertainment Forever is the latest single to be rolled out from Father John Misty’s upcoming studio album, Pure Comedy. The song, meant as a social commentary on how people consume technology and entertainment today, contains a controversial verse about “Bedding Taylor Swift every night inside the Oculus Rift.” Misty then proceeds: “Can you believe how far we’ve come in the New Age?/ Freedom to have what you want In the New Age/We’ll all be entertained/Rich or poor, the channels are all the same …”