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Oct 15, 2021 By Mark Redfern (with Joey Arnone)

Welcome to the 39th Songs of the Week of 2021. It was a blockbuster week for new songs, although the week’s biggest song (Adele’s “Easy On Me”) didn’t make the list. But “Easy On Me” did set the all-time record for biggest single day streams for a song in Spotify history, so Adele will be fine. This week we have a supersized Top 12 and a solid honorable mentions list.

In the last week we posted interviews with Andy Shauf, Johnny Marr, and a My Firsts with Hayden Thorpe.

In the last week we also reviewed a bunch of albums.

To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 12 best the last week had to offer, along with highlighting other notable new tracks shared in the last seven days. Check out the full list below.

1. Cate Le Bon: “Running Away”

On Tuesday effortlessly cool Welsh singer/songwriter/guitarist Cate Le Bon announced the release of her sixth studio album, Pompeii, which will be out on February 4, 2022 via Mexican Summer. Le Bon also shared a video for its lead single “Running Away,” and announced a set of US/UK/European tour dates for next year. Casey Raymond directed the video for “Running Away.” Check out tracklist and cover art for Pompeii, as well as the tour dates, here.

Le Bon elaborates on the new album in a press release: “Pompeii was written and recorded in a quagmire of unease. Solo. In a time warp. In a house I had a life in 15 years ago. I grappled with existence, resignation and faith. I felt culpable for the mess but it smacked hard of the collective guilt imposed by religion and original sin. The subtitle is: ‘You will be forever connected to everything.’ Which, depending on the time of day, is as comforting as it is terrifying. The sense of finality has always been here. It seems strangely hopeful. Someone is playing with the focus lens. The world is on fire but the bins must go out on a Tuesday night. Political dissonance meets beauty regimes. I put a groove behind it for something to hold on to. The grief is in the saxophones.”

Pompeii was composed entirely by Le Bon, and was recorded alongside frequent collaborator and co-producer Samur Khouja in Cardiff, Wales. The album artwork was inspired by a painting by Tim Presley.

In 2019, Le Bon released an EP alongside Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound titled Myths 04. It featured the songs “Secretary” (one of our Songs of the Week) and “Canto!” (another one of our Songs of the Week). By Joey Arnone

2. Imarhan: “Achinkad”

On Wednesday Tuareg quintet Imarhan announced the release of their third studio album, Aboogi, which will be out on January 28, 2022 via City Slang. They also shared a video for the album’s lead single, “Achinkad.” Hafid Mohamed Amine directed the video. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover art here.

The album was recorded in the group’s Aboogi Studio, the first professional studio to be built in their hometown of Tamanrasset in Southern Algeria. It features performances from Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Sudanese singer Sulafa Elyas, Tinariwen’s Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, and poet Mohamed Ag Itlale.

“Aboogi reflects the colors of Tamanrasset, what we experience in everyday life,” states frontman Iyad Moussa Ben Abderahmane (aka Sadam) in a press release. “We give space to the wind and the natural energies, to the sun and the sand. We want to express their colors through music.”

He adds, regarding the new song: “It’s a tribute to our people and to our land. The Tuaregs have been present since ancient times and they are still here, present to their land, faithful to their people, grateful to their ancestors, to their culture, and fully, heavily attached to their nature. They travel through the times and they are always here with this land part of their identity.”

The band’s previous album, Temet, came out in 2018 on City Slang. By Joey Arnone

3. Elbow: “Six Words”

Elbow are releasing a new album, Flying Dream 1, on November 19 via Polydor. Today they shared its second single, the nostalgic and romantic “Six Words,” via a video. Mark Thomas directed the video, which shows them recording the song.

Garvey had this to say about the song in a press release: “I can’t remember the exact genesis of the track, but it is definitely one of Craig’s. In some ways it’s familiar territory lyrically, it has similar sentiments to ‘Mirrorball’ but it draws heavily on my teenage years: the bottle green in the song is the color of my school uniform and the six lanes is the traffic on the road to school in Prestwich. Though that six lanes line was something I originally wrote back in the early Elbow days when I sat in The Cornerhouse people watching so it’s a double reminisce and a return to my love of writing about love. The musical revelation came when we heard the backing singers that now end the track. We had this pyramid of voices making something incredible that reminded me of the early classic Disney soundtracks. It was so powerful that we knew we had to throw the spotlight onto them so that is why they end the track.”

