Listen To The Five Best Songs This Week

Is mystery in music a good thing? It worked for Jungle, it’s still semi in place for SBTRKT and even though Burial broke his anonymity, there’s still some delicious secrecy to it all. Why dwell on what people look like or where they come from when music is the end game? That’s the approach new band Mysteries take anyway. With next-to-nothing known about them, save for them sending an anonymous demo to felte who have since decided to release their forthcoming debut, we might as well just say what they sound like. Muscular rhythms, decaying synths, “Futurism”, melting computers, loony guitar squeals and supple lead vocals - just give “Deckard” a listen.

Shannon Saunders, on the other hand, has taken quite the opposite route. Since her young teens, the Wiltshire singer-songwriter has been uploading music via her 53,000+ subscriber strong YouTube channel. It seems like she’s really stepped up her game on new song, “Sheets”, a classy, pop-orientated house track that sprouts immediate earworms (“no longer under-cover / ‘cus you’ve got another lover / underneath the sheets”). It’s largely a constant loop of buoyant beats, studio-fit vocals and glossy electronics, nothing too remarkable or challenging, but accomplished in its own right for an artist at the edge of recognition.

Twenty-one-year-old musician Alex G was a very new discovery for us this week despite the musician having four albums already under his belt. The Philadelphia artist sings with unfathomable intimacy on “After Ur Gone”, a lament to loss draped over languid guitar strokes and lo-fi drum plods. It’s understandably moody, foot-dragging college rock stuff - the type of music your mother would deplore for fermenting teenage hormones - though you’re blind to her call. Alex G’s new album, DSU, is out this November.

It’s refreshing to come across a pop song that threatens dissonance, threatens unconventionality. Fabiana Palladino doesn’t quite have the honeysuckle vocal often associated with modern RnB/pop numbers; there’s an unpolished, raspy curl to her voice, splayed across new song “For You”‘s disturbing, staccato strings. But harmony eventually aligns. From this particular song it’s clear to see why she’s on Double Denim. They’re the label responsible for putting out recordings by Hockeysmith, Empress Of, Bayou - acts all arguably with off-centre tendencies; acts who like to play with the norm. We’re excited to hear what’s next.

Last but not least, Texas-based artist Ruby Fray unveiled “Photograph”, an acid-stained, bewitching song that bends its neck to ‘gaze but never quite breaks into it. Fans of her earlier, skewered folk work may think of her music as befitting the state’s hot and unforgiving climes, but “Photograph” is set starkly in the night desert’s skies. A wall of root-note bass, gloomy effect-laden guitars, banshee vocals and expansive ambience, “Photograph” could well earn Ms Fray a whole host of new fans.

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