Today, Stockholm-based artist waterbaby has signed to Sub Pop worldwide and is sharing her first single “Airforce blue,” and its charming, firework-laden video, which introduces her hypnotic and evocative approach to music. “Airforce blue,” is available today worldwide on all DSPs.
 
“Airforce blue” is a swirling autotuned hymnal that distills the dizzying multitudes and nuances of crushing on someone. The song was created by waterbaby, Marcus White, and Anton Fernandez in Stockholm, Sweden. The video, also directed by her main collaborator White, underpins this unknowable evocative feeling, placing waterbaby amidst the backdrop of New Year’s Eve fireworks in Stockholm.

The FADER calls the track “An unguarded DIY R&B moment coming out of the Swedish capital (see March 29th news post).”
 
More on waterbaby:
Artists have always had a knack for understanding the strange psychological sorcery that comes with crushing on someone. waterbaby - intimately knows the tiny nuances between love – which is to say, the bond between two people – and the one-sided, up-and-down feelings of infatuation: the plaintive longing, the shifty wanting and the not-wanting, and all the luxuriously intrusive thoughts that come with them. If you’re at all familiar with the patterns of this (il)logic, you’ll find a welcome home in the world of waterbaby’s rhapsodic, technopastoral crush songs.
 
waterbaby’s auto-tunelets work like this: there’s the confessional of sisterly, guitar-assisted warmth infused with humane, sticky lyrics that surface in your head like bubbles floating to the top of an aquarium. waterbaby, along with executive producer and collaborator Marcus White, creates a mystic sort of blend – the songs feel spell-like, but they honor the feelings of what it’s like to love, or at least to want to feel loved.
 
The chief love in waterbaby’s life has always been music, of course. It’s infused in her blood: her great-grandad was a jazz pianist; her uncle worked in clubs and arranged concerts, and that Stockholmian syndrome of preternaturally knowing how to craft the perfect song – it’s a part of her that’s palpable in everything she writes or touches.
 
It could be because she’s got a choir-school upbringing that’s done something to her voice – made it familiar with Pythagorean melodies and spare, delicate ideas that sound simple at first but really get into the spiritual in their own way. “My parents hated my music,” she laughs, talking about her private love of the megastars of R&B that she’d sainted as paragons of sounds and feelings that accessed the full range of emotions she was getting familiar with.
 
Those emotions range from sad to empathetic, from hopeful to cocky, from doleful to ecstatic. “Airforce blue,” her first single, with tones as liquidly bright as a fish whipping through the ocean, gives form to the feel of the latter sort of pain. “I still miss you” goes the chorus over and over again, if that’s any help. Crushes and longing seem to map her life over with meaning and joy.

Today, DEBBY FRIDAY is sharing the incredible official video for “WHAT A MAN,” a standout from GOOD LUCK, her full-length debut, available now worldwide on Sub Pop.
 
In a statement for the video, DEBBY FRIDAY offers this: “The ‘WHAT A MAN’ music video is loosely based on the famous essay, Ways of Seeing, by English art critic John Berger as well as paintings by the Italian Baroque painter, Artemisia Gentileschi (in particular, her iconic work “Judith Slaying Holofernes”).
 
In 1972, Berger released “Ways of Seeing” as both a television series via the BBC and a book. Both the series and the text function as image-based explorations of the depiction of women in Western art and culture. This work has been massively influential in cultural theory, as it introduced the concept of “the male gaze.”
 
Gentileschi is distinctive for being one of the only female professional artists of her era. Her paintings draw from myths and Biblical stories and almost always feature women as protagonists and equals to men. Arguably her most famous work, Judith Slaying Holofernes, is thought to be a self-portrait that depicts her as Judith slaying a Holofernes who resembles Agostino Tassi, a man who raped her when she was 17.
 
Both the essay and the paintings served as frameworks for the video. The same way that Gentileschi painted herself into images of other women is the same way I feel that every woman can see ourselves in much of Gentileschi’s story and her work. To be a woman and an artist in this world is to be, in a way, a shapeshifter. You take on the shape of whatever and whoever is looking at you - whether that be a camera, a phone, a lover, a thief, a killer. Always and all at once, you are a spectacle, a flower, a treasure, a ditch, a bitch, a miracle.
 
“When I look at Artemisia’s paintings, I feel myself transported and transformed into the emotional field of Judith, of Jael, of Susanna. Her hand is my hand, her sword is my sword, her pain is my pain. I have always identified with women who were wild and brazen - survivors, people who exist and persist despite. I have always looked up to women who were willing to be ‘bad’ in the name of living thoroughly.”
 
