FUTUREPROOF PICKS 28-11-24

Hello world,

We’ve got some banging tunes on your latest FP Picks update inc trx from BAMBARA, Fat Dog, Rear Window & lots more. If you like what you hear please follow and share this playlist, it helps us keep doing our thing by getting the algorithms on our side. Also please support the artists featured in any way you can!

Until next week

Helen (Futureproof) x

Rear Window – Multi-coloured Skies

Gang of Four vocalist JJ Sterry and The Roadside Bandits Project‘s guitarist/producer Santi Arribas have teamed up on debut album Happiness By Design and the latest single is Multi-coloured Skies – a track about personal inspiration, the unfulfillment of dreams & how optimism can drive hope. The band meld club beats with traditional production techniques & instrumentation to create a highly distinctive sound, over which the dry witted JJ Sterry vocalises his inner most thoughts & feelings. Citing Talking Heads, The Cure, Baxter Dury & XTC as creative influences, Rear Window bring skill sets from different angles, meeting in the middle to create exciting music that’s unconstrained by genre.

Girl Tones – Fade Away

Sister punk duo Girl Tones have shared their fiery new single Fade Away and it’s a distorted, raspy ‘70s style rock track, all about “what happens when there is no closure,” vocalist and guitarist Kenzie tells PAPER. The lively video reflects the central theme of Fade Away, which Kenzie describes as “being vulnerable and slowly getting burned over and over again by someone you love, to the point you have to move on with your life. You’re hurt, you’re angry, you’re owed an apology.” Laila states: “It’s important for people to absorb the lyrics and feel whatever emotion might find them within the song.” Both classically trained musicians, Kenzie and Laila originally played cello and piano, respectively. They decided to drop such a polished musical style in favor of something grittier and wild, and Kenzie took on the guitar and vocals while Laila tackled the drums.

Wallice, Albert Hammond Jr – Clown Like Me

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Wallice has shared her debut album The Jester. It’s brilliantly written; funny, vivid, and self-centred through the lens of humility, Wallice questions herself and the world around her through a series of pain-staking scenarios and rip-roaring one liners. Sonically tackling jazzy, folky and indie-driven tendencies, the album is an unassuming and caring listen, well-worth revisiting and allowing yourself to be comfortable within. Wallice says of Clown Like Me: “This was such an exciting song because we worked with Albert Hammond Jr, who I’ve been a fan of forever. He has such an iconic sound to his guitar playing that I was honored to have it be a part of my album. We made the instrumental first and then I wrote to it following the themes of The Jester and being this low level entertainer doing anything for praise and holding onto hope that I will “make it”.

Fat Dog – Peace Song

Fat Dog are back with another banger in new single Peace Song. The synth-heavy track features an ’80s flare with a children’s choir providing layers and backing vocals to the chorus of “I’m in love with the world”. Directed by James Ogram, the track’s accompanying video sees an alien bartender at a pub save the world from the big dog in the sky who has landed on Earth to destroy it. The track marks Fat Dog’s first new track since the release of their debut album WOOF. back in September. In a five-star review of the LP, NME shared: “Scream the words and dive head-first into the Fat Dog experience, because WOOF. is pure, unbridled escapism – just what the world needs right now.”

BAMBARA – Pray To Me

Great to have BAMBARA back with their banging new single Pray To Me which brings a dramatic sense of sweep and a hard-pounding near-industrial backbeat. The track is taken from their upcoming album Birthmarks and the band’s Reid Bateh states: “A one-eyed man arrives at a country karaoke night with a knife in his pocket and a plan to win over Elena, the object of his obsession. His fantasy unravels when he sees her kissing a stranger—her boyfriend—at the bar. The music barrels along with a raucous mania, mirroring the one-eyed man’s spiraling psyche as it begins to whirl toward a murderous climax.” They always manage to captivate us with their storytelling, told through that unique, powerful vocal. Fantastic and if you haven’t caught BAMBARA live yet, what ya waitin’ for?!

jasmine.4.t – Elephant

jasmine.4.t has shared the emotive new single Elephant, taken from upcoming debut album You Are The Morning, released under Phoebe Bridgers‘ label and produced by the Boygenius members. Jasmine said: “I wrote Elephant very early in my transition about my first t4t love. It’s about when it hurts because you’re trying to be friends but you both want to be more. My life in Bristol fell apart when I came out and, having no safe place to live, I was staying on queers’ sofas in Manchester, traumatised and in no place to start a relationship. It was beyond healing recording this track in LA with Phoebe, Lucy and Julien, along with my Manchester dolls Eden and Phoenix and with extra layers from local trans musicians Vixen, Bobby, Addy and of course the incredible Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.” Great songwriting on this beautiful track.

MK.gee – ROCKMAN

New age guitar hero MK.gee is the latest guest on Saturday Night Live. ROCKMAN is a blurry, trancelike track – imagine if Sting and Don Henley recorded a duet in 1987, and then imagine that you heard that song reflected through a psychedelic prism. Mk.gee has also been praised by Eric Clapton, who told YouTuber The Real Music Observer that his music “sits in a bit of a pop category for me,” and that “it’s unique. He has found things to do on the guitar that are like nobody else.” NME‘s Naz Hamdi wrote: “Mk.gee’s performance feels like a gathering — an almost religious experience, a shared moment of reverence in rhythm. It’s as though everyone is tuned into a deeper frequency, meditatively drawn together by the soulful riffs, wind-chime-esque keys, and hypnotic drums of songs like How many miles and I Want.”

Saya Gray – H.B.W.

Saya Gray is able to construct entire sonic realms with just a few notes and has shared commanding, heartfelt new single H.B.W., taken from the upcoming debut album SAYA. Gray simply states; “H.B.W. is the pain of nightmares” and it’s a spellbinding blend of pop, soul and the avant-garde. Gray began work on SAYA following the dissolution of a troubled romantic entanglement; she booked a flight to Japan in Autumn of 2023, and like a feel-good movie protagonist, detangled herself from the outstanding psychic ties by journeying solo on a cross-country road trip. Moved by the vastness of albums by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, as well as her Canadian folk forebear, Joni Mitchell, Gray kept an acoustic guitar in the passenger’s seat, just in case inspiration would strike. In recording SAYA, Gray sanded and fine tuned the rough edges of records past into more cohesive works of melodic folk songcraft.

KEG – I’d Fly Tip For You

London based KEG have dropped new single I’d Fly Tip For You, taken from their upcoming debut album Fun’s Over. They state: “This song is a declaration of undying love. A straight down the line, no nonsense love song in the vein of Barry Manilow, THE Spice Girls or Procol Haru. Intended to be listened to as a thousand doves are blasted into the sky, whilst you and your beloved spin in unprecedented ecstasy on the ballroom floor.” The band will be embarking on an Independent Venue Week tour in Jan/Feb 2025, with an additional run of March 2025 in-store tour dates around the album’s release. Armed with 7 musicians, KEG create a frantic chaotic energy and we’re loving this banger!