Lucky Number Music

Today, HMLTD return with the announcement of their second album, The Worm – due for release on Friday 7th April. To coincide with the news, the London collective have shared lead single “Wyrmlands” and an accompanying video directed by frontman Henry Spychalski.

Created over the course of two years with a cast of 47 musicians – including a gospel choir and a 16-piece string orchestra – The Worm is less a concept album than a fully-fledged musical universe, transcending genre and medium. Set in a disorienting anachronistic version of Medieval England – as steeped in dystopian sci-fi fantasy as it is folklore and Old English mythology – it’s part political polemic, part deeply moving psychological journey, and finds frontman Spychalski drawing on his own psycho-spiritual struggles to construct a modern parable about the impotence felt by individuals stuck inside gargantuan, labyrinthine systems of power that they are powerless to change.

In contrast to their debut album, the acclaimed 2020 release West of Eden, which explored toxic masculinity and the breakdown of Western society, The Worm is framed as a spiritual quest within a delusion. In that delusion, Spychalski’s shadow self is projected and embodied as a giant worm that swallows England, and which must be slain in order to achieve salvation. The concept came to him in a fever dream back in 2020, before being fully fleshed out with the band’s recording line-up of Achilleas Sarantaris (drums), Duc Peterman (guitar/production), Seth Evans (keys) and Nico Mohnblatt (bass).

Spychalski explains,“We’re told to believe that anxiety and depression are purely material and biological – like a parasitic worm that can be removed with the right treatment. I think that really these conditions reflect the world that surrounds us – like colonies that a far bigger Worm has made in each of us – the psychological havoc wreaked by our inescapable capitalist reality and the looming apocalypse it has created.”

Released today, first single “Wyrmlands” and its accompanying video – directed by Spychalski himself – introduces the world in which The Worm takes place: one where England has been swallowed by The Worm and renamed ‘Wyrmlands’, along the way regressing to a Medieval, feudal society.

“‘Wyrmlands’ tells the story of a guerrilla resistance movement against the Worm” he notes. “The lyrics recount their tales of subversion and subterfuge: counter-offensives, tortured confessions and haunting vignettes of the strange new land in which they find themselves.”

The video is intended to explore the liminal space between the fantasy world in which most of the album takes place (“Wyrmlands”), and the base reality which births that delusion: a violent collision of the real and the unreal; of our delusions and the traumas that create them.”

By conjuring a parable of human struggle and salvation – of a society impotent and festering inside the intestines of a giant parasite – HMLTD visualise capitalist realism and spiritual alienation as a mythological beast. And with its hopeful resolution, this utterly unique exercise in world-building might just help inspire alternative realities, or at least offer a spiritual crutch to all of us within this one.

HMLTD will also play two special live shows at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts on Thursday 18th & Friday 19th May. For tickets, head to the band’s website.

Priestgate have today announced their second EP One Shade Darker for release on 3rd March. The EP’s newest single “White Shirt” – an anthemic homage to their hometown of Driffield – arrives today. Priestgate kick off 2023 with a Dork Hype List accolade under their belts (“The best new live band on the planet”), following an NME 100 nod in 2022, and will headline the Dork Hype List tour next month, which includes a show at Colours in Hoxton. Full live dates and tickets available NOW.

Speaking about “White Shirt” vocalist Rob Schofield explains: “It’s about Driffield – whether it be missing it, loving it or hating it… it’s about home. Where we’re from doesn’t really have a creative community, there’s some good joiners – just no bands. It’s about seeing the same old stuff growing up, I’d never really left the place all that much before the band started. I had it in my head that I’d end up making coffins with my dad.”

Commenting on the forthcoming EP One Shade Darker, Rob adds: “It’s our attempt at pushing the sound to another place, but we never sit down and say “let’s make this sound like X artist or Y artist” – we write each song then see if they all work together afterwards. It’s just how we are as a band; we’ve always found ourselves wanting to see what will happen next. It’ll always sound like us to a certain degree, maybe just with a different haircut if you will.”

Today, Jessica Winter releases her exceptional new single, “Clutter” featuring London’s balaclava-clad avant-garde artist Lynks. “Clutter” follows the critically acclaimed 2022 singles “Choreograph” and “Funk This Up“, all of which are taken from Winter’s upcoming EP Limerence, out February 10th.

On “Clutter”, Winter continues to demonstrate why she has been regarded by a wealth of publications – including Rolling Stone UK, DIY, Dork, Gigwise, So Young and more – as one of the best up-and-coming alt-pop acts on the scene today. On the track, she traverses through an escapade of stimulating beats and hooks as she blends her signature mix of synth-pop and 80’s glam. The collaboration with Lynks was born out of the pair’s long standing friendship, having also played a special show at the Brixton Windmill together before Christmas in aid of Brixton Soup Kitchen.

Directed by Ella Margolin, the “Clutter” music video is an extension of Winter’s artistic vision and is testimony to her ability to create art that speaks for itself. The video follows a group of women who have left their husbands and have become reinvigorated with new life, energy, and hotness.

Speaking about “Clutter”, Jessica Winter said: “I moved house and found love letters, photos and other bits from relationships over the years that at the time meant so much yet hold no significance now. I’ve carried these things around with me all this time and a spring clean was needed; physically and spiritually from all past and present relationships! Lynks embodies a divine solitary strength so there’s no one better than him to help deliver this message.”

In February, Winter will also support Rebecca Black on her UK and Ireland tour, including what is set to be a standout show at London’s Heaven. Tickets are available now.

Today Jessica Winter announces her new EP Limerence, out February 10th 2023 on limited edition 12″ vinyl and all digital platforms. The announcement is accompanied by the release of new single, “Funk This Up“, the second track from the EP after the acclaimed “Choreograph”.

On “Funk This Up”, Winter shows her versatility as an artist as she pivots from the more cinematic aesthetics of “Choreograph”, and favours a more raucous, dance-heavy approach. Grounded within her unique, unmistakable style, Winter delves into everything from synth-pop to punk and 80’s glam.

“Limerence was written during a time when I was trying to understand my relationship to love and my behaviours around it.” says Jessica; “Love confuses me so much and I think this EP demonstrates that.”

Directed by Ella Margolin and shot on VHS, the “Funk This Up” music video is an extension of Winter’s artistic vision and is testimony to her ability to create art that speaks for itself.

Speaking about “Funk This Up”, Jessica said: “This song began as a conversation with myself… the verses being in the present and reacting to the choruses where I embody the more deranged temptress luring me into the depths of addiction and chaos.

The video captures two versions of the addict, the version that tries to stay balanced and together and the version that falls from the centre. We used different forms of distortion on the face and body and more extreme performance to capture the temptress.”

Today, the London-based trio Dream Wife – vocalist Rakel Mjöll (she/her), guitarist Alice Go (she/her) and bassist Bella Podpadec (they/them) – return with their first new material since 2020. A band with a reputation for a ferocious live show and championing bodily autonomy, their new song “Leech” addresses the double standards of power. “Do you hide behind the position you hold/ Do you hide behind the illusions of power/ The perception of power” Rakel sings before changing gears and screaming “The leech is out for blood.”

The band says of the new single, “It’s an anthem for empathy. For solidarity. Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of power. Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use more empathy. As our first song to be released in a while, we wanted to write something that feels like letting an animal out of a cage. It’s out. And it’s out for blood…”

“Leech” is out now and is the first taste of what’s to come from Dream Wife in 2023. Watch the video below.

In addition, they have also announced a London show at Peckham Audio on Friday 25th November. You can get tickets HERE.