Edition #106
Today, we recommend the new songs by Seafood Sam, Ride, Soft Loft, Luxie, and Chauffeur et Parlak.
If you have been here for a while, you know that hip-hop and rap is mostly not down my alley. But every once in a while, an artist captures my attention. Today, it is Californian artist Seafood Sam with his exceptional new single.
Furthermore, you can enjoy the latest track by Ride, a lucid indie-rock composition with some wave feeling. Or celebrate vulnerability with Soft Loft, dance to the psychedelic sound of Chauffeur et Parlak, or dive into an intruiging juxtaposition by Luxie.
Seafood Sam – Can't Take the Hood to Heaven
Full of lush oldschool West Coast vibes, Can't Take the Hood to Heaven by Long Beach hero Seafood Sam slowly builds up, cracks open hardened chests with its tender soul, and reaches unknown heights with its lavish composition. This track is eclectic, dramatic, playful, and cinematic beyond words.
Ride – Last Frontier
Interplay, the seventh studio album of Ride will be out on 29th March. With Last Fronier, we grab a first glimpse—and it is a promising one. Blending classic indie rock songwriting with a kaleidoscopic sound but especially a particular melancholic vibe, the single channels acts like New Order.
Soft Loft – Late
The fragility and emotional weight of Late mirrors the song's message: An hommage to the beauty of human failure, the chaotic nature of life, and embracing it all with love. Soft Loft's warm embrace is the last ambassador of Switzerland's promising indie-upstarts debut album The Party And The Mess.
Luxie – U&ME
French artist Luxie, inspired by 60s rock and 70s folk, teleports nostalgia into a futuristic outfit. In U&ME, her vocal performance has a distinct folky silhouette, reminiscent of acts like Lola Marsh. However, Luxie's singing is accompanied by an intruiging drum and bass rhythm—a combination that works perfectly.
Chauffeuer et Parlak – The Napoli Run
Zurich's instrumental duo Chauffeur et Parlak present their first single of the upcoming sophomore album. The Napoli Run sounds as hot as Italia's south and throws in some oriental notes to spice things up. The whole vibe ends up somewhere between an exotic outerspace experience and earthy garage groove.
You can listen to today's curation on selected streaming services:
Spotify • Apple Music • YouTube Music • Bandcamp
Cheering and Boiling in Zurich
Son Mieux packed the small club Exil in Zurich and turned up the volume and heat to the maximum.
It would get tropically hot on this rainy Thursday night. And a surprisingly large and heterogeneous crowd rushed under umbrellas to the club Exil in Zurich. An evening with Son Mieux was about to go down. The band's heavily disco-styled sound attracted young and old, fashionable and boring business casual, united in their search to flee the dreary everyday life for a short moment.
Then again, the pull of Son Mieux is not too surprising. In the Netherlands, their home country, they will soon play their first stadium shows. A success like that is always going to spill over to other countries.
In the interview with Negative White, however, Son Mieux's mastermind, Camiel Meiresonne, looked forward to the more intimate shows on their European tour: «We can be a band with a big show and grand gestures. The gigs in Holland have become huge, so it's fun to play smaller venues again and find these smaller moments of intimacy.»
Asked what people might expect from their show in Zurich, Meiresonne said what he would sort of repeat on stage later: «We want people to feel that they can simply be whoever they want and feel whatever they want for that night. Life is everything between happy and sad, and I hope our concerts can be a place where you can feel all of it.»
But first, it was on Pat Burgener's shoulders to get the audience cooking. The active professional freestyle snowboarder from Lausanne, Switzerland, has been setting up an alternative career path in music since 2014 with remarkable success. And a portion of the crowd came just to see him.
Exclusive Premiere: Jenobi Tackles Female Appearance Standards in «Makeup»
Swedish artist Jenobi's new single reflects on the standards of female beauty. Negative White hosts the exclusive video premiere.
What is considered natural? How is female beauty defined by society? These are only exemplary questions within the larger theme that Jenobi's new single Makeup is tackling.
Swedish artist Jenny Apelmo Mattsson played bass for the Hamburg-based folk band Torpus & The Art Directors but also worked on her own ideas. In 2020, her alias Jenobi was born, an outlet for self-reliant and uncompromising creativity.
Makeup, the second single from her upcoming album Irregularity, celebrates its premiere today with Negative White:
Makeup's composition is simple, with a reduced backdrop for the almost whispered, spoken-wordy lyrics to take centre stage. Makeup is not beating around the bush with its message:
Hey, how are you doing?
You look a little tired babe
Honey, how is it hanging?
Your cheeks look a little pale
The lyrics are, and that is hardly a surprise, far from some fictional event. It refers to an experience Jenobi had in a supermarket. «The pretty employee at the checkout asked me how I was doing because I looked so tired. Of course I wasn't tired, I just didn't have any make-up on. I wrote the lyrics for the song at home that day.»
The single acts as an answer to this and similar comments so many women have to hear every day:
Didn’t put my makeup on
I’m not tired, I’m just busy
Don't you think that I look pretty
With some rings below my eyes?
And now for those men who think: «Maybe the cashier just wanted to be nice.» Ask yourself: When was the last time a stranger asked you if you were okay because of your body's appearance? The answer is most likey: never. And there you have the issue.
Our Goals For 2024
Here is a quick overview of the goals we set ourselves for this year.
Edition #105
Today, we recommend the new songs by Porcelain Id, Schmack, sad dad, One Sentence. Supervisor, and Valentino Vivace.
In today's Weekly5, we present you absolutely exceptional works of sonic craftsmanship: From the experimental yet captivating compositions by Porcelain Id and Schmack to the atmospheric daydreams of One Sentence. Supervisor and sad dad. And if you want to dance, swirl your hips to Valentino Vivace.
Porcelain Id – Brilliant (feat. Emma)
With Bibi:1, Hubert Tuyishime, aka Porcelain id, an exceptional debut album, effortlessly blending styles and sounds to a collage that sounds as captivating as experimental. Brilliant, a collaboration with singer Emma, shines especially bright.
The song by the nonbinary Rwandan artist who works in Belgium sounds as if The Libertines landed in a smokey jazz club, stomping through wild night, arm-in-arm with the everpresent acoustic guitar and the roaring saxophone. Otherwordly!
Schmack – The Darkness (feat. Mile)
With their single Turner, Austrian experimental jazz ensemble Schmack already part of Weekly5 in 2022. Now, they are about to release their next album, In Love, and teased it with its opener The Darkness, a collaboration with Mile from rap group Sharktank.
The track is short, but, man, it is intense. Schmack's composition is hyperactive, flickering like warning lights, and Mile's flow matches perfectly to their unconventional beat foundation.
sad dad – morro bay
Hailing from the Swedish archipelago, sad dad create melancholic indie-rock tunes. The newcomers have been unleashing a constant stream of new singles since last year—with morro bay being the latest one.
The song draws from the best of dreamy indie-rock, even taps into the realms of shoegaze and post-punk, to create a hazyand escapist sound—inviting the listener to leave behind the mondane reality of daily life.
One Sentence. Supervisor – ((mush))
Switzerland's One Sentence. Supervisor sneak out of the shadows with their signature doom-and-gloom indie-rock compositions—pulling off again the juxtaposition of eerie sounds and evocative melodies.
Their latest single, called ((mush)), shoegazes towards shimmering highlights, stretches itself to borderline psychedelic lenghts, and indulges in a handcrafted dreamy trance.
Valentino Vivace – Insieme
Valentino Vivace—this man knows how to groove. Insieme, a previously exclusively available on the vinyl edition of his debut album, Meteoriti, gets now its time in the flickering italo disco lights.
The Swiss artist's track is like the sonic reincarnation of a warm VHS tape glow, the 80s brusts out of every note, and the bassline calls for another round of Negroni Sbagliato. Let's move!
You can listen to today's curation on selected streaming services:
Spotify • Apple Music • YouTube Music • Bandcamp
«I have been sober for four years now. It was a significant process»
Camiel Meiresonne and his band, Son Mieux, are on their way up. Ahead of their concert in Zurich, we spoke to the band's mastermind about disco, sad moments, and his sobriety.
«We met before, right,» Camiel Meiresonne asks on the other end of a video call from his hotel room in Budapest. «It was backstage at a picknick table, right?» The moment, the frontman of Dutch indie-pop sensation Son Mieux recalls, lays way in the past:
It was their first show abroad, at a small open-air in Switzerland in 2016.
