Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the very best of the indie releases from the past seven days. This week we got a funky St. Vincent remix of a track from Beck’s latest album, an excellent new track and video from Ratboys, and the third single from Beach Bunny’s upcoming label debut.
Turnstile & Mall Grab — Share A View
Turnstile released one of the most exciting punk albums of 2018 with Time & Space, and they’re kicking off 2020 with something that sounds… completely different. Share A View is made up of house remixes of three tracks from the album, showing a surprisingly pleasant alternate reality version of the tenacious band. If Turnstile comes through and releases new music this year, here’s to hoping they incorporate some of these influences.
Beck — “Uneventful Days” (St. Vincent remix)
With his fourteenth studio album Hyperspace now available wherever you listen to music, Beck enlisted St. Vincent to put her spin on the record’s second single “Uneventful Days.” However, instead of a simple remix, Annie Clark basically re-recorded everything but Beck’s vocals, incorporating “new guitar, bass, and keys for the track, which has taken on a much funkier vibe under her direction,” according to Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx.
Nada Surf — “So Much Love”
You might remember Nada Surf from their Ric Ocasek-produced hit from the nineties “Popular,” but the trio has been making great music pretty consistently since then. They’re slated to release their ninth studio album Never Not Together in early February, and “So Much Love” is a breezy number about making the most out of life’s marvels. It’s pretty and hopeful, which isn’t something we necessarily get a lot of these days, which makes it especially easy to enjoy.
Ratboys — “I Go Out At Night”
In the second single from their forthcoming album Printer’s Devil, Ratboys wanted to try something different than they had on the album’s other tracks, incorporating synths and other instruments that they weren’t typically used during the recording process. “In the video for the soaring rocker, the group (appropriately) goes out a night and has a spooky Halloween adventure,” writes Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx. We’ve only heard two tracks so far, but Printer’s Devil is already shaping up to be one of the most exciting new albums of early 2020.
Beach Bunny — “Cloud 9”
Beach Bunny is becoming an inescapable indie rock mainstay in 2020. Ahead of their label debut Honeymoon (due out February 14 on Mom+Pop), the Chicago band has already announced a slot at Coachella, a uniquely and impressive accomplishment for a band with only self-released EPs under their belt. “Cloud 9” is the third track from Honeymoon, with “shimmery, driving guitars [that] color the track while vocalist Lili Trifilio’s lyrical delivery is teeming with emotion,” writes Carolyn Droke for Uproxx. “Her voice rises and sinks, channeling the band’s emotive guitars and the track’s resonating theme: the inevitable ups and downs of an important relationship.”
Gladie — “A Pace Far Different”
With Cayetana (sadly) on indefinite hiatus as of last year, Augusta Koch has once again revived her side-project Gladie, this time for a full-length album. “A Pace Far Different” is the first taste of what we can expect from the new era of Gladie, and certainly doesn’t disappoint, featuring glitchy production and a chorus that feels like it could have existed in the late nineties — a good thing. “This song is about feeling trapped by your own limitations and trying desperately to escape them,” Koch said in a statement. “We tried to capture that sensation with the erratic production of the song, in that it focuses mainly around repetitive loops that are meant to mirror the feeling of spiraling.”
Disq — “Daily Routine”
We’ve had our eyes on Disq for a while, and now it’s finally time to hear everything they’re capable of with their debut album Collector due in March via Saddle Creek. With the announcement of the full album comes “Daily Routine,” a “noisy indie-rock single that will surely please fans of groups like Parquet Courts,” writes Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx. It’s a song about personal struggle, and that definitely comes across in the vocal stylings that feel like they are being delivered through a veil of depression.
Makaya McCraven — “Where Did The Night Go” (Gil-Scott Heron poem)
Although Gil Scott-Heron passed away nearly a decade ago, his influence still feels pertinent today. For a tenth anniversary reinterpretation of Scott-Heron’s final recording I’m New Here, prominent jazz musician Makaya McCraven has put an instrumental backing to “Where Did The Night Go.” Where the original track spanned just under a minute and a half, McCraven’s approach extends the piece into a full-fledged production nearly a minute longer, with woodwind flourishes and arrhythmic percussion. It’s unique and immediately feels like something special.
Tennis — “I Need Your Love”
With their new album Swimmer on the horizon, husband and wife duo have shared the throwback track “I Need Your Love.” Driven by piano and percussive tempo changes, Alaina Moore says that “I Need Your Love” is “rooted in anger” and has been treated by the band as an “emotional purge.” It comes paired with a throwback video that looks straight out of the seventies, which is truly awesome.
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Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. .
