Tag: singles

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Rose Rose is an emerging indie pop project that features two, young, self-taught multi-instrumentalists and producers, who are split between Paris and London. The project is the culmination of two years of experimenting, then developing and honing their sound — a sound that finds them blending elements of house music, 70s disco and pop.

The duo’s debut single “Sugar Hill” is a glittery and carefully crafted pop confection centered around atmospheric synths, stuttering four-on-the-floor, a sinuous bass line, Nile Rodgers-like guitar, ethereal vocals and an infectious, two-step inducing hook. Upon hearing the track, it shouldn’t be surprising that the British-French pop act’s sound will draw comparisons to Daft Punk‘s Random Access Memories — with “Sugar Hill” possessing a similar warm, sepia-toned nostalgia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Here Lies Man Return with a Menacing New Ripper

Throughout the course of this site’s 10-plus year history, I’ve managed to spill quite a bit of virtual ink covering Los Angeles, CA-based JOVM mainstays Here Lies Man. Founded by Antibalas‘ Marcos Garcia and Geoff Man Here Lies Man has developed and honed an attention-grabbing sound that aesthetically bridges Fela Kuti-like Afrobeat grooves with classic Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin-era, power chord-fueled rock.

The Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays’ forth album Ritual Divination reportedly finds the band crafting what arguably may the best rendering of their long-held aesthetic — with heavier and bluesier guitars while maintaining the rhythmic formula of the clave. “Musically, it’s an opening up to more traditional rock elements,” the band’s Marcos Garcia (vocals, guitar) explains in press notes. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”

Ritual Divination marks the band’s first bit of recorded output as a full-time quartet, featuring JP Maramba (bass) and Doug Organ (keys). The album also continues their long-held and ongoing concept that has the band crafting the soundtrack to an imaginary movie with each song describing and being part of a parritucalr scene “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia explains in press notes. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.” As a result, the album’s material is self-reflexive: “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia continues. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.”

Interestingly though, Ritual Divination finds the band focusing on a a live, more dynamic feel with the band eschewing the fuzz and distortion pedals of their previously released work. The end result is a much more direct and forceful approach as you would hear on the album’s first single “I Told You (You Shall Die),” which I wrote about earlier this year. The song was a lysergic ripper centered around scorching Black Sabbath-like power chords, Afrobeat-inspired polyrhythm, and enormous arena rock friendly hooks within an expansive, mind-bending song structure.

“Come Inside,” Ritual Divination’s second and latest single is lysergic haze of a song centered around chugging power chords, driving drumming and a motorik-like groove and chanted vocals darting in and around the song’s instrumentation. While continuing in a similar vein as its predecessor, “Come Inside” manages to possess a sinister air.

Ritual Divination is slated for a January 22, 2021 release through their longtime label home RidingEasy Records.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Perth Australia’s Mt. Mountain Releases a Hypnotic New Single

With the release of their first three albums, 2016’s Cosmos Terros, 2017’s Dust, 2018’s Golden Rise, the Perth, Australia-based psych rock quintet Mt. Mountain — Stephen Bailey (vocals, organ, flute), Thomas Cahill (drums), Glenn Palmer (guitar, synth), Brendan Shanley (bass) and Derrick Treatch (guitar) — developed and honed a sprawling, motorik-driven, minimal-as -maximal approach inspired by the likes of NEU! and CAN. And through a wildly all-consuming live show, the Aussie psych rockers have added their names to a an impressive list of contemporaries including Moon Duo, Kikagaku Moyo and Minami Deutsch while sharing stages with JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, ORB, Sleep, MONO, Thee Oh Sees, Acid Mothers Temple and the aforementioned Moon Duo.

The Aussie quintet recently signed to London-based Fuzz Club Records, who will be releasing the band’s fourth album Centre. Slated for a February 26, 2021 release, Centre continues the band’s long-held reputation for crafting material from long, improvised jams with much of the album recorded live to tape, capturing the band at their most freewheeling. Thematically, the album reportedly is centered around a dissection of faith — both spiritual and secular — and Stephen Bailey’s personal, often complicated relationship to it. “The album for me, lyrically, is mostly about my experience of religion. It explores these concepts and the rules that were told to me from childhood to adulthood and my thoughts on my own connection to them,” Bailey explains. “Similar themes arise between the tracks whether it be lyrically or structural, both a play on repetition and simplicity. ”

“Aplomb,” Centre’s hypnotic and brooding first single features an expansive, booze and hallucinogen-fueled song structure driven by rolling rhythms, a motorik groove, droning keys, a looping and shimmering guitar line paired with Bailey’s yearning vocals — and the end result is a deeply textured, painterly take on psych rock.

