Atwood Journal is worked up to share our Editor’s Picks column, written and curated by Editor-in-Chief Mitch Mosk. Each week, Mitch will share a group of songs, albums, and artists who’ve caught his ears, eyes, and coronary heart. There may be a lot unimaginable music on the market simply ready to be heard, and all it takes from us is an open thoughts and a willingness to pay attention. Via our Editor’s Picks, we hope to shine a lightweight on our personal music discoveries and showcase a various array of recent and up to date releases.
This week’s Editor’s Picks options Vienna Vienna, Petey USA, Tennis, Felly, Self Esteem, and JERUB!
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“God Save the Queens”
by Vienna Vienna
“How can Heaven be higher if we’re not becoming collectively?” Vienna Vienna sings scorching on the mic, his charged voice rising to a fever pitch alongside pounding drums. “Someone go inform the priest – God save the Queens!” And similar to that, the self-proclaimed “glimmer rock” artist from Clovis, California – a relative newcomer, by each respect – establishes himself as a voice not only for his group, however for his era and all those that imagine in going daring, residing unapologetically, and embracing our true, genuine selves.
I noticed a person out in Hollywood, he carried an indication
That stated he hated me, I stated, “Please, get in line”
He begins to ask me a query,
he stated, “Are you aware Christ?”
I advised him, “Perhaps I do, does she work the nights?”
He stated, “No, I imply Jesus, ”
I stated, “That man was tight
However I’m not residing in a metropolis constructed upon your lies”
He tried to avoid wasting me,
however someone already did final evening
They stated their identify was Alex,
child, they usually confirmed me the sunshine
Launched in January through PULSE Information and Pete Wentz’s DCD2 label, “God Save the Queens” is a hovering, spirited, and totally seductive queer anthem: The sort of dynamic, all-consuming rally cry you need to scream out loud on the prime of your lungs, that performs on repeat (and rent-free) in your head for months on finish, and that lights a hearth within the depths of your very soul. With a placing beat and references to a few of the LGBTQIA+ group’s legends – together with a cheeky nod to expensive previous President Abraham Lincoln (whose relationships are well-documented) – Vienna Vienna delivers a timeless, catchy, and immediately memorable barnburner that hits laborious and guarantees to go away a long-lasting mark.
For the artist – who launched his debut EP Wonderland simply final yr on Nationwide Coming Out Day (October 11th) – “God Save the Queens” is an expression of pure ardour and unadulterated happiness.
How can Heaven be higher
if we’re not becoming collectively?
Someone go inform the priest
God save the Queens
And all of the in-betweens
Why you afraid of the love, love, love?
God save the Queens
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
““JOY!! DO YOU HEAR ME??? JOY!!!!” Vienna Vienna’s James Barre tells Atwood Journal. “There are too many unhappy tales about us Queens. We deserve an opportunity to smile. F**okay subtlety – I need it daring and I need it now! The quantity of people that died preventing for the suitable to be themselves is uncountable. I’m sick of ready round for the respect they’re by no means going to offer us. I’m over being afraid of lust and life. I’m performed holding my fingers as much as the sky, and asking the man-made model of Christ to like me. I’m pissed.”
“However in all of this, in all of my worn-out grievances, the one which churns essentially the most unrest is figuring out how they giggle at us, all whereas carrying these f**king cargo shorts. With no apology, ‘God Save The Queens’ factors the finger proper again at them. Corny bitches.”
I had a imaginative and prescient of Heaven via the pearly gates
I noticed Freddie kissing Bowie, carrying curler skates
Mr. Lincoln rocking leather-based, even he was homosexual
Princess Di appeared in my eyes and stated,
“Go present them the best way”
Little Richard within the choir, there with Marsha P
All the ladies loving ladies standing subsequent to me
Then I wakened in a haze
considering that was actually bizarre
With a message on the mirror
saying, “Want you have been right here”
Barre holds nothing again in belting the track’s refrain, pouring himself right into a message of empowerment and revelry. “God Save the Queens” isn’t only a queer anthem; it’s a name to arms and a celebration of visibility – a searing, glowing center finger to disgrace, and a sacred tribute to the dreamers, the fighters, the icons, and the on a regular basis heroes who dared to reside out loud.
How can Heaven be higher
if we’re not becoming collectively?
Someone go inform the priest
God save the Queens
And all of the in-betweens
Why you afraid of the love, love, love?
God save the Queens!
