THE PLAYLIST
Jenny & The Scallywags/ Sounds Like Maybe Fronted by guitar-toting Jennifer Lackgren, Jenny & The Scallywags is a rising folk-pop sextet you should definitely get acquainted with. The group, fresh from winning first place at MTV’s Project Aloft Star Amplified last year, has recently dropped a four-track debut EP on which appears excellent lead single, Sounds Like Maybe. As with any good folk-pop ditties, the song is built on a breezy production and a message that deals with some sort of personal conflict (“The world said it never mattered, you swore it doesn’t matter/I must be crazy/To think that I ever mattered, I guess I never mattered”).
Gold Panda/ Time Eater It’s no secret Derwin Schlecker, aka Gold Panda, has a penchant for incorporating Oriental sounds into his work. His latest offering, Time Eater, starts off with the spiritual calmness of a Zen temple. Then, after a minute in, it’s joined by synthesised drums which drive the song forward, like a bullet train whirring past lushly textured landscapes. Schlecker somehow manages to blend atmospheric tranquillity with an underlying sense of melancholy in a subtle, yet masterful way. Listening to this is almost akin to having a lovely picnic in Japan’s suicide forest.
Julian Casablancas/ Run Run Run After dividing fans’ opinions with his experimental side project Julian Casablancas and the Voidz, The Strokes vocalist Julian Casablancas has returned to gives us a cover version of The Velvet Underground’s 1967 classic Run Run Run. Here, Casablancas does a great job in staying strictly faithful to the original and we have to say it’s a wise decision on his part. The song, together with contributions from Otis Redding and New York Dolls’ David Johansen, arrive as part of the soundtrack for Vinyl, the new Martin Scorsese HBO series chronicling the music business in the early ’70s New York.
Richard Ashcroft/ This Is How It Feels The former frontman of one of the most iconic ’90s Brit rock bands is back after six years away from the studio with a new single, This Is How It Feels. Lifted from his forthcoming album These People, the low-key number finds Ashcroft alluding to heroin use, crooning “She went down straight through my veins/Now I’m back home again/I’ve been waiting for the sun to come again.” Synths and strings also make a welcome appearance here — the latter courtesy of Wil Malone, the producer who worked on The Verve’s Urban Hymns and Northern Soul as well as Ashcroft’s solo debut Alone With Everybody.
Julianna Barwick/ Nebula If there’s one word that succinctly describes the kind of music crafted by American ambient folk singer Julianna Barwick, it is this: otherworldly. On Nebula, the lead single taken from her upcoming fourth studio record, Barwick prepares us for a lift-off into the cosmos and leaves us floating adrift in the void surrounded by ample looped synths and spellbinding vocals. Equally magical and haunting, this track is nothing but the embodiment of otherworldliness.