Previously Elbow shared Flying Dream 1’s first single, the delicate “The Seldom Seen Kid,” via a video. Yes, the song shares its title with the band’s Mercury Prize-winning 2008 album, The Seldom Seen Kid, and that’s because both titles were inspired by frontman Guy Garvey’s late friend Bryan Glancy, who died suddenly in 2006 and was nicknamed “the seldom seen kid” by Garvey’s father. “The Seldom Seen Kid” was one of our Songs of the Week.

Elbow wrote the album remotely in their home studios. Then they convened in person and perfected the songs in the empty Brighton Theatre Royal, where they also recorded the album.

“Hiring a two hundred year old theatre that has never in its history been closed for so long was something that could only be done under the circumstances,” Garvey said in a previous press statement, “nice to turn it on its head in that way.”

“Recording in a splendid generous space with no audience was something that throws an anchor in the times that the record was made in,” he added.

Garvey said that recording the album allowed the band’s members time to catch up in a way that they couldn’t in the height of the lockdown. “We don’t phone each other for a chat,” he said. “We don’t talk about life outside the music until we’re together. These hushed, night-time missives told us how each other were doing. When we finally got together, all that was to do was record the songs, honor them with amazing additional singers and players in a gorgeous space and catch up. It was beautiful.”

Of the album’s sound and influences, Garvey said: “We realized we were making a record free of the usual creative guidelines. We love patient, quiet, whole albums like the last Talk Talk records. John Martyn’s Solid Air and Bless the Weather, PJ Harvey’s Is This Desire, Chet Baker Sings, The Blue Nile’s Hats. Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. We’ve always written songs like this, but it felt natural to make an album that focuses on the gentler side of our music.”

The band’s keyboardist Craig Potter produced the album, as he did with the band’s last five albums.

Previously the band shared a trailer for the album.

Elbow’s last album was 2019’s Giants of All Sizes (read our rave review of the album).

Read our interview with Elbow’s Guy Garvey on 2017’s Little Fictions.

Also read our 2014 print article on Elbow and our 2014 web-exclusive interview with Garvey on his favorite cities. Plus read our 2016 The End interview with Garvey on endings and death.

4. Snail Mail: “Ben Franklin”

On Wednesday Snail Mail (aka Lindsey Jordan) shared a video for her new single “Ben Franklin.” It is the latest release from her forthcoming sophomore studio album, Valentine, which will be out on November 5 via Matador. Check out the Josh Coll-directed video for “Ben Franklin” below.

Jordan states in a press release: “I wanted to sonically and lyrically get out of my comfort zone with ‘Ben Franklin.’ It felt only right that the visual accompaniment should include dancing in front of a camera and holding a 10 foot snake close to my face.”

Upon announcing the album last month, Jordan shared the album’s title track, “Valentine,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Her debut album, Lush, came out in 2018.

Read our interview with Snail Mail on Lush. By Joey Arnone

5. Laetitia Sadier: “New Moon”

Today Stereolab vocalist Laetitia Sadier shared a new song, “New Moon,” via a video for it. It is said to be the first taste of a new solo album due out in 2022 via Drag City and Duophonic Super 45. The album has neither a release date nor title yet. Sadier co-directed the ocean-set video with Tanya Small.

“New Moon” was recorded in London by Sadier and Hannes Plattmeier

Sadier had this to say about the song in a press release: “The nature of trauma—by going through a process of feeling the emotions of all of that has stricken or afflicted us, individually. By not avoiding these feelings, it’s a way to evolve and cut the ties of the past, that are keeping us down and into the turmoil we are currently experiencing.”

Sadier’s last album, Find Me Finding You, was released under the name Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble in 2017 via Drag City.

Sadier recently guested on Jarvis Cocker’s cover of Dalida’s 1973 duet with Alain Delon, “Paroles, Paroles.” It is featured on Cocker’s forthcoming album, Chansons D’Ennui Tip-Top, which will be out on October 22 via ABKCO and is a companion piece to Wes Anderson’s upcoming film, The French Dispatch.

