This week saw an array of stunning new music; behind them an incredible amount of women.
We wanted to celebrate them with a special playlist just for you to spin the best we heard through the weekend.
New Albums
Rina Sawayama – SAWAYAMA
Japanese-born and London-raised singer Rina Sawayama debuts her first studio record with SAWAYAMA. The album is a pop, yet-everything-but pop album,. Its innovative and a fresh spin that we’ve all needed during a time where the world is seeking reinvention. Combining influences that range everywhere from Britney Spears to Metallica, this album is filled with a kaleidoscope of tracks that still sit in Sawayama’s world. This has been an on repeat favorite album for the year.
Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters
8 years since her last release and an album 3 years in the making, Fiona Apple returned with an undeniable frontrunner for best album of the year. And were only in the first months of it. She shares it was constructed in the vicinity of her own home with only a handful of musicians to provide backing tracks. Add along with it a whole lot of emotional vulnerability, rich city sounds including her barking dog and a new frontier of liberation, you have one of the most iconic albums for the singer.
Lido Pimenta – Miss Colombia
Lido Pimienta is back with vividly striking Miss Colombia via ANTI- Records, her long awaited follow-up to La Papessa (which was awarded the Polaris Music Prize in 2017). A testament to her exploratory music, the album was recorded both within her home studio in Toronto and parts of it in her historic Colombian hometown of San Basilio de Palenque. A superior level of musical hybridity that fluidly fuses roots of cumbia, electronic nods, percussion heavy beats and hauntingly beautiful vocal melodies; Lido Pimienta has returned on an electrifying album that explores here identity through vibrancies of her songs and visuals.
New Singles
Girl In Red – Midnight Love
Marie Ulven Ringheim, who goes under stage moniker Girl In Red, released a captivating track made for those moments in which emotions get lost within a situationship, better a fuck buddy tango. While the lyrics will leave room for heavy lingering, the melodies will soothe you into dream states to sort it all out. At a time when everything has shifted for relationships and communication, this song will give you the the right headspace to feel through it.
June Swoon – Play Something I Know
A song that trecks down the road of grunge and pop-punk; June Swoon‘s release of “Play Something I Know” hears the singer beg “Play Something I know/Cause where I belong is inside of a song.” A sentiment that is highly relatable in a world where sounds and music are truly transforming into some of the only homes we now know. When everything is uncertain, this song reminds us that music will always bring us home.
Y La Bamba – Mariposa Del Coalcoman
Y La Bamba released a pair of very special songs for Sub Pop singles club. The song, as stated on an instagram post, is a “visual representation of how [she] feels and navigates in and out of this world.” A tender dedication to the women and mothers found through the lineage of her bloodline; it serves as a reconciliation and communication to resolve the anger of the past to produce more softness today.
Lila Iké – I spy
Jamaican songstress Lila Iké brings a dance-hall and reggae influenced sound to the week with new single “I Spy.” Its a perfect dance a long song that has you moving through the sultriness of her voice. A release dropping days after being signed to RCA Records, the song and visuals provide context for a rising star with only her first single of the year. It is the first preview of her upcoming debut album The ExPerience due to be released May 15.
Andria Piperini – Coming Home To You
Andria Piperini is the soundtrack for the hopelessly romantic. Even if not with a lover, you will instantly fall in love with the songstresses soulful vocals. Lyrics encapsulating only the sweetest of loves, the song is an entrancing tangle of romance. A song leaning towards the more mellow moments we seek in a weekend, the song will have you melting through the thoughts of the sunshine love can bring.
Lola Young – None For You
Catching the sentiments around the flip side of love, Lola Young provides a song for those revelling in loves end. A gorgeous single ahead of her upcoming EP release for Renaissance. A powerful, stripped down R&B/Jazz infused track speaks on the potent emotions of pain and loss yet with a covered layer of hope found in regaining the ability to place yourself and well-being first.
Amber Mark – Waiting (Demo)
As a part of her COVERED-19 series, a project in which a track + video is being produced by the singer herself and released every two weeks, Amber Mark released her second title “Waiting (Demo)”. