TOP INDIE SONGS - WEEK 50

Hello, readers! How are you?! How was your weekend?! Did you spend it reading, watching, and listening to all of the incredible content that We Are: The Guard published over the last seven days?! If not, here's a quick recap (a special shout-out to Bandlyweds, the new YouTube series that we launched this week with guest stars the Overcoats – it is HILARIOUS!):

- NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! 69 IS DROPPING NEXT YEAR: LOL
- 10 TWITTER MOMENTS: MEET MARIAH CAREY'S NEW BACKING SINGERS
- SPOTIFY: WEEKLY CHART – WEEK 49
- BEST OF INDIE POP – WEEK 49
- BEST NEW SONG: MXMS – AFTER NIGHT
- BEST NEW INDIE SONG: EX:RE – ROMANCE
- BEST NEW TRACKS: ROLE MODEL – SIX SPEED
- INDIE CHRISTMAS: CAPPA – ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU
- BEST CHILL MUSIC – WEEK 49
- INDIE CHRISTMAS: EMAN8 – HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
- BANDLYWEDS: FEATURING OVERCOATS

Phew! It's safe to say that it's been a busy time here at WATG HQ, but fear not – we aren't planning on slowing ourselves down this Monday morning! While you finish up the last of your Christmas prep, then, leave it to us (and most definitely NOT The Recording Academy!) to sort out all of your music needs with the latest edition of We Are: The Guard's Top Indie Songs, which this week features tracks from LANKS, Toro y Moi, Oliver Tree, and more!

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LANKS – WEPT

Once in a while, a song comes along that feels too gorgeous for words. Case in point: “Wept” by LANKS. The track is a devastating show of commitment from the Australian artist to a woman called Alisa – who LANKS writes on Facebook is currently battling an unnamed illness – with Will Cuming alternating between stunning acoustic and electronic sections as he sings of pledging his allegiance to his best friend: “I've wasted too much time/Not holding on to you/I can feel you through your mind/My heart bleeds like I never knew.”

MXMS – AFTER NIGHT

Following on from “Gravedigger,” a song that rose from the ground like a couple of colliding tectonic plates, We Are: The Guard's very own MXMS return with “After Night.” Written in the wake of David Bowie's death back in 2016, the track hears Ariel Levitan and Jeremy Dawson trading in the club bangers for a more incorporeal sound, with pianos dancing on the edge of the afterlife while Levitan invokes the late, great Dolores O'Riordan with her spectral vocables.

TORO Y MOI – ORDINARY PLEASURE

Toro y Moi follows up “Freelance” with another squelchy groover. “Ordinary Pleasure” is the second single to be unveiled from Chazwick Bradley Bundick's forthcoming album Outer Peace and hears the former chillwave pioneer continuing to juxtapose existential musings with the sounds of rubbery disco-funk – but not before paying tribute to one of the best indie songs of the last decade! Listen.

COUSIN KULA – JELLY LOVE

Having released their debut EP OODLES earlier this year, Cousin Kula return with the funky “Jelly Love.” The song hears the British outfit continuing to hone and refine their signature breed of neo-psychedelia, with synths swirling like licorice wheels around the viscous vocals of frontman Elliot Ellison, resulting in a gooey groove that Cousin Kula say “symbolizes a really positive moment in time for us.”

DENM – THE CHRISTMAS SONG (NAT KING COLE COVER)

The countdown to Christmas is officially on (15 days to go!), but don't worry – there'll be no mention of Bing Crosby or Mariah Carey around these parts! The only Christmas songs that you'll be hearing about on We Are: The Guard are those that appear on Indie Christmas – our Christmas covers album that we first released back in 2017. Featuring 11 modern takes on old-school classics – including this sleigh bells-meets-EDM beats spin on “The Christmas Song” by DENM – Indie Christmas is available to listen to now!

ST FRANCIS HOTEL – COLLIDE

If Danger Mouse wants to sign you to his label, then you're clearly doing something right. And listening to “Collide” by 30th Century Records act St Francis Hotel, it's really not hard to hear why the superproducer was unable to resist this Irish duo's sound. The psychedelic-tinged piece is nothing short of sumptuous, with slow-building symphonics matching luxuriously melodic vocals in order to create an aural experience that melts into every inch of the soul like liquid gold.

LUCIA – CHEAP TALK

Ariana Grande isn't the only one getting in touch with her inner Regina George of late! LUCIA frontwoman Lucia Fairfull is also channeling the ultimate Mean Girl in this video for “Cheap Talk” from the British band's recent EP of the same name. Directed by Lucia alongside Sedona May, the clip is an all-around ode to American rom-coms of the early 00s, with LUCIA's wide-screen power pop making for a perfect accompaniment to this teenage dream of a visual!

ROLE MODEL – SIX SPEED

Depression is an ugly, ugly thing, and yet it's responsible for some endlessly beautiful music, like “six speed,” the latest single from ROLE MODEL's Tucker Pillsbury. “The six speeds on my bike are like having six different moods that just shift back and forth whenever they please,” says the 21-year-old of the inspiration behind the three-and-a-half-minute ballad, which hears ROLE MODEL's diaristic writings coming set against a backdrop of teardrop piano keys and gently ticking percussion.

OLIVER TREE – HURT

Oliver Tree never fails to bring the “WTF?!,” but probably the funniest thing of all is that the dude writes genuinely awesome songs! No, really – between the scooter, bowl cut, and ridiculous videos like this one for his latest single “Hurt,” there lives an artist who's very much pushing the boundaries of rap, indie, and electronic music. Bring on Ugly Is Beautiful, Oliver's debut album, due out in 2019!

GABRIEL BLACK – GOODBYE

He recently tweeted that he believed that he was “the best lyricist coming up,” and honestly?! It's hard to disagree with We Are: The Guard favorite gabriel black listening to his soaring latest single. “Shoot me to the moon in the car that's on the news/Maybe I'll cocoon and then fall into my room/Rather end in ashes than be locked inside a tomb/Burn up in the atmosphere, oh mama what a view,” sings the self-described “sad boy” on “goodbye,” a vibrant emo banger about escaping Earth in Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster that'll have you rising above your worldly troubles in next to no time.

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Until next time, why not follow We Are: The Guard's Best Indie Daily! on Spotify for more?! x

Photo by Comete El Coco on Unsplash

Jess Grant is a frustrated writer hailing from London, England. When she isn't tasked with disentangling her thoughts from her brain and putting them on paper, Jess can generally be found listening to The Beatles, or cooking vegetarian food.