Also read our 2014 interview with Sadier or our 2010 interview where Sadier and Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox interviewed each other.

6. Michael Kiwanuka: “Beautiful Life”

On Tuesday Michael Kiwanuka shared a new song titled “Beautiful Life.” It is featured in the new Netflix documentary from Oscar-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel, Convergence: Courage in a Crisis, which is out today.

“Beautiful Life” was recorded in London and features production from St Francis Hotel. Kiwanuka elaborates on the new song in a press release: “In this song I wanted to focus on the feeling that there’s a real strength in the human spirit when you try to look for beauty even in difficult situations. Of course, in some situations that becomes more and more difficult. But I just wanted to ponder on that and wonder what life would be like if I lived it like that. Ultimately whatever people feel from hearing the song is ok with me. But what I was trying to emit through the music was a feeling of defiance. A feeling of strength through adversity.”

The British singer’s third album, KIWANUKA, came out in 2019 via Interscope. By Joey Arnone

7. HARD FEELINGS: “Sister Infinity”

HARD FEELINGS, which is the new project of New York City based singer/songwriter Amy Douglas and British producer Joe Goddard of Hot Chip, are releasing their self-titled debut album on November 5 via Domino. On Thursday they shared the album’s third single, “Sister Infinity,” via a video for it. “Sister Infinity” is a modern disco track with shades of Dead or Alive’s 1984 hit “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record).” Tim Wagner directed the video, which was co-conceived with Douglas.

In a press release Douglas says Wagner’s video “matches the songs itself, a discotastic pulse racing, HI NRG rollercoaster and HARD FEELINGS at our most futurist and perhaps insidious version of the ‘mad scientist and his creation scenario.’”

HARD FEELINGS features their debut single, “Holding On Too Long,” which was shared in May, also via a music video. “Holding On Too Long” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then when the album was announced they shared its second single, “Dangerous,” via a video for it. “Dangerous” was also one of our Songs of the Week.

After hearing Douglas’ work with writing Róisín Murphy’s single “Something More,” Goddard reached out to her over Twitter in which he asked: “Amy, can we make a thing?”

Goddard released a solo album, Electric Lines, in 2017 on his own Greco-Roman label, via Domino. Hot Chip meanwhile released a new album, A Bath Full of Ecstasy, in June 2019 via Domino (stream it here and read our positive review of the album here).

8. Hamilton Leithauser and Kevin Morby: “Virginia Beach”

On Tuesday Kevin Morby and Hamilton Leithauser (formerly of The Walkmen) shared a new collaborative song, “Virginia Beach.” It is out now via Dead Oceans. Morby and Leithauser’s “Fall Mixer” North American tour started this week, hence the collaboration.

“I wanted to do a modern take on a dark country song which would transform into more of a dark dance groove,” explains Leithauser in a press release. “I also wrote an entire vocal track over it but just didn’t think my voice was taking it anywhere new, so I sent the track to Kevin Morby. His voice sounds nothing like my own, and his songs usually have a very different structure than mine. I thought maybe he could take it in a new direction. He told me he wanted to write a traveling song, maybe mentioning some places people don’t sing about that much, and he sent me some lyrics. I loved it and wrote my ‘Virginia Beach’ lines right then and there, and sent them back to him.”

Morby adds: “Maybe it was being in one place for almost two years, or maybe it was the mysterious and kinetic energy of the composition, but I found myself compelled to write of all the bizarre yet beautiful corners of America one often overlooks that a touring musician inevitably finds themselves in while out on the road. The Paris Idahos and the Texarkanas. It was my attempt at evoking Cash and Dylans ‘Wanted Man’ or Barbara Keith’s ‘Detroit or Buffalo,’ or any of those other lost country and rock n roll songs that shout out cities off the beaten path. Cities that down-and-out characters race towards in an attempt to outrun themselves. Though of course—as the saying goes, no matter where you go, there you are.”

