The New Cue

Good morning, You join us today for a lovely Life & Times chat with Sonic Boom, aka Rugby-raised Spacemen 3 co-founder, musician and producer Pete Kember. He spoke to me, Niall, over Zoom a couple of weeks ago from his home in Portugal, although he was half an hour late. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I totally spaced on it.” Fair enough, totally spaced is his thing. He’s just released another excellent collaborative record with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear titled A ?

Good morning peoples! Well done, you made it to the second sentence of today’s Recommender edition. There’s no reason why you can’t go on and absolutely nail this.

Good morning, We start this week with a free-wheeling Life & Times interview with the incredibly productive Belfast-born composer, artist and producer David Holmes, who this week announced the launch of Dream Drama, a new label dedicated to scores, compilations and other creative work he wants to organise for consumption. “For many years I've been creating film scores,” he explains to me, Ted, down the Zoom from his studio in the midst of the first great heatwave of 2026.

Good morning, Welcome to this week’s Recommender edition, for which your correspondents sent themselves off to the hottest room in their houses to go to avoid their families and select some fine new music picks for you to enjoy. And you will enjoy them. Oh yes, you will, let not the sweat be all for nothing. I’m feeling pretty dramatic, I think I’m just a bit hot.

Good morning, It’s Monday. I am writing this on Saturday and have no idea what happened on Sunday night - obviously - but I can say that Sunday Ted had a table booked at his nearest local pub in East London that was accepting bookings for 11:30pm, so that he could enjoy Mexico v England in the World Cup at 1:00am while drinking six pints of cold, refreshing continental lager on his own. So, pray for Future Monday Ted as I too pray for you all, friends.

Goody gumdrops, It’s Friday again, or it will be because I’m writing this on a Thursday. Maybe one day we’ll do a live Recommender edition, like Babestation except it’s me and Ted exchanging WhatsApp messages about what we’re covering and then getting side-tracked with some tasty gossip and then about an hour later one of us messages to say something like “I haven’t started mine yet… might have a nap first”. One day, but not today. Today’s was done yesterday. But then finished today.

Welcome to your free Monday edition of TNC, making your inbox a better place since 2021. You join us today for a Life & Times chinwag with Yard Act frontman James Smith, an affable chatterbox who sat down with me, Niall, in London last week. James was in a chipper mood as just before our chat he’d gone to see some of his paintings being exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition – more on how his side-hustle into the world of art began below.

Good morning TNC peoples, Welcome to the Recommender party, you chose wisely. We’ve got a whole stack of new music picks just for you, but you can share them with your friends too if you want. All you have to do is click this little thing here: If you want to keep it all to yourself then that’s also fine.

Hello TNC legends, You join us today for a Life & Times chat with Embrace frontman Danny McNamara. Very lovely and chatty guy who couldn’t hide his joy at the new Embrace album Avalanche being high in the midweeks when we – Niall here, hello - talked on Friday. “It does feel like there’s another Embrace renaissance coming about,” he said, good news which was only dampened by his refusal to coin the phrase Embracenassiance, which I have rectified here.

Goof morning, Mmm I quite like that typo. It is a bit of a goof morning. Every morning seems to be a goof morning at the moment and the more I write goof morning the more I’m convinced goof morning is a way of life. I’m goof morning. Are you goof morning? Welcome to this week’s Recommender edition, featuring the usual je ne sais quoi of new music picks as well as a Release Valve from Swim Deep. Here’s this week’s playlist: And here it is for the Apple Music resistance.