Kick off your Memorial Day weekend with our favorite songs from this week including some of the most exciting musical collaborations (DRINKS, FFS), sweet demos (Speedy Ortiz), tracks from upcoming albums (Florence + The Machine, Christopher Owens), and one explosive cover (Spoon).
Check them all out below.
Florence + The Machine, “Delilah”
Florence Welch‘s third full-length How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is due out at the beginning of next month, but she’s been dropping empowering songs left and right for months. On Tuesday, the British singer-songwriter released her fifth track from the upcoming LP, “Delilah.” Welch’s emotionally charged warbling contrasts with the song’s slightly sped up standard girl group beat, allowing the liberating message of “Delilah” shine through.
After introducing us to their band DRINKS by way of a dog-filled, VHS-quality “LP Commercial,” this week White Fence‘s Tim Presley and Welsh songstress Cate Le Bon shared the title track from their upcoming record Hermits on Holiday, which comes out August 21 on Presley’s own Birth Records. Cate’s unmistakable voice takes lead on the quirky, lighthearted tune, singing the details of a strange sort of schedule. “Quarter-t0-five: feeding time / Seven-t0-three: check on me.”
Spoon, “TV Set”
While Spoon still has been getting a ton of mileage from its latest album, last year’s They Want My Soul, one of our favorite recent offerings from the Austin group has got to be its cover of The Cramps’ “TV Set” for the Poltergeist remake. The cover keeps the relentless pounding beat from the 1980 original, but injects the song with a fuller sound and more layers of warped fuzz.
FFS, “Johnny Delusional”
FFS, the collaboration of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, has been the experimental shot in the arm that both groups have desperately needed, and listeners didn’t even realized they wanted. “Johnny Delusional,” the group’s first official single, blends the sultry indie-dance-rock anthems of Franz Ferdinand with the disorienting falsettos and off-kilter harmonies of Sparks into one epic number about lust.
Christopher Owens, “Selfish Feelings”
So far, Christopher Owens‘s post-Girls career has been a somewhat impossible undertaking, like going on a date too soon after a breakup. (It’s not you, Chris, it’s us.) But with a new demo-y track called “Selfish Feelings”—our first glimpse of a follow-up to last year’s A New Testament—Owens is back to his strangely-arresting old tricks, delivering a battered confessional that hits hard and lingers harder. It’s like 2009 all over again.
Speedy Ortiz, “Basketball (demo)”
When listening to “Basketball,” Speedy Ortiz‘s demo for Carpark Records’ basketball-themed, sixteenth anniversary compilation perfectly titled Sweet Sixteen, the simplicity and intimacy of the track is a bit jarring. That’s just because we’re used to the rough and raw sound of the band’s full-lengths like Foil Deer, but Sadie Dupuis’s touching vocals with only a guitar to accompany her are just as effective.
