The 5 best songs of the week

FKA Twigs

Keep It, Hold It

Despite the unwieldy word anchoring FKA Twigs’ newest album, her third since 2019’s Magdalene, Eusexua is as intended, an exploration of euphoria and transcendence, the rush of anticipation – a certain je ne sais quoi feeling familiar to us all.

How this translates on record for twigs, is a full-bodied dance record, with ’90s dance music – rave, trance, pop, underground electronic sounds to the forefront on an album that seeks and celebrates pleasure with her most focused and present songs to date.

The whole thing is a fun thrill ride with twigs never straying to far into obfuscation or ambience, staying front and centre, and in the spotlight.

‘Keep it, Hold It’ is one of the quieter songs on the record, but it’s awash with lush melody and easterly instrumentation, and a sense of uncertainty, that immediately stood out on first listens.

Anna B Savage

Donegal

The salty sea and air of the further reaches of Donegal seep into You & i are Earth, the latest album from Anna B Savage, who recently made the North Irish county her home.

‘Donegal’ from the record (which was produced by John ‘Spud’ Murphy [Lankum]) recounts the artist’s first dip in a cold sea, and encountering love with a local in the relative wilds of the place. Savage is acknowledges her mother telling her to come back to England soon, the crux of an sorry-not-sorry for falling in love with the place:

The day I left home, my mother said to me
“Whatever you do, don’t fall in love
Please come back to me”
Well, I’m sorry, mum, I’ve gone and done it
The moss and the views, and that lovely man too, ooh

Savage is also self-aware enough to speak of her home country’s general lack of interest in our shared colonial past.

You & i are Earth also features Irish artists Anna Mieke, Kate Ellis and Caimin Gilmore from Crash Ensemble and Cormac MacDiarmada from Lankum.

Tour dates:
12 Feb – Lantern, Bristol UK
13 Feb – Night & Day, Manchester UK
14 Feb – Stereo, Glasgow UK
15 Feb – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds UK
17 Feb – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham UK
18 Feb – Patterns, Brighton UK
19 Feb – Where Else, Margate UK
20 Feb – Union Chapel, London UK
20 Mar – Coughlan’s, Cork IRE
21 Mar – Roisin Dubh, Galway IRE
22 Mar – Unitarian Church, Dublin IRE
12 Apr – Botanique Rotonde, Brussels BE
13 Apr – Petit Bain, Paris FR
15 Apr – Bummann & Sohn, Cologne DE
16 Apr – Franzz Club, Berlin DE
17 Apr – EKKO, Utretch NL
22 Apr – Moby Dick, Madrid ES
23 Apr – ZDV, Lisbon PR
24 Apr – Club Sauvage, Barcelona ES
28 Apr – Belleza, Milan IT

Dobao

Disfrutar

A recent release on the revered disco label Razor-n-Tape that swings low with dancefloor Balearic sounds and Italo-style vocals from the Buenos Aires producer Dobao. it reminds me of a more exotic ‘Love Tempo’ by Quando Quango.

This is the kind of tune I love playing out DJing.

Sam Amidon

Three Five

The London-based Vermont folk singer-songwriter Sam Amidon has been spending a lot of time in Ireland at the moment, performing in Michael Keegan-Dolan and Teaċ Daṁsa’s Nobodaddy and playing a show at the Gate Theatre this past weekend.

Sam’s new album Salt River, released on River Lea (Rough Trade) is a long form collaboration with producer Sam Gendel with the aim of reinterpreting and regenerating 10 folk songs Sam has gathered over the years.

As is expected with Sam’s songcraft, there is folk beauty aplenty throughout, as Amidon brings old song to a new place, as on my album highlight ‘Three Five’, a lush arrangement of traditional song ‘The Old Churchyard’ that swells in rippling fashion.

$ONA BLU€

Good 4 You

I’ve been enjoying the nascent output of Irish Sri-Lankan artist $ONA BLU€, and her latest textured track brings together Biig Piig-esque R&B atmospherics with nods to her South Asian heritage through a Tabla that features throughout.

“This song is about having a third person point of view on a person that you already know so well. The contrast between how they portray themselves and who they actually are. How sometimes we are drawn in by a person’s appearance and charisma and later find out their true nature, which in this case was not the most pleasant, but knowing this seeing how they continue to place their façade to the rest of the world that doesn’t carry the burden of knowing their true intentions. SAD…and scary…”