Watch the “WHAT A MAN” official video, directed by Kevan Funk and DEBBY FRIDAY, here.
 
DEBBY FRIDAY has extended her international headlining tour dates and festival appearances supporting GOOD LUCK. Touring resumes Wednesday, April 12th in Portland, OR at Mississippi Studios and now runs through Sunday, September 3rd in Seattle at Bumbershoot.
 
New dates for this announcement include shows in the UK (Manchester and Leeds), France (Paris), Portugal (Lisbon), Australia (Sydney, Melbourne),  Belgium (Brussels), and Canada (Quebec City, QC).
 
Of her recent appearances at SXSW, Rolling Stone raved: “Welcome to Planet Debby: If you wandered into the back room at Empire Garage and Control Room at the right moment on Thursday afternoon, you found yourself in the middle of an interstellar rave in full swing. Toronto experimental artist Debby Friday was onstage, performing a thudding electro-rap song with hints of Azealia Banks and Donna Summer… Leaping off the stage into the small crowd, she demanded that they come closer — “I need your energy!” — and kept on chanting, in a long vamp that bent space and time. It was the kind of serendipitous moment that makes SXSW one of the best places in the world to discover a new favorite.”
 

 
Her upcoming short film GOOD LUCK is a pseudo-autobiographical tale, largely drawn from FRIDAY’s own life and experiences growing up as a zillenial anti-heroine. A surrealist reflection on the tumultuous whirlwind that is the end of adolescence and the emotionality of youth, GOOD LUCK is co-directed by FRIDAY and Nathan De Paz Habib (Chino Amobi’s Eroica, and The Bicycle).
 
GOOD LUCK is available now from Sub Pop. LP purchases from megamart.subpop.com, select independent stores in North America, the U.K., and E.U., and DEBBY FRIDAY’s live shows will receive the limited Loser edition on metallic silver vinyl (while supplies last).
 
GOOD LUCK features “SO HARD TO TELL,” “I GOT IT,” “WHAT A MAN,” and “HOT LOVE,”  was co-produced by DEBBY FRIDAY and Graham Walsh (METZ, Holy Fuck) at Candle Recording Studio in Toronto, and mastered by Heba Kadry in New York.
 
GOOD LUCK and its singles have earned DEBBY FRIDAY praise from the likes of New York Times, Pitchfork, Stereogum, NPR Music, The FADER, Billboard, CRACK, Loud & Quiet, Slant, Nylon, FLOOD, Cool Hunting, Brooklyn Vegan, Treble, Dork, DIY, CLASH, Our Culture and more.
 
What people are saying about DEBBY FRIDAY:
“Her first full-length is sweaty and determined, eager to deliver on its teeth-chattering beats with a feverish intensity. The influences are obvious, but the ways that Debby Friday crashes those sounds together are not (Album of the Week).” - STEREOGUM
 
“GOOD LUCK is an assured and frequently surprising debut that feels like a trip into the lascivious, eclectic wormhole of Friday’s world – and with so much to take in, and so much fun to be had, you won’t want to leave (8/10).” - CRACK
 
“There’s an extraordinary elasticity across GOOD LUCK’s masterful production that makes repeated listens not just enjoyable but irresistible (8/10, Album of the Week).” - LOUD & QUIET
 
“[Her] most fully realized set of songs to date. The abrasion and urgency of her early EPs remains, but the 10 songs here lean more heavily toward the pulse of the club—and often a vampiric underground den at that…Friday more openly embraces pop on her debut album, but rarely does so outside the presence of the shadow and mystique her music so often casts (Album of the Week).” - Treble
 
“DEBBY defies easy categorization, mixing rap, electro, post-punk, industrial, techno and more into a glitchy, bruising and bitcrushed blend that is fiery, magnetic and all her own.” [GOOD LUCK] - Brooklyn Vegan
 
“…An album that testifies to the liberating potential of making a racket.” [GOOD LUCK] - SLANT
 
“An explosive, pounding, relentlessly calisthenic dance-floor banger with attitude to spare. A pulsating beat flickers like a strobe light as Friday and Chris Vargas of the duo Pelada, appearing here as Uñas, trade braggadocious bilingual verses. ‘Let mama give you what you need,’ Friday shrieks before calmly assuring, ‘I got it.’” [“I GOT IT”] - New York Times
 
