New music review with singles from Library Card and Westside Cowboy
- Julia Mason aka The Decibel Decoder
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
Our weekly fix of the best new music as Julia Mason (aka The Decibel Decoder) brings us her new music review with singles from Library Card People Pleaser and Westside Cowboy Pin Up Boys
Artist: Library Card
Track: People Pleaser
Rotterdam quartet Library Card announce new album Peeling An Orange In Just One Go for 6 November via AT EASE and share new single People Pleaser. On Peeling an Orange in Just One Go Library Card gradually unravels from their wry, free associative songwriting for a more candid view of the anguish festering underneath: a combustion postponed for the sake of inviting its very destructive potential.
The gyrating People Pleaser spins itself dizzy on platitudes until the music nosedives in pure noise-laden distress – punctuated by vocalist Lot Van Teylingen’s primal scream. “When Lot’s scream happens,” says bassist Kat Kalkman, “my entire body screams with them. And everyone in the band feeds their playing into that same spirit.”
In terms of the lyrical sentiment of the track, Lot details how this echoes the cathartic instrumentation: "People Pleaser deals with the theme of having to suppress one’s anger for the sake of staying modest and likeable. For the sake of the patriarchy, for the sake of avoiding confrontation, for the sake of fitting a framework that has been established by a society that prefers its members to be agreeable and silent, and punishes them when they do not comply. We’ve become so good at suppressing our rage that it feels alien to us to even think about expressing it, even though it eats away at our insides. In response to that, we scream. And we scream loudly."
After forming in the summer of 2021, Dutch four-piece Library Card became an entity transcribing the experiences of four highly different individuals. Their sound unfurls like an aerodynamic noise-punk tempest inside of an hourglass. Library Card often evoke the anxiety of city life; high rise buildings are described like gravestones reflecting our black silhouettes back at us; the maddening maelstrom of “process, doubt and obsession” calcifying into a self-made sanctuary. But the band offers levity and reprieve at every corner with unexpected stylistic turns: within reversed yearnings of moments yet unlived, or imaginary drives where dreams and memories collude in tender astonishment.
Library Card wield this urgency to express with a wit and a warmth that’s often absent in post-punk adjacent peers: Mitchell Quitz uses his guitars and effect pedals like a mad painter, Kat Kalkman’s rumbling bass tethers a clockwork of contrasts, and Emre Karayalçin’s skinwork surveys with limber, labyrinthine alertness; their instruments a potent runway for Lot van Teylingen’s expressive wordplay. Within this pact, Library Card offer the full catalog of human experience: dizzying freedoms dressed as disenchanted sonnets, beaming victory laps with extinguished torches, useful limbos between paralysis and possibility.
Library Card Live Dates
July
12 - Leiden, Werfpop (NL)
September
5 - Liège, Sans Alure (BE)
October
28 - Antwerp, Trix (BE)
29 - Brussels, La Source (BE)
November
6 - Lorient, Indisciplinées Festival (FR)
7 - Rennes, Kool Thing (FR)
December
3 - Amsterdam, Paradiso (NL)
4 - Groningen, Vera (NL)
12 - Rotterdam, Rotown (NL)
16 - Utrecht, ACU (NL)
17 - Nijmegen, Merleyn (NL)
18 - Deventer, Walhalla (NL)
19 - Breda, Mezz (NL)
* * *
Artist: Westside Cowboy
Track: Pin Up Boys
Manchester quartet Westside Cowboy release new single Pin Up Boys accompanied by a video directed by SNL UK star Jack Shep. Debut album It Goes On is set to land 21 August via Island Records and the four-piece announce a run of record store shows in support.
Pin Up Boys lands as the second single from their debut album. Beginning with Reuben Haycocks’ affecting vocals against a sparse arrangement, the fan favourite track is a rousing single from the quiet-loud school of classic indie. It showcases the quartet’s deference to, and re-imagining of, the guitar music cannon. As with all the tracks on It Goes On, the recording is a snapshot of the song at a moment in time - organic evolution being a hallmark of their songwriting process. Pin Up Boys, explains Reuben, became “heavier and more aggro” every time they played it live; a mirror to its preoccupations with the struggles of self control.