With its tongue-in-cheek jabs, heartfelt affirmations, and unapologetic exaltation of queer pleasure, Vienna Vienna’s single is a glitter-drenched gospel for the outcasts and the in-betweens – these too usually pushed to the margins, however who proceed to shine regardless. It’s fearless. It’s enjoyable. It’s fury wrapped in glam. And it’s precisely the sort of radiant, rebellious vitality this world wants extra of.
God save the queens, certainly – and should their mild by no means dim.
“Mannequin Prepare City”
by Petey USA
Petey USA’s “Mannequin Prepare City” is an explosive, cathartic fever dream of a track. I’ve had it caught in my head for months – and I imply that in one of the best ways attainable.
Launched in January, the lead single off the midwestern singer/songwriter’s upcoming album The Yips (out July 11th) is a masterclass in uncooked, visceral emotional launch: As catchy as it’s cathartic, this track blends feral vitality with uncooked introspection and simply the correct quantity of existential dread.
I noticed this city, quiet like a mannequin prepare city
It was picturesque and exquisite
And I couldn’t wait to point out you
After we got here round you didn’t really feel the identical
You stated I don’t actually perceive this place
I felt embarrassed that I ever favored the city
I stomped my ft into the bottom
Produced by Chris Walla (of Dying Cab for Cutie fame), “Mannequin Prepare City” captures the unusual stress of loving one thing – or somebody – that the individuals round you simply don’t perceive. It’s a jagged, tender, and wildly infectious outpouring that hits like a panic assault and a hug on the similar time.
Heard you met some man,
at a celebration the opposite evening
He was the good man you’d ever met
He made you giggle and he smoked cigarettes
After we all frolicked I didn’t really feel thе similar
He was self-involvеd and performing kinda lame
And I stated I don’t actually
f*** round with guys like him
You rolled your eyes and turned your chin
I had a f**ked up dream
The entire world ended violently
The one individuals left have been you and me
I felt relaxed and I felt responsible
When Petey screams that refrain, it’s like he’s exorcising a decade’s value of repressed emotion. The phrases ship shivers down the backbone – not simply because they’re haunting, however as a result of they’re true. There’s one thing deeply unsettling and weirdly comforting in the best way he sings about apocalypse as intimacy, destruction as reduction.
After seeing Petey carry out this track and others reside at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock earlier this week – at an unforgettable unplugged present with Medium Construct – I knew it was time to lastly give “Mannequin Prepare City” the highlight it deserves. Stay, its affect was seismic. Watching him tear into the refrain with nothing however a guitar, a mic, and uncooked conviction made the room really feel prefer it would possibly crack open.
Petey USA’s mix of angst, humor, and sincerity has earned him a cult following, and with this single, he’s carved out an area that feels each wildly unhinged and unmistakably honest. “Mannequin Prepare City” is greater than only a track; it’s a heart-wrenching scream into the void – and a reminder that generally, the one strategy to really feel okay is to sing your guts out.
And I spotted that you simply have been all I would like
Let’s purchase a cell house and promote all of our issues
I’m nonetheless overwhelmed however this seems like a begin
I laid my head upon your beating coronary heart
I laid my head upon your beating coronary heart
I laid my head upon your beating coronary heart
I laid my head upon your beating coronary heart
“12 Blown Tires”
by Tennis
Some songs simply really feel like goodbyes. Tender and heartfelt, lush and loving, brooding and bittersweet, Tennis’ “12 Blown Tires” aches unapologetically, inside and outside. It’s a standout second on Face Down within the Backyard, the band’s seventh and closing studio album – and it captures the spirit of departure with cinematic grace and emotional depth.
I’ve been a fan of Tennis since 2013 – their track “Petition,” off Younger & Previous, nonetheless holds a close to and expensive place in my coronary heart. 2014’s Ritual in Repeat was one of many first albums I ever reviewed (positively, I would add!) for Atwood Journal, and 2017’s Yours Conditionally stays one in every of my favourite albums of all time: A masterpiece, a triumph, and a masterclass in musical and emotional storytelling, stuffed with timeless gems that sound simply as contemporary and tender as we speak as they did eight years in the past.
