The 20 best songs of the last month
11.
Steve Lacy – ‘Dark Red’
The boy who records full songs on his iPhone and produced The Internet’s last album and features on Tyler, The Creator’s new one left his own impression with Steve Lacy Demo earlier this year, from which this tune has been on repeat.
A band with a gift for melody, Ultralife is the English duo’s first album to be constructed as one, as opposed to 2015’s debut album which collected the singles they released monthly that garnered them fans in the first place. Not much has changed in the tunes department and that’s a good thing. Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West make bright and breezy songs that are easily-digestible; perfectly conceived. Pop but on their own terms. If anything, their songwriting has become moire confident and more upbeat without losing their initial charm.
There’s a lot to be said for mining the past when you take the best qualities while leaving the pomp. Philadelphia rock band Sheer Mag are the best 70s rock band around based on their new album. There’s nothing but kicking out the rock’n’roll jams and good times throughout with Tina Halladay’s sneering vocal bringing old sounds alive once more. This could totally work as an alternative soundtrack to Richard Linklater’s film Dazed and Confused.
14.
Bullion – ‘Spin2Glory’
Uk producer Bullion dropped a new three-track EP recently but my highlight from it is the driving Lindstrom-esque electronic guitar and disco buzz of ‘Spin2Glory’.
15.
Mount Kimbie – ‘Blue Train Lines’ feat King Krule
An fruitful partnership returns for Mount Kimbie’s best track yet that we’ve heard from the follow up to 2013’s Cold Spring Fault Less Youth. The album is out in September.
For the Wicklow trio’s first song this year, and a track that servers as a trailer for an album to come, ‘I Love You, Sadie’ is a unique offering. Not only does its sound fall into an R&B pop bracket but the sentiment is a rare one, extolling the feminine qualities of a man in the face of masculine stereotypes.
17.
Susanne Sundfør & John Grant – Mountaineers
Norwegian Susanne Sundfør is a songwriter, producer and singer who has released five albums so far but who has recently taken a step up recently by signing to Bella Union for her sixth Music for People in Trouble in August 25th. Now, that label’s biggest name has contributed vocals to this song from the album and he contributes his deep baritone in reverb to a choral duet that builds into something much more forceful, swirling and unexpected. Sundfør plays The Sugar Club on Saturday October 7th.
Last October, former Halfset members Stephen Shannon and Cillian McDonnell returned to music under the name Mount Alaska. The duo have a long-standing friendship (having met each other the week McDonnell moved to Dublin in 1994) and Mount Alaska allows the pair to indulge in a fully electronic recording process using analogue synths and equipment.
‘Radius’ is Mount Alaska’s third such track a song that is dense in its production with digital drum hits, undercurrents of cloudy synth lines, stormy vocals and patches of melody lines. It’s like Burial crossed with Moderat.
19.
Skepta – ‘Hypocrisy’
“They try to disrespect me / When they’re online especially /But everything cool when they check me / Because I’m so cool and deadly / See, I had to realise slowly / That nobody actually knows me/ Yeah, man, I’ve got fifteen different iPhones / But I am so not phoney.” Skepta, true to form. He declined some amazing dinners and an MBE apparently.
20.
Everything Is Recorded – ‘D’Elusion’
Richard Russell’s rap and grime project for his own label has its moments, most notably with Sampha, but Infinite, Mela Murder and Green Gartside paired with a Gil Scott Heron sample is pretty sweet too.
