If anyone else has driven to Sheffield, then to Glasgow, then back down to Birmingham and then home in four days, it’s a lot fucking further than you think it is or want to accept it is when you decide that it’s definitely a good idea. As fun as it was, as the saying goes, I’m too old for this shit. I need to start putting gigs on in my back garden (it’s not big, it’s just a turn of phrase).
We had a wee break from Tracks of the Week last week because there was nothing good released. No not really, just laziness. We’re back though. It’s all fine. Stick these in your shell like. You’re welcome.
Josaleigh Pollett – ‘Radio Player’
Why we love it: There’s haunted, and then there’s haunted. Josaleigh Pollett’s new single ‘Radio Player’ flickers alive, glowing like a cursed TV set at 3am.
It’s their first release since 2023’s acclaimed In the Garden, By the Weeds, and a reunion with long-time collaborator Jordan Watko. Written and recorded an ocean apart, with Pollett in Salt Lake City and Watko in Japan, ‘Radio Player’ folds distance, childhood memories and fear.
“It’s a song about memory and fear, loosely based on seeing Poltergeist too young… instead of letting distance dampen our collaboration, we leaned into the confusion of creating from different ends of different days while an ocean apart,” says Pollett. “A lot of that anxiety and dedication of friendship drives this new music.”
The song creeps in soft and woozy, Pollett murmuring “Radio player, I fell asleep” like they’re not quite sure if they’ve woken up. We really like the way Pollett’s voice builds from a warm whisper into a gently trembling force. It’s a tenderness somewhere between Wye Oak and Half Waif, but spookier and sadder, dripping with ectoplasm. There’s crackle and buckle everywhere — synths swoop and stutter, drums thud like footsteps coming upstairs, the walls hum with anticipation. It’s eerie, but also weirdly comforting, like two old friends reaching out across a vast distance through a portal of static.
Keep the light on for this one. (Trev Elkin)
OUIJA – Morning Star
Why we love it: because Halloween may have fallen last Friday but British artist Paul Fryer in the guise of OUIJA keeps the fright time going with new single ‘Morning Star.’ With perfect symmetry ‘Morning Star’ arrives exactly one year after the release of their debut single ‘The Man Who Would Not Die.’ And on this evidence alone, Paul Fryer and OUIJA are still very much alive.
Brought to us via Agent Anonyme Recordings, ‘Morning Star’ comes with a spooky, surreal, and beautifully strange video, directed by Paul Fryer and featuring the celebrated English musician and muse Daphne Guinness.
Speaking about the track, Fryer says: “There are hidden layers of reality which form and reform our waking experience the way the sea shapes the shoreline or the winds sculpt the clouds. The symbol of the Morning Star is connected energetically and mythologically with the archetype of the bringer of the light. These old tales are multifaceted and fragmented by the retelling of millennia. In this context the association of Venus as the goddess of love cannot be ignored.”
Guinness adds: “As a child I adored dressing up for Halloween – the ritual and thrill of it all. This video is, I suppose, my ultimate Halloween guise. Costume has always felt like a form of magic to me.”
Together the sound and vision slowly bleed into our brain with such a heightened sense of menace and magic just lurking round the corner. It is All Hallows’ Eve over and over again. (Simon Godley)
Gustaffson – Dance To The Algorithm
Why we love it: because the Liverpool-born singer-songwriter Andrew Gower and his band Gustaffson are back with their brand-new single, ‘Dance To The Algorithm.’ And that has to be good news. Produced in collaboration with Elbow’s Craig Potter and set against a vibrant, contagious uptempo retro-funk rhythm, the song asks the question as to how we all consume music in this day and age.
Speaking about ‘Dance To The Algorithm,’ Andrew Gower says: “The best artists of years gone by have all proven you can write about profound and important worldly subjects yet still entertain your audience. I was lucky enough to attend a screening of a Beatles 64 documentary last year around the release of our debut album. During the Q&A Giles Martin spoke about modern music and how audiences digest art in 2025; there was one line that stuck with me, ultimately inspiring me to write this single.”
As affirmed by the song’s accompanying video – shot in Manchester and directed by Andrew Gower – such is the interplanetary reach of ‘Dance To The Algorithm,’ even astronauts can dance to its infectious groove. (Simon Godley)
Tenderness – We’ll Always Have Paris 1919
Why we love it: because this is good. Very good. About to set out on a UK tour opening for Willy Mason, Tenderness – the solo project of Katy Beth Young (Peggy Sue, Deep Throat Choir) – has also just announced her debut album True – out on March 13th via Amorphous Sounds – and given us a taste of that record with the wonderful new single, ‘We’ll Always Have Paris 1919.‘
Talking about ‘We’ll Always Have Paris 1919,’ Young says: Young says: “It is a dedication to my favourite love bomber. It’s part romance and part clear-eyed realism. Most of the songs on the album are born from those first hints of clarity after some kind of heartbreak. But with this song, I had more distance from the big emotions, and it became this perfect, very honest mix of affection and spite and catharsis.”