«I do remember that gig. We had a little event for our crew and management about a month ago. We had a pub quiz, and there was a question about our first-ever gig abroad.»
Today, almost eight years later, Son Mieux are in a completely different place. In their home country, they sell out huge shows. Their second studio album, The Mustard Seed, was awarded an «Edison», the Dutch equivalent to the Grammys. Shortly after, they released the single Multicolor, which remained the number one spot for most airplay for eight weeks.
Son Mieux currently tours through Europe with concerts in major cities—also in Zurich's Exil club on February 22. Time to catch up before the show.
It has been a while since we last spoke, and a lot has happened for you and the band. Looking back, what are the most significant aspects?
The main thing is that we've actually truly become a band. Back in 2016, everything felt like a solo project. We had the live group, but I was writing and recording the songs. The records we've made and the shows we've played for the last couple of years we have been making as a group where everybody found its place.
Collaborating as a group also has evolved the music. Where things, in the beginning, were more acoustic stuff with electronics around it, now the sound is formed around the people that make up the band. We've been taking our time to find the right sound, the right stories, and the right people. If I look back now, we were not rushed to make it. Step by step, we found the place where we felt comfortable but still excited.
You already touched on the evolving sound. You have developed a certain vintage vibe, a lot of disco feeling. What is it about this sound that fascinates you?
We always look for ways to give our songs a twist. Most of the songs that we write are still folk songs. They are even a bit sad if you play them on an acoustic guitar or a piano. Their themes are not always only positive.
Malummí's «The Universe Is Black» Awarded with IndieSuisse Album of the Year 2023
The winner of the IndieSuisse Album of the Year award has been announced: «The Universe Is Black» by Malummí convinced the jury.
Switzerland's independent music scene has chosen the «Album of the Year» for the ninth time: This year's music prize, awarded by IndieSuisse, the association of independent Swiss music labels and producers, goes to the album The Universe Is Black by Malummí, which was chosen by a 28-member jury. The award will be presented at the m4music Festival in Zurich.
In November, all IndieSuisse members had the opportunity to nominate two releases from their catalogue of albums released in 2023 for the IndieSuisse Album of the Year and the Futuristic Perspective Award. For the latter, the members had to argue why the album they nominated offers a futuristic perspective.
Out of a total of 19 nominated albums, The Universe Is Black by Malummí was voted into first place by an independent jury of Swiss and European industry specialists. When selecting the jury, attention was paid to a diverse composition.
Following their debut album Blood (2021), Basel-based project Malummí released their second album The Universe Is Black in November 2023. It marks a departure from the quiet and soft electronic-coloured pop of the debut and ventures into a broader alternative rock sound. The familiar elements of intimate folk-pop with the distinctive, expressive vocals remain.
MalummíBandcamp New & Notable Oct 31, 2021
On the new album, Malummí applied new forms of composition and arrangement, breaking away from stylistic conventions. The new album is characterised by a captivating blend of minimalist, experimental indie rock and warm folk-pop, and explores different forms of relationships: to oneself, to other people, to society.
Influenced by personal experiences, it deals with themes such as self-love, mental health, rebirth and the joy of living. The Universe Is Black also takes a critical look at social constructs in a patriarchal, white society.
CLOSED: Win A Signed Vinyl of Moyka's «Movies, Cars & Heartbreak»
We got our hands on a signed vinyl of «Movies, Cars & Heartbreak», the 2023 album by Norwegian electro-pop artist Moyka. You can win it here.
In 2023, Moyka released her second album, Movies, Cars & Heartbreak, filled with ten exceptional electro-driven pop songs. Songs like Already Gone or Rear View blend catchy melodies, addictive and danceable beats, and an intriguing melancholy.
Learn more about Moyka in our review of her first concert in Switzerland:
Negative WhiteJanosch Troehler
In the aftermath of her concert, we have obtained a signed vinly edition of Movies, Cars & Heartbreak that we now give away to one of you. Here is how you can participate:
- You have to be registered (free) with Negative White.
- Fill out the form below until Wednesday, February 21, 8 am.
