The Nialler9 New Music Playlist – June 26th

Jamie xx, Robyn

Life

After being very quiet for a number of years, Robyn has popped up twice on new songs this month. Firstly, with Yung Lean on a Charli XCX remix and now as a featured vocalist on ‘Life, a new single from Jamie xx’s forthcoming album Waves (20th September 2024).

The song is in Robyn’s wheelhouse with big disco orchestration samples of Cerrone, a French Touch bassline and big skittering beats to match the Swedish pop powerhouse’s vocals

Burial

Phoneglow

Like ‘Dreamfear’ / ‘Boy Sent From Above‘, ‘Phoneglow’ which appears on a split alongside Hyperdub boss Kode9, Burial continues his forays into productions that are draw on sounds of R&B nostalgia (‘Shanice’s 1999 song ‘When I Close My Eyes‘) and early rave music, drawing those into his recognisable glowing-ember 2-step cinematic universe.

I love that the nine-minute song has its own end credits – a Eurodance synth rush outro too.

Pond

So Lo

This new one from Australian psych-pop band Pond, sounds like ’80s Bowie and Duran Duran in the studio with Nile Rodgers with Prince. It’s from their new album Stung!.

Wallace

Tanzanite

UK producer Wallace dropped the title track from a new EP recently, a skittering percussive bright afro tribal dance track, inspired by time spent in Africa as a young lad.

“My dad used to make animal programmes & one time I tagged along for his jaunt around South Africa and Namibia. The ‘M’bira’ track uses the instrument of the same name which he picked up, when out there & the title track is inspired by a gem stone park we visited in Cape Town. The B-side takes inspiration from recent clubbing experiences. In this way, the EP is juxtaposed from the joyous, open air, playfulness of the A to the moodier, darker feel of the B.

The whole EP is out July 19th.

Susanna

Elephant Song

A piano note run in an unconventional time signature, is the bed of this beaut of a track from the Norwegian singer and composer Susanna.

Susanna release a new album Meditations on Love on August 23rd via her own label SusannaSonata. 

‘Elephant Song’ is an ode to being in process; to struggle, to stumble, being in doubt, feeling vulnerable, but to keep on going. All we have is here and now. Highly inspired by the Ethiopean pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, and the first song I made on my new piano (a Steinway from the sixties which I totally emptied by savings account to buy).”

Susanna,

Self Esteem, Moonchild Sannelly

Big Man

A pivoting low key shift into hip-hop-inspired low-end running electronic pop for Self Esteem’s new era the music may showcase on ‘Big Man’, but the same biting and incisive lyrical themes are present still. South African artist Moonchild Sannelly features. The tune has grown on me.

“Me and Moon wrote a song from the perspective of a good boyfriend. The ones that are just chill and secure so they just leave you to it. The ones that don’t want a medal for doing the bins. The ones that see that you’re working your tits off so they go and get yet another thing you’ve ordered and missed the delivery of from the post office. The ones that don’t take your success as a direct threat to their existence. To me this is real masculinity.

We have both collaborated with Johan Karlberg on our records and I’m so grateful to him for introducing us, it was a joy to make this song together. In my head the video always needed to be an inverse “I Want To Break Free” – Piers Dennis executed this gorgeously cos he’s a fucking Big Man. Self Esteem 3 lez go.”

JarJarJr.

Sense The Beer Bought

Cork man Rob O’Halloran aka jarjarjr has been on a journey from prolific beat maker to an artist that can rock a mike with style too.

I remember seeing him support Nealo in 2019 I want to say in Kino in Cork and he was rapping tentatively then over his own beats live, and last year featured on ‘Song 50,000’ with the Soft Boy Recrds band FiveToTwo.

‘Sense The Beer Bought’ solidifies that momentum with some confident Cork meets Transatlantic timbre over a richly meandering jazzy beat.

A debut album Catch The Dusk drops on August 9th.

Julia Jacklin

Dead From The Waist Down

One of my favs, Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin does a wonderful rendition of a Catatonia song? A song I totally forgot existed. Yes, please.

It’s from the charity album Noise for Now – Vol 2, which also features The War On Drugs, Courtney Barnett, Claud, David Byrne and Devo, Faye Webster and more.

NOISE FOR NOW is a national initiative that enables performers to connect with and financially support grassroots organizations that work in the field of Reproductive Justice including abortion access. NOISE FOR NOW is the link between touring musicians, progressive promoters, and local reproductive rights organizations in cities across the country.

Tommy Richman

Devil Is A Lie

The Brent Faiyaz-cosigned Virginian artist already released one of the most rewarding song of the summer contenders with ‘Million Dollar Baby’ this year.

That song’s falsetto G-funk meets Pharrell vibe is followed up here with a similar Arabic music-tinged G-funk tune that sounds a bit like Jai Paul at his most brazen.