New music from Georgia Harmer, Kurt Vile and P.E. featuring Parquet Courts' A. Savage
Each and every week the JME team handpicks the juiciest new tunes from local, regional, national and international artists to concoct the tasty, tall-glass-of-a-listening-experience that is our Fresh Squeeze playlist. Each song is chosen with intention. And so we often feel like they are worthy of a broader discussion (or at least a bit of context).
Here are three new songs that the JME team is listening to right now (all of which appear on our latest Fresh Squeeze playlist).
“All in My Mind” by Georgia Harmer
By the time Georgia Harmer sings “summertime…,” in the second verse of “All in My Mind,” her level of offhanded emotional ambiguity is so appealing that it becomes a second hook dug into a crunchy, catchy song that’s already pulled the listener in for the past 90 seconds. The accompanying self-directed video follows Harmer as she solves a paranoiac’s mystery that involves foreboding doom, old pictures and her band rocking out in the basement: a universal dilemma! Econo cinema aside, the first single from the 22-year-old Canadian’s forthcoming debut Stay in Touch is a three-minute curveball propelled by Harmer’s impressive harmonies, her band meeting her with solid backing drive and the kind of appeal that keeps the quest for new, inventive rock a worthy endeavor.–Daniel A. Brown
-Stream on Tidal
-Stream on Apple Music
-Stream on Spotify
“Like Exploding Stones” by Kurt Vile
“Got me going woo, yeah,” sings Kurt Vile on the new single from the upcoming (watch my moves), the indie idol’s first full-length since 2018’s Bottle It In. Taken out of context, it’s a fitting line for an artist who self-identifies (albeit winkingly) as “Philadelphia’s constant hit-maker.” But Vile delivers the line with his distinctive nonchalance, and the song unfurls as yet another one of the artist’s singular fried-pop treats (at more than seven minutes, it’s more like a meal), lush with pulsing synths and delightfully lackadaisical guitar leads. Of course, Vile’s lyrical fingerprints –– the navel gazing, the wacky aphorisms –– are scattered about the track: “I’m just kiddin’ and I’m just playin’ / And this is just the way that I’m makin’ a livin.” How’s that for a humble brag from a hit-maker?–Matthew Shaw
-Stream on Tidal
-Stream on Apple Music
-Stream on Spotify
“Tears in the Rain” by P.E. (feat. A. Savage)
An experimental project of post-punk band Pill and quasi-ambient band Eaters, P.E. has released a somber, neo-noir duet featuring Andrew Savage (Parquet Courts) that will leave you seeing red –– a color thought to increase sexual desire. On “Tears in the Rain,” the tongues of Torres and Savage twist and tangle over samples of piano and rainfall, responding to each other’s tender remarks. The voices trip into a tenor saxophone expression session and re-emerge with tingling synchronicity singing “I can see my lips move but I hear no sounds escape / Seems my tongue’s been taken by the cat.” A stress-relieving, if not arousing, single hints at the surrealism of their forthcoming album The Leather Lemon, due March 25 on Wharf Cat Records.–Rain Henderson
-Stream on Tidal
-Stream on Apple Music
-Stream on Spotify
Want a full glass of Fresh Squeeze? Check out our monthly playlist of new music from local, regional, national and international artists.