Bat for Lashes
Feel for You
This minimalist disco track wouldn’t sound out of place in a modern-day remake of The Neverending Story, perhaps if Atreyu had to go to a hip rooftop bar to charm a snake instead of a muddy hill to charm a massive turtle (tortoise? Hard to tell) with a cold. Not much in the way of lyrics, but then you don’t want too much getting in the way of the slinky electro, which is practically begging you to order something pink in a champagne coupe and make eyes at someone out of your league.
The 1975
The 1975
When the world is burning (literally and metaphorically), it can seem like a bit of a waste of everyone’s time to sit at home reviewing songs, but, look, it’s too late for me. The 1975 have released this track – more of a lecture than a song – featuring activist Greta Thunberg explaining that we’re screwed if we don’t do something now, over a wash of plinky spa music. Great use of a platform, great one to put on when you want everyone to leave your party at 4.30am.
LIZ ft Slayyyter
Diamond in the Dark
In some ways, this sounds like a thousand other bubbly post-PC Music dance-pop songs probably collated in a Spotify playlist called Bubble Mix or something, but LIZ is kind of the don of that sub-genre so I’ll let her off. She and Slayyyter have created something glittery, vampy and irresistible – the kind of song teenage me would sniff at but current me is, like, again! Again!
Alex Mann
What Ya Kno’ ’Bout That Bro?
Alex going from about-to-faint nerves to absolutely smashing Thiago Silva on stage with Dave at Glastonbury quite literally brought tears to my eyes. His debut single has also brought tears to my eyes, but tears for the futility of everything, for the obvious inevitable outcome of a magical moment being this grime-by-numbers track thrown together by a marketing team, and for Alex, poor Alex, who is going to look back on this in five years and go: “What was I doing, particularly with those apostrophes?” I weep.
Biig Piig
Sunny
If you can say Biig Piig without doing an impression of the Big Train opening credits then you are a better human than I. Very much not a BBC sketch show, Biig Piig does a good line in chill tunes to soundtrack lazy afternoons in the park, eyes half-closed with your head resting in someone’s lap – and Sunny is possibly the most park-y of them all.
