From Hudson valley, New York, and London
Recommended if you like the Books, Leila, Worldpeace DMT
Up next Rumspringa released 29 May
Jonah Paz and Yaelle Avtan recorded their first ever track as Ear on an iPhone in the Bard College library. That song, Nerves, pits their murmuring voices against weightless strings and barely perceptible drums. Just as it seems poised to float away altogether, the track is suddenly overtaken by a blaring bass synth that cleaves the first act’s aching plea into an emotionally fraught, black-lit banger.
The Hudson valley/London duo are sometimes lumped in under the loose banner of “laptop twee” alongside a host of younger artists who also balance whimsy with warped electronics. Like Bassvictim, Worldpeace DMT and the Femcels, Ear pad out the emotional immediacy of lo-fi rock with found audio chaos and wide-ranging genre collage. Nostalgia is a major ingredient but the band’s appeal is by no means reducible to it.
After drawing from the DNA of 00s pop with their first album, last year’s The Most Dear and the Future, Paz and Avtan push deconstruction harder on their second album, Rumspringa. The duo have been long inspired by IDM, and like the better songwriters of that genre, their greatest strength lies in how they manipulate the audio field. On lead single Ne Plus Ultra, their half-whispered, trade-off vocals are secondary to epic, primary-coloured synths, which provide a faint thread of melody as voice notes, dance beats and chintzy sounds stud the song with cryptic jokes and funny pockets of uplift. The effect is like freefalling through off-kilter consciousness and acclimatising to its weird logic: the thrill of watching a band taking shape in real time. Harry Tafoya
This week’s best new tracks
The Durutti Column – Liars
Much cited, albeit rarely spotted these days: Vini Reilly returns for his first album in 15 years, chanting “I am sorry, I love you” over clattering shimmer and choral vocalisations. LS
Cara Delevingne – Out of My Head
The British model-actor-writer-entrepreneur adds “pop musician” to her hyphenate career portfolio, but this is no dilettantish half-effort: trip-hop verses give way to a brilliant pop-junglist chorus. BBT
Gilla Band – Giraffe
Ireland’s best band return to show off every tool in their formidable arsenal: disassociation’s high whirr, processed clarion guitar, squally noise, sucking dub and Dara Kiely’s spellbinding lyrical abstractions about loneliness and love. LS
Feeble Little Horse – Upside Down
The Pittsburgh alt-rockers surprise-released their new album, Bitknot, this week, and this is its poppiest moment: a singsong ditty skipping through staticky guitars and electronics. BBT
Blood Orange – Essex_Honey.mp3
This bonus track from the album of the same name is Dev Hynes’ most explicitly Essex-y, rattling with boy-racer breakbeats – which make a fitting, moving contrast to his forlorn vocals. LS
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Bop
The boisterous bonhomie of a good-natured mosh pit – and a little 60s pop sensibility via Bikini Kill – bounces through this drily playful highlight from the Melbourne garage-rockers’ surprise new album. [Not on Spotify: listen at Bandcamp] LS
Anthony Calonico – Hillside
From his soft desert wind of a debut album, Spacious Heart, the Los Angeles musician lays down an 80s-futurist jazz ballad of exquisite poise, his voice slipping through dappled light created by piano and ambient tones. BBT
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