Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds — 2017 Letters Archive

While a handful of you reading this are likely nursing a hangover from a few too many glasses of wine and slices of pie over Thanksgiving last night, I’m here, prying my eyes open after living in front of an oven door for the past two days, trying to feast my ears on as much New Music Friday content as possible. It’s a daunting task as I wade through the faint chimes of sweet carol bells looming in the background, beckoning me to usher in the Christmas season. So far the tempting Black Friday sales have benefited nobody but the company wallets I’m filling, my personal wardrobe and skincare routine.

This week I’ve got SIX crazy good tracks, and a grip of bonus content because it’s Black Friday and some artists are doing the abso-fucking-lute MOST.

Please reach out to me via the handy dandy contact page on the cmd+f website, or on Twitter with your thoughts about any of the tracks I’ve selected this week. As you already know, I love chatting about music. Let me in on your new favorite band; they’re looking for new fans, too!

As always, you know the drill: if you like what you hear, spread the cheer. Tell your friends about the songs you liked in this letter, but most importantly, let the artists know. There’s a good chance they’ll see your comments. Let them know how good their tunes are, and they’ll crank out even more magic.

P.S. If you would like to have this letter sent to your email every Friday, please head over to this link right here to subscribe to never miss a weekly roundup!

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“Bom Bom” - Tkay Maidza x Danny L. Harle | I’m already kicking my own ass for even bringing this up, but I know this thought is lingering in the back of many people’s minds: you ever think about what we could have had in music if Azealia Banks had her shit together??? Tkay has her own flow and sound, but this was my first thought when I heard the opening notes on this FIRE collab. Azealia fucked with this head-spinning, heavy 90s house vibe. Throw in PC Music producer Danny L. Harle to wonk things up a bit and you got a monster track. “Bom Bom” sounds like that threat of nausea and the rush of adrenaline after a rollercoaster ride on a full stomach. Big, big tune this one Listen here

“Feel the Same” - Bully | Sounding straight up like a long-lost Hole track, “Feel the Same” is a jittery, frantic ode to lethargy – or rather the anxieties of struggling to maintain relationships with people, fearing those friendships are crumbling, all the while dealing with the fact you feel nothing and everything all at once. And it fucking slaps. Go figure. I’ve declared it the depressives club anthem. Listen here

“Stonewall Frank” - Nelson Can | Nelson Can have adopted the “no guitars but still gonna belt out a chooooon” approach to their music, a la The White Stripes’ claim to fame. Armed with nothing but a drum kit, a juicy bassline, and killer vocals, “Stonewall Frank” is a bop, banger, AND a jam all at once. What an honor, to be honest. I wouldn’t use such strong qualifiers if it wasn’t true Listen here

“Get These Things Out of My Head” - Pale Honey | Swedish duo Pale Honey dropped their sophomore album Devotion last month. Diving into the 10-track album completely submerged me into a liminal space, hovering over this sense of unease in the lyrics mixed with an unexplainable tension of nostalgia. “Get These Things Out of My Head” sounds exactly like a song I’ve heard a million times before I heard it for the first time last week. It felt I had listened to it many a times walking through a ghostly supermarket at midnight Listen here

“Big Girls Cry” - Mimoza | I had to slip this monster tune in this week because I couldn’t have you wait another week for it. Mimoza is another case of a hit making songwriter testing the waters as a solo artist. While the instrumentals echo some Kygo-esque vibes, the vocals punch through a Sia-grade pre-chorus. Quality pop tune. Listen here

“Collect” - Matthew Young | Huge thanks to my pal Ana who provided me with a couple rising artists in her homeland of New Zealand. The world currently only knows New Zealand for three things: kiwis, Lord of the Rings, and Lorde. The rest of the world has slept on the fact that the Oceanic plate, particularly New Zealand, is a hotbed of fresh talent. The entire region is churning out perhaps (actually clearly) the best left-of-center pop music in the world right now. While that may be a bold ass statement, I’d advise you to sit down and have a moment with this week’s pick Matthew Young. RnB pop may be oversaturated with male solo artists, but Matthew’s got the gravely yet velvety smooth vocals and wicked clever lyrics to set him apart. “Collect” is an earworm. Listen here

