Need to know what new music you should check out? No problem, the Q has you covered. We’ve put together a fresh assortment of some of this weeks best music releases you need to know about. All from LGBTQ artists.
RED FARROW / NANO TALROSE – SLEEPING ALONE
Man Oh Man, this is a Canadian double feature of epic proportions. As if Red Farrow wasn’t dreamy and captivating enough on his own. Now he’s collaborated on a sublimely beautiful, uplifting, inspiring, liberating, emotionally electric new track ‘sleeping alone’ with the equally dreamy and sensational vocalist and artist Nano Talrose. If you’re unfamiliar with nano Talrose, you are about to become a love sick puppy and worshipper. Nano will take you to the highest heights of emotion and then bring you crashing down ever so gently…and you’ll love every euphoric minute of it. My obsession may be palpable.
The new song ‘sleeping alone’ is an indie-pop prelude to an M83-inspired sad-boy summer. Red Farrow and singer Nano Talrose wrote this song over the shared themes of queer love, heartbreak, and recovery.
Just take my heart now!
KATRIINE – SAY IT LOUD
UK Pop Artist Katriine recounts the challenges, hurdles and difficulties of coming out on her fantastic new song ‘Say It Loud’. Artists like Katriine are vital for queer youth to know and experience. Hearing their stories reflected in popular music, ready made for radio, and woven into the everyday music streams sat alongside heterosexual hitmakers is where music needs to get to. And artists like Katriine and her song ‘Say It Loud’
JENN NUCUM – GET BETTER
Emerging Toronto-based Filipinx singer-songwriter Jenn Nucum’s EP, Get Better, is an exploration of diverse soundscapes ranging from lush, orchestral pop to soaring, cinematic post-rock.This collection of songs was drawn from inner reflections, re-evaluating oneself, analyzing society at large, and sitting with discomfort to dig deep into the injustices and inequities surfaced by a global pandemic.
The EP’s title track, a stripped back ballad which hums with intensity, captures a yearning and desire to ‘get better’ as people––to exercise self-compassion and take care of each other collectively.
Collective healing is the core theme of Get Better, which can only occur through looking at the societal wounds inflicted by broken systems, institutions, and obsolete authority created by capitalism, colonization, and white supremacy.
We are all struggling but the initial step to a solution is found in the recognition of who and what the culprits look like in our day-to-day lives.
AARON SIBLEY – WOE IS ME
Woe Is Me is a song about how life can get too much sometimes and it feels like you’re the only one dealing with the stress. In my experience it is directly about the pressure I’ve put on myself to succeed in the music industry; always looking to the next project and never enjoying the moments of joy. This song is being released with a music video which has been created using Claymation. This is a commentary of the feeling of not being in control of our lives.
PREZTONE – SPACESHIP
Belgium artist and producer Preztone continues to release melodicaly affective tracks that transport you. This time around it’s by the appropriately titled track ‘Spaceship’.Preztone keeps taking us higher and we’re just happy to be invited along for the ride. The Adventure Continues…
TIN – SEX, COLOGNE & CIGARETTES
No one can ever say that TIN doesn’t deliver his authentic uncompromised self in his music and visuals. No matter if it’s emotionally laid bare moments like his stunning version of the Spice Girls classic ‘Viva Forever’ or with a amped up sexually charged pieces like the new throb track ‘Sex, Cologne & Cigarettes’. TIN brings the fire, the heat, the steam, the sweat…hot, hot, hot. Send the kids out of the room while you take a break and indulge.
TIN, we don’t know how you do it but, god damn we love it! (listen to the song, you’ll understand)
MELANIE WEHBE – LIKE I DO
Melanie Wehbe is introducing us to a new chapter by releasing ’Like I Do’, the first single from her upcoming debut EP. Serving us another liberating anthem and letting us in even closer through a song about finding self love.
”I wrote my first song when I was 14. Back then I started questioning my sexuality and the thought of being different was terrifying to me. Music became my safe space, my language, where I could express myself and process my emotions without feeling judged. So here I am many years later ready to release what I needed to hear back then. Like I do is a song written to my young self and to all the times in my adult life I’ve forgotten and still forget to prioritize myself. I’ve realized that the relationship we should all focus on a lot more and nourish is the one to ourselves, and this song is here to remind us of exactly that.”
MANI ORRASON – JUST CAN’T HAVE IT ALL
Iceland’s Máni Orrason is back with a new introspective and self-deprecating track Just Can’t Have It All. The latest single has Orrason’s insecurities posited through pounding drums and strings for a bombastic air and perfectly sets the tone of what is to come on his upcoming late August album The World is Big and You Will Never Find Me.
“So much of the album is me trying to hide in public or run away or something; the spectrum of genres and sound is so fast, somehow. It feels cohesive now, but while I was making it, it felt really insane. That was why it was tough to find a title for it, because it felt so vast.”
For all its bittersweet euphoria, Just Can’t Have It All surmises the persistence of existing in your comfort zone for fear of letting your walls drop – “Crying in the bathroom, I age but I don’t change…Some people wear their sadness like it’s armour.”
HARRY TAYLOR – CROSS THE SKYLINE
Harry Taylor releases the heartfelt NYC love affair track ‘Cross the Skyline’. It’s an incredibly relatable song that deals with the artist’s experience in New York, a place that is not only a city, but a true character in the story of the track, a magical setting that turns out to be the artist’s best friend. If you have ever experienced the process of moving away from home, especially in a busy city like NYC, you probably know how hectic and difficult it might be to adapt. However, there is also a positive side to it: exploring new places, meeting new people and going on adventures that will become memories for a lifetime. It is really all about drawing a line on all the negative stuff from the past, and allowing the city to give you a fresh start, with the best that it has to offer.
“Its the anthem for everyone who’s tired to be the one played with their feelings and showing how you can survive and rise above it all, literally watch me cross the skyline!”
BAMMIE – AIN’T ONE
Sometimes very little is needed to be said and the music and visuals do all the talking. This is one of those times. Although it must be said, Rad and Hiphop artist Bammie is pure magnetism. And this new track, ‘Ain’t One’ is alllllll that and more.
NICOLE SPRINGER – BREAK UP MUSEUM
Break Up Museum is a pop rock song from Kansas City artist Nicole Springer. The song is inspired by the obstacles Nicole has had to overcome in her life and how she has learned to not only accept the setbacks but thrive despite them. Break Up Museum is the latest single from Nicole’s upcoming EP Chase the Light.