New Music: A Few Favourites From The Last Few Weeks

Breaking More Waves has been on a rather extended break whilst I enjoyed a summer holiday and attended Glastonbury and Latitude festivals. Before I get back into regular posting let’s take a dive into a handful of tracks that nearly got away. Ranging from sultry disco pop to intense indie, these are the ones I’ve been playing out a lot.

Rosalía – F*cking Money Man

As the Guardian pointed out, Rosalía's ultra-modern take on flamenco has been embraced by ‘the kind of websites that make it their business to write earnest articles about the socio-political significance of pop stars’ and that those sites have indeed ‘begun writing earnest articles about her socio-political significance.’ There’s probably a whole bunch of reasons for this but most importantly it’s probably because Rosalía’s album El Mal Querer is rather bloody brilliant and that she’s become such a big star in Spain it’s impossible to ignore. She was as sharp as a blade at Glastonbury this year and now her latest track F*cking Money Man (released whilst I was basking in the sun by the pool in Torrevieja) piles on the sass. It’s also managed to upset a few language purists as she mixes a few ‘Spanishisms’ in amongst the mainly Catalan language lyrics.



Alice Jemima – Dancing in Love

Having been out on the road supporting Sophie Ellis Bextor recently, Breaking More Waves long term favourite Alice Jemima creates a new genre with new single Dancing in Love; I’m calling it soft disco. It’s played in the sort of club where you sit on extremely comfortable low-slung modular sofas, the music is never too loud to give you tinnitus and everything wraps up before midnight so that we get a good night’s sleep and no hangover. Trust me, this is the best sort of club. There’s no kebab on the way home either, just a healthy handful of berries and a small spoon of yoghurt.

The song is the opening track to Alice’s forthcoming second album Everything Changes (does anyone else immediately start singing that Take That song when they hear that title?) which includes a tune called Binge Love You, which I guess is better than binge drinking at least. She’s out on tour later this year and has more dates with Ellis Bextor (who co-wrote the track with Alice) in autumn as well.



Walt Disco – Past Tense

Glasgow based Walt Disco are one of the more interesting new wave bands out there. Are they goth? Are they pop? Are they indie? Are they New Romantic? Are we all bored of trying to put music into specific category boxes? Whatever they are, they’re magnificent. It’s why I booked them to play Dials Festival in Portsmouth this October on the same stage as other Breaking More Waves favourites The Blinders, Another Sky and Saltwater Sun (tickets for our tiny baby all day festival can be found by clicking this link – a bargain at £20). Much has been made of singer James’s Potter’s extravagant and theatrical vocals and correctly so. It’s nice to have someone singing with such gusto. The video features a girl coming to terms with the death of a friend, which leads me neatly on to the next selection (it's almost as if I planned this)...





The Murder Capital – Don’t Cling to Life

Whilst we’re talking of coming to terms with death, Ireland’s The Murder Capital give us the cheery title Don’t Cling to Life for their new single. One of the most intense yet strangely tender groups I’ve seen live in 2019 The Murder Capital matter. Clocking in at just two minutes and thirty-two seconds long, this is a demonstration of why.



Abbie Ozard – Heartbreak Radio

‘Heartbreak Spotify Playlist’ doesn’t really have the same ring to it as a song title does it? Radio is still more romantic.

I was pleased as punch to see Abbie Ozard’s newbie Heartbreak Radio sneak its way onto the Spotify New Music Friday UK playlist last week. Having posted Abbie’s tunes a couple of times on the blog (first back in 2018 with the song Average Disguise) it’s nice to know that someone else out there is taking notice. Heartbreak Radio is one of those snappy uptempo indie pop numbers that hammers along with a playful tunefulness and finds Abbie linking memory of past relationships to music. She’s improving with every release.

New Music: James Blake - Barefoot In The Park (feat. Rosalía)

Whilst it’s probably a bit early to start thinking about end of year / decade lists unless you’re me, (because I love lists, statistics and contrary to most creative types beliefs I actually enjoy treating music as a competitive sport) I can think of at least 8 records that could easily feature in my top 10 or 20 of 2019 already. One of those is James Blake’s Assume Form and my absolute favourite track from it is Barefoot In The Park featuring Rosalía. It’s a simply sublime song that despite it’s electronic sound appears to have roots in traditional Irish folk music, with a number of sources suggesting that the sample featured in the track is from the song Fill Fill A Rún Ó, recorded by a singer named Valerie Armstrong in 1972. (Click here to see the original)

Now the song is getting some more attention as James has released a video to support the track. Everything about this piece is just so gorgeous. Rosalía’s vocal’s are to die for giving me shivers every single time and the tender production is absolutely perfect. I’d go as far as saying this might even be my favourite song of the year so far.

On the face of it the video is just Rosalía and James strolling around and a bunch of kids doing the same, but there's an awful lot of symbolism in the video; a boy covered in roses being shot at in play, a dead dove, the children disappearing as they grow older, a burning car crash with children staring at it, the clouds opening to the heavens, adults forming an arch that the children go under, a beautiful butterfly flying towards the crash. It’s (possibly) saying something quite sad about love, becoming adults and the journey of life, but you can form your own opinion.

James Blake - Barefoot In The Park (feat. Rosalía)

New Music: Rosalía - Con Altura

Rosalía’s El Mar Querer didn't make it into my Top 10 Albums of 2018 list, but if I wrote that list again now it would have done. It's been a bit of a slow burner for me,

Already a huge star in some parts of the world, here in the UK, after two records, she very much still a rising artist. I could imagine her pushing her trolley around your local supermarket and nobody recognising her. In fact, even though I listen to a lot of music, it wasn’t until a holiday in Rosalía’s home country of Spain last summer that I came across her songs.

El Mar Querer is a mind-blowing long-player mixing traditional flamenco with R&B pop and exciting synthetic beats. If that sounds like an awful idea, it isn’t. Rosalía pulls it off 100% with her incredibly expressive and beautiful voice and some exciting ultra-modern production. It shows that pop can still do something unusual and exciting even if as a genre it has reached middle age.

Since the album she has also cropped up on James Blake’s rather good fourth record Assume Form on the song Barefoot In The Park (one of the highlights of Assume Form) and has been teasing the fact that she has collaborated with Billy Eilish. This summer Rosalía heads to the UK and besides a show in London at Somerset House will be hitting Glastonbury Festival. For anyone moaning that The Killers are an uninspiring choice of headliner, may I suggest you take inspiration in Rosalía instead. Glastonbury is about way more than 10pm Saturday Night on the Pyramid stage.

Today Rosalía released a new track and it’s a bit of a surprise. In the same way her debut album was a big stylistic jump to her second, now she’s releasing a reggaeton tune called Con Altura with another collaborator J Balvin. Apparently Rosalía listened to quite a lot of reggaeton when she was younger and so for her this is a natural progression. Even if like me you only know a little Spanish (living fast is mentioned in the lyrics so I’m guessing the song is something about that) it doesn’t really matter – the hook will grab you anyway. And being Rosalía the video, like all of her work, is a lot of fun, taking some more traditional dancing and bringing it fully up to date.

Check out the video below and if you haven’t done so, treat yourself to a listen of El Mar Querer - one of the best pop records of 2018.

Rosalía - Con Altura