Weekly5

This week’s edition has two faces: a loud, overwhelming, maybe even aggressive one and a soft, tender, calm one. Yet both are equally intriguing—from the sensitive ballads of Tusks and Michele Ducci to the raw power of GHLOW and the gigantic opulence of Clocktopus.

Tusks – Body Ache

Featured last year with the exceptional Artificial Flame, Tusks’ next album release, Gold, is coming closer. Body Ache is the latest and last single, perfectly incorporating the essence of the British singer-songwriter’s beauty: A slow ballad maximising effect through radical minimalism. Tusks leaves room for brief silences and places subtle decorations into the song’s composition.

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GHLOW – Levitate

Last week, the Stockholm-based duo GHLOW released their new album, Levitate, including a namesake track. The sound of Emille de Blanche and Nikolay Evdokimov is abrasive. The guitar screams and lurches like sirens in the night. Chainsaw synths. Levitate lingers between the raw energy of punk and the melancholy of post-punk—but primarily, the song is an unstoppably forward-pushing bolt of energy.

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Michele Ducci – River

Italian musician Michele Ducci used to be one-half of the electro-pop band M+A. Now, Ducci switches lanes, pursuing another sonic vision that results in River, the first single of his upcoming album, Sive. The song is a hauntingly stunning piano ballad, highlighting Ducci’s whispering-smokey voice. River flows slowly yet with intense intimacy, providing a calming counterpoint to NYC’s overstimulation, which prompted the song.

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Clocktopus – My Riders

The Dutch band Clocktopus is a beast with many tentacles, each bringing different sounds to the table. The collective built a studio in the Thai jungle and recorded an album. And the result—as demonstrated in the track My Riders—sounds incredible. A groovy banjo hook meets raspy vocals until the composition explodes in shouts and massive brass lines, and strings add depth in the background: It’s an overwhelming thing.

Pina Palau – Get A Dog

Swiss singer-songwriter Pina Palau just released her second album, Get A Dog. The namesake song is a heartfelt indie-folk song, warm and earthy, accompanied by captivating storytelling. Driven by a steady beat, the slow electric guitar spreads tenderness, while the acoustic one indulges in playfulness. Get A Dog warps around you like a blanket and crawls under your skin.

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This Sunday morning, we present you with a broad collection of sonic artistry, from driven rhythms and perfectly crafted guitar sounds to stomping beats and otherworldly soundscapes.

Elio Ricca – Duck (Forever for a Day)

Swiss duo Elio Ricca's new single, Duck (Forever for a Day), combines the best qualities of post-punk and indie rock with a pinch of wonky sounds. The result feels exhilarating: upbeat and sinister at the same time but highly addictive.

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benzii – beine spüren

Experimental techno artist benzii is a familiar name here. She continues to refine her danceable yet introspective sound. In her new single, beine spüren, the German dabbles for the first time with her native language. Dreamy yet pumping.

Marseille – Monkey In The Middle

Marseille, an up-and-coming UK band, conjure the swagger of acts like The Stone Roses. Monkey In The Middle builds up a towering wall of sound—a heavy, full-bodied rock song with outstanding guitar work that still neatly incorporates the indie vibe.

Linn Koch-Emmery – Happy

Sweden's Linn Koch-Emmery made it impossible not to pick her new song, Happy, today—even shortly after Ebay Armour. Her bedroom-whisper voice meets a multi-layered composition and, again, an otherworldly melodic beauty.

Midas Fall – Atrophy

Scottish outfit Midas Fall have released their latest album, Cold Waves Divide Us, filled with astounding songs between post-rock and ambient soundscapes. Atrophy is a stunning epos that makes you feel small and insignificant.

We are headed for a collision. We clash with glossy pop and shrieking guitars, with wobbling synths and meandering voices, with stadium-grand attitude and dark underground, with uplifting fears. There are contrasts and juxtapositions in today's songs, but underlining all of them is a passion to make it work nonetheless.

Lov3less – MMMami Mami

Glossy pop clashes with abrasive guitars. Dutch artist and activist for inclusivity and safe work in the music business Simone van Vugt, aka Lov3less, delivers with MMMami Mami a cheeky celebration of queer sex. The track rattles and shakes, stomps and punches. The bass is monumental.

Hearts – In Over Our Heads

In Over Our Heads—an honest portrayal of the mundane struggles in everyday life by four guys trying to make it as musicians. The Swedish-UK love story that is Hearts pushes the indie rock to its maximum capacity. In Over Our Heads is fast, loud, and overwhelming—a perfect soundtrack for sweaty ecstasy.

ÄTNA – Lucky Dancer

The addictive flow of Lucky Dancer's beat, juxtaposed with Inéz Schaefer's meandering voice, makes the German electronica duo ÄTNA's latest single release extremely captivating. Dreams hit the dancefloor in wafts, the sky expands with each wobbling synth line. This is the archaic soundtrack of the future.

True Faith – The Means (feat. Dutch Experts)

After their stunning single In Vain, Boston's post-punk innovators True Faith return in a collaboration with Dutch Experts. Are you ready for a collision of stadium rock-like vocalisation and post-punk's gloomy nature? The Means masters the unlikely combination exceptionally while the drums relentlessly whip adrenaline through the veins.

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Lost in Lona – Lose It All

Has loss and the fears associated with it ever sounded more beautiful? Playing as Lost in Lona, Lidia Beck and Konstantin Aebli gift the world with warm indie-folk while balancing on the rope between melancholy and uplifting spirit in Lose It All. There is depth and quality in this composition, made in Switzerland.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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!