Samantha Urbani has some great news to share. Following the release of “More Than A Feeling” last month, the former Friends singer has finally detailed the release of her long-awaited debut album, Showing Up. She also unveiled the second single, “One Day At A Time,” of which she stated:

“Ok, ok. I am the tough guy and I am dead serious. I am an advocate, a protector, and an activist. I’m also a total crusher and yolo’er and I take the sweet risks and I justify it all to myself even when I know I myself am being the idiot. This is basically the cutie goofer song about wanting the player and drawing it out. Kissing you FEELS vital to my survival! I know its NOT! It’s just a FEELING! BUT THATS A BIG FEELING! THATS A HUGE LONGING! THATS A LONG ACHING! Urgh, can’t we just ween it off little by little? Once a week act in love? Fuck it up one day at a time? Not fuck it up all at once?”

Since Friends, which disbanded in the early 2010s, Samantha Urbani has only dropped one solo EP (Policies of Power, 2017). So when the cool indie girl returned back in 2019 with her cathartic bop “Made Of Love,” we got pretty excited. Unfortunately, nothing followed. However, Urbani is back today with another single, “More Than A Feeling,” which features Australia-born whistling musician Molly Lewis. And yeah, Lewis is dressed as the Statue of Liberty in the accompanying video, directed by Urbani herself. Is more music coming soon? Only if she feels like it. So what? Just watch the video and get the track via Bandcamp below in the meantime.

Samantha Urbani recently released her debut solo EP ‘Policies Of Power’ which features her recent singles ‘Go Deeper‘ and ‘Hints and Implications‘. There is now a Daniel J. Algarin-directed video for the latter and it’s a psychedelic anthology of everything you can expect from the 80s. There are flashing lights, lasers, not-that-futuristic effects and Samantha Urbani even looks like Madonna in her ‘Like A Virgin’ era.

About those new visuals, Samantha Urbani detailed:

[su_quote]The concept of the video was originally meant to be a surrealist inescapable nightmare, “A Dream Within a Dream” (my favorite Poe poem) as the songs about an impossible communication block and the ontology of interpersonal truth itself — juxtaposed with the absurdity of mundane life, I kept saying “Twilight Zone x Maya Deren x Clerks” (three of my favorite and most relatable things ever), but as the video started coming together more through the edit than the treatment, it related to the sound of the song more than the concept — New Wave x nu metal.[/su_quote]

Before adding:

[su_quote]We tied it into the amazing EP artwork by Brodie Kaman and held it up to the coloring genius of the video for Lush’s first video for De Luxe & the genius Jean Paul Goude x Grace Jones images…starring my most Edward furlong self, in my mystic pizza hat.[/su_quote]

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Samantha Urbani‘s ‘Policies of Power’ EP is now available via Lucky Number. Watch her new video ‘Hints and Implications’ below and connect with the Brooklyn-based artist via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Samantha Urbani is a multi-talented artist who was also the front member of the band Friends. She has been releasing solo singles, like ‘1 2 3 4’ and ‘U Know I Know’, for some time now and we will be able to get all her previous singles in an upcoming EP. ‘Policies of Power’ will be released on August 18 via Lucky Number/URU.

After the release of ‘Go Deeper‘ last week, Urbani has now shared ‘Hints and Implications’, the opening track of the EP. Listen to it below.

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Tracklist of ‘Policies of Power EP’:

01 “Hints And Implications”
02 “1 2 3 4″
03 “U Know I Know”
04 “Go Deeper”
05 “Time Time Time”

[su_dropcap style=”simple”]S[/su_dropcap]ince her band Friends split off some years ago, American singer-songwriter Samantha Urbani tries to pursue a solo career. Last year, she released the amazing “1 2 3 4” and the promising “U Know I Know”. Now, she opens this new year with “Alien”, a cover of British pop duo Rexy.

If you don”t know them, this is normal. They released only a single album back in 1981. “Running Out Of Time” became a real influence for a lot of alternative artists, including Urbani. She said in a press release:

“I first heard Running Out Of Time a few months after I had formed my own first (and only) band, Friends, and I heard natural similarities to the music I was already creating that made me feel very at home in listening to the album – like a companion that understood me – and enough differences to feel inspired, fascinated, and infatuated… There were songs about feeling alien amongst societally ‘normal’ humans, being suspicious of ‘music industry’ types who come off as vampiric, out of touch, and deceptive, songs about cops being scary righteous idiots, songs about forlorn yet zen-like acceptance of lost love – all things I felt so deeply at the time. And it was sung all in the most natural, un-self-conscious, spunky, sassy, and unaffected young woman’s voice – a record that was something truly punk, truly individualist, in that it was purely itself.”

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By the way, her label U R U (that she just launched) will reissue the LP with Lucky Number on March 18. You can listen to the original version of the track here:

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It is clear that the hype has done much to bring forward the music of these wild creatures out of the woods. The quartet doesn’t arrive with anything new and, even worse, they take the risk to reheat a genre that is already burnt. Too many bands are recording indie tracks in their garage in order to meet their idols and, as a consequence, the scene is now totally full of artists that release the same poor songs. But what is really interesting here is that beyond the hype, Hinds’ debut album is a good surprise and a breath of fresh air in a stifling garageosphere. The sound of the album is a bit anarchic but the feeling is warm: this is the perfect item to enjoy a nice Indian summer or to travel to California without spending a dollar.

Imagine The Strokes who would have mixed up with the Spice Girls: the guitar riffs are infectious and bring to the cheeky pop a messy but determined spirit which is hard to escape. “Garden” is the perfect opener and as a lead single, it hooks you from the first listen. It reflects the oomph and the energy that makes this LP so special.

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“Fat Calmed Kiddos” is maybe the best sample to understand what you can find in this 12-track debut effort and to appreciate what Carlotta Cosials and Ana García Perrote are doing the best: singing at the same time about love with a serious dose of alcohol running into their veins. The track, just like the album, is a short roller coaster, a kind smack on the butt or a mischievous bite on the lips of your partner.

The lyrics are mainly talking about love, but not the eternal one. The girls are just having fun, looking for the booze and enjoying life. “Leave Me Alone” smells like the last kiss in the straw of a barn with the lover of a night, where the madrugada marks both the end and the beginning of a new romance. “Castigadas en el granero” is the point of view of a teenager who is not a girl anymore, but not yet a woman, a teenager who is growing and who is as tempted by stealing candies than by smoking weed.

In all of these whims, “Solar Gap” is a romantic instrumental break, a comforting hand caressing an after-love tousled hair. The album also features older tracks such as “Bamboo” and “Chili Town”, two songs that were already suggesting one year ago that the fawns would become interesting hinds.

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[su_dropcap style=”simple” size=”1″]T[/su_dropcap]hree weeks only after having shared a joint video for “Davey Crockett” and “All My Loving”, Spanish garage rock band Hinds just offered a video rendition to their great track “Garden”. The colorful clip was directed by Pedro Martin-Calero and is directly inspired by French director Jean-Luc Godard.

“I love his expressive use of color, the films’ surreal mood and their subtle sense of humor,” explained Martin-Calero to i-D which premiered the video. For the connoisseurs, they will, in particular, notice the blink to 1965’s movie “Pierrot Le Fou”. In any case, the fresh visuals perfectly fit Hinds’ music which is also inspired by the 60s.

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Hinds‘ debut album “Leave Me Alone” will be out on January 8 via Lucky Number.