“In contrast to the pulse-quickening tempos and noisy synths of her past music, her production is deft and graceful, with a skipping beat and cascading backing vocals. ‘Lady Friday/All you do is rеbel,’ Friday chastises herself—tough talk against a fragile, gorgeous sound.” [“SO HARD TO TELL”/ “Best New Track”] - Pitchfork
 
“One of the young year’s most audacious bangers” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - Billboard
 
“Intoxicating…” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - Stereogum
 
“Hyperpop can sometimes come off as abrasive but in the hands of Canadian singer DEBBY FRIDAY it’s soulful, even elegant.” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] -  NYLON
 
“A graceful entrance into yet another territory: lush R&B”[“SO HARD TO TELL”] - NPR Music
 
“If you’ve ever deep-dived into Debby Friday’s discography, you’ll know she slammed this single into left field, but man is it a hit! This edgy extraordinaire has taken a dip into the darkside via falsetto pop.”  ” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - MTV
 
“Friday strikes a remarkable balance on her forthcoming debut LP, GOOD LUCK: between the boisterous and the tranquil, the erudite and the crass, a packed dancefloor and quiet isolation. Featuring unequivocal bangers like “I Got It,” “Pluto Baby,” and “Heartbreakerrr,” Debby Friday is destined for bigger stages in 2023 (“15 Artists to Watch in 2023”).” - SPIN

DEBBY FRIDAY
GOOD LUCK
 
Tracklisting:
1. GOOD LUCK
2. SO HARD TO TELL
3. I GOT IT (feat. Uñas)
4. HOT LOVE
5. HEARTBREAKERRR
6. WHAT A MAN
7. SAFE
8. LET U DOWN
9. PLUTO BABY
10. WAKE UP

Today, marks the worldwide release of DEBBY FRIDAY’s GOOD LUCK, her supernovic, Sub Pop debut. The album features “SO HARD TO TELL,” “I GOT IT,” “WHAT A MAN,” and “HOT LOVE,” and was co-produced by DEBBY FRIDAY and Graham Walsh (METZ, Holy Fuck) at Candle Recording Studio in Toronto, and mastered by Heba Kadry in New York. 

GOOD LUCK and its singles have earned DEBBY FRIDAY praise from the likes of New York Times, Pitchfork, STEREOGUM (“Album of the Week”), NPR Music, The FADER, Billboard, CRACK, Loud & Quiet, Slant, Nylon, FLOOD, Cool Hunting, Brooklyn Vegan, Treble, Dork, DIY, CLASH, Our Culture and more.

DEBBY FRIDAY has also extended her international headlining tour dates, and festival appearances supporting GOOD LUCK. Touring resumes tonight, Friday, March 24th, in Montreal at Phi Center and now runs through Sunday, September 3rd in Seattle at Bumbershoot. 

New dates for this announcement include shows in the UK (Manchester and Leeds), France (Paris), Portugal (Lisbon), Australia (Sydney, Melbourne),  Belgium (Brussels), and Canada (Quebec City, QC).

Of her recent appearances at SXSW, Rolling Stone raved: “Welcome to Planet Debby: If you wandered into the back room at Empire Garage and Control Room at the right moment on Thursday afternoon, you found yourself in the middle of an interstellar rave in full swing. Toronto experimental artist Debby Friday was onstage, performing a thudding electro-rap song with hints of Azealia Banks and Donna Summer… Leaping off the stage into the small crowd, she demanded that they come closer — “I need your energy!” — and kept on chanting, in a long vamp that bent space and time. It was the kind of serendipitous moment that makes SXSW one of the best places in the world to discover a new favorite.”

Fri, Mar. 24 - Montreal, QC - Phi Centre

Sat. Mar. 25 - Toronto, ON - The Garrison

Wed. Apr. 12 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios

Thu. Apr. 13 - Seattle, WA - Barboza

Fri. Apr. 14 -  Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon

Sat. Apr. 15 - Vancouver, BC - Cobalt

Wed. Apr. 19 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right

Thu. Apr. 20 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle

Tue. May  02 - Bristol, UK -  Crofters Rights  

Wed. May 03 - London, UK - Corsica Studios w/ Grove

Fri. May 05 - Krems, AT - Donau Festival  

Sat. May 06 Brussels, BE - Botanique (La Rotonde)

Tue. May 09 - Paris, FR - La Hasard Ludique

Wed. May 10 - Lisbon, PT - ZDB

Thu. May 11 - Leeds, UK - Headrow House

Fri. May 12 - Manchester, UK - The White Hotel

Thu. Jun. 08 - Melbourne, AU - Rising (Max Watts) w/ Desire Marea

Mon. Jun. 12 - Sydney, AU - Vivid Wavyland Metro Theatre

Sat. Jul. 08 - Québec City, QC Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ)