Morby released his latest full-on album, Sundowner, last October via Dead Oceans and Leithauser released his own new album, The Loves of Your Life, in April 2020 via Glassnote. Although Morby also just released A Night at the Little Los Angeles, a new 4-track demo version of Sundowner. By Joey Arnone

9. Sea Power: “Folly”

On Wednesday Sea Power (who were formerly known as British Sea Power, but recently shortened their name partially due to “a rise in a certain kind of nationalism in this world”) shared a new song, “Folly.” It’s the latest single to be taken from their upcoming new album, Everything Was Forever, which is due out February 11, 2022 via the band’s own label Golden Chariot.

Guitarist Martin Noble had this to say about the new single in a press release: “‘Folly’ is in the tradition of singalong Sea Power apocalyptic anthems—everyone ambling down the road to a multitude of catastrophes. Party on! You might find yourself standing up on the South Downs, up on the fells or the dales, looking down at the world, a world where we seem to avoid the decisions and changes to stop the rot. It’s all folly, but in this case set to some pretty life-affirming music—good stuff underpinning the donut vibes and maybe making you think it’s not all over, not quite, not yet.”

Vocalist/guitarist Neil Hamilton Wilkinson adds: “I was thinking of things like greedy overlords playing fart games on the lawns of their great dominions, the enclosure of common lands, bodies, minds, the fantastical gusto of doom and frivolity that feeds the world, me included. I was feeling all on edge, paranoid like the old vampire in Nosferatu when I got into this song.”

When Everything Was Forever was announced the band shared its first single, “Two Fingers,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared a video for “Two Fingers.”

The band collectively and previously had this to say about the name change in a statement on their website.

Sea Power features Jan Scott Wilkinson (vocals/guitars), Neil Hamilton Wilkinson (vocals/guitars), Martin Noble (guitars), Matthew Wood (drums), Abi Fry (viola), and Phil Sumner (keyboards/cornet).

Sea Power’s last album (released as British Sea Power of course) was 2017’s Let the Dancers Inherit the Party.

10. Hayden Thorpe: “Golden Ratio”

Hayden Thorpe, former singer for British art-rockers Wild Beasts, has released a new album, Moondust For My Diamond, today via Domino. On Tuesday he shared its fourth and final pre-release single, “Golden Ratio,” via a charming video featuring a message attached to a red heart-shaped balloon that travels around the English countryside. The song is a horn-backed ode to science. Juliet Klottrup directed the video, which stars Thorpe and Molly Gromadzki but really stars the balloon. The video was filmed in the Lake District (which is Britain’s largest national park), as were other videos for this album.

Thorpe had this to say about the new song in a press release: “When I was writing ‘Golden Ratio,’ I landed upon it as a kind of simple devotional song to science. I see music very much as a replication of nature, the shapes and patterns that we perceive in music are found in all kinds of things like flowers and shells. Science and mathematics have allowed us to decipher this hidden order. Writing songs therefore becomes less about summoning from within and more about noticing what’s already there.”

Upon the announcement of Moondust For My Diamond in July, Thorpe shared its lead single “The Universe Is Always Right,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. A month later, he released the song “Parallel Kingdom,” also one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared the album’s third single, “Metafeeling,” which also made a Songs of the Week appearance.

Thorpe’s debut solo album, Diviner, came out in 2019 via Domino.

Read our interview with Hayden Thorpe on Diviner.

Read our Self-Portrait feature with Hayden Thorpe.

11. Sondre Lerche: “Dead of the Night”

On Tuesday Norwegian singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche shared a 10-minute new song titled “Dead of the Night.” Lerche has also announced a 2022 tour (check those our here).

Lerche elaborates on the new song in a press release: “I left LA on March 14th, 2020, just as I was about to start launching the Patience album and tour. That record had been a seven year long process, and I was not about to let it fall prey to what I assumed then would be a month or two of global turbulence. My native Norway felt safer and more predictable amidst this unforeseen uncertainty, so I returned home, where I’ve remained ever since.

“Less than a year later, this winter, the world was still in a static form of chaos. Nothing seemed a sure thing. But to my endless joy, my creative juices were flowing and I was writing songs and lyrics I never dreamed I’d arrive at.

