Playlist: new releases

Binaries – If God Exists, I don’t

First up, great song title. Intriguing, and likely to annoy all the right kinds of people. But that doesn’t mean much without the music to back it up. Happily, from the first stabs of menacing synth strings, this one is a belter. There’s a whiff of Paranoid Android-era Radiohead about the vocals – never a bad thing – charting a descent into tech dystopia with memorable flair.

Binaries, a Tyneside three-piece, are both new to the scene and seasoned veterans. Pre-Covid, John (vocals and guitar) and Dave (electronic noises) plied their trade as What We Call Progress. The addition of Ivy on drums brought a new sound and, before long, a new Binary identity. If God Exists ... is the stand-out track from November’s debut album Disaster Patterns, building on the buzz that grew up around lead single Hush Money back in the summer (and immortalized in the relevant playlist). The debut release continues to explore our difficult, dysfunctional relationship with technology as the 21st century leads us down the rabbit hole initially dug by Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL in 2001 (the story, not the year!). It’s a dark, eerie electro danger zone that’s well worth spending time to explore.

Binaries plays an album launch gig on Dec. 6 at The Globe in Newcastle. Tickets available here.

The Unthanks – River River

And now for something completely different. Another big album release, backed by an upcoming show on home turf, but an entirely more seasonal approach to the music. The Unthanks may have outgrown their original folk music box, but they’ve never moved far from a gently life-affirming sound. The latest album, The Unthanks in Winter, is a pensive and sometimes melancholy affair. It’s a Christmas album of sorts, but one that allows itself time to reflect on the darkness of deep December and the ambiguity of the turning of another year. Which, frankly, puts it light years ahead of the relentlessly happy-if-it-kills-me chart-friendly slop coming already to everywhere near you.

River River, released online in advance of the album itself, is a great illustration. An expanded ensemble, backed up with strings and sax, paints a sombre soundworld: extra voices don’t run to added flash here; instead this is the quiet beauty of a snow-covered field. Yet there’s uplift as well; the repeated refrain of “this is all that we can treasure” suggests both a small pleasure and one that is fiercely loved and cherished, flickering like a candle that keeps the terrors of the night at bay.

The Unthanks in Winter UK tour comes to Gateshead’s Glasshouse on December 3. Tickets are running out, but you might grab one here. Or order the album from the band’s website.

Rye – I Feel Everything

Long ago, I found myself at a gig by the impressive Lithuanian singer-songwriter Alina Orlova. Her off-kilter style – kind of Tori Amos with a hint of post-Soviet identity quest, seasoned with a sprinkling of Lithuanian tradition – stuck in the mind. I hadn’t heard anything much like it – until now.

Rye (full name Rugile Deveikyte) is Lithuanian born but now based in Newcastle. Which is good news for the local scene, given the quality and inventiveness of her music-making. You won’t hear pure Baltic folk music here, but the spirit of sung poetry and gentle lyricism stands out. Allied to a strong connection with the northeast community, forged while studying Music at the Glasshouse, it produces a distinctive sound that blends two worlds. I Feel Everything is the lead track from her debut EP, and a great starting point for new listeners.

Rye’s music can be vulnerable and melancholic, but it remains underpinned with a sense of hope. It’s not explicitly wintry in the Unthanks’ manner, but it’s thankfully distant from the kind of ‘exotica by numbers’ that can so easily infect artists trying to cross cultural boundaries. On the local scene, Rye perhaps resembles Maius Mollis with the gentle force of her music. But anywhere in the world, it’s a compelling listen.

Rye’s debut EP, I Feel Everything, was released earlier this year. You can find it here.

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Previous playlists: Folksy flavours / Politics / Stockton Calling / Russia / Aelius / #6 / Border Crossings / #8 / Safe hands throwing stones / More Than a Stone’s Throw / Fusion / Pigs, parties and Portuguese / From Bronte to Black Metal / Punk Princesses / Mackem magic and a mystical remix / Narc.Fest / Fringe Benefits / Peterlee Psalms / Winds of Change / Punk nostalgia, twisted psychedelia / Remembrance of Times Past / Ghosts, labyrinths and brutalism / If the Pixies came from Peterlee / Waves Festival