“‘Aplomb’ is essentially the voice that I hear in my head, reminding me to not rush and slow down, and to have the confidence to bring this into practice in everyday life,” Mt. Mountain’s Stephen Bailey explains in press notes. “We wanted there to be this clear contrast here between the tempo of the song and the lyrical content, an approach which appears throughout the album.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout the course of the past year, I’ve written quite a bit about Carré,  a Los Angeles-based indie electro rock act featuring:

  • Julien Boyé (drums, percussion, vocals): Boyé has had stints as a touring member of Nouvelle Vague and James Supercave. Additionally, he has a solo recording act Acoustic Resistance, in which he employs rare instruments, which he has collected from all over the world.
  • Jules de Gasperis (drums, vocals, synths, production and mixing): de Gasperis is a Paris-born, Los Angeles-based studio owner. Growing up in Paris, he sharpened his knowledge of synthesizers, looping machines and other electronics around the same time that Justice, Soulwax and Ed Banger Records exploded into the mainstream.
  • Kevin Baudouin (guitar, vocals, synth, production): Baudouin has lived in Los Angeles the longest of the trio — 10 years — and he has played with a number of psych rock acts, developing a uniquely edgy approach to guitar, influenced by Nels Cline, Jonny Greenwood and Marc Ribot.

Deriving their name for the French word for “playing tight” and “on point,” the Los Angeles-based trio formed last year, and as the band’s Jules de Gasperis explains in press notes, “The making of our band started with this whole idea of having two drummers perform together. It felt like a statement. We always wanted to keep people moving and tend to focus on the beats first when we write.”

The act specializes in a French electronica-inspired sound that blends aggressive, dark and chaotic elements with hypnotic drum loops while thematically, their work generally touches upon conception, abstraction and distortion of reality centered around geometric shapes and patterns, and a surrealistic outlook on our world.

The trio released their self-titled EP earlier this year, and the EP featured “Urgency,” a track centered round a bed of tweeter and woofer rocking beats, layers of shimmering synth arpeggios, bursts of slashing guitars and gauzy, electronic textures. And while being hypnotic and dance floor friendly, “Urgency” possessed a murky and menacing air that brought Ministry and Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails to mind.

Recently, the members of the JOVM mainstay act partnered with local act President Drone, who completely reworked “Urgency” into a minimalist yet propulsive track centered around stuttering beats, wobbling and shimmering synth arpeggios, industrial clink and clang that pushes Carré’s sound into an even more dystopian and murky direction.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rising Belgian-born, French-based Tour-Maubourg Releases a Hypnotic, Deep House Banger

Tour-Maubourg is a rising Belgian-born, Parisian electronic music producer. The Belgian-born, Paris-based electronic music producer has released two singles — “Ode To Love” and “Saint thé á la Menthe” — off his soon-to-be released album Paradis Artificels. slated for a December 4, 2020 release through Pont Neuf Records.

“L’Invitation au Voyage,” Paradis Artificels’ third and latest single is a hypnotic bit of deep house centered around tweeter and woofer rocking beats, rolling conga drum, shimmering synths and blasts of lyrical strings that nods at the French poet Baudelaire while being a sultry, club banger.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Monophonics’ Kelly Finnigan Releases a Strutting and Funky Christmas Tune

Kelly Finnigan (vocals, keys) is best known for being the frontman of the acclaimed West Coast-based soul outfit Monophonics. And since their formation, the act which also features Austin Bohlman (drums), Ryan Scott (trumpet, backing vocals, percussion), and Max Ramey (bass) has developed and honed a sound and approach that continues the traditions of early Motown Records, Stax Records, Muscle Shoals, Daptone Records and Dunham Records.

Earlier this year, Monophonics released their third album It’s Only Us and the album further cements their reputation for being an act that’s particularly keen on crafting and playing a heavier and digger take on classic soul — but while revealing a band gently refining their sound to incorporate warmer textures. Thematically, It’s Only Us may arguably be the hardest hitting of their catalog as it touches upon desperately needed calls for unity, understanding, resilience and acceptance in our fractious and divisive world.

