Wildlight feat. Ayla Nereo & The Polish Ambassador – Holy Dust (Love Is All Redux)
Wildlight is a collaboration between Ayla Nereo, a singer whom I’ve just started to follow that covers a diverse world and folk styled music, and David Sugalski aka The Polish Ambassador. The resulting mix is a beautiful blend of electronic pop tracks that are perfectly accented with World music elements and a great selection of instruments.
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Porches – I Miss That
Porches’ Aaron Maine released a new album, Ricky Music, at the beginning of the year right as lockdown started. This summer, he’s remixed Girlpool and helped out his bud Dev Hynes to remix Tame Impala, and today he’s back with a new song of his own, “I Miss That.”
On it, Maine continues down the path of melding together the rock music he started out making and his synthier experiments as of late. It’s driving and a little hazy, as Maine gives shapes to his regrets: “I couldn’t believe what I had/ So I threw it away, I was bad,” he warbles. “Just thinking I liked that, I liked that, I liked that / I miss that, I miss that, I miss that.”
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Bicep is the London-based duo of Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson, childhood friends from Belfast who make modern, immaculately produced electronic music inspired by classic house and techno. They got their start running FeelMyBicep, a blog highlighting Italo, house, and disco deep cuts. That turned into DJ sets, a record label, and a club night. And a decade later, in 2017, they signed to Ninja Tune and released their self-titled debut album.
Since then, Bicep have worked on some of Jessie Ware’s recent music and released a new song of their own, “Atlas.” And now, they’ve officially annnounced their sophomore full-length album Isles. “We have strong mixed emotions, connected to growing up on an island,” McBriar and Andy Ferguson say of the record’s title. “Wanting to leave, wanting to return.”
New single “Apricots” is a wistful combination of glistening synths and shuffling beats surrounding prominent vocal samples of traditional Malawian singers and a 1950s performance by the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir. The music video is from director Mark Jenkin, who recently won a BAFTA for his 2018 film Bait.
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Tennis – Superstar
Karen Carpenter is a major influence on my writing. Her voice is so distinctive, I can always imagine her interpretation of a song regardless of genre. Our goal with “Superstar” was to re-cast her voice in the context of a different band in a different era. This led us to take a lot of liberties, including writing a bridge that doesn’t exist in the original. The result is something that doesn’t really sound like Tennis or the Carpenters, which we really liked. I feel a strong pull toward women whose creative contributions were cut short by their untimely deaths – Laura Nyro, Judee Sill, Trish Keenan, and of course Karen Carpenter. This song is really just me carrying a torch for her.
Tennis also announced a livestream scheduled for Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. ET. Riley and Moore will be joined by their full touring band for the first time since the pandemic began.
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E.M.M.A. – Into Indigo
Indigo Dream, by the London-based composer and producer E.M.M.A., could make you feel nostalgic for something you’ve never personally experienced. It may be the flashes of ’80s atmospherics, the melodic links to E.M.M.A.’s clubbier past work, or simply her flair for sensitive, soundtrack-worthy compositions. It could also be the album’s overarching narrative, which aims to explore “the fluid nature of a dream” while creating space for divine feminine energy to thrive. Whatever it is, it makes for a truly transportive listen, its nine tracks coursing through the senses and quelling a noisy mind, offering a sort of healing sonic sanctuary akin to rejuvenating night’s rest.
Released via Local Action, Indigo Dream arrives seven years on from E.M.M.A.’s debut LP, Blue Gardens. It sees her drawing from a palette she’s been honing for some time now. Yet, as artists of any kind often discover, there comes a time to switch out your tools, or at least add in some shiny new ones picked up while exploring new paths. For E.M.M.A., in recent years she’s stepped into the high fashion world to soundtrack campaigns for the likes of Gucci and Chanel, scored a string of short films and launched her own label, Pastel Prism, alongside her free production workshop series, Producergirls.
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