The May Bank Holiday beckons and with it three events - Forbidden Fruit, Slane and Life - that make us wish we could develop Padre Pio-like powers of bilocation. What Free Music Friday can do is supply you with some of the finest downloads, streams, vids and trailers to currently be found on the web. So, listen hard and listen long!
Our favourite FMF thing this week is the psychedelic iTunes stream of In Colour, the debut solo album from Jamie xx who plays Forbidden Fruit on Saturday. No offence to his bandmates, but it's probably the best thing he's ever done.
You can get a sneak preview of SOAK's wondrous debut album, Before We Forgot How To Dream, at [link]npr.org/2015/05/24/408012956/first-listen-soak-before-we-forgot-how-to-dream[/link]
Setting her stall out with opening line, "A teenage heart is an unguided dart', Ms. Monds-Watson does herself and her burgeoning fan club proud on a record that'll undoubtedly be in the Choice and Mercury Music prize running next year. A star is officially born.
Elsewhere on the streaming front [link]www.npr.org/series/98679384/first-listen[/link] has the latest from Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard, Dawes, Daughn Gibson and Algiers; [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/albums.html[/link] is uncharacteristically quiet but brings you newbies from Thee Oh Sees, Jim O'Rourke, Breakage and Lone Wolf, and [link]www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=3&[/link] introduces us to Roanoke, Virginia's Eternal Summers and their exquisite Gold And Stone album.
We're also expecting seriously big things of Flo Morrissey, a 20-yea-old Londoner whose debut Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful album drops today. There are similarities with a certain Ms. L. Del Rey, but that's more down to shared jazzy influences than copycatting.


A while back, we brought you the first listen of Julian Casablancas' remarkable 11 minute track 'Human Sadness'. Now, it's been given a suitably chaotic video to match.

Fans of velvet voiced Americana will love Bravado, the full-length offering from Los Angeles' Bianca Caruso who has a bit of a Jenny Lewis thing going on. Also free (but you're welcome to tip!) from Noise Trade are a Temperance Movement Live EP, which has a classic US southern rock feel even though the chaps hail from London and Glasgow; a self-titled collection from Nashville's Midnight Pilot that veers into Ryan Adams territory, and Family Stone, an EP on which South London's Alex Burey demonstrates why he's been variously compared to Devendra Banhart, Scott Walker and Shuggie Otis.





Disclosure return with an absolute pearler of a single, 'Holding On', which features the supremely soulful Gregory Porter as the guest vocalist. The soundtrack to what we hope will be a sun-drenched summer.

With the Foo Fighters due on the Slane stage in roughly 33 hours – and counting! – we've a quartet of appetite whetters for you. First off there's the fan clip of Dave Grohl guesting this week with Paul McCartney in the London O2. The resulting version of 'I Saw Her Standing There' is pretty damn awesome. As was their headline turn at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, which confirms that the chaps are currently in the rudest of health. Just in case you missed it last week, we've the Foos helping America bid a fond farewell to their favourite late night TV son, David Letterman. There's also footage of assorted Foos letting their hair down with a cover of Alice Cooper's 'School's Oit' earlier this month in Conejo Valley.




To top it all off, Dave Grohl and co have teamed with Sony Music to compile the ultimate Spotify playlist to get you in the mood for this weekend's festivities. Along with a truckload of the band's own best, it also features tunes from Ash, Hozier, Kaiser Chiefs and The Strypes, who will provide the rather sturdy support on the day.

We're loving the look of Don't Think I've Forgotten, a documentary about the thriving Cambodian rock 'n' roll scene that was stopped dead in its tracks by the Khmer Rouge when they embarked on their Year Zeroing in the '70s. Some of the music is just out of this world.

There's some quality video fare from Amazing Apples whose 'On Your Own' singles bodes extremely well for their debut A Little Sense album, which gets the official launch treatment on Saturday in Whelan's.

To get you suitably excited for Run The Jewels' Sunday evening headliner at Forbidden Fruit, here are the boys doing what they do best as part of Jack Daniel's Uncut Sessions.

And that's where we down Trinity Street tools and head en masse to Kilmainham where the Hot Press Speakeasy will be in the thick of the Forbidden Fruit action. Fatboy Slim, Cyril Hahn, Joey Bada$$, East India Youth, Rocstrong and Rusangano Family are just a small selection of the acts who'll be gracing our tent, with times and updates @hotpress. As for Free Music Friday, keep those links coming to @stuartclark and have a Bank Holiday blast!