Deep Cuts #3 featuring Gravves, Peaness, Loyal, Dan Kye, Day Wave – best new tracks January 2017

Coming just in time to cure your January blues as we reach the final stretch before payday, Getintothis bring you the best new tracks of the month with our third edition of Deep Cuts.

I was in a restaurant a couple of weeks back on a bit of a works do. A typical Italian restaurant – nice, quiet atmosphere, ambient lighting and the inoffensive background sounds of classic crooners and American big band music. The kind of music that usually you wouldn’t take any notice of. It’s just there, serving a purpose.

I’d usually not even give it a thought, but tonight I couldn’t help but notice the playlist, clearly just a big list of swing songs on shuffle. Mr Bojangles was played three times, by three different artists, all basically identical versions. Come Fly With Me came up twice, again by different artists. A couple of others were repeated too. My first thoughts were what a shite and lazy playlist it was, and could they really not find a couple of hours worth of background noise without repeating the same songs more than twice? But it lead me to ponder, why on earth are there so many cover versions of the same handful of Ratpack tunes? They’re all identical, yet here we are in 2017, and recording note for note covers of songs like That’s Life is still a multi-million pound business. What a sad state of affairs.

Obviously the most recent example of this is presenter of The Chase, Bradley Walsh, releasing the UK’s fastest selling debut album of 2016, a record which Getintothis‘ Rick Leach wrote in defence of. Yet this isn’t a recent thing. A quick search on Spotify and you’ll find 16 versions of Frank Sinatra‘s That’s Life (including David Lee Roth. Give it a listen, fucking hell it’s bad), almost 200 covers of Mr Bojangles, and close to 400 (!!!) different artist’s takes on Fly Me To The Moon. The same can be said for pretty much any of the classics you can think of. The lists are endless.

It’s not that the original’s are bad. The Ratpack and Co are great, but why fans of the music feel the need to buy new versions of the songs year upon year is baffling. Sinatra is obviously one of the true icons of popular music in the last 60 or so years, and he certainly did do things his way, but the fact that in 2017 people are still making money his way, singing his tunes is a bit depressing, considering so many new musicians and independent labels are struggling.

Find all the details for our first ever Deep Cuts live at the Buyers Club

We can probably blame your Nan’s favourite singer, Canadian waxwork Michael Bublé, for a lot of this. For bringing it back to the mainstream. Him and the X Factor, who still for some reason feel the need to have a Big Band week on every series. It’s a genre very much of its time and with barely any relevance in today’s music at all, yet major labels still seem happy to fund it.

Is this the way music is going, with nostalgia well and truly taking over? Having had this discussion with myself in my own head for a good 20 minutes while smiling and nodding at whatever it was my workmates were talking about, I decided to ask them what they thought. Despite the fact that they’re hardly the place to go to for your hot takes on cutting edge music, what one of them said left me with quite grim visions of the future.

A vision of a future where brand new music is squeezed out, and in its place is just endless covers. Big sell out nights at the Echo Arena where a collection of session musicians perform the music of Oasis, The Rolling Stones or David Bowie. Where the only way to make money is nostalgia. Aficionados of classical music and people more knowledgeable on the subject will probably argue with this, but today the majority of classical concerts seem to be orchestras performing the music of Beethoven and Mozart rather than cutting edge new composers. Could this be the way it turns out for pop, as people become desperate for something familiar rather than new?

It’s a depressing thought, and probably one that’s a load of utter bollocks anyway, yet it is concerning that the mainstream music media seems more focused on nostalgia acts than it does emerging talent.

So it’s more important than ever now to support new, emerging talent. There’s more depth and diversity in new music than ever, you just have to go looking for it. If you don’t want to accept this dystopian future where Martin Roberts from Homes Under the Hammer wins a BRIT Award for best new artist for his new crooner album, or where Jim White from Sky Sports News outsells the most exciting new British indie artists, then Getintothis‘ first live Deep Cuts night is the perfect place to start. Hosted at the Buyers Club, artists featured in previous Deep Cuts columns, Laurie Shaw, Hicari and Little Triggers will be performing at a night of what we believe is some of the finest new music on offer. All for just £3.

Deep Cuts live will take place every month, and will feature performances from the best new artists feature on this column. This month we’ve got 13 great new tunes that we’ve enjoyed in 2017 so far, so give them a listen, they could be playing a Deep Cuts night very soon. See you there! Adam Lowerson

The Fernweh – Next Time Around

The Fernweh are the latest in a long line of great new psychedelia inspired bands from Liverpool. There really must be something in the Mersey waters, as the production line of expansive and experimental new artists to come from the city is astounding, and it’s showing no sign of slowing.

