The 10 best songs of the week: Yaeji, Yacht, Jon Hopkins, jarjarjr, Kim Deal & more

Jarjarjr

Split Tongue

Cork producer and rapper jarjarjr’s new album Catch The Dusk (September 20th), sounds like a doozy so far with its live jazzy funk hip-hop style allowing Rob O’ Halloran to showcase his best flows.

“See I never was “Live at the Blue Note”
I never stepped foot in London Town
But I crept through the cracks, kept it underground
A laptop and some botched midi
And touched hearts round the world out of Cork city“

See also: ‘Last Call’ and ‘Sense The Beer Bought’

Yaeji

Booboo

As premiered during a Boiler Room set, Yaeji’s ‘Booboo’ harks back to the body music of ‘Raingurl‘, including an interpolation of that track, but it actually goes harder than that breakthrough track.

It’s the first song since the artist’s more introspective 2023 album With A Hammer.

‘Booboo’ is just a club banger, albeit one that reflects on that breakthrough in 2017.

“i think with anything – a little breathing room, a little break – distance makes the heart grow fonder. with the overpowering attention that came from raingurl, i took a break from clubbing, dance music, and the underground scene, but in that time away from it all, it’s allowed me to gain new perspective and a deeper appreciation for it. this year is the 10-year mark for many of the parties my friends and i used to go to, so booboo coming out now feels like full circle moment. and with my closest friends—who i’ve witnessed grow as DJs and start their own labels, throwing parties & having fun, all while creating a radical and safe space, it’s been so fun being their cheerleader and now rejoining them in the club, front right! “

Yaeji tour dates:
September 6 at Festival Palomosa [ DJ Set] in Montreal, CA
September 21 at Outline Festival @ Knockdown Center [DJ Set] in Queens, NY
October 31 at Club To Club Festival [DJ Set] in Turin, Italy

Kim Deal

Crystal Breath

It’s funny that it’s take a lifetime for Kim Deal to release a solo record. The musician has already left a indelible mark on rock music with Pixies and Breeders but while she self-released a five-part, ten-song seven-inch vinyl series in 2013, this is the first album proper.

Nobody Loves You More will be released on 4AD on November 22nd, and ‘Crystal Breath’ is a fizzy fuzzy alt-guitar pop track of some fun persuasion.

The album was one of the last that Steve Albini  worked on at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.

Jon Hopkins

Part v – Evocation

Jon Hopkins’ new album is obviously not supposed to be cut up into singles, being as it is a “a 41-minute electronic symphony,” and one long piece divided into chapters, with inspirations from ideas of “ceremony, spiritual liberation and the hero’s journey.”

Yet, ‘part v – evocation’ stands alone well enough with its insistent synthy drone and tribal drums, and offers a way into a journey of a record. The chapter features Ishq, Cherif Hashizume and 7RAYS.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Grey Rubble – Green Shoot

Not only are the Canadian post-rock band coming back to Dublin for their first show here since 2016 in September, they have a new album on October 4th with the explicitly Palestine-referencing title “NO​ ​TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28​,​340 DEAD”.

It’s hard not to listen to this elegaic seven-minute closing track from the record with the genocide in mind. The band shared this statement:

THE PLAIN TRUTH==
we drifted through it, arguing.
every day a new war crime, every day a flower bloom.
we sat down together and wrote it in one room,
and then sat down in a different room, recording.
NO TITLE= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody?
and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile.
the sun setting above beds of ash
while we sat together, arguing.
the old world order barely pretended to care.
this new century will be crueler still.
war is coming.
don’t give up.
pick a side.
hang on.
love.
GY!BE

Ahmed, With Love, Curtisy

Help Wanted

Dublin/Sierra Leonean rapper Ahmed, With Love is set to drop a nine-track mixtape soon, and the sleepy glacial rap lead track features our favourite and Ahmed’s close pal – Curtisy (creator of the Irish rap album of the year it seems with every passing month) on ‘help wanted’.

‘Whatchimacallit‘ previously featured, also is on the mixtape, along with a Brazilian influence.

“For this project my strongest thread and source of thematic inspiration and creative approach is definitely from Brazilian music. I’m a huge fan of 70s, 80s and 90s Brazilian music: bossa nova, samba, tropicalia, MPB, etc. The likes of Gal Costo, Joao Gilberto, Jorge Ben Jor, Caetano Veloso, Djaven, Tim Maia… the list goes on.”

Ahmed has also launched a GAA_inspired kit.

Julie Dawson

Bottom Of The Pool

After collaborating with Jack Hamill aka Space Dimension Controller on ‘Silly Little Song’, it turns out NewDad singer Julie Dawson has made a whole album with him, that is called Bottom Of The Pool and is released on September 13th. The title track is a gentle meander into cool blue water.

The album central theme revolves around escapism, “reflecting Julie’s desire to create something entirely separate from her daily routine”.

ATRIP, KAM-BU

Ocean

A twinkling heartfelt electronic track from London-based ATRIP with vocals from South West London artist Kam-Bu.

There’s a lot of Fred Again-soundalikes at the moment but this is a better example of that kind of cerebral electronic euphoria from a peer that has already established their own vibe.

“It’s a song that tells a story of healing and adventure… a balance between ecstasy and emotion, and Kam is a rapper that is not afraid to touch onto emotional spheres and display vulnerability in his music.”

ATRIP’s TANZPARTEI II mixtape drops on 4th October.

Yacht

The Bubbles (Are Running The Bathtub)

Yacht’s new album called New Release was released a month on vinyl, and arrived last week digitally.

‘The Bubbles (Are Running The Bathtub)’ is a dystopian new-wave post-punk pop song that opens the record.

Orla Gartland, Declan McKenna

Late To The Party

Orla Gartland’s second studio album Everybody Needs A Hero drops 4th October, and Declan McKenna features on this one drop.

“‘Late To The Party’ is a big old bratty song about resenting the baggage that you inherit when you love someone and yearning for a time when we were all a blank slate,” says Orla. “I wanted a song on the record that shifted in pace a lot, something fun and loud, something indulgent. I first wrote ‘Late To The Party’ over a couple of solo sittings in my studio, mumbling out the lyrics while playing drums.

“A few months later I sent the song to Declan – for me he is one of the absolute greats, a properly timeless artist & writer. We worked on the song remotely at first, sending stems back & forth and then jumped in the studio for a day to dismantle the song & put it all back together. Dec’s parts & energy added so much to the track for me and after months of revisiting it ‘Late To The Party’ was suddenly complete.”

Everybody Needs A Hero features previous released singles ‘Little Chaos’, ‘Mine’, ‘Kiss Ur Face Forever’ and new song ‘The Hit’.