Karen Andersen has morphed her pop a lot throughout the years, going from bedroom pop, to feature royalty, to power pop, and lately landing somewhere between her more DIY roots and her more radio-punchy endeavours. Her latest effort is a mix of mostly newer MØ sounds with some vintage production choices layered in the mix, for a record that is bops and then slower breaths of air. There’s a fun and childlike brashness to “Keep Møving” as Andersen wails out to push yourself and inhale every experience no matter how high or low, all in an effort to enjoy yourself and give a middle finger to the tornado of life. Her knack for infectious melodies elevates the lo-fi and more simplistic “Lose Yourself,” that only seems to lose steam in using solely synths where formerly Andersen’s sound was filled out with a wider range of instrumentation. “Heartbreak” takes a more ambitious run for the stars, with Andersen’s soaring yells and the massive pianos cascading into the heavens, and the scratchy recordings giving it a truly personal and heartfelt touch that centres it emotionally. Intriguingly, we get the most old school MØ sound of the whole record on her cover of Avicii’s “Wake Me Up,” where she uses her swirls of layered harmonies and personalized hand percussion tracks to morph it into a gritty and much more personal beast than you’d ever expect from the original.
Like a neon-tinged tribute to Fleetwood Mac, “Passenger” immediately invites you onto a sprawling road, as you navigate your way through the night. Between the already velvety run of guitars and smooth vocals, the glowing synths in the choruses are delicious sonic fare, and easily blend in new wave 80s layers the song. As such each chorus rises higher and higher, with Solange Igoa’s Stevie Nicks-esque vocals soothing the soul. With each track, the band seems to sharpen their writing too, bringing out a tense and moody desert bridge here that looses a mini solo and vocal break the send the track off in a ghostly haze.
After her early era, Kali Uchis has cemented a fleshed-out dreamscape that most of her songs live in, totally enveloping you in a dazzling array of symphonic waves for surreal highs. Even when it lingers on a few similar feelings for a while, this record drops such a mesmerizing sound that its easy to just lose yourself in this sound space. The album takes a downbeat turn in “Silk Lingerie,” leading into a rather melancholy approach to the soft keyboards to lend a weight to the slight self doubt in this love song. Uchis takes on smokier, femme fatale tone with “Territorial” throwing an Amy Winehouse-meets-Bond theme aesthetic into her dreamy production, for something wondrous about gladly being the “bad guy” if it means respecting yourself. “Sunshine & Rain” expands the already kaleidoscopic sound of the record through some ethereal organs, and sees Uchis stripping away a lot of other instrumentation to make a direct charge at the listener for this singular, deep emotion. Uchis flips it all back to max power on “ILYSMIH” sending us through the clouds to create a visceral journey of eternal love, and how it can become a forcefully full-body feeling.
More than just a sensual love, Maeesha B.’s “Undercover” explores how love can grow in our private lives, rather than always in the sun. With a swaying beat and marimba-like hook, the song digs right into a moving drive, pulling you into its soft soul. The mid-tempo beat enhances the message of taking things slowly, and never overstates itself, not unlike how Maeesha talks about doing things their own way. Though it is certainly more nuanced, it’s not to say the song lacks all the sultry appeal its name might also suggest, as the mix goes beyond evoking a simple romance.
Masters of the atypical sound, Tune-Yards always drop something rhythmically explosive and colourful to say the least. Sharp as ever, their latest record slow-burns the pop to make tracks that feel utterly satisfying by their final moments. After it’s simple stop and go style, “Heartbreak” opens up into this kinetic, often percussively driven track, with Merrill Garbus’ calls hitting like a stick of dynamite. The band’s more zig-zag oriented sound starts to take over on “Swarm,” with the bass running and the electronics creating this abrasive collage of tones to push you to your very edge before the choral chants rip you back in. They strike an intriguing balance of these bright and dark tones on “Limelight,” with the funk colliding with the jazzy vocal and synth approach to create something futuristic and boundary-pushing, but always deeply human. “How Big is the Rainbow” delivers with even more ecstatic bass and sends the rest of the sound through euphoric swells, and a feeling of triumphant glee so that you’ll want to scream along and drum on your legs to this dynamic beat at every moment.
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