New music: Lion Babe, Jagwar Ma, Azekel & Blue Hawaii

The best new music/artist picks of the last week. As published in today’s Day & Night Magazine. Follow Day & Night on Twitter or Facebook

Lion Babe

This New York duo get the percussive soulful beats kindled and spark the flame with Jillian Hervey’s Erykah Badu-esque vocals on Treat Me Like Fire. The video establishes Hervey as some sort of glamorous gold lion.

Jagwar Ma

The combination of ’90s baggy Manchester rave with psychedelic ’60s pop turns out to be a good fit for Sydney trio Jagwar Ma on their new single The Throw.

Azekel

“Can I have another portion of you with medium fries?” Despite the rubbish chat up line, East London singer Azekel impresses with his expressive off-the-cuff R&B/guitar-led track That Feeling.

Blue Hawaii

While not making music with her other Montreal band Braids, Raph Standell-Preston (nice name) teams up with Alexander Cowan to make music they say conjures a “melancholic, jaded paradise.” To us, the songs, like Try To Be, are gentle acoustic electronic infusions with machinations towards dancefloors. An album called Untogether is out now on Arbutus Records.

Niall Byrne

Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.

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