Speaking further on the track’s origins, the band say: “Pin Up Boys was written a year and a half ago using an acoustic guitar, a drum machine sample pad and some screwdrivers as drumsticks. It is by far the longest serving song on the album and the one that we have played the most live, which was a blessing and a curse when we came to record. After realising this song was set in its ways, we thought the recording should be a somewhat faithful version of the live performance. We hope you get something out of it.”
The music video captures this energy, as director Jack Shep details: “Westside Cowboy’s performance style is so energetic and distinct. They clearly have a mountainous future ahead of them, and it was awesome to work with young people at the precipice of starting something really special together.
"In the video we wanted to capture the band’s dynamism, through a spotlight. We follow this fixed, malevolent spotlight chasing our hero (played by the band’s mate, Will) as he tries to escape its gaze. As he runs, he manages to escape, splitting into a new spotlight with a new version of the band. The whole thing begins to buckle and shatter.”
The album was produced by Loren Humphrey (Geese, Cameron Winter, Wunderhorse) at Greenmount Studios in Leeds. Big feelings are at the heart of the matter: these are songs that aim to distill the confusion, desperation and blind hope of youth into eleven stirring tracks.
Westside Cowboy have always tried to focus on what unites people. Early on in the group’s life, they co-created No Band Is An Island: a Manchester-based collective putting on fundraising nights to spotlight both local artists and important issues via speakers from charities and direct action groups, and the video for the album’s lead single Kick Stones (The Boys) was shot in collaboration with activist football club FC United of Manchester.
Westside Cowboy Record Store Shows
August
19 - Resident Brighton
20 - Rough Trade East
25 - Jumbo Leeds
27 - Rough Trade Liverpool
September
3 - Rough Trade Nottingham
4 - Assai Glasgow
Westside Cowboy Live Dates
July
9 - Ally Pally Park, London, UK
10 - BBK, Bilbao, Spain
18 - Bukta, Tromso, Norway
24 - Tramlines, Sheffield, UK
25 - Latitude, Suffolk, UK
26 - Truck, Oxfordshire, UK
31 - Watt En Schlick, Dangast, Germany
August
1 - Appletree, Diepholz, Germany
3 - Congés Annulés, Luxembourg
6 - Haldern Pop, Haldern, Germany
8 - Winterthurer, Winterthurer, Switzerland
9 - Weinturm Open Air, Windsheim, Germany
12 - Paredes De Coura, Paredes, Portugal
14 - Oya, Oslo, Norway
15 - Way Out West, Gothenburg, Sweden
21 - Green Man, Wales, UK
28 - Leeds Festival, Leeds, UK
30 - Reading Festival, Reading, UK
October
28 - Doornroosje, Nijmegen, Netherlands
29 - Paradiso THT, Amsterdam, Netherlands
30 - Helios37, Cologne, Germany
November
1 - Voxhall, Aarhus, Denmark
5 - Lille Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark
6 - Lido, Berlin, Germany
7 - Bike Jesus, Prague, Czechia
9 - Arci Bellezza, Milan, Italy
10 - Exil, Zurich, Switzerland
12 - Botanique (Museum), Brussels, Belgium
13 - Petit Bain, Paris, France
14 - Aeronef, Lille, France
24 - St Lukes, Glasgow, UK [SOLD OUT]
25 - NUSU, Newcastle, UK
26 - Crookes Social Club, Sheffield, UK [SOLD OUT]
27 - Irish Centre, Leeds, UK [SOLD OUT]
29 - XOYO, Birmingham, UK [SOLD OUT]
30 - 1865, Southampton, UK
December
1 - Chalk, Brighton, UK
2 - O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, UK [SOLD OUT]
4 - Electric Bristol, Bristol, UK [SOLD OUT]
5 - Albert Hall, Manchester, UK [SOLD OUT]
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and never miss out on gig info and our latest deals
Comments