Orville Peck
Dead of Night
Fringe is the second greatest fabric after leopard print (don’t @ me). Queer country loverman Orville Peck knows this only too well, draping it not only across his satin cowboy shirts, but going so far as to have a selection of bespoke masks made out of the stuff. The priapic Dead of Night is Roy Orbison’s I Drove All Night if it had a Grindr profile or The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with John Waters behind the lens. We love it so much we might cry.
Nakhane + ANOHNI
New Brighton
Sliding into someone’s DMs doesn’t just have to result in uninspiring dates with comic-book artists from Camberwell and unsolicited genital portraiture. Sometimes it can be the catalyst for a powerful collaboration, like this swoonsome piece of New Order-ish disco-pop that deals with South African singer Nakhane’s coming out story. “Never live in fear again,” the two artists belt out, like that bit in X Factor when they get someone who was famous in 2004 on to duet with the contestant’s cover. But better.
Vampire Weekend
Harmony Hall & 2021
It’s always the way: you wait six years for a new Vampire Weekend song and then two come along at once. About as threatening as a labradoodle licking your kneecap, Harmony Hall represents the post-Graceland shtick that has served the band so well for over a decade. Meanwhile, 2021 is the kind of half-tune Bon Iver whispers to himself over and over when he pops down Tesco’s for a big shop.
Nilüfer Yanya
In Your Head
Guitar teachers are a pain. You wanna learn the riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit, they wanna teach you Spanish chords. Nightmare. We imagine things are different if yours is Dave Okumu, frontman of the Invisible and producer to the likes of Jessie Ware. Lucky Nilüfer Yanya then, who got to work with Okumu when she was still at school and is still working with him to release serrated pop songs like this.
Jenny Lewis
Red Bull & Hennessy
Although I’m wary of recommending the likes of Red Bull as a mixer thanks to a projectile-vomit related incident in Broomfield Park, Palmers Green when I was 15, we’re going to put those triggering thoughts aside to praise a twanging track that’s taut and twinkling and as tough and tight as a boxfresh pair of DMs. Red Bull & Hennessy is so Tom Petty-esque and furiously joyful that, if Jenny Lewis were to join the masses throwing their names into the ring for POTUS 2020, we’d back her all the way.
