SO.CO Team
New Music Monday - 16th October 2023
We're back with another week of the best of new British music. This one might just be the best yet, and just goes to show that whilst the country might be going to hell, the music scene is in rude health. Got your coffee? Got your headphones? Then here we go...
Trust Exercises - Easy Life
On the day that Easy Life ceased to exist, due to a spurious but unfightable trademark claim by British low-cost and low-class airline / gym / hotel shitehawks Easy Group, they finally released one of their oldest tracks, Trust Exercises. The opening line - “focus on the good things” - couldn’t be more apt, and leads into a thoughtful track that rolls along effortlessly. Assuming the band stick around under a new name (they’ve teased that this might be the end), this will be a beautiful staple of the 2024 festival season.
Uninvited - Ren
Thousands of words have been written about Ren so far in 2023, so we don’t need to go over his origin story yet again here. It’s time to focus on the music. Uninvited is a slice of pop gold, and a side to Ren that we have’t seen yet. It might just be the track that opens him up to the Ed Sheeran / Coldplay / George Ezra market. It’s going to be fun watching him mess up the pop scene so beautifully.
Tekken 2 - Bombay Bicycle Club & Chaka Khan
Who had this one on their collab bingo card this week then? Bombay Bicycle Club’s sound has always had one foot in the 80s, but in teaming up with Chaka Khan, they jump right in at the deep end. It’s a synth-driven banger that wouldn’t feel out place as the theme song to The Breakfast Club 2 (please, someone make that movie!)
Fading Away - Tom A. Smith
Long-time readers will know that we’re big fans of Tom A. Smith here at SO.CO. Since headlining our inaugural awards in March he’s gone from strength to strength, playing throughout the UK and Europe to some massive crowds, including being personally invited to play at Glastonbury by Billy Bragg. Fading Away is the latest in a clutch of superb singles, and the video was ten-years in the making. What’s not to love?
Council Rust - Benefits x James Adrian Brown
Benefits are the most important band in the UK right now. Their anger, combined with the formidable songwriting talent of frontman Kingsley Hall, has created a behemoth of punk fury which captures the feelings of the working classes in Britain today perfectly. Council Rust is the furious yet understated spoken work closer on their phenomenal debut album, Nails, and here it is reworked by James Adrian Brown Into a glitchy, tape-looped masterpiece. If this doesn’t hit you, then you’re part of the problem.
Words: Thomas Jackson
Header Image: Tom A. Smith by Thomas Jackson