Sunshine vibes from the Swedish retro-pop group, taken from their new album Oas which is landing in February. I’m hungover and have nothing more to say about this. Happy Friday!
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Dina Ögon – Mormor
Tag: pop
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Corrina Repp & Arch Cape – Run Wild
Released with zero fanfare (or at least none that I could find) is this beautiful two-track EP from TWP favourite Corrina Repp in collaboration with Rachel Blumberg as Arch Cape. Produced a while back “as a way to explore working together again after years of playing and conjuring”, they are available on streaming platforms for the first time today.
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Alice Boman – Honey
Alice Boman’s new album The Space Between is an extremely relaxing way to start your day. Stripped back and subdued and sitting somewhere between folk and very chilled electronic pop, Bowman has cited Brian Eno, Thom Yorke and Angel Olsen (amongst others) as artists who influenced the LP, which should give you a pretty decent idea of what to expect. Honey actually out a couple of months ago, but it’s the album opener and my favourite, so here it is.
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John Moods – Anyone
I will continue posting John Moods records until his new album lands in November, so don’t even think about trying to stop me! Described as appealing to “fans of “So”-era Peter Gabriel” (tick), Everyone is a soft-focus pop/rock ballad inspired by the Amazon and packed full of shimmering melodies and existential yearning. Melt.
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Lykke Li – YOU DON’T GO AWAY
It seems to be taking me increasingly longer to decide whether I really like an album or not. Very rarely is that decision made after the first listen, and sometimes entire years can go by. For example: I recently went back to Caroline Polachek’s 2019 album Pang after giving it a good half a dozen listens when it originally came out and deciding it wasn’t for me. Now I think it’s absolutely brilliant, and really don’t know what my 2019 self thought they were doing.
This opens up a worrying precedent: should we all be reassessing every album we casually dismissed in case something has changed in the interim? Can we really trust our own opinions, even as they’re formed and become hardened and immovable in our tiny little brains?
Anyway, I’m not sure if I like Lykke Li’s new album EYEYE yet, but I do really like this song. I’ll be sure to drop you a message circa 2027 when I’ve made my final judgement.
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John Moods – Same As You
The first new solo material since his sublime So Sweet So Nice album from last year, Same As You sees the Berlin based-musician commit himself fully to 80s soft-rock balladry, with intoxicating results. It’s possibly a coincidence that the gently plucked guitar melody (very) strongly resembles Every Breath You Take – arguably the very epitome of melodramatic musical yearning – but whether it’s a direct lift or knowing nod to his inspirations, Moods carries it off with aplomb.
Read our One Track Mind feature with John Moods here.
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bloodcat – summer rain (prod. geloガザ)
Dark, Joji-adjacent r&b vibes on the latest single from US artist bloodcat, with geloガザ on production duties blending a plaintive piano line with crisp, trappy beats and bloodcat’s warped vocal, with satisfyingly nihilistic results.
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Charli XCX – Twice
For 30 minutes – ie 90% of its running time – Charli XCX’s new album CRASH is a crushing disappointment. Yes, there are good tracks on it: New Shapes, alongside alt-pop royalty Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek, and Baby are towering, bullet-proof pop records, but both of these were singles, so their inclusion isn’t exactly a cause celebre. The UK garage bounce of (also previously released) Beg For You leaves me completely cold, as does Good Ones, which comes across – to me at least – as uninspiringly one-note.
So what are we left with? A few meticulously produced, immediately forgettable tracks, and one complete abomination in the shape of Used To Know Me, which serves only to remind us why most people stopped ripping off Robyn S over a decade ago. And then, when all hope seems to be lost, we have album closer Twice, which is vintage Charli: introspective, yet effervescent pop which bangs hard and makes you cry at the same time. The hype train has clearly addled the critical faculties of more than one reviewer, but Twice demonstrates than when she’s on form, no-one does this kind of stuff better.
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Mitski – Stay Soft
I tried pretty hard to like Mitski’s 2018 album Be The Cowboy, returning to it several times especially after Pitchfork lost their shit about it so spectacularly. It always felt like hard work though and ultimately never clicked, but given how everyone else loved it it’s probably my problem, all of which makes me especially pleased to report that I absolutely love her latest Laurel Hell which came out last week. An effortless joy from start to finish, Stay Soft is an early highlight with bright, brisk drums and soaring, sun-drenched chords.
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Jenny Hval – Year Of Love
Year Of Love is the second single to be released from Jenny Hval’s forthcoming album Classic Objects – her first studio album for 4AD. The song explores a “very troubling” experience she had of witnessing a marriage proposal at one of her performances. Plenty of artists, I’m sure, would have experienced this as a purely romantic act, and thought very little about it afterwards, but for Hval it elicited questions about how her art impacts others, and her own marriage; themes she explores and attempts to resolve over the course of the song.
Of course, you could just ignore all that and enjoy what is – lyrics aside – one of the most upbeat songs in her catalogue to date.
The Predatory Wasp 