From Brooklyn, New York
Recommended if you like Cate Le Bon, Astrid Sonne, Julia Holter
Up next New single No Avatar out now
“No, I won’t take a photo / Just walking around with no avatar,” Frances Chang sings on No Avatar, conversational and serene against little whorls of piano, skittish drum fizz and softly flaring synths. Like Astrid Sonne’s fragmented songwriting, the Brooklyn-based musician’s songs are hard to pin down, mirroring the single’s desire to avoid outward definition. Her songs work to an internal logic, evoking a sort of uncanny domesticity: casual piano refrains, rainy percussion; the melty haze of a horizon at dusk; grooves slinking in at the end of a song like next door’s cat making itself at home. It’s a sound that shares a lot with the modern Copenhagen scene of which Sonne is a key fixture, but with more welcoming softness and warmth: Chang’s January single I Can Feel the Waves is a six-minute suite that starts out a little edgy, then yields with gorgeous warped piano and disarmingly intimate focus.
Chang has recently signed to RVNG Intl, the same label that launched Julia Holter, another worthy comparison for her elegant oddness – and supported Cate Le Bon, another master of distanced beauty. She released her debut cassette, the abrasively fuzzy Support Your Local Nihilist in 2022, and in 2024 her debut album proper, the proggy, unsettling Psychedelic Anxiety. Her new material strips back all that noise for a limpid setting that lets her idiosyncratic lyricism shine. I Can Feel the Waves is also about remaining unknowable, and cherishing the ever-renewing mysteries of relating to oneself and others. Ironically, that lens is part of what makes getting to know her so alluring. Laura Snapes
This week’s best new tracks
Lambchop – Weakened
Backed by guitar, choir and Justin Vernon on banjo, this is one of the most simple and beautiful ballads in Kurt Wagner’s 40-odd years of music, as he sings of the threshold between life and death. BBT
Silvana Estrada and PabloPablo – Antes de Ti
Estrada’s music is always elegant, and here she and Madrid’s PabloPablo lilt beautifully around her cuatro’s light strings – but then a liquid, orchestral pivot opens up a cosmic portal. LS
Josh da Costa – Proving Me Right
Formerly of unfairly overlooked duo CMON, plus spells as drummer for Drugdealer and MGMT, Da Costa summons the spirit of Sparks for this new wave anthem, with a chorus pitching like a ship in a storm. BBT
Martin Brugger – Knees, Hands, Shoulders, Teeth
As head of the Squama label, Brugger releases vanguard experimental records by the likes of Damien Dalla Torre and Enji. His own ambient music is stunning – softly clanking, mournful, with traces of Kentucky post-rock. LS
Bedouine – On My Own
With contributions from the Lemon Twigs, the backing to the Arab-American singer-songwriter’s ballad is classic piano-driven MOR – but her affecting vocals offset the grandeur with sadness and smallness. BBT
Resonant Bodies – Failed Hornpipe for Jacken
Also of Sheffield cabaret-doom-folk ensemble Slug Milk, Rob Bentall and Zebedee Budworth pare things back for a refined and hopeful 10-minute blossoming of nyckelharpa and hammered dulcimer that pelts to a heart-stopping finish. LS
Liz Lawrence – Exploded Into Flowers
In 2024, UK singer-songwriter Lawrence endured the death of her sister aged just 35. This song, about the abundant floral tributes at her funeral, rooted in a robust repeating melody, is a powerful tribute. BBT
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