While live music is put on halt, there’s no stopping us lisztomaniacs to not enjoy some truly great music from our favourite artists. We have entered a new decade, a new year — so together, let’s discover new talents and songs that deserve to be recognised.
Here are some of the artists you should be checking out.
Lauv – 2021 | Single | AWAL [31-Dec-20]
After an inspiring debut record with ‘how i’m feeling’ in 2020, Lauv wasn’t exactly done with the year as he dropped a surprise new song called “2021”. The sweet and slow autotuned track looks forward to a future that’s brighter and more hopeful than the difficult year most people have had in 2020.
“2021 we could have some fun, maybe we could run,” he sings. “I could be the one. It’s time to go hard for you.” In a tweet about the new track, Lauv wishes his fans a safe and happy new year.
Grimes – Miss Anthropocene (Rave Edition) | Album | 4AD [1-Jan-21]
Grimes’ new remix album ‘Miss Anthropocene (Rave Edition)’ landed on streaming services just days after the musician announced it. The hypercharged record arrived on the first day of 2021 and comprises reworkings of tracks from the original version of ‘Miss Anthropocene’, which the alt-pop artist released in February last year.
It features contributions from BloodPop, Channel Tres, Julien Bracht, Richie Hawtin, Modeselektor, ANNA and more, as well as two remixes that Grimes premiered in a recent DJ set for Apple Music.
Daði Freyr – Feel The Love | Single+Video | AWAL
“Feel the Love” is a brand new living room-dancefloor banger from Daði Freyr, released on the first day of the New Year as a statement of intent to the world that 2021 will be Daði’s year. The song was produced and recorded in Daði’s home studio in collaboration with fellow Icelander, ÁSDÍS, who was originally featured on Daði’s 2019 Icelandic album “& Co.”. “Feel The Love” now marks the first full collaboration between the pair of now Berlin-based artists.
Regarding the song message, ÁSDÍS noted, “It’s a constant struggle trying to fit into the mould that other people make for you and ‘Feel the Love’ is a reminder to anyone that feels misunderstood that there is no point in making others happy before you give happiness to yourself. It is everything I had always wanted to say to myself and in the way I wanted to say it — super fast and to a four-on-the-floor.”
Puma Blue – Silk Print | Single | Blue Flowers [25-Dec-20]
Puma Blue is set to build upon his growing underground acclaim by releasing his long-awaited debut album ‘In Praise of Shadows’ on February 5th via Blue Flowers.
About the track, Jacob shares: “This was a song I wrote in 2014 about getting let down by someone I had feelings for. I played it just once at an open mic night in South London when I was living there to my two friends that came to watch me and never played it again or recorded it. I don’t know why but something made me revisit it last year, I found the lyrics in an old notebook and I started playing it at shows. Even though I’ve been in a happy relationship for a while, singing this song again I could still feel that young pain, and it gives me this strange catharsis to relate to myself back then from a better place in the present, sort of embracing those feelings from an older perspective and then let them go again. The recording on the album was my first attempt at playing it since I wrote it, and I wanted to leave it that way to capture that vulnerability.”
DARKSIDE – Liberty Bell | Single | Matador Records [21-Dec-20]
DARKSIDE is the collaborative duo of Dave Harrington and Nicolas Jaar. Dormant since the close of touring for their debut full-length ‘Psychic’, the group quietly reconvened in 2018 to begin writing new music.
Following more than a year of work, Harrington and Jaar completed Spiral, the second DARKSIDE album, in December of 2019, which has been mixed by Rashad Becker, mastered by Heba Kadry, and will be released this spring via Matador Records. Now, you can listen to the first single “Liberty Bell”.
Goat Girl – The Crack (Live from Nunhead Alhambr) | Single | Rough Trade Records [6-Jan-21]
The new single by Goat Girl, “The Crack” (Live from The Nunhead Alhambra), is now out via Rough Trade Records. Goat Girl says of the track, “The Crack” emerged from an imagined post-apocalyptic world whereby people flee into space for a new life on an unruined planet, as the result of the pillaging of Planet Earth.
To celebrate the release of ‘On All Fours’, the band will be performing new songs from the album live at Rough Trade on January 27th.
Martin Gore – Howler | Single | Mute [07-Jan-21]
Martin Gore, songwriter and founding member of Depeche Mode released the haunting “Howler” today on Mute. It’s taken from the forthcoming five-track instrumental EP, ‘The Third Chimpanzee’ EP, out on January 29th.
“‘Howler’ was the first track I recorded for ‘The Third Chimpanzee’ EP,” Martin says. “I resynthesized some vocals that almost sounded human, but not quite. That’s why I decided to name the track after a monkey. I thought that would be a good theme to carry on with the rest of the tracks.”