Are you ready for the weekend? Not without #NewMusicFriday you’re not! Give this blog a read and listen to our essential playlist of all the hot new tracks that have just been dropped – plus you can even grab tickets to see your new favourite star playing live.
Want the best new music? Then stick with Gigantic!
Videos
HO99O9 – ‘Mega City Nine’
Taken from their ‘Cyber Cop [Unauthorized MP3.]’ EP released last year, industrial hip hop group HO99O9 now release a video for their track ‘Mega City Nine’. Drawing on their love for metal, the track includes samples from Slipknot song ‘Tattered And Torn’ re-worked into their own devastating direction. The EP tries to make sense of a world becoming ever more amalgamated with technology, the dangers that now threaten our safety and the new systems of control taking over.
"We are machines .... In this day & age humans live in a world where the web runs our life, we started in charge but we're slaves to our own technology. Who's 'policing' the internet & who controls what? Is it safe to Internet, can we really say what we want on the Internet? Without fans, people, conservatives, critics, blogs, coming at your neck crazy? Memes, screen shots, a video or photo from years ago can come back to haunt you. Is it safe to put all your personal business on the internet? Is it safe to voice your opinion on the internet, Is it safe to share on the internet? Is it safe to learn from the internet? What's real, what's fake and what's actually true. Is it safe to say the Internet isn't safe? Is it safe to love the internet? Is it safe to hate the internet? Is Internet God? Is Internet the Devil?"
HO99O9 tickets are currently available.
Singles
X AMBASSADORS – ‘BOOM’
Looking for something fast paced and totally addictive? Then you need the new single ‘BOOM’ from New York’s tearaways X Ambassadors. Having previously impressed with their Platinum selling album ‘VHS’ in 2015, they now return with this bouncy song which singer Sam Harris explains is all about leaving toxic relationships far behind: “I’ve had to break off a few of them recently myself, and I was writing all these sad songs because of it. I needed to write one to give me confidence again. To turn my pain into my power.”
‘BOOM’ has been followed by the singles ‘Joyful’ and ‘Don’t Stay’ which will all feature on X Ambassadors second album titled ‘Joyful’ which is produced by Grammy-nominee Ricky Reed (who has also worked on tracks for Leon Bridges and Twenty One Pilots) and is due for release later in the year.
X Ambassadors tickets are currently available.
EPs
THE XCERTS – ‘Wildheart Dreaming’
Scottish alternative rockers The Xcerts are back with their brand-new EP ‘Wildheart Dreaming’. The four tracks kick off with the song ‘You Mean Everything’ which the band’s singer Murray Macleod explains is an anthem calling for empathy for the lonely and alienated; “It turned into a song for all the people I’ve never met. For the ones who feel alone, without self-worth, this song is for you. It’s a song about compassion which is the theme that runs through the EP and we are so psyched that these songs are finding their way into the world.”
‘You Mean Everything’ is a rousing start to their impassioned extended player which also includes their stirring song ‘Ready To Call’, powerful number ‘Fight Or Run’ and finishing with the tender track ‘Real Love’. ‘Wildheart Dreaming’ is released today on Raygun Records. They promote their new material with a tour in April which takes them to The Garage in London, Caste & Falcon at Birmingham and Bristol Fleece.
The Xcerts tickets are currently available.
Albums
JAMIE LAWSON – ‘The Years In Between’
With the release of the feel-good single ‘The Answer’, award-winning songwriter Jamie Lawson certainly set the bar high for his upcoming album ‘The Years In Between’ which is out now on Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records.
His most ambitious album to date, ‘The Years In Between’ saw Lawson recruit an entire army of collaborators with contributions from writing partners Jamie Scott (Jess Glynne, Rudimental, Niall Horan), Natalie Hemby (Kacey Musgraves), Amy Wadge (Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello) and Matty Benbrook (Paolo Nutini, Lewis Capaldi). Recorded at Camden Recording Studios in Dublin and produced by Grammy Award-winner Ruadhri Cushnan (Mumford and Sons, Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes), Lawson was able to turn the tracks penned whilst on tour into creating a reflective and accomplished record. On this new album, the musician reminisces about his father who died when he was aged just 19.
“It turns out with a tour the size of Ed’s you get a lot of days off, so I used that time on the road to rehearse new songs with the band, get in some studios and see what happened. As a result, parts of this album were recorded in Slane, South Shields, Berlin and the amazing La Frette Studios just outside Paris where Nick Cave and Arctic Monkeys have recorded. Everything was brought together in Dublin’s Camden Studios under the watchful eye of producer Ruadhri Cushnan. In many ways this is the most collaborative album I’ve made so far. From working with my band on the early demos, co-writing nearly every song and then working with Ruadhri and his musicians in Dublin, it’s been a fascinating process to come up with an album in this way and feel it’s still very much me.”
Jamie Lawson tickets are currently available.
DEVIN TOWNSEND – ‘Empath’
You’ve got to admire someone who puts their money where their mouth is, and that’s exactly what Devin Townsend has done with his new album ‘Empath’; "Here’s the thing, I spent 170k of my own money on the album and the label have spent a ton ... I would never tell people what to do or not to do, I’m happy to just be allowed to do what I do. But please know if it loses a ton, it simply won’t be able to continue. The label has gotten mails saying that I don’t care if it gets taken for free, which I guess I may have said in the past, but please know lots of people have invested lots into this and now I feel foolish."
Thankfully, his latest LP is a stunner. Featuring the awe-inspiring singles ‘Evermore’ and the grandiose ‘Spirits Will Collide’, Townsend’s new record is a euphoric ride on a truly epic scale and by funding it himself he has been able to reach even greater creative heights than before.
“Those interested in the more artistic and free form side of what I do really seem to like and understand it, and those looking for the more commercial or rocking side of what I do are maybe not so convinced. The album is meant to be of some help in a weird way.”