“I had managed to spend most of the summer alone on the road, playing solo shows up and down Norway, wherever they’d have me. Patience had been well-received, despite everything, and amidst all the frantic activities I was setting in motion, I had started writing these expansive new songs. The words led the way, and in November of last year, as Norway shut down for the second time, I started recording with my friends in Bergen. I’d spend two weeks, obsessively, on a song, and immediately record it thereafter. It sometimes felt like I was writing little movies, set to music. Never had I had the feeling of writing with such intensity and clarity.

“I already had more songs than I knew what to do with when one day in early February of this year, a friend lent me a tiny acoustic steel string guitar that I immediately started writing a song on. The grip allowed me to open the chord in a way I hadn’t been able to on other guitars, so I just continued playing the same two chords over and over, like acoustic ambient music. I had long ago scribbled down the title ‘Dead Of The Night’ in my notebook. Every night I’d sit and play these two chords, try to shape melodies, and, more importantly, write down words that in the end would define the melodies. Every morning I’d wake up with new lyric ideas, desperate to get back into the song. Anything beyond my tiny studio apartment was a distraction. February is the coldest, worst month in Norway, and Bergen especially, where it rains A LOT all year round. I had spent fall and winter in my hometown for the first time since I moved to New York fifteen years ago. It had felt good to return home, but the cold season was rough. And much darker than I remembered.

“I thought the most intense part of this new songwriting process was over, but things were just getting started. This new song was a different beast than any other I had encountered. It kept on growing, and for the first time in my almost 30-years of attempted songwriting I felt like I was writing a song that might not ever end. The scope and perspective of it kept expanding—zooming further out than I’d ever been able to, dissecting the world, and slowly zooming back in, like in an old noir-film that finds the protagonist himself, and the object of his desire, amidst the myriad of everybody else’s equally intense and ordinary lives.

“‘In the dead of the night / all has been done before’

“I got a kick out of peeking into every window, every apartment, looking into every tortured or giddy soul, every couple trying to get away with something. Any one thing that feels completely exhilarating or terrifying, or both, to the individuals at the center of it.

“‘We think we’ve seen it all / but we’re not at all original’

“I was, of course, writing to understand myself. Early in 2020 I had made a big change in my life, a decision to be alone for the first time since I was a teenager. It was perhaps only natural that at this time I simply did not know the answer to the often asked question: where do you live nowadays? I did not know, and I still don’t. I was free, and it was exhilarating and terrifying, just like in the song.

“Naturally, I was also prone to moving around a lot, staying active, productive, busy, festive, social. Staying up late, rising early. Frequently I found myself in the dead of the night, trying to stay light on my feet for as long as I could. I guess I wanted the night to never end. I had written a lot of very detailed songs about loss, grief and the life I left behind. But also new experiences I fell into, pleasures I wanted to prolong. Others may find themselves in the dead of the night in scenarios they wish to forget, or worse, escape. In the writing I was now seeing other fates and other souls as vivid as my own, and how the tragic and the euphoric exists side by side. Even in a small town like Bergen. It could be New York, it could be Los Angeles or beyond. But this burst of inspiration and experience happened in the town where I had been born. And two weeks after I started playing those two chords, over and over again, I actually found an end to this song that I didn’t think would end. The camera pans on two lovers in the dark, trying to escape everybody’s, except each other’s, attention. There was my ending. I wanted to freeze the frame and stop time.

“But it was already too late. So I did the next best thing; went straight to the studio to record the song you are now about to hear.

“On Wednesday, February 17th I brought three new songs to my co-producer Kato Ådland, who I’ve worked with since I was a very tender 16 year old boy. I showed him the other two, considerably shorter songs, and then told him about this 10 minute long one that I was pretty shaken up about. I sat down, played him the whole thing in the studio, thinking he’d find that a too big undertaking, at least to start us off. But he insisted we record ‘Dead Of The Night’ that night. I thought it would be complicated and strenuous. But it was in fact the easiest and most divine-feeling recording I’ve ever taken part in. We played every instrument ourselves. By the end of the night we had arrived at the version that you are now about to hear. We didn’t mix it or tweak it, except for two lines that I rewrote the next morning. Writing and recording this song was the most profound experience of my creative career. Something I never thought I’d experience or reach. So I am deeply hopeful that people have ten minutes to spare, to go on the journey through the ‘Dead of the Night’ with me.

