MPs Launch Fan-Led Music Review + Recommended New Albums
Three album of the year contenders and a digest of recent music news.
Music scrolling by too fast? This newsletter digests the news and shares a little pile of album-of-the-year contenders to explore.
In This Newsletter (12-minute read)
- Music news round up including A Fan-Led Review of Live Music
- Recommended albums: Alan Sparhawk, Kathryn Joseph, Djrum, and honourable mentions
- Things to read, watch, and pods to listen to
MUSIC NEWS DIGEST
Breaking news:
"MPs launch fan-led review of live music"
This headline from the parliament website is in quote marks because it's a glorious thing to read.
If the fan-led review that football had is anything to go by, this is HUGE news. Analysis of the issues and a quest for solutions (including things like a regulator) is much needed to address the crisis in grassroots music. Yes, the crisis that the likes of Kate Nash and Last Dinner Party have been shouting about, and we have been reporting on in this newsletter.
Over 8k fans took part in the Music Fans' Voice survey earlier this year, and it has helped to trigger a proper fan-led review of live music.
Music Fans' Voice (which, full disclosure, I was part of the team of volunteers behind) just released the following statement:
We are delighted to hear of today’s announcement of a Government Fan Led Review launched by MPs with the aim of improving the sustainability of the grassroots to safeguard the success of the wider UK music industry. We want to thank the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee Dame Caroline Dinenage, the review chair Lord Brennan of Canton, and the CMS committee members for recognising music fans as a core stakeholder in the UK Music Industry and for giving music fans a voice in the future direction of travel. We believe this is a vital next step in making sure that fans are at the heart of decision making on issues that affect them.
We look forward to working with Dame Caroline, Lord Brennan, and the wider Review team, to discuss the findings of the Music Fans Voice Survey to ensure that this data set sits as part of the foundation for the Fan Led Review and will be taken into account when discussing scope and terms of reference of this significant piece of work. We would like to recognise the 20,275 hours of time, that was given to this research by music fans around the UK and the support and efforts from the 11 local authorities in generating this data set. Music fans’ voices have been listened to by MPs and the CMSCommittee, and we look forward to bringing these fans along for the next step in this vitally important journey. Music is nothing without the fans and we are delighted that MPs agree and have given fans a seat at the top table.
- Read more and find the results and analysis of the survey here.
- Find out more info and how to get involved in the fan-led review here.
LORDE returns
The most talked about album of summer 2025 is going to be Lorde's newie and I'm primed for her to drop the song of the summer any minute... Ok this is not exactly breaking news but this campaign launch analysis by Karma from HypeDrop is well worth a read by any musicians or people who work in music. This line was the key one for me:
This entire rollout has blurred the line between the artist and the audience. By making fans part of the music video, texting them directly through WhatsApp (via Community), using voice notes, and letting them experience unscripted moments like the pop-up show, Lorde made her fans feel like participants, not spectators.
- Really recommend musicians and anyone in music or curious about how it all works to sign up to Hype Drop Club or follow their advice on Insta.
Quick fire headlines
- Fiona Apple unveils her first track in five years, "Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)" (Best Fit)
- Sudan Archives describes her new record DEAD as "orchestral Black dance music" and the first track from it is glorious and feels like a sequel to FKA Twigs' album of the year contender EUSEXUA. (Stereogum)
- Ethel Cain has a lush new 8-minute track (Brooklyn Vegan)
- Wolf Alice return with ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ and announce new album ‘The Clearing’ (NME)
- UK Government to look at banning victim-silencing Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs) in Music (Guardian)
- "You don't need to be a geopolitics scholar to know that starving children and slaughtering families is wrong" - Reggie Watts responds to Thom Yorke (NME)
- A guide to watching Primavera from home (Teen Vogue)
- A music fan is running 252 miles from Leeds Brudenell to Sam Fender's London show in support of Music Venue Trust (BBC)
- Universal Music tightens its grip around NTS Radio (Network Notes)
- Mercury Prize moves to Newcastle (BPI)
- Israel's Eurovision result prompts questions over voting (BBC)
- Appearances by the ex-UK prime ministers, to discuss AI and healthcare have prompted some artists to pull out of SXSW London (RA)
- [Daphne] Oram Awards are hosting a skill sharing workshop in London (Insta)
- Girls Twiddling Knobs are hosting a free online field recording workshop (Insta)
- Following serious allegations, Arcade Fire’s new album didn’t even make the top 200 (Forbes)
- £1,000 fine for playing music out loud on public transport proposed by Liberal Democrats. If the ban was passed, it would apply in England only (DJ Mag)
- In other Lib Dem related news, former deputy PM Nick Clegg has left Meta and is making widely mocked statements about AI needing to break copyright law in order to exist (The Verge)
- Kid Rock’s restaurant workers were asked to go home to avoid rumoured ICE raids. The Nashville establishments owned by Trump supporter Steve Smith struggled as undocumented staff left mid-service (Guardian)
MARISSA NADLER is back.
