(I'VE GOT THE) SANCTIONED BLUES BY ULTIMATE PAINTING
Ultimate Painting are James Hoare of Veronica Falls and Jack Cooper of Mazes and they return with their second album, Green Lanes, on August 7.
The first track taken from it is this, following Cooper on a train journey from hell which makes him late for an important appointment. Cooper explains more:
"The Conservative government that we've had in the UK for the last 5 years have been particularly hard and cruel on the less fortunate members of society. Someone who's found themselves unemployed has to jump through a variety of hoops to receive a jobseeker's allowance; a paltry amount of money to help support themselves.
If you're late for your meeting or you fuck up some paperwork, they slap you with a sanction and the tiny amount of money you're getting by on gets taken away. It's straight out of Catch 22. '(I've Got The) Sanctioned Blues' is us trying to make sense of that. Songs that borrow the imagery and rhythms of the railway are as old as the railways themselves... We didn't really set out to fit in with that tradition but I suppose that's where it's at."
Get Green Lanes from Norman Records and follow them on Twitter @ult_painting