Sun. Sep. 03 - Seattle, WA - Bumbershoot

Her upcoming short film GOOD LUCK is a pseudo-autobiographical tale, largely drawn from FRIDAY’s own life and experiences growing up as a zillenial anti-heroine. A surrealist reflection on the tumultuous whirlwind that is the end of adolescence and the emotionality of youth, GOOD LUCK is co-directed by FRIDAY and Nathan De Paz Habib (Chino Amobi’s Eroica, and The Bicycle).

GOOD LUCK is available now from Sub Pop. LP purchases from megamart.subpop.com, select independent stores in North America, the U.K., and E.U., and DEBBY FRIDAY’s live shows will receive the limited Loser edition on metallic silver vinyl (while supplies last).

What people are saying about DEBBY FRIDAY:

“Her first full-length is sweaty and determined, eager to deliver on its teeth-chattering beats with a feverish intensity. The influences are obvious, but the ways that Debby Friday crashes those sounds together are not.” [Album of the Week] - STEREOGUM

“GOOD LUCK is an assured and frequently surprising debut that feels like a trip into the lascivious, eclectic wormhole of Friday’s world – and with so much to take in, and so much fun to be had, you won’t want to leave (8/10).” - CRACK

“There’s an extraordinary elasticity across GOOD LUCK’s masterful production that makes repeated listens not just enjoyable but irresistible (8/10).” - LOUD & QUIET

“…An album that testifies to the liberating potential of making a racket.” [GOOD LUCK] - SLANT

“An explosive, pounding, relentlessly calisthenic dance-floor banger with attitude to spare. A pulsating beat flickers like a strobe light as Friday and Chris Vargas of the duo Pelada, appearing here as Uñas, trade braggadocious bilingual verses. ‘Let mama give you what you need,’ Friday shrieks before calmly assuring, ‘I got it.’” [“I GOT IT”] - New York Times

“In contrast to the pulse-quickening tempos and noisy synths of her past music, her production is deft and graceful, with a skipping beat and cascading backing vocals. ‘Lady Friday/All you do is rеbel,’ Friday chastises herself—tough talk against a fragile, gorgeous sound.” [“SO HARD TO TELL”/ “Best New Track”] - Pitchfork

“One of the young year’s most audacious bangers” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - Billboard

“Intoxicating…” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - Stereogum

“Hyperpop can sometimes come off as abrasive but in the hands of Canadian singer DEBBY FRIDAY it’s soulful, even elegant.” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] -  NYLON

“A graceful entrance into yet another territory: lush R&B”[“SO HARD TO TELL”] - NPR Music

“If you’ve ever deep-dived into Debby Friday’s discography, you’ll know she slammed this single into left field, but man is it a hit! This edgy extraordinaire has taken a dip into the darkside via falsetto pop.”  ” [“SO HARD TO TELL”] - MTV

“Friday strikes a remarkable balance on her forthcoming debut LP, GOOD LUCK: between the boisterous and the tranquil, the erudite and the crass, a packed dancefloor and quiet isolation. Featuring unequivocal bangers like “I Got It,” “Pluto Baby,” and “Heartbreakerrr,” Debby Friday is destined for bigger stages in 2023 (“15 Artists to Watch in 2023”).” - SPIN

DEBBY FRIDAY

GOOD LUCK

Tracklisting:

1. GOOD LUCK

2. SO HARD TO TELL

3. I GOT IT (feat. Uñas)

4. HOT LOVE

5. HEARTBREAKERRR

6. WHAT A MAN

7. SAFE

8. LET U DOWN

9. PLUTO BABY

10. WAKE UP

Lael Neale shares a new official video for “Faster Than The Medicine” from her forthcoming album Star Eaters Delight, available on CD/LP/CS/DSPs on April 21st, 2023 worldwide from Sub Pop.
 
“Faster Than The Medicine” gallops across a misty imagined English countryside, frenetically propelled by the drum machine built into Neale’s signature Omnichord. The video stars and is directed by Neale, who says, “It’s inspired by filmmaker Jonas Mekas; a collage of moments from my search for the mystical in the mundane.”
 