BONUS

Top album to dive into this weekend is Sufjan Stevens’ The Greatest Gift—Outtakes, Remixes, & Demos from Carrie & Lowell. Stacked with unreleased tracks, remixes, and raw demos for tracks on 2015’s Carrie & Lowell, I must admit Sufjan has bestowed the greatest gift of the week upon us Listen here
Sleigh bells ring, deck the halls, fa-la-la-la-la, et cetera, et cetera, it’s Black Friday, bitches, AKA the first official day of The Holiday Season. Every kind of person has dropped a damn Christmas album/EP/song today. We have your garden variety artists, Gwen Stefani and People’s “”“Sexiest Man of the Year””” Blake Shelton, who’ve have unleashed their joint Christmas music revue, from Why Don’t We’s classic Christmas boyband ballads, to yet another fucking Glee-tastic cover of “Last Christmas” by Stanaj that nobody asked for, in contrast with Phoebe Bridgers’ tender cover of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” we don’t deserve, to DRAM throwing down a bit of holiday cheer with the help of BigBabyMom. Between this and the cobwebs collecting in my wallet, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Beyonce got the best Christmas-themed merch I ever seen. This holiday season, she’s got Beyonce ornaments, onesies, and WRAPPING PAPER. SHOP HERE
Meanwhile Frank Ocean’s out here selling ugly ass hoodies to throw approximately five hundred Hypebeast’s off their game as they queue up to cop the new Nike Air Max 97s on Black Friday
Rihanna, Queen of Selling Me Anything and I Will Actually Buy It Because Yes Of Course, has developed a UNIVERSAL red liquid lipstick that allegedly matches with any skin tone for Fenty Beauty, and while that sounds fake, if you do end up copping one, let me know how it works out for you
Little Mix have re-released a platinum edition of their latest album Glory Days which includes (I believe) four unreleased new tracks and a few acoustic versions of original tracks. The greatest crime of this album is allowing the “feat. Kid Ink” version of “Touch” on there Listen here
Bjork has a new album out today, and I’m shocked as hell. Fans of her work are familiar with the extremely long hours and attention to detail she pours into her craft, so frankly I’m stunned she has managed to crank out an entire new album two years after her last. During those two years since her last album, she’s managed to tour VR experiences/art installations across the globe in support of the previous album on top of recording Utopia Listen here
It’s a surprisingly quiet day for new music releases, so please enjoy yourself to a helping of this mid-80s soaked Initial Talk remix of Dua Lipa’s “New Rules” Listen here
Can’t forget to tell you Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have a new album too Listen here
My personal fav pop acts of the year, Rae Morris, has dropped “Atletico,” yet another incredible, frantic, fresh pop tune I am going to be spinning for months and months on end Listen here

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If you’re interested in hearing what else I’ve been rinsing this month (aside from the tracks listed above), peep my personal November 2017 playlist. There I will be dumping in new (and occasionally throw back) tracks as the month carries on. You can dive into the cmd+f archive to hear what I’ve been listening to in previous months this year.

A(lmost a)ll of the tracks I’ve shared this week and past cmd+f newsletters are archived into a single playlist on Spotify for you to follow here. You’re welcome.

See you next week!

Phew! Today is quite the day, eh? It’s the most frightening day of the decade - Friday the 13th, in the blessed patron month of all things creepy, October.

On this special day, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross have gifted us with a re-working of John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween theme, more houses in my neighborhood are starting to slap up their decorations, and I have approximately 40 pounds of candy corn I somehow need to import into England by Monday. In the coming weeks, I’ll be putting together a proper Halloween-themed playlist in hopes to make the rest of your month spooktacular. To tide you over, here’s a link to a list I made in 2012 titled oooOooOOOOoo – it’s still rather good.

In the meantime, hang tight and make sure you have everything you need for your costume (because everyone should always dress up).

Pals in London reading this: cmd+f is coming to London! I would be grateful for any leads about exciting gigs happening in London between 16-28 October. If your band is playing, I’d love to come see/hear you and shoot your show, too. Give me a tweet, and maybe we can “have a cheeky one” (did I do that right?)

P.S. If you would like to have this letter sent to your email every Friday, please head over to this link right here to subscribe to never miss a weekly roundup!

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“Body” - LÉON | Hands down one of my favorite artists to watch right now. I would have said this before Monday night, but it was definitely solidified by Tuesday morning. On Monday night, I witnessed this song with my own ears at the El Rey Theatre, and it was far bouncier and groovier compared to most of LÉON’s discography. While the Swedish singer knows how to lay it down thick and made you sniffle up buckets of snot with her gut wrenching ballads about regret and heartbreak, “Body” is a lighter introduction. Also: the pseudo-distorted harpsichord in the pre-chorus is top notch – gives it the barest Fleetwood Mac vibe. Listen here

