A few days later that planned, here is my latest track roundup. This one features new songs from PinkPantheress, Magdalena Bay, Dizraeli, Konata Small, Deadset, The Tearless Life, Raveena & Snowd4y/Drake.
THE BEST:
‘Turn It
Up’ – PinkPantheress
This is peak
PinkPantheress (try saying that fast). The enchanting ‘ayayayayayaaa’ hook
grabs you from the get-go, while the twinkly piano in the beat is pure 00s
nostalgia (it sounds like something you might here in the emotional climax of a
00s romance movie). I also love the delay on her voice that gives it that tinge
of trippiness.
‘Death
& Romance’ – Magdalena Bay
5:15 is
pretty long for a Magdalena Bay song. But the LA pop duo are still able to make
those five minutes fly by with their dependable mix of catchy vocal melodies
and off-kilter production. This one opens with fun bustling percussion and
piano stabs accompanied by some melancholy slow singing from Mica Tenenbaum. It
then bursts into a funky chorus. Then when you think you’ve got the song
figured it veers off into a beautiful synth chord progression at 2:50 (which is
repeated at the end of the song).Is this Magdalena Bay in their prog phase?
‘I See
Ghosts’ – Dizraeli
Dizraeli is a
British rapper/poet. His latest single ‘I See Ghosts’ is a vivid exploration of
ancestry and the importance of acknowledging the good and bad within our DNA. I
was immediately hooked in by the experimental beat, which features a mishmash
of contrasting sounds being thrown together including a rolling tribal drum
sample and video game flavoured synths. It closes with a jittery and jazzy guitar
solo, making the whole song all the
harder to categorise. It’s unsettling twitchiness matches the energy of the
vocals, which refuse to sit still as they jump around in time. The song comes
off of Dizraeli’s new album JOY MACHINE.
‘BANG!’ –
Konata Small
South Florida
rapper Konata Small delivers this explosive single ‘BANG!’. The production is
nuts, consisting of a loopy clarinet lick and distorted kicks, and ending with a
cinematic Transformer’s-style ‘braaaaam’ noise. It takes a truly
energetic rap performance to compete with such production, and Konata brings that
energy.
‘Heavy
Eyes’ – Deadset
Hull-based
post punk band Deadset do a good job of embodying the sympathy and frustration
of depression and addiction. When frontman Sam Mellors roars ‘and you get
into your feels’, it’s delivered with a sense of understanding and angry
disappointment. The guitars are meanwhile fittingly aggressive and moody. I
especially when ‘things get heavy’ at the 2:20 mark – that jagged riff is so fun.
‘The Leaving
Light’ – The Tearless Life
The Tearless
Life describe their music as ‘Cultpop from the pagan valleys of East Lancashire
& The Spaces Between Spaces’. It sounds like a mixture of Pulp, David Bowie
and something else. And the whole song sounds like it was recorded on a
crashing computer, featuring vocals that regularly glitch out. It’s thrillingly
weird and I want to hear more.
‘Junebug’ –
Raveena ft. JPEGMAFIA
This is the
last kind of track I would have expected to hear a JPEGMAFIA verse on. In fact,
I was apprehensive that he may ruin the vibe. But the provocative rapper does a
good job of taming himself down to match the refined smoothness of Raveena. The
song comes off of the Massachusetts r&b singer’s upcoming album Where The Butterflies Go When It Rains.
THE WORST:
‘Wah Gwan
Delilah’ – Snowd4y ft. Drake
The feud with
Kendrick has clearly taken a mental toll on Drake, because what sane person
would think it’s a good idea to release this? Wah Gwan Deliah? Are you kidding
me??? It turns out this is in fact a parody (fellow Canadian rapper Snowd4y is also
a comedian) rather than a sincere rework of The Plain White Tees' ‘Hey There Delilah’. But it feels stupid rather than silly – all the witty puns Drake was
dropping during the beef were funny, whereas this is just Toronto slang in an annoying
baby voice.