listening2: 21/3/25
I've been listening to... #17 in the series
listening2… is a series of regular posts on what I’ve been… well, listening to. Tracks from my travels. New songs and music to explore further. Half forgotten tracks from my collection. Roadtrip gems. If you like this post, let me know or, even better, let someone else know!
Here’s the 17th Listening2… I thought that 2025 had started well with the release of Polly Paulusma’s brilliant Wildfires, Sam Fender’s new album and the excellent and beautiful record from Monoparts (all in the last episode). But excellent new music just keeps coming, and it’s still not the end of March…!
Listening2… #17: 21/03/2025
On this listening2… playlist: two tracks from family gospel group Annie & The Caldwells (one a remix in the bonuses); a mighty, mighty taster for Little Simz’s album later in the year; one from clipping, the Sci Fi musical project of actor, Daveed Diggs; a surprising and wonderful electronic-led track from Kathryn Joseph; a track from a new album I’m very excited about from Adwaith; and, likewise, one from the highly rated Chicago trio, Horsegirl.
1. Annie & The Caldwells – Wrong feat. Deborah Caldwell Moore
From the forthcoming album, Can’t Lose My (Soul)
Just to say that I have no apologies for finding a lot of new-to-me music via The Guardian’s excellent music section – especially Alex Petridis, whose writing is always knowledgeable and on point and who consistently unearths wonderful and unusual music gems…
…like this forthcoming five star album from a band that has been together for 40 years, playing gospel and soul, who have only just come to a broader audience: Annie and the Caldwells. The album itself is out today (21st March), and the main single, Wrong, is just soooo good. It’s funny, funky, suitably but eyebrow-raisingly pious (this is gospel after all!) and brilliantly sung and played.
The video rocks, and the track has been mixed into an amazing House?Disco track of by legendary producer, Nicky Siano, which you can find in the bonuses below.1
2. Little Simz - Flood
From her upcoming LP, Lotus
Is there an artist out there right now who is more inventive, more in-your-face, more extraordinary than Little Simz? Her output over the first half of this decade is pretty well unmatched in terms of quality and creativity, and No Thank You is just one of my favourite records of the last few years. She has a new album coming out this year, entitled Lotus. Apparently, she told an interviewer that Lotuses are one of the only plants to bloom in muddy water! Hence the creative inspiration. That aside (and the metaphor promises mighty rich pickings to come, I think), her new single, Flood, a collaboration with singers, Obongjayar and Moonchild Sanelly, carries the most addictive groove of the year so far!
And that video….!!!!!
3. clipping - Change the Channel
From the album, Dead Channel Sky
David Diggs is an actor who has appeared in Oscar nominated films and on Broadway. His main project/side project, however is his musical outfit, clipping. Angry, futuristic, sci-fi, revolutionary, rap music might be one way of describing it. Sometimes it has echoes of 70’s funk, then ghetto hip hop, then radical punk. Really though, it’s one of those fusions that is entirely original, however evocative it might be. This was another Guardian find (thank you, you MSM libtards (-; ), and it’s another special one. The whole album is great – intense and heavy – but great. Two tracks were vying to be posted here. This one, the brilliant Change the Channel, which won out because of the story-telling in the video, and the super-retro computer game fantasy tribute, Welcome Home Warrior, which includes the lines:
A path in the woods can lead you back to a past when everything was good - except the dragons - but that’s what the knights are for…
The whole feel of the project feels pretty relevant right now, what with ‘Amerika’ descending into the kind of apocalyptic race-war chaos that many thought had been consigned to history and Hollywood. Nope. It’s here again, and this reminds me of Rage Against The Machine’s antiracist film project from a few years back, Rage Against the Machine x The Ummah Chroma – Killing In Thy Name. It’s a difficult but necessary watch, and I’ve posted it as a bonus…2
The album is out now and you can find the full album stream at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mYS5efFtXpNEV9MDDZsGt3LkFJNR02GzY
4. Kathryn Joseph - HARBOUR
From her forthcoming album, We Were Made Prey
At the 2024 Boia Festival in St Davids, one of the most popular and hard working artists across the weekend was Kathryn Joseph. She played a number of gigs, turned up to watch and support her fellow musicians and is generally a brilliant and well loved character, as well as a supremely talented singer/songwriter. Her music is pretty stark at times, and that’s kind of why I like her. She’s piano folk, but with some of the trad stripped away and spookiness and dark, prickly emotions dialled up to eleven (see my post that included a review of one of Kathryn’s performances at the festival HERE).
So, I was surprised and delighted to hear her new single – which maybe charts a new direction. Harbour is a bass-heavy electronic production with Kathryn’s fellow Scot and collaborator, Lomond Campbell, and it’s extraordinary. Her new album, We Were Made Prey, comes out at the end of May, and if it’s anything like Harbour will be one of the musical events of the year.
The album’s not out till May, and you’ll be able to find the stream on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l0eQYJIB4N7jm8wm5sfO37T7tWRJdcOeI
5. Adwaith - MWY
From the new album: Solas
Two very different post-punk, three-piece, female bands to finish with – and already two more favourite albums for 2025! The first, Solas by Welsh language band, Adwaith, is an epic double album from a band that have earned their chops over the past few years, gathering the Welsh Music Prize twice and loads of praise along the way. Solas is a truly giant piece of work and Adwaith – Hollie Singer, Gwenllian Anthony and Heledd Owen – are showing no sign of compromising on their decision to sing in the Welsh language, nor to tone down the intensity of their music - or their ambition.
This is a band that’s on my live list for 2025. It seems like the right year to see them do their album tour, if this track is anything to go by!
Find the full album stream at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lnMnWyelPCDepXHgyX-d8G1iRSjAbY7oo
6. Horsegirl - Frontrunner
From their new album, Phonetics On and On
Another trio from another place. Horsegirl are three school friends from Chicago, now living in New York. Their new album, Phonetics On and On, is another five star reviewed record, and is excellent. I’ve also been delving into their past material and love that too! Lo-fi, funny and with a nod and a wink to 90’s indie, I could have chosen any track from the album to highlight. It’s tap your foot, hum along, post punk, garage glory from start to finish…
Love it!
Find the full album stream at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ntJcMh-jEXa_Mfyix8wLXEnBTPaEUN5c0
Bonuses
Bonuses 1 & 2: Annie and the Caldwells - Wrong (You Dropped a Bomb) is a piano-led House remix of their gospel/soul single Wrong (see above) produced by Nicky Siano, one of the original disco producers in the early 70s at The Gallery and Studio 54. The second vid below is Nicky Siano talking about the making of Wrong (You Dropped a Bomb): “It’s all about the bassline”…
Bonus 3: Rage Against the Machine x The Ummah Chroma – Killing In Thy Name is a film project from 2021 looking at how racism and white supremacy underpin American life and culture. Back then (only four years ago) it might have seemed to some to be just another ‘radical left scare’. Now we might simply see it as prescient, and unearthing what is there and has always been there in the culture of the USA. We’re not complacent, here in the UK, about what could happen here, but right now I fear for the those living in the original home of all that is funky and groovy…