Capping out what has been a busy year, Finnigan’s sophomore album Joyful Sound sees its official release today through Colemine Records digitally. (Holly Berry Red will be releasing the vinyl on December 11, 2020). Produced by Finnigan, Joyful Sound is the third album he’s helmed in the past two years — his solo debut, last year’s The Tales People Tell and Monophonics’ It’s Only Us. While continuing Finnigan’s growing reputation for specializing in the classic R&B and soul production and sound, the new album is imbed with a joyful, holiday spirit.

Featuring members of Durand Jones & The Indications, The Dap-Kings, Ghost Funk Orchestra, Monophonics, Thee Sinseers, Orgōne, Ikebe Shakedown, Jason Joshua & The Beholders, The True Loves, Jungle Fire, Delvon Lamar Organ Trio, The Jive Turkeys, The Ironsides, and The Harlem Gospel Travelers, as well as Ben Pirani, Neal Francis and Rudy De Anda among others, Joyful Sound is inspired by Atlantic Records‘ Soul Christmas, Phil Spector‘s A Christmas Gift For You and Rotary Connection‘s Peace.

“I want people to feel joy and hope. I want the music to remind them what they are thankful for,” Finnigan says in press notes about Joyful Sound. “The songs and mood of the music should spark a feeling that it is a special time of year but also that it can also be a very difficult time for others. Holidays are about bringing people together to celebrate and I want this record to be a soundtrack for those celebrating but also a reminder that a lot of people are still struggling regardless if it’s Christmas or not. Most Importantly, I want them to hear the love and passion that went into the music. I’m lucky to have some incredible musicians and artists on the record and I hope they can hear the joy that everyone put into their performance. There’s a feeling of magic and nostalgia that lives in those classic Christmas songs and I believe I was able to capture some of that on this record. Christmas has become a grand event in most places in the world but we all have to remember that the reason this holiday is special for most is because it brings people together and reminds us that our friends and family are what’s most important.”

Last month, I wrote about the lush Motown Records-like “No Time To Be Sad,” a classic make-up song that finds the song’s narrator pleading to his lover that they should stop their quarreling and make it a romantic Christmas — because that’s not the season to be bitter or breakup. “Santa’s Watching You,” Joyful Sound’s latest single finds Finnigan giving a strutting gospel burner by The Sacred Four “Somebody’s Watching You” a playful Christmas take in which Santa is now looking at all of us in judgement of our behavior, actions, words and deeds. So you better get your act straight and fly right — or Santa will make sure you get coal and fiery, eternal damnation.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Boulevards Releases a Soulful and Politically Charged Single

Jamil Rashad is a Raleigh, NC-based funk and soul artist and JOVM mainstay, who writes, records and performs under the name Boulevards. Rashad, who is the son of a renowned local radio DJ, grew up in musical household in which a passionate interest in music was fostered and encouraged: a young Rashad listened to a wide variety o music including soul, jazz, blues, R&B and funk.

When the Raleigh-based JOVM mainstay was a teenager, he became a self-confessed “scene kid,” getting involved in the city’s local punk, hardcore and metal scenes, which interestingly enough wound up influencing his own production work much later on. After attending art school and playing in a series of local bands, the Raleigh-based JOVM mainstay wound up returning to teh the sounds that first won his heart and imagination — funk and soul. And with Boulevards, Rashad began writing material that he once described as “party funk jams for the heart and soul to make you move,” eventually developing a national profile for a sound that some have compared to Dam-Funk, Escort, Mark Ronson, with the release of 2016’s Groove! and last year’s YADIG!

Rashad’s forthcoming effort, the Blake Rhein-produced Brother! EP is slated for a December 18, 2020 release through New West Records imprint Normaltown Records. The four song EP derives its title from the familiar greeting spoken among Black men. For Rashad, the word brother is a sort of spoken handshake, a verbal high five for the listener. “Growing up, I would see my father interacting with other African American men, using that word as a greeting. ‘What’s up, brother? Brother, let me talk to you.’ That’s what they said a lot in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but you don’t hear it as much now. It’s such a great word.” The EP’s material is the culmination of several years of writing, playing, touring and recording with the effort thematically touching upon race and America’s moral reckoning, heartbreak and self-inflicted suffering. And as a result, the four song EP is the most explicitly political batch of material of his growing catalog.