Making excuses wanting again
I’m getting good at ignoring the previous
Looks as if our luck was all we had
Maintain me so lengthy with out having to ask
For me once more, I’m going on counting
Press my want to the margins
I’ve been face down within the backyard
You’re fast however time strikes sooner
Love like a pure catastrophe
After I stroll I’m barely touching the pavement
You smile and giggle whilst you’re waving
To me once more, I’m going on counting
No flower withers
No flower withers in your hand, in your hand
Up there with the perfect Tennis songs, “12 Blown Tires” feels just like the closing of a chapter that’s been written lovingly, rigorously, and fully. Impressed by a surreal second on tour – 4 blown tires, a excessive from an amazing present in Houston, and a roadside graveyard of shredded rubber – the track is, in Alaina Moore’s phrases, “a constellation of recollections from the street, and of our marriage, two endeavors which are fully, hopelessly entangled.”
I do know you’re the golden son
And the place you stroll new lifе has begun
Ready for destiny to make it quick
Maintain mе so lengthy with out having to ask
Twelve blown tires in beneath a mile
Twelve blown tires in beneath a mile
On the lookout for a stone in a mud pile
Counted twelve blown tires in beneath a mile
It’s a vignette of magnificence and breakdown, of affection and loss and time’s sluggish, unstoppable motion. Alaina Moore and her husband and Tennis bandmate Patrick Riley distill the chaos, the connection, and the passage of years into 4 haunting minutes of music that handle to sound each expansive and deeply intimate.
“After we recorded ‘12 Blown Tires’ just a few months later, I had the sense of distilling the previous 15 years into 4 minutes of music,” Moore says. “It felt like the top of one thing, although I wasn’t certain what.”
Now we all know what. With Face Down within the Backyard, Tennis have chosen to shut the e book on their challenge – not less than “on this configuration,” as they put it – and transfer towards new inventive endeavors. “Patrick and I spent most of our 20s and all of our 30s centered on Tennis. It has been essentially the most joyous, bewildering, difficult, and humbling expertise. After ending Face Down In The Backyard, it turned clear that we had stated every part we wished to say and achieved every part we wished to attain with our band,” Moore displays. “This might be our final studio album… We’re able to pursue different inventive initiatives and to create space in our lives for brand spanking new issues.”
Swaying backstage at Terminal 5
Fleshed out kissed up I’m feeling alive
On the lookout for a storm on this climate
Couldn’t even rub two dimes collectively
After I stroll I’m barely touching the pavement
We smile and giggle whereas we’re waving
Biking down the drain to the basement
Grasp on to the time that I wasted
For me once more, I’m going on counting
I see our fates go on colliding
And so, Face Down within the Backyard turns into a full-circle second: The farewell after the voyage, the ultimate ideas earlier than the curtain name. “12 Blown Tires” is Tennis’ love letter to the street, to the music, to 1 one other, and to us. It’s a shocking and stirring reminder of every part Tennis gave us – and every part they made us really feel.
Let it play loud. Let it linger.
A
There’s a quiet sort of magic to Felly’s “Ambroxyde” – a dreamy, mild indie people meditation that stirs the soul in methods I nonetheless can’t fairly articulate. This track strikes in phases. For a very long time, I didn’t know what I wished to say about it, as a result of I didn’t absolutely perceive it. And in some ways, I nonetheless don’t. However I understand how it makes me really feel. I do know I smile each time I pay attention. I do know it sends shivers down my backbone.
The title observe to his upcoming fourth studio album, “Ambroxyde” captures one thing each cosmic and deeply grounded: A non secular stillness wrapped in flickering reminiscence and stressed emotion. “Coming house late on the flight / Swimming via area, feeling oceanic,” Felly sings softly, his voice floating above heat acoustics and delicate textures. It’s an environment greater than a story, but the emotion rings loud and clear: Tenderness, love, uncertainty, surprise.
Coming house late on the flight
Swimming via area feeling oceanic
How will I do know when it’s proper?
Cowl my face off the north atlantic
I can bear in mind
Listening to your voice for the primary time
Within the cool of December
Conserving you shut via the evening
mild up the ambroxyde
kiss in your lips feeling oceanic
Absolutely there’s time I may purchase
See the way it goes after I simply don’t plan it
Isn’t it apparent?
We’re just a few particles, yea
And the concerns they hardly come
Haven’t you had sufficient?
“After we completed recording the album – ‘Ambroxyde’ was a track that felt prefer it bled via with a whole lot of the colours/moods that come up all through the album,” Felly tells Atwood Journal. “So I wished that to be the primary single. Nearly like a palette cleanser for the previous and a touch at what may come. When making the track it felt how I’d think about constructing a home feels. You might have a blueprint – however every new part or half would give strategy to a unique half, and type of inform what can be becoming. It took a whole lot of trial and error. I at all times knew I wished it to have a storyline arch, and a full circle feeling. However making it work is an entire different factor. Fortunately, I had time to strive a whole lot of concepts, throw so much away, and simply create completely different foundations. It was a enjoyable one to crack.”