“Are You Down” - Oddnesse | The levels of this song are charming as heck: lyrically, it’s a straightforward song about asking someone if they’re down with hookin’ up with you, possibly more. What’s delicious are the instrumentals, as they literally drag along cautiously in bits, all the while sounding like a seductive candle flickering in the moonlight. The tone gets a bit bashful in the chorus as Rebeca Arango sings “Do you want go slow? / Are you feeling heavy? / Would you ever get high? / Would you ever make out?” and ultimately, “Do you think it’s possible? / Are you down?” The closer swirls out on a confident, hypnotic flare, and by the end of it I too am drunk at the thought of being down for anything. What a fucking brilliant, intoxicating track. I’m OBSESSED. Listen here

“I’ll Be There” - King Henry feat. Sasha Sloan | This song immediately got dumped into my Halsey Imposters playlist, then proceeded to get stuck in my head all week. Spotify is really pushing this King Henry bop as I’ve heard the song crop up in at least three separate Pop playlists I skimmed through at work this week. As for King Henry’s credentials, he’s worked under Diplo for the past few years, making tracks for artists like Beyonce, Justin Bieber, and most notably Major Lazer’s “Cold Water.” Meanwhile Sasha Sloan, aka our buttered down Halsey-lite vocalist, is a rising songwriter who helped write Louis Tomlinson’s debut solo single “Just Hold On” with Steve Aoki. “I’ll Be There” is an earworm buffed with the smoothest production. Love the subtle UK Garage energy flowing through the track. Listen here

“Boomerang” - Why Don’t We | Now that all members of 1D have released their own solo efforts and we approach nearly two years since 1D’s last performance together, new boy bands are starting to crop up. With the rise of popularity in K-Pop outside of East Asia, purely pop-driven Western boy bands are giving it a shot. Luckily for them, TRL is back on MTV (without Carson Daly, so, like???? The point, y’all??). Anyway, I’d heard there are about four boy new American boy bands on the market, and it appears Why Don’t We are the first to pique my interest. To be blunt, the reason I enjoy “Boomerang” so much is it high key sounds like a Majid Jordan track, although I feel Majid Jordan would flourish it a bit more and chop up the song to not be as repetitive. It falls just under 3 minutes, meaning I had it on repeat for seven hours straight this week to really get a feel for it. I sent some of their tracks to some friends this week, and while some enjoyed it and others found it a bit too “Early Bieber,” I think I hear the beginnings of a group who could push some boundaries. Listen here

“I’ll Never Want a BF” - Bec Sandridge | Werq @ artists smashing heteronormativity one song at a time! This one goes out to all my single ladies and gents who are okay with being single – and of course, a shout out to lesbians who definitely will not want a boyfriend. OUT magazine notes it as a “relatable anthem rejecting social pressures to be in relationships altogether,” which, finally??? That aside, Australia is currently having a massive public vote to decide if the country should acknowledge same sex marriages (Bec's an Australian artist!). The video for “I’ll Never Want a BF” features two women shamelessly kissing each other despite being surveillanced. The tune has a very campy 80s vibe - Bec could easily be described as a silver-haired Siouxsie Sioux. Listen here

BONUS

Ready to get extra funky with Beck’s new album Colors this weekend Listen here
About damn time: King Krule’s dropped his latest album The OOZ Listen here
The family of the late Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park who died by suicide this summer, have gifted us with an episode of Apple Music’s “Carpool Karaoke” that was recorded 6 days before his death. I made it through about 1/3rd of the episode before I couldn’t stop sobbing… proceed with caution and a box of Kleenex Watch here
What a time to be alive: one week after Liam Gallagher dropped his debut solo album, Noel’s gone and dropped a new song. The brothers are back to publicly feuding each other, and like that, suddenly we’re reminded who really was the sound and soul of Oasis. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ “Holy Mountain” is a jam Listen here
Louis Tomlinson keeps releasing solo music. This time he reminds the listener he is human; lyrical content v. fitting for an audience of Alternative Press readers circa 2010. Listen here
A teaser clip from the upcoming film Call Me By Your Name dropped this week featuring Armie Hammer dancing to The Psychedelic Furs. Within minutes of the clip dropping, a Twitter account was set up and began to upload clips of Armie dancing to virtually every song. Personal favorites are “What’s Up?” - 4 Non Blondes, “Gasolina” - Daddy Yankee, then for ultra-pain factor/[SPOILER]Marissa dying on The OC levels of dramatic, “Futile Devices” - Sufjan Stevens. For more, follow @armiedancingto on Twitter.

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If you’re interested in hearing what else I’ve been rinsing this month (aside from the tracks listed above), peep my personal October 2017 playlist. There I will be dumping in new (and occasionally throw back) tracks as the month carries on. You can dive into the cmd+f archive to hear what I’ve been listening to in previous months this year.

A(lmost a)ll of the tracks I’ve shared this week and past cmd+f newsletters are archived into a single playlist on Spotify for you to follow here. You’re welcome.

See you next week!