“Summer starts now,” Justin Timberlake announced this week, while we were already deep into our heatwave. He only recently released a 16-track album, but he’s thrown out another new song, a Drake-style R&B groove titled SoulMate.
British country sisters Ward Thomas are setting out on the road to a third album release in October with a new single out today. Lie Like Me is a lively one that puts their harmonies front and centre.
Long-running US band Death Cab for Cutie were just invited to take place in Robert Smith’s Meltdown festival and release their latest album next month. The video for the lead single, Gold Rush, sees frontman Ben Gibbard doing Bob Dylan’s lyrics-on-big-sheets-of-paper thing.
Saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s new album, Heaven and Earth, was already two-and-a-half hours long, so providing fans with a companion EP, The Choice, was above and beyond the call of duty. Its five songs appeared on streaming services this week, including an unrecognisable cover of the classic Will You Love Me Tomorrow.
In the week that Richard Swift died aged just 41, it’s worth digging into the California singer-songwriter’s solo albums as well as remembering him as The Black Keys’ bassist. Try Dressed Up for the Letdown, from the album of the same name, for starters.