Listen To The Five Best Songs This Week

Chicagoan rapper Vic Mensa turned into an EDM star overnight this week with the impossibly direct, feel-good sincerity of, “Down On My Luck”. From the offset it screams PARTY, weighted as it is with kick pumps, shimmering synths and vocals that spit on-beat. Clearly, cutting his teeth in rap has given Mensa the advantage of understanding rhythm inside-out, which is why every beat he hits is a fist-pump moment. This is a song with surefire groove; it’s less about the head or the heart and more about the body, imploring you to stretch out on the dancefloor.

Disappearing after much hype over that debut track last year, London act Vaults made a rather unexpected comeback this week with the stark electro-pop of first single proper, “Premonitions”. Blythe Pepino’s vocal is the centrepiece of the song, floating above gentle swabs of synth and click-clacking beats. The chorus, bolstered at the end by a devastating string arrangement, wriggles right into your brain.

Swedish/Bajan popstress Noami Pilgrim dropped yet another fresh and affecting cut in “House Of Dreams”. Spilling over with soul but matted with typically Scandinavian electronic punch, it’s yet another example of how Pilgrim blending her musical roots has rewarded her attention (we’re honoured to have her on our roster at Best Fit Recordings). It’s simple, it’s catchy, and it’s good ol’ fashioned pop music.

Every now and then an act comes along that completely shakes everything up/reaffirms your love for music/becomes something to obsess over. Step forward: Hockeysmith. No, it’s not the quirky backstory (two sisters penning songs in repurposed caravans/barns in Cornwall), it’s not even the fact that they look like stars. It’s the face that they write game-changing music. Not quite shoegaze, not quite ambient, not quite electronica nor acid house, Hockeysmith write music that is completely their own. Often structurally fluid but often laden with dark, brooding atmospherics, their sound to date is something to get almost nerdy about. Digression over - new song “Hesitate” is another soul-stabbing cut, where industrial bass splurges over web-spun vocals and light acoustics bounce off bold, distorted guitar. Their debut EP is released on 26 May. Excited is an understatement.

It’s been a truly startling week for new music, and Flamingods’ “Hyperborea” was one of the first tracks to introduce it. A patchwork of world sounds - from Middle Eastern zithers to rumbling drums and prog-rock guitar licks - “Hyperborea” is an immersive piece of music from the experimental London bunch that jolts the heart. Dreamy and expansive, review annotations read: “imagine crawling inside George Harrison’s brain after Ravi Shankar session.” We can leave you with that.

Listen to our selection of the week’s best new music below:

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