It’s time for Your First Listen, where we show you songs you need to discover this week!
This Indie88 feature is presented with Bay Bloor Radio.
Each week we feature five remarkable songs that you need to hear on Your First Listen on air. In case you miss them on air, you can catch up on the weekly tracks right here. Your First Listen airs every day in Indie88 beginning at 10 a.m.
Online, we expand the list with a couple more tunes. This week, we’ve gotten some amazing fresh cuts from Arctic Monkeys, Tim Baker, Phoenix, Gord Downie, and more.
Check out 10 songs you need to discover this week below.
Arctic Monkeys- “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am”
Arctic Monkeys have shared a video for “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am,” another new track from their album The Car, which arrived today via Domino.
The band released an official video directed by Ben Chappell and Zackery Michael, featuring live performance footage captured during Arctic Monkey’s recent Kings Theatre show in Brooklyn.
Tim Baker – “Some Day”
Tim Baker has released his sophomore solo effort, The Festival. The Canadian singer-songwriter also shared a new video for the track “Some Day.”
“This song is very simply about the desire to start again one day, somewhere new, where you can be a better version of yourself,” Baker said in a release. “A staggeringly ambitious bit of fun dreamt up with director Sean Cullen. Please enjoy his wild mind and all the hard work of Daniel Pianezza & the folks at breathe entertainment. It was a long, hot day and big thanks to the thousands of extras for coming out :)”
Tegan and Sara – “Smoking Weed Alone”
Tegan and Sara trotted out one last advance single, “Smoking Weed Alone,” earlier this week before the arrival of their 10th studio album, Crybaby, today.
“With this album, I wanted there to be a dialogue that we could have about the songs. Some of Tegan’s songs became almost like duets, because she allowed me to go in there and challenge her to rewrite lyrics,” Sara Quinn said of the son. “I wanted a narrative that could tie into our relationship and some of the things that were happening in our life, even if the song wasn’t about that. And for ‘Smoking Weed Alone,’ there’s a chorus where we’re sort of singing to each other, and we haven’t done that before, in our career.”
Bedouin Soundclash – “We Will Meet In A Hurricane”
Toronto-based world-beat duo Bedouin Soundclash have released their new record We Will Meet In A Hurricane via Dine Alone Records. Jay Malinowski and Eon Sinclair unveiled a lyric video for the album’s title track to celebrate the arrival.
PONY – “French Class”
Canadian duo PONY, Sam Bielanski and partner/collaborator Pretty Matty, released their latest dancefloor-ready single “French Class” this week. Bielanski explained the inspiration behind the new standalone single. “‘French Class’ is inspired by season one/episode six of the TV show Sex Lives of College Girls. I wanted to capture the rush of desire that accompanies a new potential love interest or crush – that palpable sense of longing you might feel wanting someone you don’t believe you are good enough for. That type of young love is so electric. It feels so good and so bad at the same time.”
Eamon McGrath – “Water Towers + Transistor Radios”
The latest from Canadian singer-songwriter Eamon McGrath tells the tale of two fentanyl-addicted lovers trying to break free of their addiction. Featuring vocals from Miesha Louie of Miesha and the Spanks, the accompanying video was directed by McGrath’s longtime collaborator and colleague Mike Bright (of Toronto punk band Dead Broke) and edited by Peter Dreimanis (frontman of Juno-award winning Canadian powerhouse July Talk).
cleopatrick – “Scaring Me”
JUNO Award-nominated duo cleopatrick have released their latest EP, DOOM, via the band’s own Nowhere Special Recordings. The band also delivered a video for focus track “Scaring Me.” DOOM “is a collection of songs about digital complacency, fleeting privacy, love letters written out in 1’s and 0’s, divine MacBooks, leaked files, lost humanity, corrupt hard drives, lizard billionaires, killer asteroids, the proverbial ‘cloud’, Maxwell’s equations, 1997’s IBM ‘DEEP BLUE ®’ supercomputer, high energy particles, and the magic piece of glass that I keep in my right front pocket,” guitarist/vocalist ” Luke Gruntz said in a release.
JEEN – “Little Idea”
Local alt-pop artist JEEN released her new album, Tracer, today. The record arrives with a new lyric video for the track “Little Idea.”
The song is “about wanting something and hoping it wants you back. The point you give in after burning out on it for so long,” the artist said in a release. “I decided to keep the working title. That’s just how I sent it to everyone as a WIP when it was half the length it is now, and it ended up suiting the vibe. I was messing around with a new tuning and stumbled on the melody. It was different than a lot of my usual stuff, but it grew on me. We kept it super stripped down to guitars, my singing and a set of tubular bells that were 8 feet tall and 60 years old.”
Phoenix – “Winter Solstice”
Phoenix are inching closer toward the release of their highly-anticipated album Alpha Zulu. Help offset the anticipation by checking out the latest from the French outfit, titled “Winter Solstice.”
Gord Downie & Bob Rock – “Lustre Parfait”
Producer Bob Rock is no stranger to the Tragically Hip, having helmed 2006’s World Container and 2009’s We Are The Same. The first song from a long-rumoured collaboration with the late Gord Downie is out today. Check out “Lustre Parfait” via Arts & Crafts.
