Listen To The Five Best Songs This Week

JUCE, Britain’s best “undiscovered” new girl band, returned this week with their strongest track since “Call You Out”. On “Burning Up”, the London trio come armed with full-throttle disco lifted by lurching beats and singer Cherish’s sunshine soul vocals. It’s impossible to leave the track without a smattering of a smile or the desire to party the weekend away, so in the most clichéd of clichés, turn those speakers up!

We were hugely impressed with the debut offering from Harrogate’s Litany, not just for Jake Nicolaides’ playful production but also for Beth Cornell’s beautiful husk of a vocal. Unreliant on traditional structures and littered with woozy off-cuts and beatbox loops, “Slopes” is seriously promising stuff from this Yorkshire pair - the type of sophisticated, jittery electronic music we’re continually treated to by acts like Glass Animals and SOHN.

Another fantastic debut emerged this week in the form of “Living Alone” by Bad Sounds. Receiving its first play on Phil and Alice’s Radio 1 show, it was easy to see why it had pricked up broadcasters’ ears. Riddled with contagious groove, striking falsettos and the type of wonky electro-pop Hot Chip purvey, “Living Alone” is happy-go-lucky music that doesn’t care if you show if off on a house party playlist or dance to it alone in your bedroom. We’re not saying which one we’ve done.

East London trio Waylers premiered their new track, “Take Hold” on Best Fit and transported us back to 80s pop climes. Opening with Talk Talk -inspired guitar riffs, relentless choral harmonies soon circle above the heads of crystal synths and rubbery bass. “Take Hold” is out on 14 September via Alcopop! Records.

The ever-expanding list of musical genres and the restrictive nature of tying acts to them can understandably aggravate music fans and journalists alike (tower-block pop was once used to describe a Micachu And The Shapes song, for god’s sake). There’s no denying it’s a love/hate relationship, though. Humans like to define things; it helps us come that little bit closer to understanding the world around us. These signposts are sometimes needed if only to suggest a style than enforce it. Enter SZA, who self-describes her music as “glitter trap”. With admittedly having little knowledge about this genre, it’s still quite clear to see how trap has influenced NJ artist’s new cut with its sharp, hard-lined bites. Most of the “Moodring”‘s elements, however, are doused in a dreamy haze that defies the father genre’s traditionally dark and aggressive tones. If this is “glitter trap”, we like it very much.

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

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