We’re back this week with another new music playlist, featuring a few newcomers as well as some familiar faces. Check out seven of our favorite new tracks this week, picked by Crave editors and contributors around the world in our quest to deliver you the fresh goods as they arrive.
As always, keep up with our weekly new music finds as they arrive by subscribing to the Crave New Music Playlist on Spotify.
Grenadiers – ‘Live Fast, Diabetes’
Adelaide punks Grenadiers are back with this ripsnorter of a new single, dubbed ‘Live Fast, Diabetes’, the first taste of their brand spanking record, slated for release later this year. This thundering tune is a bit Green Day, a bit Queens Of The Stone Age – but with a decidedly Australian POV. Also, in my humble opinion, references to “paté”, “peacocks” and “infant’s turds” are criminally absent in many a song lyric and I for one am thankful the Adelaide trio are doing their part to right this wrong.
– Nastassia Baroni, Australian Editor
DIIV – ‘Out of Mind’
When your band has spent the years since their debut struggling under the weight of stories regarding your frontman’s supposed heroin addiction, and your bassist’s alarming hobby of posting misogynistic ramblings on 4chan, no one would particularly expect your sophomore LP to provide a pleasant shoegaze soundscape, yet that’s exactly what DIIV have done.
The album’s opener ‘Out of Mind’ kicks things off superbly, showing how DIIV are more than comfortable with escaping the trappings of their genre with its focused musicianship, placing a spotlight upon Andrew Bailey’s joyous riff and Zachary Cole Smith’s dreamy vocals. It’s energetic, euphoric, and almost makes you forget that one of the band’s member is a chan shit-poster. Almost.
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
Animal Collective – ‘Golden Gal’
Animal Collective arrives with their 10th studio album, Painting With, on Friday via Domino Records. From the very get-go it’s in pure winning form with a sample from “The Golden Girls,” from a 1985 episode called “Rose the Prude”. After first single “FloriDada” and follow-up album track “Lying in the Grass” were revealed through the band’s Painting With iOS App, “Golden Gal” comes out in a burst of multicolored brightness. Painting With will be released with three album covers created by Brian DeGraw depicting each of LP’s contributing band members: Avey Tare, Geologist and Panda Bear.
– Johnny Firecloud
BJ the Chicago Kid ft. Kendrick Lamar – ‘The New Cupid’
BJ the Chicago Kid’s new album, In My Mind, is bound for the big light, with features and guest spots from Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Big K.R.I.T., and more. The Kendrick collaboration was teased almost a full year ago, and this week it finally arrives – along with the entire rest of the album. The track’s guitar-plucking and gentle strings leap from a Raphael Saadiq sample, while BJ drops old-school soul melodies about lost love. Naturally, it’s Cupid’s damn fault. But Kendrick’s verse… my goodness.
– Johnny Firecloud, Crave Music Editor
Field Music – ‘Disappointed’
Field Music have already received Prince’s backing with their funky single ‘The Noisy Days Are Over,’ and the band’s recently released LP Commontime features a slew of the ‘80s throwback pop that saw The Purple One pledging his support to the Sunderland band.
‘Disappointed’ is a silky smooth highlight, telling the tale of a relationship crumbling under the weight of age. “I’m imagining a couple trying to get together and not quite managing it because they’re a bit older and they’ve already built up complete lives as individuals,” lead vocalist David Brewis said of the track. “Their expectations of what love should be have become too byzantine to let themselves take a risk.”
– Paul Tamburro, UK Editor
Alice Ivy – ‘Touch’
If you like your music sprawling, exploratory and unable to stand still in a particular genre, then may I introduce to you the divine Alice Ivy and this stunning new track “Touch”.
The Aussie producer brings The Avalanches style of ethereal beats on top of warped samples into 2016 with this track which hits hard with dynamic brass interjecting over slowly building, smooth electronica. I feel like I need to take this song out to dinner this Valentines Day cause I’m seriously in love.
– Mitch Feltscheer, Australian Editor