“Anything that’s worth a dime, gets better all the time.” As Katy Beth Young sings this refrain over a beautiful, inspired melody the words demand your active listening to the song and repeated plays of it. (Simon Godley)
Tessa Rose Jackson – Fear Bangs The Drum
Why we love it: because Tessa Rose Jackson bangs the drum with ‘Fear Bangs The Drum.’ Loud and clear. With her latest single, the Dutch-British singer songwriter and composer further heralds the arrival of her third studio album, The Lighthouse which will be out on 23rd January next year.
“I am quite a fearful person myself – I worry about something happening to my loved ones, about the state of the world,” says Jackson when talking about ‘Fear Bangs The Drum.’ “Fear can be paralysing. Recently, instead of trying to push it down, I’ve been allowing myself to let it bubble to the surface and just let it be for a bit, not acting on it but also not fighting it. And then… breathe out. And let it go.”
“It’s funny that this song is one of the most celebratory songs on the record. The bridge is possibly my favourite bit of the whole album – this joyful expelling of all worry: everything passes. As will I. As will this. Be here now.”
And just as Tessa Rose Jackson explains, ‘Fear Bangs The Drum’ is the sound of personal liberation, no more so than two and a half minutes into the song when the euphoric brass motif blasts into earshot. ‘Fear Bangs The Drum’ positively skips along thereafter with a cautious euphoria in its step. (Simon Godley)
MWSOG – Chwyldro (Revolution)
Why we love it: This is a happening we’ve been waiting for. After a bewitching performance at Trawsnewid in February, we were keenly wondering when this little lot – all nine of them – would share their psychedelic Welsh folklore-folk. MWSOG (pronounced Moo-sogg)’s first single ‘Chwildro’ (Quil-draw) is released on the mysterious new Bwgibwgan (Boogie-boo-Gun) label. Chwildro starts with an eerie howl and Mari Mathias on her beloved harmonium, flute and drums joining in the dance – what a joy of rhythms and fluency. It’s witchy and wild and fierce.
Mari reflects, ’MWSOG allows me to embody the teachings of the Mabinogi, ancient voices so old we can no longer trace their source. Perhaps they walk among us still, or linger in the ivy and moss that find life in impossible places, pressing through concrete and stone. Much of what we write follows these quiet threads – the weaving of nature and metal, the pulse between the industrial and the soil.’
‘There is a darkness in what we do, which reflects deeply in the folkloric history and myths of our country,‘ she continues. ‘Yet, there is also a light that is ever so playful. I sometimes feel as though I am dancing in my own time capsule – luring travellers and like-minded spirits to join us in this sacred space.’
MWSOG are: Mari Mathias – vocals, harmonium, guitar; Luke Huw Llewellyn – drums, percussion, vocals; Grant Jones – guitar; Angharad Iris – flute, vocals; Joe Tobin – mandolin, guitar, effects; Katie Blackmore – percussion, sound effects, Vocals; Marcell Davies – bass, vocals. (Cath Holland)
Adam Walton – Burmo
Why we love it: Nostalgia can be a tricky part of the human condition to examine and express in song, but in ‘Burmo’ Flintshire songwriter and guitarist Adam Walton views it from gorgeous and melancholic angles. The sepia-tinged church bells contrast with the acoustic guitar ringing as clear as the proverbial. Burmo morphs into the deliciously melodic – like a much-loved memory – easing into cool synths and a dreamy guitar-led soundscape before leaving us in a state of psychedelic bliss.
When a youngster, following his time at Welsh language bootcamp Glan Llyn on the shores of Llyn Tegid in Bala, Walton spent a helluva lot of his time focussed on nailing ‘Greensleeves’ and Elizabethan lute tunes arranged for classical guitar, on his Spanish acoustic. ‘It was my first experience – of many – learning that the music I liked the most, that I most wanted to play, wasn’t – and never would be – remotely cool,’ he recalls.
The question who and what is cool is one perhaps for another day, but we reckon it’s pretty damn near it for an artist to celebrate the love of favoured instrument and fond boyhood friendships around it, through his work.
‘Here I am, full circle, staring back at that awe struck boy in Bala in 1982. ‘Burmo’ – the song, particularly – is a celebration of the music I learnt to play because of that experience,’ he says.
Burmo is the first single from the album of the same name released on 14 November. (Cath Holland)
