Every Sunday, ATR compiles a list of recently released tracks for your auditory pleasures!
ur cute but boring - Lunadira
GENRE: POP / R&B LABEL: This Way Up Records RATING: ★★★★☆ Lunadira is slowly but surely making her way into the Malaysian music scene as a writer and performer of relatable pop. She is an acute observer and storyteller of human interactions in an age of Internet anonymity. When Lunadira speaks about the unfortunate state of attractive people turning out to be dull as a rock, an entire generation of IG users deceived by aesthetics holler in unison. She also touches on the fuckboys who never seem to accept responsibility, always calling their exes crazy. It may not be as vibey as her previous single STUCK WITH YOU (one of my favourite local tracks from 2018), but Anuar Roslan's (who is also the bassist for alternative pop band Bear Scouts) production work on the song gives ur cute but boring not just an inescapably chill dimension carried by a simple & funky bassline, but also a personality that jumps out from when Lunadira sing-talks ("wait, what is this guy for real?"). The guitars by Aiman Arief Jaaffar that wrap up this track are pretty cool too, carrying a motif from the intro of her previous single, Stuck With You (I'm probably just assuming the whole motif thing because I'm still excited for an album)
Go Back - Emily King
GENRE: R&B / SOUL LABEL: ATO Records RATING: ★★★☆☆
Emily King's voice paired with her riveting songwriting is what makes her memorable. Go Back is a track off of her album Scenery, and it's a straightforward tune with a deeply stimulating aura of overcoming all odds and finding redemption. The keyboard flourishes at the end drives this track through the 80s and makes Go Back a nostalgic treat.
Desire - LUST
GENRE: POST PUNK/ INDIE ROCK/ PSYCHEDELIC POP LABEL: INDEPENDENT RATING: ★★★★☆
Full review here: https://www.awfultrackrecord.com/awfultrackrecord/lust-s-new-single-comes-with-a-profound-music-video-pastiche-of-modern-life The Observers - The Cosmic Range
GENRE: ACID JAZZ LABEL: Idée Fixe Records RATING: ★★★★☆ Saxophones that sound like fighter jets. Bongo drums frantically punching through the fragile musical membrane of improvisational chaos. The Observers is one of my favourite cuts from The Cosmic Range's new album last year, The Gratitude Principle. Here you have collaborative acid jazz at its finest - danceable and an all-out trip.
bury a friend - Billie Eilish
GENRE: ART POP / POP LABEL: Interscope Records RATING: ★★★★★
Billie Eilish's growth as an artist is an exciting one, as she takes the trap sensibilities that have permeated so many songs on the charts, but gives it her own dark, offbeat tone. Recently, she's been treading in the darkness more and more, bury a friend being an blatant peak of her macabre. Inspired by an experience of sleep paralysis, Billie Eilish sounds like Imogen Heap possessed by demons in this cut, as she sings about struggling with a monstrous entity that she both longs for and despises. The song is unique, the vocal effects gives me goosebumps, and the track's pulsating heartbeat is an amazing, dramatic touch of pop production.
Not Enough - Benny Sings
GENRE: FUNK / SOUL / POP LABEL: STONES THROW RECORDS RATING: ★★★★☆
One of the albums I'm most excited for in 2019 is City Pop by Dutch multi-instrumentalist, Benny Sings, coming out on 22 Feb. I was only introduced him through his feature with Rex Orange County in the latter's Loving Is Easy, and already fell in love with the very 80s, yacht pop production that he brings to every one of his cuts. Not Enough is another brilliant example of Benny Sings rich artistry with funky bass tones, made even better by his somber lamentation of someone who has destroyed him emotionally (You can't break my dreams, and just bring 'em back). The music video shows several off-putting scenes of people in disturbing portions of their life singing the lyrics to the track. Voicemail - Poppy
GENRE: EXPERIMENTAL POP LABEL: Mad Decent RATING: ★★★☆☆
Poppy continues to push herself into harsher sonic realms with Voicemail as she sings about being the demon matriarch over all of humanity. There's a gripping corrosiveness but as a single falls a bit short of having any moments that were dynamic, and fell falt in comparison to some of other harsh, metal cuts from her latest album Am I A Girl?
Cyboogie - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
GENRE: NEW WAVE / ELECTRONIC / PSYCHEDELIC ROCK
LABEL: FLIGHTLESS RECORDS
RATING: ★★★★★
After a whole year of silence in 2018, (they deserve a break since they released FIVE whole albums in 2017), King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard shows its fans once again that it's just going to keep breaking into new musical territories. Although there have been some misses in the past in their experimentation, King Gizzard's Cyboogie feels like a cohesive blues song made in a world ruled by robots with a Booker T despite being one of their adventurous musical takes after constantly switching from garage rock, psychedelic, stadium rock to jazz. The modular synthesizers gives a retro spaceship vibe to the track, as the band chants a hypnotic refrain that sounds like an android Stevie Wonder jamming on a Moog.