Perhaps because our current sociopolitical moment mirrors that of the late 60s and early 70s, the EP’s material, as you’ll hear on its second single, EP title track “Brother!” is indebted to the music he heard growing up: early Parliament Funkadelic, Sly and The Family Stone, Rick James, Curtis Mayfield, Shuggie Otis and a lengthy list of others.
“My dad put me on to that music, and I’ve always been attracted to those artists. That’s who I was inspired by, but I wanted to make it my own, make it Boulevards,” Rashad says. Centered around a soulful and slow-burning strut and some fuzzy, psychedelic and blues-tinged guitar work, “Brother!” is a cry of desperation about a society and world that seem determined to frustrate, humiliate and destroy you. And the only escape is through booze, drugs and sex.

“The song is about working and hustling every day and not being satisfied with the end result, whether it’s working for yourself or 9-5 corporations. Spending the hours, time, not getting a raise, losing a job, putting a smile on your face at a job you dislike, feeling stuck in life, making money and spending money to support bad habits,” Rashad says in press notes. “The only thing that makes you feel any kind of release is the bottom of the bottle.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rising Senegalese Artist Mariaa Siga Releases a Breezy and Infectious New Single

Born Mariama Siga Goudiaby, the rising singer/songwriter Mariaa Siga hails from the Casamance region of Southern Senegal. In 2009,. Goudiaby won a talent show and caught the attention of Senegalese act Joan of Arc; the act’s frontperson mentored the young Goudiaby, helping her refine her style and further develop her musical skills. By the following year, the emerging Senegalese artist earned a role in Mon Réve, a film which aired on RDV.

As a musical artist, Goudiaby was long accustomed to the traditional rhythms of her native Casamance but her curiosity led her to discover and experiment with more Western styles, including the blues and jazz, which she meshes into her own work. In 2016, she was one of the winners of the Festival des Vielles Pirogues’ Tremplin competition.

Goudiaby released two singles “Ya sama none” and “Asekaw,” in 2017. And building upon a growing profile, the Senegalese artist performed in her native Casamance for the first time with a set at 2018’s Kayissen Festival. Also that year, Yoro Ndiyae featured Goudiaby on his Sunu Folk compilation before capping it off with a French tour that November.

Building upon a growing profile, Goudaiby released her full-length debut, last year’s Asekaw (which translates as “woman” in her native Diola). She also won Baco Records’ One Riddim Contest, which led to sets at Morocco’s Festival MarcoFoiles, France’s Midem Festival and to an invite to play Quebec’s Festival Mondial des Femmes d’Ici et d’Ailleurs.

The rising Senegalese artist’s latest single “Lagne Boote,” which in her native Diola translates to “back to basics” was recorded at Vagh and Weinmann Studio in Salernes, France — with the support of the African Culture Fund. Centered around shimmering and looping acoustic guitar, shuffling African polyrhythm and Goudiaby’s gorgeous vocals, “La Lagne Boote” is a breezy and infectious song that subtly hints at soca and other Caribbean sounds while gently reminding the listener to never forget their roots. “When you get lost and don’t know where you’re going, go back to your sources,” Goudiaby explains.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Brooklyn-based psych pop/dance pop act Psymon Spine — Noah Prebish, Sabine Holler, Brother Michael Rudinski, and Peter Spears — can trace its origins back to when its founding duo of Noah Prebish and Peter Spears met while attending college. Bonding over mutual influences and common artistic aims, Psymon Spine’s founding duo toured the European Union with Prebish’s electronic project Karate. And as the story goes, while in Paris,  Spears and Prebish wrote their first song together. By the time, they arrived in London, they were offered a record deal. 

When the band’s founding duo returned to the States, Spears recruited Micheal “Brother Micheal” Rudinski and their Karate bandmates Devon Kilbern, Nathaniel Coffey to join their newest project. And with that lineup, they fished out the demos, which wold eventually comprise their full-length debut, 2017’s You Are Coming to My Birthday. The band went out to support the effort with immersive art and dance parties like their Secret Friend party series across Brooklyn and through relentless touring.

