Julia-Sophie - 'y?'

By Phillipe Roberts

If you’re not a member of the COVID truther brigade tainting the air with hoax logic, space–physical, mental, and emotional–has been incredibly hard to find during lockdown. You’ve picked up at least trace amounts of social anxiety that no amount of brain-picking nasal swabs can totally soothe, and the first thing you’ll notice about anyone on the street is the presence or absence of a mask. Distance is safety. Hurry back to the nervous bubble and scrub off the outside.

Enter the microverse of y?, the debut EP from UK singer/producer Julia-Sophie and your personal escape hatch into endless open space. Clocking in at a bite-sized fourteen minutes, y? dives deep in search of emotional truths, unraveling and savoring each feeling with spellbinding patience. Soothing without neglecting the complex, violent honesty that comes with setting yourself free, these tunes breathe life into solitude. Stuck inside or masking up, this is a moment to let your guard down.

Though it’s destined to find its way into the vast chillscape that dominates the playlist world, y? glides to the head of the pack in its surgical use of textured sound to support its blistering lyrical excavations. Opener “breathe” expands and contracts like a lung, flowing from tender verses that cling tightly to a distorted drum rattle before erupting into a cavernous–“with your heart in my hands/I feel safe.” Bits of Julia-Sophie’s voice get lost in space. A sliver of desire–“kiss me”–slips into a brief moment of stillness. “x0x” punches the hardest of any track here. Heartbreaking self-doubt blooms from a flurry of beats that evolve continuously over the track, pressing you forward as the words “nobody wants me here” swirl overhead and a garbled French transmission overwhelms the senses. It’s a panic attack in real time, and you’re strapped in.

After the glittering respite of the interlude “i told you everything”, Julia-Sophie unveils “i left you”, the slow-burning pop gem that should become her calling card. “I try to buy time to be okay tomorrow/ to look inside my mind” hits unreasonably hard, pressed to the front of the mix and decorated only by the nervous ticking of synthesizer blips. Blurry passion is discarded with the ruthless admission “I don’t feel alive enough to call you.” Rather than present a mere snapshot of uncertainty, a portrait of loneliness or disillusionment, “i left you” drags you through all the hope, expectation, and self-annoyance that comes with stunted desire. Without a clear cut victory or loss, it makes up its own mind. Julia-Sophie’s emergence from her day job on the frontlines of synthpop trio Candy Says feels perfectly timed to create more than a space for therapeutic dreaming; y?’s soft curiosity is a gentle reminder to go beyond the pain of self-discovery and explore your own hidden worlds. What emotional spaces are you neglecting? What barriers are you building against the gathering storm of your own feelings? What better time than now to listen deeply? 

Luka - Lost Today/Found Tomorrow

By Charley Ruddell

Finding peace in uncertainty is a boundless struggle, but the rewards are eternally fulfilling. 

Rotterdam-based singer/songwriter Lisa Lukaszczyk, otherwise known as Luka, is enlightened by this. On “Lost Today/Found Tomorrow,” her debut single with Dutch indie label Snowstar Records, Luka presents acceptance with an electro-pop grace, summoning the ethereal spirit and pop drama found in artists like Imogen Heap and Bon Iver. The song’s accompanying video, directed by Charlene van Kasteren, captures this grace by using space to depict beauty found in the surrounding nothingness.

“Lost Today/Found Tomorrow” is a guided meditation in embracing an inevitable end. “What was lost today / Will be found tomorrow,” Luka sings with poise in a swirling cavity of soft synth pads as a slow zoom looms, her face wrapped in a hazy light emanating from the faded curtains behind her. She moves steadily, subtly. Like a tibetan singing bowl or a Koshi chime, the gentle repetition of the synth knells feel like anchors within the song’s otherwise untethered transcendence. “I’ve been gone for days / But I count on tomorrow,” she poses; it’s a conjuring of the soul in the steps of acceptance, peeling away the brittle layers of skin hardened by humanity to revel in the singular beat of a pulse.

Van Kasteren’s vision is stark, but brimming with bliss in every corner of each frame, one that uses the void of space to capture how life extends beyond human sentience. You can feel the crisp air in the barren landscapes, you can smell the dust settling among the furniture in the quiet house. As the story progresses, Luka’s movements, though delicate and smooth, become swifter and more exaggerated. These moments add up to a greater whole, unfolding in a euphoric surrender. Luka, lying flat, feet dangling, slowly lifts into the sky, raptured by the great uncertainty of what lies beyond existence, arcadian and whole. 

PREMIERE: Twig Twig - It's Late

Raquel Dalarossa

After two EPs, both released back in 2016, it's about time for a full-length debut from twig twig. Dropping on May 4th via OTHERFEELS records, Darkworld Gleaming will feature eight new tracks from the Brooklyn artist, but until then, we have the album's first single to tide us over.

