The Predatory Wasp
Apologies for my extended break – it was pre-Glastonbury/Glastonbury/post-Glastonbury, so I couldn’t really engage with anything else. But now I’m back! Lots of interesting albums out recently, but this opening track from Omar Apollo’s new album God Said No is the one I’ve had on loop. So while everyone else is losing their shit about Pedro, we can listen to this low-key banger.
It’s taken more than two decades for the music I was obsessed with as a teenager to become fashionable again. It’s been worth the wait. There are a few artists pushing this sound now, but German duo DJ Heartstring have got the formula down to a fine art. Trance? Yes! Hardcore? Sure! 90s pop-dance. Of course! Taken from their three-track EP Don’t Stop which clocks in at sub 10 minutes for the lot. Saccharine beats for happy-sad lads.
Laryssa Kim’s new album Contezza is described in the press materials as “a crossroad where Brian Eno, Enya, and Erykah Badu all meet”, and somewhat surprisingly that’s not all bullshit hyperbole. Singing in French, English and Italian over lush electronic backdrops, Kim creates a deeply engaging atmosphere that moves from romantic to alienating and back again, often in the space of a single track.
Ever wondered what a cross between Joji, Omar Apollo and Paul Simon would sound like? If yes; you, my friend, are in luck!
Eriks de Casier announces her forthcoming album Still with new single Lucky, which treads a familiar but nevertheless enjoyable path: warm chords, stripped-back, evocative breaks and plaintive, romantic vocals. The most interesting part of the announcement though is the list of collaborators Casier produces on the album, namely They Hate Change, Shygirl and Blood Orange. Still is out 21 February, so I don’t even need to spend too much time imagining what that will sound like.
There’s a lot of very interesting, gloomy music out today, including an EP called ‘murmuring chasms of nostalgia’ (come on), but it’s sunny outside and I’m going to a gig tonight so now is not the time for self-reflection and “thinking”. So instead here’s a bouncy indie disco thing taken from Girl Ray’s extremely buoyant new album Prestige to put a little Friday spring in your step.
I’m not quite as enamoured with Jessy Lanza’s new album Love Hallucination as I hoped I would be, but there’s no denying the infectious brilliance of Limbo. Deeply rooted in late 70s/ early 80s funk and with a bassline to rival the best of that era, its a ridiculously hooky earworm that I’m inevitably going to be hammering for months.
Cannons defined the summer of 2022 for me, when barely a day went past without me listening to at least part of Fever Dream, thanks in large part to it being one of the few albums my kids were happy to listen to in the car in its entirety. So with the sun starting to remind us of its existence, here’s a shimmery new Cannons single for me to relentlessly overplay. Hazy dayz.
I don’t think I’ve posted a big, brash pop banger on here for a while, so this might come as a bit of a shock to anyone who’s got used to my meandering ambient leanings. One of four new songs on Tei Shi’s new EP BAD PREMONITION, FAMILIAR is sparse, taut and immediately satisfying.
The Glastonbury line-up poster was revealed last week, so obviously I am spending quite a lot of my time fanatically listening to everyone I’m not already familiar with. Fever Ray was vaguely on my radar before, but I just didn’t really connect with them. Their latest single is amazing though, and I also only just realised that they were one half of The Knife! Which considering I loved them, and also consider myself vaguely musically attuned is a fairly major oversight. Also: that video.
The Predatory Wasp 