Prebish was also splitting his creative time with rising Brooklyn-based dram pop act Barrie and around the same time, his work with the rising dream pop act began to receive attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere through the release of a handful of buzz worthy singles, followed by their full-length debut, last year’s Happy to Be Here. Interestingly while with Barrie, Prebish met his further Psymon Spine bandmate, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sabine Holler.

Without live shows and touring, the members of Psymon Spine have been busy releasing new material this year, which included two singles:

  • “Milk,” a coquettish, club friendly banger with Barrie that brings In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy and Soft Metals‘ Lenses and received quite a bit of attention internationally — with the single receiving praise from   Vanyaland, High Clouds, Echowave Magazine, The Revue, Hype Machine and a list of others.The track also landed on  Spotify playlists like Undercurrents, All New Indie and Fresh Finds, as well as the YouTube channels of  David Dean Burkhart, Nice Guys‘ and Birp.fm. And lastly, the track received airplay on BBC Radio 6.
  • “Modmed,” an  Andrew VanWyngarden-produced and cowritten, strutting disco-tinged track that’s actually deceptively upbeat, as it captures the ambivalent and confusing mixture of frustration, doubt and relief of a relationship that had long petered out and finally wound down to its inevitable conclusion. Interestingly, the song is inspired and informed by personal experience: Prebish and Holler’s difficult decision to leave Barrie to focus on Pysmon Spine full-time.

Psymon Spine’s third single of this year, is the hazy and lysergic banger “Confusion.” Centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, a wobbling bass line, blown out beats and Prebish’s plaintive vocals, a trippy spoken word-delivered break and a looping guitar solo, Psymon Spine’s latest single brings Tame Impala‘s Currents to mind. Much like its immediate predecessors, “Confusion” continues a run of carefully crafted and breezy, hook driven pop.

Interestingly, the release of the single manages to simultaneously coincide with the announcement of the Brooklyn-based act’s third album Charismatic Megafauna while encapsulating the album’s overall theme and vibe — the complicated feelings involved in the dissolution of human relationships. In particular “Confusion” finds the band channeling the confusing and contradictory feelings following the sort of breakup that has lead to a major rift in the larger social circle — but while also possibly hinting to the end of a friendship or working relationship. And as a result, the song seems to evoke the desire to dance away the hurt, for a little while at least.

Charismatic Megafauna is slated for a February 21, 2021 release through Northern Spy.



Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Philadelphia’s brushstroke Releases a Shimmering and Dusty Bit of Soul

Eoin Murphy is a Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind the emerging solo recording project brushstroke, which draws from neo-soul, psych pop and alternative R&B.

Murphy’s latest brushstroke single “Freeze” is a sultry, slow-burning, Quiet Storm-inspired track centered around a dusty, lo-fi-like production, shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, a sinuous bass line, the Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s plaintive yet soulful falsetto, blown-out beats and an infectious, radio friendly hook. Sonically, the song manages to bring JOVM mainstays Nick Hakim and Tame Impala to mind, complete with a similar deliberate attention to craft and mood.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Dream Wife Drops Blistering Single from Soon-to-Be Released Live Album

Deriving their name from a pointed criticism of society’s objectification of women, the London-based punk rock trio and JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Icelandic-born, London-based Rakel Mjöll (vocals), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) — can trace their origins to when the trio met and started the band back in 2015 as an art project centered around a unique concept: a ban d born out of one girl’s memories of growing up in Canada in the 1990s.

Dream Wife’s 2018 self-titled debut was released to widespread critical acclaim — and the London-based JOVM mainstays supported the album by opening for Garbage, The Kills and Sleigh Bells and playing that year’s SXSW. Building upon a growing international profile, the members of Dream Wife also went on a series of headlining tours across the European Union and the States, which included a Rough Trade stop with New York-based genre-defying artist Sabri.

Released earlier this year through Lucky Number Music, the London-based trio’s Marta Salogni-produced So When You Gonna . . . finds the JOVM mainstays crafting what may arguably be their most urgent and direct material to date. Thematically touching upon abortion, miscarriage and gender equality, the album’s material if fueled by a “it’s now or never” immediacy, in which the listener is told that they need to get off their ass and start doing something to make the world a better place for all — right this very second. In the UK, So When You Gonna . . . has been a critical and commercial success: the album landed at #18 on the UK Albums Chart, making it the only album in the Top 20 to be produced by an all womxn/non-male production and engineering team — and the only non-major label release to chart that high.

