With the new year off to a roaring start in the way of popular new indie rock releases, songs and Already this year, there’s been a steady and growing flow of new music video single releases from indie rock artists and bands.
In This Installment (Vol. II and III in next few days):
The Kooks – “Connection” from 10 Tracks To Echo in the Dark (July 22nd)
Band of Horses – “Crutch” from Things Are Great (March 4th?)
The Smile – “The Smoke” (single)
Big Thief – “Simulation Swarm” from Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (Feb. 7th)
Animal Collective – “Strung with Everything.” from Time Skiffs (Feb. 1st)
British indie-pop trailblazers The Kooks released the first of three EPs this week to accompany the announcement of the band’s sixth studio ablum – 10 Tracks To Echo in the Dark, set to drop July 22nd in its entirety via Lonely Cat/AWAL Recordings.
Following a trend lately in how new albums are released, the first two parts of The Kooks’ new material each consist of a three-track EP, while the final EP will unveil another four tracks from the LP.
The first EP, titled Connection: Echo in the Dark, Part One, offers the following new tracks: “Connection”, “Jesse James” and “Modern Days”. The video for “Connection” is the first music video to promote the new album. It will be the band’s first album since 2018’s widely-praised Let’s Go Sunshine.
Nearly a decade since the height of their success, Band of Horses has returned with a hit song, “Crutch,” marking the band’s first entry ever into the Billboard Adult Alternative Chart.
The accompanying music video is a bit freaky but it’s great if you love cats. If you don’t love cats, and freaky combined, probably best to let your eyes do the reviewing here.
The release date for the band’s first album in a decade – Things Are Great – was moved by BMG from January 28
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Sons Of Kemet’s Tom Skinner have returned with another single as The Smile.
The new ghostly, reverb-soaked single, “The Smoke,” is accompanied by the lyric video above and directed by BAFTA-winning writer/director Mark Jenkin.
This marks the supergroup’s second official single. In January, The Smile dropped their debut track, “You Will Never Work In Television Again,” praised by critics and fans alike.
The marathon of advanced singles from Big Thief‘s new double-album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. So far, the band has dropped seven singles and today, “Simulation Swarm” becomes No. 8.
The eighth single from Big Thief’s would seem like overkill if it wasn’t so transfixing. The song has long been a favorite at live shows but was never officially released as a single until now.
The track is a “positively hypnotic tangle of acoustic guitar and bass, with James Krivchenia’s percussion doing just enough to reinforce its insistent groove,” writes Paste contributor Scott Russell.
A verse-heavy arrangement gives Adrianne Lenker plenty of room to unspool evocative lyrics like, “Once again, we must bleed new / Even as the hours shake / Crystal blood like a dream true / A ripple in the wound and wake.”
Friday marks the release of the first new Animal Collective album in a decade. The album, Time Skiffs, features 11 new tracks, including the nearly seven-minute track, “Strung with Everything.”
The colorful, artistic video that accompanies the song was directed by Abby Portner, sister of David Portner (aka Avey Tare) using a cut-out animatation technique with a raindrop-speckled pond and for contrast in different sequences – a wizard battling a dragon.
Its abundant flow of colors and symbols is interrupted only by the occasional lyric throughout the track’s melodic sprawl: “Let’s say tonight you and me / We’ll watch the sky fall into pieces […] And even though all hearts are strange / We’re all Strung with Everything.”