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welcome one and all! to a lil special edition we’ve got for you this week. as i’ve been saying many times, i’m just back from prima vera 2023 in barcelona. let me tell you, that festival is awesome and one of the big reasons is it’s so easy to see so many incredible acts. so here are 5 artists i think you should check out based on personal experience. enjoy!

p.s. new playlist, premium extra issue and premium playlist all yet to come this week, hope you like them!

1. perfume

perfume absolutely rock. i’ve been to many many many gigs and let me tell you, i have been to so few that were so feral as this one. the crowd went absolutely nuts, it was insane and the wildest part? all of it was set to the incredibly tightly coreographed and absolutely banging force de jure that are perfume. this is a band that have been on the go since 2000 and they’re so, so good. not one song was a skipper, it was all absolutely incredible.

2. confidence man

you need 2 things when starting a band like confidence man. you need a really good bit, and you need to make it hot. thankfully, we don’t need to do that because we have confidence man. from their hilarious outfits to their ridiculous backing video to the absolutely banging dance anthems. they spell out c o o l cool, and they make you feel like it to.

3. wednesday

the only band to a) yell at jeff bezos, b) flirt with about a dozen members of the audience and c) absolutely rock were wednesday. bonus points for being able to land a fun ‘it’s wednesday my dudes’ joke which at the beginning of day 3 was the height of exhausted comedy i assure you. jokes aside, this is a band that takes a lapsteel, some shoegazey influences and some of the heaviest sounding stuff we heard all week and just went for it.

4. sevdaliza

when you get an artist like sevdaliza, you may expect a certain show from her given her sound. you should leave those expectations at the door and forget about them. you’re wrong, sorry, don’t worry, so was i. the live set sevdaliza delivered was nothing short of jaw dropping. from killer vocals, a cello solo (???) some nuts shoegaze moments and of course. a 15 minute dj set featuring the prodigy deep cuts. absolutely stunning.

5. kyary pamyu pamyu

a second, absolutely nuts live show from a j-pop artist who deserved to be on a stage 5 times the size she was. every song was beautiful, heavy as all hell in a live setting, jumping and the best part? her ability to get the entire crowd into the palm of her hand and move them like an artists paint brush. at one point, she said every go left and guess where we went? we went left, as one to the beat. and when she said go right? you can bet your butt we went right. i can still hear the boos when she said ‘the next song is: last song’ :(

congratulations to amelia, winner of may’s vinyl prize draw! share a single song review with your friends to enter june’s draw :)

that’s all from us this week! catch you in the next one xo