Setting the tone for the rest of the melancholy music (summertime edition) contained in this DiS newsletter is news that the supernatural, sprawling, misty mountain psychedelic-folkster Marissa Nadler is returning with her 10th album. New Radiations is out on August 15th via on Sacred Bones & Bella Union.
The title track released to coincide with the announcement is a beaut:
THREE RECOMMENDED ALBUMS
1) S/T - ALAN SPARHAWK & TRAMPLED TURTLES
Highlight track: There's a moment during 'Not Broken' where I swear I nearly fainted, such is the knee on the chest power of this delicate song. It's at the moment he sings "turn up the drum mics" and the spectre of his late great wife and Low bandmate Mimi Parker looms over you. And then in comes their daughter Hollis, sounding like her mother's daughter. It's both gorgeous and like a gunge tank of grief falling on you from 3,000 feet.
In two sentences: For lifelong Low fans, this record feels like a warm, sometimes discordant, hug. For those new to the party, there's one of humanities great souls, strumming away, giving you clouds to inhale, the comfort to close your eyes, and the gentle melodic drones to sway your head to until your brain becomes a safety flame.
zhangtastic
For anyone unfamiliar with LOW, here's a Spotify playlist I made earlier.
2) WE WERE MADE PREY. by kathryn joseph
There's a familiar black sky to kathryn joseph's latest offering but the dark sea feels different as the songs jostle your heart around. The half-whispering voice that stalks you and the gentle menace is still there in the ruby red, moonlit, majestic music of the Scottish songwriter but there's a vibe shift. To be fair, few artists have so consistently blown me away and whilst the water on WE WERE MADE PREY may feel more viscous thanks to warm undulating synths, the riptide still has the same pull.
Highlight track: On 'Harbour' there's a sense of her music shifting gears as glitches and bloops feel closer to Bicep or a Trent Reznor soundtrack than the transcendental piano paeans of Tori Amos, Joanna Newsom or Soap&Skin. What remains is a haunted distorted vocal emerging from a distant club, but the closer you get, the more obvious it is that you've been lured to a derelict ruin with flashing lights, and despite the desolate scene, you can't help but dance alone, like Audrey from Twin Peaks.
In a sentence: This record rustles and seethes in all the best ways.
RheDYn JanUAry ⚧🏳️⚧️
3) DiS community favourite: Djrum
Really enjoying April's album of the month, feels like Four Tet remixing a piano-y jazz-y Boards of Canada. Lots of late 90s squelch and big pools of dancing fish. Occasionally the BPM rockets but it still feels chill, in an Aphex-y kinda way.
donkeyroller
If you're enjoying this newsletter, please consider becoming a supporter for as little as £1 a month.
Honourable mentions
Scowl (big noisy emo), Penelope Trappes (dark staticy slumberland), Model/Actriz (raucous and poetic, Foals-y aaaaart-rawkkkk), and Jenny Hval (lavender underground, railroaded overground).
Hear tracks from these releases and other picks of the year on our new best of 2025 YouTube playlist:
Things to Read/See/Do
“You’re not radical,
You’re not rad at all!”
- KATE NASH
Kate Nash speaks to the Guardian about feminism and trans rights.
Has music become “a middle and upper class sport?”
In an interview with Dazed, a couple of years back, Big Joanie, the all-female, working-class black band explained, “You pop on the radio, and it’s another white boy band from the North going on about how working-class they are, then it turns out that they went to art school and they live in some posh area of Leeds. It comfortably fits the narrative for what Britain thinks is a good representation of what the working class is, when actually it’s much more diverse than that.” They added, “The rock and indie scene is undergoing a middle-classification where less and less working-class musicians can afford to be in bands. For working-class musicians, everything comes out of your own pocket.”
Bill Cummings
"Britpop was the Make America Great Again of its day, xenophobic, misogynist, just horrible. We hated it, and it fuelled our anger."
Paul Brannigan
“The £1.06bn exceeds the estimate Barclays made for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour of £997m, although Oasis are playing two more nights than the US singer’s UK tour last year.”
Mark Sweney
Mary Spender explains why YouTube is the best platform for musicians
Little Simz on Chicken Shop Date
If you're enjoying DiS in 2025 and would like to support my journalism in this newsletter and on our podcast, you can to do so by either upgrading your newsletter subscription or by contributing a tip.