To celebrate such a momentous achievement in their careers, Dream Wife will be releasing a live album, IRL (Live in London 2020). Recorded at a Peckham Audio show back in January, the live album, captures the band’s ferocious and feral live sound, which has made them a must-see live act. But it also captures something much larger and much more important what so many of us miss: the transcendent ecstasy of a fan seeing their favorite artist play their favorite song live; the camaraderie with newfound friends over your mutual love of that artist — or of traveling to see that artist and on and on and on.

IRL (Live in London 2020)’s first single is a previously unreleased song “Cheap Thrills.” Centered around slashing guitars, a propulsive bass line, four-on-the-floor drumming and Mjöll’s brash and bratty delivery, “Cheap Thrills” sonically is one part Gang of Four, one part Yeah Yeah Yeahs and one part Garbage with a youthful and defiant urgency.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Romain Deceunnick is an emerging Corisa-born, Paris-based multikdisciplinary artist. When he turned 19., he left Corsica to study graphic design — and by the time, he turned 21, he landed at a job at Canal +. While at Canal +, Deceunnick built up a profile as a go-to director of photography, editor and sound designer.

Inspired by a desire to travel the world. the Corsica-born, Paris-based multidisciplinary artist joined Canal +’s TF1 Reporting decision. During his four year stint with TF1 Reporting, Deceunnick became increasingly fascinated by how images can make the viewer feel something that they’re not used to seeing. In 2018, Deceunnick created his multidisciplinary project Blonde.Engie, a project which draws from his mutual passions into photography and music.

2020 has been a busy and prolific year for Deceunnick, who has released a couple of one-off singles, his full-length debut Isolate — and his latest single, the brooding “Passenger..” Centered around layers of shimmering synth arpeggios and thumping beats, “Passenger” sounds as though it could be part of the soundtrack of a post apocalyptic, John Carpenter-like movie.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Elizabeth Woolf is an up-and-coming Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: she spent drives in her mom’s minivan singing along to Frank Sinatra — and as she got older, she found her voice belting and sobbing along to the work of Sara Bareilles and Bon Iver while driving her dad’s hand-me-down car. After finding the sounds of Stevie Wonder while commuting on BART, Woolf realized that she needed to mesh those influences into her own sound.

Over the past two years or so, Woolf has been busy developing, refining and honing her sound and songwriting. Interestingly, the emerging Los Angeles-based artist’s latest single, the slow-burning and charming “yellow turtleneck” finds her collaborating with emerging producer, songwriter kidgloves (a.k.a. Cody Aledia). Centered around dusty and soulful production featuring thumping boom bap-like beats and shimmering acoustic guitar paired with Woolf’s and kidglove’s soothing and breathy vocals, “yellow turtleneck” is an emotionally ambivalent song that’s part swooning meet-cute and part nostalgic ode to lost love, and their lingering ghosts. Sonically and thematically, the song — to my ears at least — evokes fall in New York.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Elinor Sterner Bonander is a singer/songwriter, best known as the creative mastermind behind the rising experimental pop act Bonander. Along with a backing band that features Elias Ortiz (drums), Linnea Svedmyr (keys) and Olov Domeij (bass), Bonander crafts incredibly cinematic electronic pop, centered around jazz composition. Lyrically, her work thematically focuses on existential questions about the world, seen through a decidedly feminist lens.

“Backseat,” Bonander’s latest single is centered around shimmering analog synth arpeggios, soaring strings and Bonander’s ethereal and yearning vocals. Sonically BUT bringing Tales of Us-era Goldfrapp and Clearing-era SofSpot, the track sonically aims to evoke the daydreams and imagination of childhood –but while simultaneously evoking the somber gravity of adult life, as well as the uncertainty and fragility of our existence.

“This song is about growing up and the unwillingness to see the world as it is,” Bonander explains in press notes. “As a kid you would fall asleep in the backseat of your family’s car, with that comforting feeling. The night wasn’t scary, it was just…safe. Now, you have to walk home alone with the keys in your fist, looking over your shoulder.”

Bonander is currently working on her new album Things We Don’t Talk About, which tells the stories of women both from history and her personal life whose contributions have previously been overlooked.