FUTUREPROOF PICKS – Best of 2023

Ho Ho Ho!

Happy Christmas everyone. Here’s our fave 50 from 2023 Futureproof Picks. The top 10 are back on the playlist for extra festive love! Have a fantastic fizz filled Christmas and see you on the other side!

With love

Helen (Futureproof) x

CMAT – Where Are Your Kids Tonight? (ft. John Grant)

Irish singer Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson records as CMAT & recently dropped a melancholic single ft. indie aficionado John Grant. It’s a nostalgic track that sees the singer explore themes of growing up and finding herself following in her mother’s footsteps and CMAT states: “I wrote this song when I realised I had turned into my mother. It’s kind of inspired by this image I had, of entering a waterfall-like portal from an Irish kids’ show called ‘Foreign Exchange’ where I’m looking at 1988 and 2023 at the exact same time every time I look at myself in the mirror.” Gorgeous vocals on this stunning, infectious duet – they go great together & we’re loving it!

Picture Parlour – Norwegian Wood

Debut single Norwegian Wood was written by Picture Parlour‘s vocalist Katherine Parlour in solitude, a homage to a self-reflective declaration of her inner workings, inspired by Haruki Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood and the iconic Beatles track. The song’s cartwheeling riffs and roaring vocals define it as a classic glam rock song. Courtney Love watched the swaggering, rock’n’roll four-piece perform at Brixton’s Windmill back in March & said: “We went to see the band’s sixth ever show and got OWNED. There’s no more mojo to go around. It’s all gone. I know it when I hear and see it and MAN it’s been a minute.” We’re loving this raw, anthemic track with Parlour’s growling vocals – crank it up and belt it out!

Alexandra Leaving – Conversation Killer

With touches of Mattiel meets Sinead O’Connor in the performance combined with some excellent imagery sparked by a striking lyric, Conversation Killer from progressive female artist Alexandra Leaving is bursting with energy and sweeps you along in its wake taking no prisoners. Good songwriting and a strong production are why this infectious belter is a must listen for those who like their music on an alternative tip, but still want to take on the mainstream for all they’re worth. Pounding drums with understated lo-fi guitars set the scene, before a rousing chorus vocal delivers big time on the pop sensibilities – and then a dead stop leaves you wanting to press that repeat button… gowaaaannn you know you want to!

SLEAZE – Daffodils

London’s self-proclaimed ‘Alcoholic Sons of Satan’ SLEAZE brought us their highly infectious single Daffodils in 2023, this time with local indie label Scratchy Records. Describing themselves as ‘Post Pub Kebab Shop Glam Rock from SE London’, the track’s about half-heartedly trying to save a relationship with a bunch of stale flowers! Support is growing, from Gary Crowley at BBC Radio London who said “An absolute delight… I immediately fell in love with it. Terrific stuff!” to Steve Lamacq at BBC6 Music who added it to his Round Table. We fell in love with Daffodils from the first play and just can’t get enough of it! Do yourself a favour & check SLEAZE out people!

Tribes – Dad I’m Not A Tough Guy

Camden based Tribes returned with their banging new single Dad I’m Not A Tough Guy, from the first album in 10 years, Rabbit Head and it’s a raw retrospective track oozing with honesty and passion. Transporting the listener through a cathartic journey, the new track and video explores the complexity of masculinity, peppered with their signature sound: “The lyric came to me on the sidelines of a football pitch in London after a brief encounter by a burger stand. It was the only time on this record I wrote the music afterwards. I sat with that lyric for a few days before I found the right chords. It felt really special when it came together, I’m so proud of that song. It’s for everyone who’s felt out of place in life, everyone who’s felt like they are not the person they are expected to be by society”. Powerful lyrics on this stunning track.

King Krule – Seaforth

King Krule shared dreamy, stripped-back single Seaforth from their recently released album Space Heavy. The track aims to transport listeners into the musician’s “sleeping mind” and is accompanied by a music video directed by Jocelyn Anquetil – which explores the adventures of two golden retrievers; a father and his puppy. The theme of the album was inspired during its writing process, when Marshall began developing the tracks during commutes between London and Liverpool. Written throughout 2020 and 2022, he became “fascinated by the notion of ‘the space between’”.

Denis Debris – Heaven in the Pines

Discovered this ethereal laden indie gem and couldn’t stop listening to it. Its sense of melancholy is beautifully present throughout the track which has a rough at the edges lo-fi quality to the vocals, especially in the verse. The chorus however, is where it really shines through on the angelic sounding line “we are side by side, heaven in the pines”. This then leads on to a tastefully understated guitar solo to close the composition. With a knack for interesting song titles (previous release being “To Melancholy Men In the North West”) there’s not much I can tell you about Denis Debris – I think they’re from the UK but aside from that I dunno what to say apart from it’s a great track… listen in the dark for maximum impact!

CVC – Sophie

Cardiff six-piece CVC shared their infectious, heartfelt track Sophie from debut album Get Real and it’s well worth a listen. The band shared: “Sophie is a love letter to Nanial’s (keyboardist) wonderful girlfriend, and about how she can sing; the whole sing, and nothing but the sing – but won’t sing in front of the band. The closest we ever got was the spoken-word intro she gave us for this tune.” The song begins simply with piano before escalating into an epic, slow and grooving anthem, accompanied by fantastic guitar work. Loving this one!

BC Camplight – I’m Ugly

Check out the catchy, upbeat belter I’m Ugly, with its dark humour, from BC Camplight’s sixth studio album The Last Rotation of Earth. He states the album “is a document created in the shadow of incredible darkness. One from which the creator hadn’t planned on escaping and still doesn’t. Hence the title of the album. It is the result of an illness that I’ve battled my whole life. It isn’t something that the world has done to me. It’s the world I live in, and it’s no one’s fault.” BC Camplight takes the listener on yet another tour of the idiosyncrasies of his mind with a focus on the darker side of life. For him, conventional musical practice is never an option, and hence, he never fails to grip the audience with complex themes, juxtaposing tones and immersive textures.

The Last Dinner Party – Nothing Matters

We’re loving the highly anticipated debut single Nothing Matters from The Last Dinner Party, with its fantastic operatic vocals & honest lyricism. Introducing the single on Instagram, the band wrote: “Thank you to everyone who has joined us on this journey so far, and to anyone who is new, welcome, take a seat at the dinner party. The feast is finally served.” Their genre-bending sets – fusing elements of glam-rock, new wave and heavy synth breakdowns – have seen them perform in venues across the UK, recently selling out London’s Camden Assembly. No mean feat to support Nick Cave & The Rolling Stones before ever releasing a single!