9 new tracks you need to hear this week

Here are 9 of the best new songs we’ve heard in the past week, tried, tested and true for you.

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1.

Blackway ft. Black Caviar

What’s Up Danger?

Taken from the new Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse OST, ‘What’s Up Danger?’ is a charming pop-trap number. While the introductory verse hardly helps distinguish the track from the countless number of trap music currently being produced, it’s Blackway’s slick vocal refrain over the chorus that helps the track win hearts and minds. Family friendly and rap music rarely go hand in hand and the obviously non-explicit lyrical content on ‘What’s Up Danger?’ will no doubt turn some listeners away. Yet, there’s a never say die attitude that helps the song levitate. It’s a sincere and effective message of self-affirmation, delivered with the sort of acute catchiness that sticks in the head for hours after hearing it.

2.

Rosie Carney

Your Love Is Holy

The final track to be released from Carney’s forthcoming Bare LP, ‘Your Love Is Holy’ is a quiet message of affection. Carney’s voice is the focal point of the entire mix, as it should be. The Donegal-based artist delivers ‘Your Love Is Holy’ in an exalted half-whisper. A relatively subdued instrumental, often just the pulse of a guitar line and the occasion piano chord, is the perfect foundation for Carney’s icy falsetto. A sheath of reverb is placed atop the vocals for added effect, but it needn’t have been.

3.

Pond

Daisy

Pond are definitely one of the most interesting groups to emerge from Perth during the ongoing psych revival the city is experiencing. Jay Garrick and co. always excel when performing touring duties with Tame Impala, yet their own offerings thus far have been inconsistent. Until the release of The Weather last year, there was always a sense that their music was leftover from jam sessions on the road. ‘Daisy’ is a far more focused effort. Laden with nostalgia and an obvious 80s pop influence, ‘Daisy’ is Garrick at his most honest. While this sense of emotion may seem at odds with Pond’s reputation for disaffected cool, it’s an evolution that suits the band. I was hooked from the moment I first heard the vibrant synth chords. Nobody does synth sounds like Perth musicians. The fact that Parker himself is on production duties for the track is just an added bonus.

4.

Lucy Rose

Conversation

Melancholy folk music a lá Nick Drake here from Warwickshire native Lucy Rose. There’s a distinct Latin influence in the harmony of this track, heard mostly in the guitar accompaniment. A recurring dissonance only resolved in the track’s chorus. Sung with a heavy resignation, it’s hard to tell if Rose is falling in or out of love on ‘Conversation’. The lyrics could point to either being true. In any case, on ‘Conversation’ Rose manages to fully capture a depth of feeling, located firmly within the realms of the melancholy.

5.

Fat White Family

Feet

Fat White Family’s return has been heralded by the release of ‘Feet’. It’s a fantastic track, part Sergio Leone and part house music. A bizarre mixture for sure but one that strangely works. There’s a villainous streak in the lead vocalist’s delivery, a constant underlying menace. When the adrenaline of the chorus pushes his voice into the garble of an autotuned treatment, it feels as if a moment of heightened tension has been resolved. This is aided in no small part by the melodramatic violin line, which pierces through the otherwise abstract electronica of the instrumental, it’s as the listener has just stumbled in on the band in the midst of a manic episode.

6.

Mark Ronson ft Miley Cyrus

Nothing Breaks Like A Heart (Dimitri From Paris Remix)

The difference that a good remix can make. The expert work that Dimitri From Paris has done on Mark Ronson & Miley Cyrus’s collaborative track is a testament to the fact. Heartbreak has never sounded so good as on ‘Nothing Breaks Like A Heart’. Dimitri has taken the skeleton of the track, a melancholy Nashville vibe, and given it a healthy dose of disco. I’m not sure if this track works best in headphones or on dancefloors, but it’s a banger either way.

7.

Soak

Knock Me Off My Feet

‘Knock Me Off My Feet’ caught me by surprise. Considering the single release which preceded it was the sprawling and subdued ‘Everybody Loves You’, the upbeat dream pop of this was a little out of the blue. Soak remains a superb vocalist. In fact, the lo-fi-reverb everywhere treatment typical of Dream Pop her voice receives on this track actually does it a bit of a disservice. At times, her voice is buried too deep in the track. Still though, if ‘Knock Me Off My Feet’ comes as a surprise, it is a pleasant one.

8.

Enter Shikari

Rabble Rouser (Dan Le Sac remix)

Breakbeats, chopped samples and plucky Garage basslines are all abound in Dan Le Sac’s remix of Enter Shikari’s ‘Rabble Rouser’. The remix is totally alien to its original. All that remains of the punkish attitude is in the vocals, which remain aggressive and pointed. Otherwise, ‘Rabble Rouser’ is an honest to goodness UK Garage track under Dan Le Sac’s auspicious work.

9.

Strick

The Loop

An ATL native and new signee to Young Thug’s Stoner Life Records, Strick was among the first hotly tipped hip-hop acts to drop in 2019. His See You When I Land is hardly mind-blowing. However, the album opens strongly with ‘The Loop’. It’s melodic trap, complete with lo-fi piano samples and 808 hits compressed to the absolute maximum. While the MC’s flow comes straight out of the trap playbook, Strick manages to convey enough personality and individuality in his delivery that ‘The Loop’ earns its place on this week’s list.