"It's Late" is an experimental electro-pop earworm with a rough-around-the-edges sound that makes twig twig's music feel instantly intimate and warm. The expert songwriting and mixing should be no surprise to those who know the man behind the solo outfit, Zubin Hensler, given his past life on the stage and in the studio with acts like Sylvan Esso, Son Lux, and Fleet Foxes. Hensler crafts the song's beat using the sound of ticking gears that occasionally skip, as though they're playing from a broken music box. Paired with his soft falsetto, it lends an almost child-like innocence that has become something of his signature sound. But it's contrasted against lyrics like "Try although I try / There's no way to look away," hinting at a quiet chaos around the song.

Of the track, Hensler notes:

"I began working on 'It's Late' in the summer of 2016, it was the first thing I wrote for this new album. I hesitate to say it's a political song, but I think everything was political that summer...I was definitely feeling a big sense of impending doom and searching for a way to process that."

We're looking to hearing what else he has in store with Darkworld Gleaming. Until then, watch our Blue Room video with the artist and pre-order the album here.

REVIEW: The Seshen - Flames & Figures

Laura Kerry

Nothing that Bay Area group The Seshen does is small or half-assed. With singer/songwriter Lalin St. Juste and bassist/producer Akiyoshi Ehara at the helm, the band has grown to include five other members, including another singer, a drummer, a percussionist, a keyboard/synth player, and a sampler. With seven people total, their influences run the gamut from Erykah Badu to Radiohead. Now, after two successful EPs, The Seshen’s first full-length includes a whopping thirteen tracks of well-honed pop, each brandishing different parts of their various spectrums of influences and sounds.

On Flames & Figures, The Seshen mixes electro-pop with neo-soul, ‘80s synth sounds with more contemporary flavors, and recognizable pop tropes with more soul-bearing and personal lyrics. Starting with “Distant Heart,” the opener and first single from the album, St. Juste uses retro synths as a jumping-off point for a vulnerable song couched in an upbeat melody, all relayed in a soulful voice. “You tried to keep it together / But it just falls apart,” she sings over a bouncing electronic bass. Even when the synths fall into video game territory, as in the mallets on “Right Here,” the singer keeps the music solidly grounded.

St. Juste provides a focal point amid busy, complicated instrumental parts. In “Other Spaces,” intricate percussion lines dance around quiet and evasive synth lines, but the vocal line that floats above the fray lends clarity as the song patiently builds. The Seshen is less successful, though, when St. Juste’s singing aligns too closely with the background. “Firewalker,” for example, a song that begins strongly with an easy drum loop, off-kilter synth chords, and a strong melody, soon loses its sharpness with a jazz-tinged melody that doesn’t provide enough structure against the bustling instrumental parts.

Elsewhere, though, The Seshen doesn’t fear paring down. Some of Flames & Figure’s most powerful moments are also its simplest. The title track, which begins with St. Juste’s voice close and raw over keys and a light touch of echoing synth flourishes and switches halfway through into a restrained electronic composition, allows emphasis on the longing in the singer’s voice and lyrics (“I just wanna see you / Wanna get closer”). On “Spectacle,” St. Juste finds the spaces in an eerie-yet-buoyant composition of deep bass, prominent drum loop, and flute sound, disguising an existentially distressing chorus—“We learn to love the pretense / And the emptiness expands”—in a breezy but satisfying melody.

Between seven members, thirteen tracks, and countless musical influences, The Seshen has created a beautifully focused album. Crafted around St. Juste’s tender voice and its messages of love and love lost, femininity, and power, Flames & Figures is a delightful mix of its constituent sounds that, ultimately, has transformed completely into its own.

REVIEW: Incredible Polo - AGES

Will Shenton

Say what you will about the French, but few countries have done more to elevate the myriad genres of electronic music. AGES, the newest EP from Nancy-based Incredible Polo (aka Paul Malburet) and latest addition to the pantheon of fantastic French synthpop, is a record that has burst onto the scene with funky aplomb to spare.

Despite consisting of only a (heartbreakingly) meager five songs, AGES stands out for its seemingly limitless replayability. If the last month has been any indication, it has the substance and staying power of a much longer album. Each track is different enough to stave off boredom, but there’s an internal consistency that’s rare on EPs; to pull that off in less than half an hour indicates some pretty impressive songwriting chops.

But perhaps more importantly, Incredible Polo is catchy as hell. “Ages” and “Veda” stand out as probably the most danceable tunes, but the rest are earworms in their own ways as well. Malburet’s falsetto is surprisingly versatile, ranging from disco-esque to beachy dream pop, and helps to build a unique atmosphere for each song.

Normally, I find myself ending EP reviews with a caveat about the release’s length. “It’s great, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do on a full-length,” or something along those lines. That’s not the case here. AGES stands on its own as a solid album, and while the price is a little steep ($7), I think you’ll find after a listen or two that this is one you want to take home.