You possibly can hear that course of within the track’s evolution — the way it blooms and folds again in on itself. The second half shifts tempo and tone, a hushed storm of nostalgia and emotional readability: “Fell on somebody who loves me / She prettiest factor that I’ve ever seen.” It’s a second that feels each intimate and infinite.
Rising up quick I maintain
to issues i by no means may catch, let go
they are saying dont ever get connected
okay i obtained connected
Loro on my again
That’s French, that’s suede
stated child Dress, Lets depart this place
know the Youngsters gonna Play (ooo)
The scars gonna fade (oo)
swimming up towards the solar beams
that vertigo wipe my compass clear
fell on somebody who loves me
She prettiest factor that I’ve ever seen
we took Sol he had no ID
spin three or 4 instances across the nation
Took me some time to search for
Now I see the place I’m sure
mild up the ambroxyde
(Kiss in your lips feeling oceanic)
How will I do know when it’s proper?
See the way it goes after I simply don’t plan it
coming house late on the flight
my love is yours child don’t you panic
absolutely there’s time i may purchase
see how the way it goes for the evening…
Born out of a interval of reflection and reinvention in Iceland’s distant Flóki Studios, “Ambroxyde” marks a brand new period for the Connecticut-born artist recognized for his genre-blending work throughout hip-hop, rock, and indie. This time, Felly leans into subtlety. The result’s a track that seems like reminiscence in movement — mild, soul-stirring, and someway everlasting.
As a timestamp of the place he’s now, “Ambroxyde” doesn’t simply sign change; it embraces it. It’s not a loud announcement. It’s a delicate, radiant unfolding.
Ambroxyde (the LP) is out June 27th.
“Focus Is Energy”
by Self Esteem
“And now I see it clear with each passing of every yr: I should be right here.” Some songs don’t simply converse to you – they affirm you. Self Esteem’s “Focus Is Energy” will perpetually and at all times take my breath away: A galvanizing, gospel-backed anthem of self-worth and survival, the lead single and second observe off A Difficult Girl, Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s third studio album as Self Esteem, radiates reclamation from the within out. Certainly one of many standouts off the LP, this observe seems like each a battle cry and a blessing.
I by no means may’ve advised you something I lengthy for
Whereas I used to be within the water
swimming ‘gainst tides we’re taught to
Take it in our stride, giggle it off,
take it on the chin good
Don’t be too loud or too quiet,
however I obtained all this combat
And now I see it clear
with each passing of every yr
I should be right here
And each time I fall,
I crawl again like an animal
My focus is highly effective
It’s laborious to overstate how highly effective these phrases really feel when sung not simply by Taylor, however by a jubilant, all-female gospel choir that lifts them skyward – making them not only a private reality, however a communal one. “Focus Is Energy” is a mantra wrapped in melody, rooted in resilience, and steeped within the hard-earned knowledge that comes from refusing to shrink your self any longer.
In a private word on Instagram, Taylor wrote: “I’ve struggled so much with emotions of giving up. The world is getting tougher until you’re that sort of particular particular person. I really feel increasingly dejected as logic repeatedly reveals me that this can be a dropping recreation. So the place does that depart us? ‘Focus is Energy’ is about simply that. In case you have focus, you have got energy. The facility to vary, study, educate, combat. Even when it’s simply within the tiniest manner. Discover the small pockets of defiance, focus and hold present.”
We by no means had it higher,
my head and coronary heart collectively
Earlier than the pushing and the pulling,
the shape-shifting I’m doing
To present them what they need,
whether or not it’s what I need or not
You see it wasn’t as much as me,
however now it could possibly be
And now I see it clear
with each passing of every yr
I should be right here
And each time I fall,
I crawl again like an animal
My focus is highly effective
It’s a sentiment that pulses via the track’s each beat. From the opening traces (“I by no means may’ve advised you something I lengthy for…”) to the ultimate, repeated declaration – “My focus is highly effective” – that is music for anybody who’s been advised to remain small, to attend their flip, to pipe down. Taylor sings not only for herself, however for everybody navigating the pressures, contradictions, and impossibilities of being a “difficult lady” in an oversimplified world.