“The cover image is an original piece by acclaimed Norwegian artist Nikolai Torgersen, inspired by the song. We’ve worked closely together the last half year, and more is to come. Love, SL.”

Lerche’s most recent album, Patience, came out last year via PLZ. By Joey Arnone

12. Black Country, New Road: “Chaos Space Marine”

On Tuesday Black Country, New Road announced the release of their second studio album, Ants From Up There, which will be out on February 4, 2022 via Ninja Tune. They also shared the album’s lead single, “Chaos Space Marine,” a song which was previously performed live by the band several times earlier this year. It’s got a Divine Comedy meets Bright Eyes find of vibe. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover art here.

In a press release, frontman Isaac Wood refers to his band’s new song as “the best song we’ve ever written.” He adds: “We threw in every idea anyone had with that song. So the making of it was a really fast, whimsical approach—like throwing all the shit at the wall and just letting everything stick.”

Ants From Up There was recorded at Chale Abbey Studios in Isle of Wight this past summer alongside the band’s live engineer Sergio Maschetzko. Bassist Tyler Hyde states: “We were just so hyped the whole time. It was such a pleasure to make. I’ve kind of accepted that this might be the best thing that I’m ever part of for the rest of my life. And that’s fine.” Deluxe versions of Ants From Up There will feature the band’s live album, Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The band’s debut album, For the first time, came out earlier this year via Ninja Tune. By Joey Arnone

Honorable Mentions:

These songs almost made the Top 12.

Tori Amos: “Spies”

Damon Albarn: “The Tower of Montevideo”

Band of Horses: “Crutch”

The Boo Radleys: “I’ve Had Enough I’m Out”

Coco: “Anybody’s Guess”

Sam Evian: “Never Know”

Generationals: “Tryin’ to Reach Ya” (Feat. Sarah Jaffe)

My Morning Jacket: “Complex”

Here’s a handy Spotify playlist featuring the Top 12 in order, followed by all the honorable mentions:

Other notable new tracks in the last week include:

Adele: “Easy On Me”

Bambara: “Mythic Love”

Barrie: “Frankie”

Courtney Barnett: “Smile Real Nice”

Death Cab For Cutie: “Coney Island (Band Demo)”

Frankie Cosmos: “Slide” (Lomelda Cover)

Fruit Bats: “Rips Me Up”

Gold & Youth: “Dying In LA”

Jonny Greenwood: “Crucifix”

Jon Hopkins: “Love Flows Over Us in Prismatic Waves” and “Deep in the Glowing Heart”

Cassandra Jenkins: “Hailey (premix)”

Land of Talk: “Moment Feed”

Lomelda: “Sad 2 (Frankie Cosmos Cover)”

Lost Horizons: “Florida (featuring KookieLou)”

Makthaverskan: “Closer”

Mr Twin Sister: “Ballarino”

Lael Neale: “For No One For Now (U.S. Girls Remix)”

Prince: “Do Me, Baby (Demo)”

Emma Ruth Rundle: “Blooms of Oblivion”

serpentwithfeet: “Down Nuh River”

Shamir: “Gay Agenda”

Sleaford Mods: “I Don’t Rate You (Orbital Remix)”

Smile: “Call My Name” (Feat. Robyn)

Sunflower Bean: “Baby Don’t Cry”

They Might Be Giants: “Part of You Wants to Believe Me”

Thyla: “3”

Trentemøller: “All Too Soon”

TV Priest: “All Things”

Jeff Tweedy: “C’mon America” and “UR-60 Unsent”

Jamila Woods & Peter CottonTale: “WYD (You Got Me)”

Classic Song of the Week:

Brian Eno: “I’ll Come Running”

My eight-year-old daughter can technically tie her own shoes, but when we’re in a rush, such as when we’re running late to walk to school, it’s quicker and easier if I just tie them. Perhaps that’s why this Brian Eno song came to mind, in which he sings, “I’ll come running to tie your shoes.” It’s from his 1975-released classic album Another Green World.

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