Despite having their full debut album posted on Soundcloud for a number of months, the band seem to have somehow slipped under our radar up until now, and having been championed by the likes of Gideon Coe and Cerys Matthews on BBC 6Music, it’s hard to see how they’ve slipped through the net. They won’t be a secret for much longer though, and with a few top tunes up their sleeves and an already fully formed sound we could be hearing a lot more about them in the near future.

Their sound feels reminiscent of the psychedelic folk of the 1960s and the guitar work has hints of pioneering bands such as The Byrds to it, with airy, faraway vocals giving their music an ethereal, summery feel. They seem to have a great ear for melody, and Next Time Around is certainly a tune you’ll be humming for the rest of the day. If you like this, we strongly recommend the album. It’s an absolute joy.

• Adam Lowerson / @AdamLowerson

Magnus Bechmann – Second Chance

Second Chance is the second single released by 20 year old Norwegian Magnus Bechmann. With just two releases he has already shown he has an ear for creating music that makes you want to skank and two step.

Second Chance has a beautiful youthfulness about it with an upbeat melody paired with optimistic lyrics of how to love life. It’s safe to say that he is heavily influenced by the UK with a sound comparable to that of Two Door Cinema Club and The Magic Gang, he creates a catchy riffs layered with groovy synths.

The Scandinavian has shown potential and definitely one to watch – considering his age.

• Lorna Dougherty / @ldough_

Day Wave – Wasting Time

Next up is sprightly, atmospheric bedroom indie-rock from Californian outfit Day Wave, the latest project of Oakland resident Jackson Phillips. Augmented with additional members for live performances, Wasting Time is more new music following a 2016 peppered with singles from the former Carousel frontman.

Skyward-gazing synthpop is now the order of the day from Phillips, pitching itself in a buffed-up lo-fi arena populated by the likes of Wavves and Cloud Nothings. Wasting Time presents as a wonderfully slick and expansive possible pointer towards an album this year.

Appearing on bills alongside Green Day and Phantogram, and with an appearance at last year’s Lollopalooza, plus a past support slot with Blonde Redhead under his belt, the future looks bright for Day Wave.

• David Hall / @David_Hall86

Desert Mountain Tribe – Hitzefrei

“Hitzefrei” is a term used in Germany when schools close due to excruciating summer heat spells which when directly translated to English means “Heat Free”. With how explosive this track is you could get through winter without spending a penny on your gas bill.

Hitzefrei is the first single released by London based psych-rockers Desert Mountain Tribe since their critically acclaimed 2016 debut album Either That Or The Moon. Released as a teaser to an upcoming mini album it’s left me beyond excited.

The track pays homage to the brother’s hometown in Germany and sees them head in a slightly different direction, having their bassist Phillip Jahn and drummer Felix Jahn provide the vocals instead of frontman Jonty Balls. Hitzefrei sounds fresh and original without losing the core of what makes this band great.

The subtle yet driving bass and lightning in a bottle drums guides you through a journey of psychedelic exploration fronted by the piercing, echoing guitar and distant dream-like voices. For the full experience check out the music video as this compliments the song perfectly using retro footage of summers in Germany.

• Adam Chapman

NYTCLUB – Call Your Friends

As XTC once said, way back when “This is Pop!”

NYTCLUB make perfect pop and that is a good thing. A good thing indeed.

This is not “pop” in the easily dismissed and now largely redundant sense, that way we can disparage something as ‘oh, it’s just pop’ in the sense of something a bunch of nine year olds would listen to, but “pop” in the best sense of the word.

Remember that?

You might be into the hippest and deepest sub-genre (sic) of music possible, but we bet that your introduction to music wasn’t by hearing something by Sunn O))) or John Coltrane or The Fall or…well, we could go on forever. We bet your introduction to music was by hearing a great pop tune whether it was Stevie Wonder, or Abba, or Michael Jackson or… again we could go on but you get our drift.

Through pop you hear something life-affirming, soul-stirring, bouncy, exciting and vital. Something that stops you scratching your chin and slapping yourself on the back about how smart and clever you are and makes you recognise sometimes this is what you need.

Well, NYTCLUB have bucketloads of pop. Call Your Friends is just a start.

Four young lads from Merseyside, they’re already brimming with confidence. New tracks are already on the way, a year of gigs across the country under their belts with shows across the city and beyond to look forward to in 2017. They’ve a following building up that’s going to be impossible to stop and with great songs and an irrepressibility about them which makes you know that everything is going to be alright.

It’s easy to imagine NYTCLUB packing festival stages throughout this year, with hundred of hands held aloft, seas of smiling faces and throats raw with singalongs. But underneath that pop exterior, there’s a steely determination and something deeper. Just like Stevie Wonder or Springsteen or…well, you know the rest!

• Rick Leach / @rickjleach

Dan Kye – Change