The Predatory Wasp
Japanese Breakfast has made some of my favourite tracks of the last decade. Road Head and Machinist from her 2017 album Soft Sounds From Another Planet are just absolutely perfect, and her latest single Be Sweet is up there with them. The first release from her new album Jubilee which has just been announced for June, it’s completely irresistible and I can’t stop listening to it.
This is the latest single from Sofi Gev, the solo project of American singer-songwriter and indie pop artist Hannah Lovelady. Blending elements of folk, indie, electronica and pop, You’re The Star features some wonderfully subtle and evocative vocal manipulations reminiscent of Oklou’s recent album. But while Oklou’s music feels sparse and at times detached, You’re The Star is warm and richly populated with a variety of instruments and textures: an intimate, glimpse into both the strength and fragility of desire.
Two of my favourite artists of the year coming together means I was pretty sold on this before I even listened to it. Jim-E Stack brings the melancholy vibes to the fore with his remix, further teasing out the already lovelorn qualities of the original and adding warm chords and a skittering breakbeat to create something that sits right in the happy/sad sweetspot. A beautiful, dejected banger.
It’s all been a bit serious on the blog recently – lots of moody electronic stuff which obviously has its place, but still – so here’s a big refreshing wallop of positivity for your ears courtesy of Stockholm-based-artist MIYNT that’s the result “a slow disco jam and too much fruit”, apparently. A bite of papaya is an immensely wonderful record, with the hushed, lo-fo vocals contrasting wonderfully with those big, open chords and ebullient percussion. A joyful, infectious triumph.
Babeheaven are vocalist Nancy Andersen and producer-instrumentalist Jamie Travis, a duo responsible for one of my favourite songs of 2019: the monumentally fantastic Fresh Faced from their Circles EP. Honestly, if you haven’t heard it yet, go and listen to it now, it’s fucking incredible. Swimming up River is from their new album Home For Now and is a lot earthier than some of their previous work; a deep, heartfelt, soulful track that really allows Andersen’s vocal to shine.
Me Lost Me is the music project of Newcastle based musician Jayne Dent, and Nevergreen came out a few months ago as one of the singles from her latest album, The Good Noise, which was released last week. The entire album is brilliant, and ranges from meandering, folky ballads to soaring, ethereal pop, many of which are pinned together with crisp and precise drum programming. Nevergreen itself is a beguiling mix of all of these elements and more: something you could easily imagine soundtracking a hallucinatory scene in whatever mind-bending film Ari Aster currently has in the works.
Jim-E Stack is an artist who’s slowly crept onto my radar over the last couple of years by putting out a steady stream of reliably good but usually fairly understated, indie-electronica. “I’ll give this a shout out on the blog” I naively thought a couple of hours ago. “He could probably do with the support…” but oh right turns out he gets well over a million monthly listeners on Spotify and is already kind of A Big Deal. Probably should have guessed as much given the featured guest on this is Saint Bon Iver to be fair. Anyway, it’s great: and I’m very excited about his new album, Ephemera, which is out later this month.
I only posted about Loma last week so I’ll keep this short, but Jesus CHRIST this is absolutely brilliant. Consider me sufficiently hyped for the album. Great video too.
Records like this are the exact reason I wanted to start this blog: an artist I had never previously heard of, making absolutely incredible music that – so far at least – isn’t quite the attention it deserves. Anjimile Chithambo wrote much of the album from which In Your Eyes is taken while in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, while also “living more fully as a nonbinary trans person”. The press release goes on to make Sufjan Stevens comparisons, which is usually pretty dangerous ground on which to tread, but in this case is absolutely on-point, and there are also echoes of Tracy Chapman in much of Giver Taker, both vocally and in the quiet rage that underpins some of the songs.
There are so many moment of brilliance in the album, but In Your Eyes gets my particular stamp of approval for being one of the best songs I’ve heard all year.
Hannah Sun is one of three tracks on the new Lomelda album – also titled Hannah – that are named after their creator, Hannah Reid. “It felt important to call it Hannah because it attached me and my person and my responsibility to the music” she said in a recent interview. Even without this exposition, there could be little doubt that these are deeply personal. intimate songs, and Hannah Sun drifts and shimmers like the last sunbeams of the day gently breaking through a canopy of softly shifting leaves.
