New music releases: Dua Lipa, Foals, Vampire Weekend and J Cole, plus spotlight artist Ida Mae

After a few quiet weeks of quiet it appears that just about every musician on the planet has decided to release new music at once. Or at least, that’s how it feels.

Most of it is good. There’s the epic new track “Swan Song” by Dua Lipa, which is taken from the forthcoming cyberpunk action film Alita: Battle Angel. J Cole released the fiery “Middle Child” earlier in the week, which sees the North Carolina rapper spit over triumphant, brassy production and address speculation about beefs with other major rappers. He’s having none of it. (He is definitely dissing Kanye.

It’s wonderful to see indie rock band Blaenavon return with their new single “Catatonic Skinbag”. Frontman Ben Gregory took a break to improve his health after a tough 2017, and now it sounds like he and the rest of the group are doing well ahead of the release of their second album.

I've also been listening to loads of the artists I saw at Eurosonic festival in Groningen (near Amsterdam), which is a fantastic showcase for new music from all over the world. This year's focus countries were Czech Republic and Slovakia. Favourite performances included Belgian hip hop duo Blackwave, who did a Music Box session with The Independent last year, and Dutch R&B artist Rimon – possibly my highlight of the festival – who emulated the likes of Lauryn Hill and D'Angelo with her funk-inflected tracks, backed by a superb band. Then there was fast-rising London MC Flohio, who blew the crowd at Platformtheatre away with a blistering set, Any Other, an Italian folk musician who charmed her audience with gorgeous vocals and assured work on the acoustic guitar, and O Gajo, an intriguing Portuguese artist who has mastered the Viola Campaniça.

Fans of the mid-late noughties indie rock scene will be delighted at the release of new music by not one, but two of its biggest bands: Foals and Vampire Weekend. It actually doesn’t really do justice to either group to lump them into that era: both have been doing great things since. Foals’ new track “Exits” is taken from their forthcoming album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, which is being released in two parts over 2019. Vampire Weekend have “Harmony Hall” and “2021” from their own new record.

I heard a live version of Julia Jacklin’s new single “Pressure to Party” when she played it at a gig in Omeara a couple of months ago, and have basically been refreshing my Spotify each day in the hope that she’d released it. Well, it’s finally here, and it’s even better than I remember. She sings with a breathless urgency over a simple guitar riff throughout the song, giving it a kind of addictive, anxious tension.

The album by low-key supergroup Better Oblivion Community Center (Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst), is sublime. While Bridgers has a sweetly lilting quality to her voice that contrasts against Oberst’s gruff rasp, both vocalists have a youthfulness about them that startles when you realise they’re trading insults on the stirring “Dylan Thomas”.

I’ve mentioned them before, but FEET really are fantastic, and so is their new song, "English Weather". I saw them at the Shacklewell Arms earlier this month and they were superb: excellent musicians, terrible dancers (but in a good way). I can rant on about this a bit but there are too many new bands that don’t know how to have fun with a live show. FEET are an exception.

My spotlight artist for this week is Nashville-based Ida Mae, a band formed from British husband and wife duo Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean (formerly of Kill it Kid), who have just released their intimate new single “If You Don’t Love Me”.

It’s quite a drastic change from the rock/Americana sound of their previous band, but I’m very into it. The focus is all on the dynamic of their voices, which often intertwine to the point it’s difficult to tell which is which.

Check out my Q&A with Ida Mae, below, and make sure you listen to “If You Don’t Love Me”

Your new band is quite the transition from Kill it Kid – what sparked that move to such a different sound?

Kill It Kid was named after a Blind Willie McTell song and begun as a project inspired by him singing with his wife. One song in particular that changed how I felt about music was ‘God Don’t like it and I don’t either’.

We started that band when we were all 19 and after touring extensively the records naturally got heavier. Ida Mae was really just a return to the honest and more sincere roots of our musical influences.

Have you discovered anything new about yourselves as artists with this more stripped-down approach?

Absolutely. We’ve been doing some really big stages opening up for other bands (Greta van fleet, Marcus king, Emmy Lou Harris) for the past few months and it’s a real test of character, and your songs, when you are stood in front of 5000 people that don’t know who you are and the only thing between you and them is an acoustic guitar and a tambourine. Pretty scary actually!

We’ve also loved having total control of the dynamics of the set. As a two piece we are able to change and adapt to the crowd on the fly and tailor a set to each audience.

This new song seems to address that feeling of offering yourself to someone without knowing if they’ll have anything to give in return… am I on the right track?

Yes I guess it’s really about throwing yourself in at the deep end and not caring about the consequences!

What else do you have lined up for 2019?

2019 is one of our busiest years yet. We are very excited to be releasing our debut record. It was produced by the fabulous Ethan Johns back in Real World Studios last year before we moved out to Nashville. We also have an extensive touring schedule starting in Europe and the UK and then heading back across America in March.