Lael Neale has extended her international tour schedule for 2023 in support of Star Eaters Delight, which begins Tuesday, April 11th in San Francisco, CA at The Chapel and now runs through Saturday, June 3rd in Düdingen, Switzerland, with an appearance at the Bad Bonn Kilbi Festival. A current list of dates is below, and tickets for these shows are on sale now.
 

Released last month, “In Verona,” the eight-minute, 23-second 2nd single from Star Eaters Delight saw praise from the likes of Under the Radar, who named it their “Song of the Week,” and Brooklyn Vegan, who called it “a compelling track which finds Lael invoking Romeo & Juliet over a repeating piano pattern and swells of synths.” Meanwhile, Stereogum placed the song at no. 2 on its “5 Best Songs of the Week,” offered this, “This is really good. Lael Neale, her voice flat and deadpan, chants about beauty word in deed, about starborn purity, about angels stapling prayers to phone poles. Underneath her voice, pianos pound and synths drone, and horns howl. It sounds deranged and ritualistic, and hypnotic. On paper, “In Verona” is the most pretentious thing in the world. In practice, it’s a whirlwind, lifting you up and spinning you all around. The Velvet Underground were pretentious on paper, too, and nobody’s fronting on ‘Venus In Furs.’ Sometimes, you need to submit. Sometimes, it’s the only thing you can do.”
 
Star Eaters Delight was written by Neale, with arrangements and production by Guy Blakeslee. The recordings were made on cassette in Virginia and mastered by Chris Coady in Los Angeles.

The album is available to preorder from Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com, and select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe, will receive the Loser edition on gold vinyl.

Lael Neale
Star Eaters Delight
 
Tracklisting:
1. I Am The River
2. If I Had No Wings
3. Faster Than The Medicine
4. In Verona
5. Must Be Tears
6. No Holds Barred
7. Return To Me Now
8. Lead Me Blind

On Friday, May 19th, Hannah Jadagu (pron. juh-dah-goo) will release Aperture, her first full-length effort on CD/LP/CS/DSPs worldwide from Sub Pop.
 
On Aperture, Jadagu says, “There’s rock Hannah, there’s hip-hop Hannah, and so on. I didn’t want any of the songs to sound too alike.” Emblematic of this ethos is the new single “Warning Sign,” which starts out as an acoustic R&B slowburner before a muscular electric guitar enters the mix, and the song morphs into something akin to psychedelic. Jadagu continues, “‘Warning Sign’ was practically the last song Max (co-producer) and I recorded for the album. It almost was just a short interlude, but I was inspired by a melody that my sister sang on the original demo, which led Max and I to be able to piece together the rest of the sounds in the studio.” Watch and listen via the new lyric video here.
 
Last week, Jadagu appeared at SXSW, and has scheduled a few early shows to support Aperture, including Saturday, March 25th in Boise, Idaho at Treefort Festival, and Saturday, August 26th, in Salt Lake City, Utah at Mind the Gap Festival. A New York City release show and a headlining tour for 2023 will be announced soon.
 
In February, Jadagu released “What You Did,” the rousing lead single from Aperture, which leverages crushing accusations against the song’s unnamed subject. Screaming static and a crunchy guitar part softens under Jadagu’s calm delivery. The song earned praise for Jadagu from the likes of The New York Times, who says, “[“What You Did”] is suffused with a dreamy atmosphere, but her lyrics pierce right through the haze: “I know what you did,” she sings, repeatedly, to the object of her disappointment…[it] showcases Jadagu’s easy aptitude with lilting melodies and her love of deliciously crunchy texture.” Meanwhile, Stereogum offered this, “[“What You Did”] is crunchy and satisfying, a blast of fuzz.”
 
Jadagu’s Aperture features 12 tracks, including “Lose,” “Admit It,” “Say it Now,” and the aforementioned “What You Did” and “Warning Sign,” was co-produced by Jadagu and Max Robert Baby at Greasy Studios Paris, mixed by Marcus Linon, and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Mastering. Aperture follows the release of Jadagu’s acclaimed What Is Going On? digital-only EP, and stand-alone single “All My Time Is Wasted,” also available on Sub Pop.
 
Aperture is available for preorder now from Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com, select independent retailers in North America, and the UK and EU, will receive the limited Loser edition on red transparent vinyl (while supplies last).

Hannah Jadagu
Aperture

Tracklisting:
1. Explanation
2. Say It Now
3. Six Months
4. What You Did
5. Lose
6. Admit It
7. Dreaming
8. Shut Down
9. Warning Sign
10. Scratch The Surface
11. Letter To Myself
12. Your Thoughts Are Ur Biggest Obstacle