From New York
Recommended if you like Caroline Polachek, Voice Actor, Vegyn
Up next New album Friend released via AD 93 on 5 September
Pull up your beanbag, light a lava lamp and crack open the Vicks VapoRub: downtempo is back. New compilation Telepathic Fish documents the 90s south London ambient night; Logic1000’s latest DJ-Kicks mix would barely register on an ECG; there’s none more languid than even the summer’s flagship pop album, Addison by Addison Rae. New York producer and musician James K has been dabbling in trip-hop – and various shades of experimental pop and club music – for more than a decade, but nonetheless, her new album, Friend, arrives right on time for summer’s wind down. (What is autumn if not the chill out room to escape the year’s most hectic season?)
James K: Play – video
While the accompanying text around the record speaks impenetrably of “oneiric fogs” and a “gaseous halo”, its many pleasures are in fact immediate and enveloping. These songs bob along on sleepy breakbeats wreathed in liquid, shoegaze guitar and angelic atmospherics; K’s melancholy falsetto is self-possessed, tracing its own hypnotic path through the blissed-out clouds she spins like candyfloss. (Fans of the more evanescent end of Caroline Polachek’s catalogue will find lots to get lost in.) Over repeat listens, this dreamy record leaves stronger impressions, of soft Balearic ecstasy on Peel; a little dank post-punk on pop gem On God; liturgical awe on Rider. Seductively slow it may be, Friend nevertheless seems primed to accelerate this cult hero’s emergence from the underground. Laura Snapes
This week’s best new tracks
Symphonic trip-hop … Zuli. Photograph: Malak El Sawi
Zuli – Care
Following up his acclaimed 2024 album Lambda, the title track of the Egyptian producer’s new EP is skittering, splintered, symphonic trip-hop, with bells and whispers reaching across the uncanny valley. BBT
Titanic – Gotera
Mabe Fratti’s duo with Héctor Tosta returns, channelling the astonishing metal energy of their recent live sets into an epic where Fratti’s ragged voice pierces ceaseless rounds of artillery-fire drums. LS
Sophie – Ooh
A deep cut from the 10th anniversary reissue of Product: “I’m your Play-Doh baby / Push me to my knees,” a female voice pleads, starkly melancholy against the rubbery bass and ecstatic synth blurts. LS
Cass McCombs – Peace
A riff that’s like sunlight on the broken surface of a pond powers the latest stunner from an artist who, coming up to 12 solo albums, has amassed one of the great bodies of American song. BBT
Mark William Lewis – Still Above
After May’s beautifully brooding Tomorrow Is Perfect, the enigmatic London songwriter lets the light in, splicing strangely sweet, jazzy harmonica into his deep-voiced lyrics on off-kilter relationships, whether narcotic or romantic. LS
Sombr – We Never Dated
The lad with the sharpest cheekbones in pop made the heartbreak anthem of the year with Back to Friends. His new one goes from hurt to outright bitter, but the sturdy chorus scans just as satisfyingly. BBT
I Jordan – An Angel (ft Tom Rasmussen)
You can practically feel the throbbing walls and rushing skin on this grounded yet celestial rave hymn to rebirth and transition, with more than a little Pet Shop Boys in its DNA. LS
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