We Speak Music
The Here And Now Share New Song “Riptide”
Brixton’s The Here And Now have just released “Riptide”, and it’s worth talking about where this track sits in their trajectory. Having built their reputation through consistent gigging around London since 2020, there’s a sense they’re reaching for something more defined here.
The track wastes no time getting started. Jason Bond’s guitar comes in with immediate purpose, setting up the heavier framework that carries through the whole thing. Cherry Terzza’s vocals do interesting work here, moving between more vulnerable moments and full throttle intensity. It’s not groundbreaking as a technique, but there’s enough authenticity in the delivery that it doesn’t feel like a box being ticked.
Thematically, “Riptide” explores that familiar pull toward something you know isn’t good for you. The metaphor is pretty direct, which might feel a bit obvious on first listen, but sometimes that directness connects better than trying to be overly clever about it. Most people have experienced that feeling of being drawn into something destructive, so there’s relatability there even if the approach isn’t particularly subtle.
The rhythm section deserves mention. Rich Sackey Addo keeps the drums purposeful without overplaying, while Callum Lowe’s bass provides solid grounding that lets the other elements breathe when they need to. The production strikes a reasonable balance between polish and grit, though it leans slightly more toward the cleaner side than some might expect.
You’ll hear echoes of Paramore, Queens Of The Stone Age, and Royal Blood throughout, which the band isn’t really hiding. They’re pulling from those influences and trying to shape them into something that feels like their own. Whether they’ve fully arrived at a completely distinctive sound is debatable, but “Riptide” suggests they’re moving in that direction.
The track’s strength is its focus. It knows what it wants to be and commits to that vision. At the same time, it’s not reinventing the wheel. This feels like a band getting clearer on their identity rather than making a dramatic leap into new territory.
You can listen here.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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