And now, I do know you’re feeling prepared on your bowHowever the world is in your fingers, you took it downSo what are you gonna do with it now?Hold singing, singing, singing now
And now I see it clear
with each passing of every yrI should be right hereAnd each time I fall,
I crawl again like an animalMy focus is highly effective
In some ways, “Focus Is Energy” encapsulates the spirit of the album it comes from: Daring, courageous, and uncompromising in its conviction. A Difficult Girl is Self Esteem’s brightest, most expansive file but – a celebration of complexity and contradiction, elevated by a refrain of feminine voices that make you are feeling seen, heard, and held.
If “Prioritise Pleasure” was the assertion, “Focus Is Energy” is the embodiment. A rallying cry. A reminder. A purpose to maintain going. And although I might not be this track’s target market, I really feel its message in my bones.
To love somebody absolutely is to satisfy them of their mess, to carry area for his or her flaws, and to remain when it could be simpler to stroll away. It’s about presence, endurance, and a deep, unwavering dedication – particularly within the moments when that love is examined most.
JERUB’s “Deeper” is the sort of track that holds you shut and doesn’t let go. A soul-stirring, emotionally charged love track that aches in all the suitable methods, it immediately calls to thoughts the emotional heat and weight of Sam Smith’s now-timeless “I’m Not the Solely One” – not simply in sound, however in spirit. JERUB sings scorching on the mic with devastating sincerity, pouring his entire coronary heart right into a ballad about loving somebody fully: At their highest highs, their lowest lows, and all over the place in between.
A former Atwood Editor’s Decide for his gorgeous 2023 single “Chilly,” JERUB continues to show his energy as a storyteller with “Deeper” – a observe that radiates compassion, braveness, and care in equal measure.
Lay your head on my shoulder
Put on your coronary heart in your sleeve
Even once you really feel the ache operating
Via you
And wanna really feel the best way used to
Know that you simply’re not alone
Everytime you want me most
I’ll love you deeper
The additional you fall
Maintain you until your demons
Gained’t harm you no extra
Whenever you’re falling to items
And your coronary heart wants a healer
I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper
I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper
It’s a promise wrapped in melody, a quiet anthem of unconditional love that builds and blooms with every verse. JERUB’s voice melts like butter as he croons via hovering choruses and tender confessions, every line extra susceptible than the final. There’s energy in his softness; resolve in his restraint.
“Deeper is a track about exhibiting up for somebody, not simply when issues are good, however after they’re at their lowest,” JERUB shares. “It’s about loving with out situations–via the mess, the doubt, the times after they don’t even really feel worthy of it. I wrote this as a result of that’s the sort of love I imagine in, the type I attempt to give. However actually, it’s additionally the sort of love I wish to obtain.”
“All of us have moments once we really feel like we’re an excessive amount of, too damaged, or too far gone. This track is a reminder that we’re not. That actual love – whether or not from a good friend, a companion, or anybody who really sees us – doesn’t waver when issues get heavy. It goes deeper.”
No you don’t want a savior
However generally you want a good friend
Whenever you wanna run and conceal within the darkness
They’re the times I’ll love you the toughest
Simply know that you simply’re not alone
Everytime you want me most
I’ll love you deeper
The additional you fall
Maintain you until your demons
Gained’t harm you no extra
Whenever you’re falling to items
And your coronary heart wants a healer
I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper
I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper
Born in Nigeria and raised in Nottingham, JERUB has carved out an area for himself by mixing pop and soul in a manner that feels each deeply private and wildly cinematic. “Deeper” is not any exception: Backed by a powerhouse association and produced by Edd Holloway (Tom Grennan, Lewis Capaldi), it captures the magic of a fleeting voice memo turned fully-formed track – the sort of lightning-in-a-bottle second that may’t be faked.
From its swelling choruses to the ultimate, tear-streaked chorus – “I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper…” – this track isn’t nearly love. It’s love. Actual, flawed, dedicated, therapeutic love. The sort all of us want. The sort all of us deserve.
I can’t stroll on water
Or make winter hotter
However I, I’ll love you deeper
Can’t promise tomorrow
Or life with out sorrow
However I, I’ll love you deeper
I’ll love you deeper
The additional you fall
Maintain you until your demons
Gained’t harm you no extra
Whenever you’re falling to items
And your coronary heart wants a healer
I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper
I’ll love you deeper, deeper, deeper
— — — —
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