WATCH: Baby Queen - 'We Can Be Anything'

Late night blog ramblings incoming - stopping by to share a track I've been loving over the past few days... Baby Queen is back with We Can Be Anything, the follow-up to Dream Girl, and another track offering a taste of her forthcoming debut album. I can't waaaaait!!!!! Really enjoying We Can Be Anything, and another brill video too. 

I'll let the track do the talking, but also... on the track, Baby Queen (AKA Bella Latham) shares: "I've been having a prolonged existential crisis for the better part of the past 5 years and would consider myself to be a nihilist in many ways, which has made being alive quite bleak at times. I think human beings really crave purpose but there is ultimately no clear-cut reason we're here and if there is one, we're just not intelligent enough to figure it out. Despite it all, life is beautiful and i think our lack of purpose and our insignificance gives us the greatest level of freedom. Society, culture, rules, laws - these are all constructs. I like to believe that as long as you're not hurting people, you do have the freedom and the prerogative to do with your life what you will. That's what this song is about: non-confinement and non-conformity in the face of what is essentially absurdity. I just want people to listen to it and feel free - because they are free."

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ALBUM NEWS: Richard Walters - 'Murmurate'

I'm dreadful at posting at the moment - so many things are pulling against me, taking up my time. The blog is kind of the easiest thing to step away from a little so that I don't completely burn out... but I'm here, writing late at night (obviously) about Oxford pal Richard Walters, who has a new solo record on the way. While he's certainly been busy in the interim (a new album with his project LYR came out in the past few weeks which I'm very keen to listen to when I get a moment) Murmurate marks Richard's first solo album since 2020. Born out of the pandemic but not particularly inspired by it, the tracks on the album explore our shared feelings of having changed through isolation. Of realising that you wanted different things and experiences once the world started to open back up.

Richard explains "when the world started to wake up again post lockdown I sprinted towards the door; I bolted, with unbelievable enthusiasm and joy, and I fell. I wiped out a fair few times in my desire to get back into a routine, to return to normality. I eventually found myself moving back from the bustle and noise, a combination of anxiety and a previously unearthed desire for more and more calm... For me this is not a lockdown record. It was largely written in 2022, post weirdness, but many of the songs do tap into that sense of post-lockdown-anxiety (PLA!?) and the mixed up, confused feeling of needing to be elsewhere but feeling the tug of home.

When it comes to music, throughout lockdown I was desperate to be in the room with other people making things again. In my opinion, Zoom just doesn’t cut it when it comes to finding common musical ground and building things up. That’s where the title ‘Murmurate’ comes from - I just wanted to feel that unison again, to move in time with other songwriters and musicians, to flock and gather and soar a little bit, even if the distance from my home life made me feel torn from time to time.”

Richard Walters · After Midnight

The album is previewed with first track After Midnight, about which Richard shares: "my attempt at being Springsteen! The older I get, the more home-based I become. It's a feeling I've noticed other friends my age expressing. So it's a middle aged anthem about not wanting to be out on the town post-midnight, about the beauty of the quiet life and the taxi home." 

Relatable.

Pre-save Murmurate here, due for release 17th November.

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ALBUM NEWS: Public Service Broadcasting - 'This New Noise' (live)

Current obsession - this snuck into my inbox, crept up on me and gave me a big ol' surge of happiness when I found it! Public Service Broadcasting are releasing a live album on 8th September, a recording of their BBC Proms performance This New Noise with BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jules Buckley. The Prom was a celebration of the power of radio, written in recognition of the centenary of the BBC. They're just SO brilliant, and this is them at their best. Reaaaaally good.

I feel like I write this so often, but I mean it - if PSB are new to you, you're in for SUCH a treat. They're unlike anything else that I listen to and that is easily one of the best things about them. Completely brilliant. They've got a few records under their belts already, and I'd start with the (now ten-years old!) debut Inform - Educate - Entertain, which is how I was first introduced to their music (by a friend on a train to London - there's not many artists where I can pinpoint the moment when I first listened to them, so you know they're special!) 

J. Willgoose, Esq shares: "at the time, not knowing if the Proms performance would be a true one-off, I tried to focus on enjoying the occasion as much as possible. It was a privilege to play with such skilled performers as the BBC SO and especially under such an astute guiding hand in Jules. I'm absolutely delighted that we're releasing This New Noise in physical form, and remixing it allowed me to discover all over again the intricacy and dynamism of the orchestra's performance." 

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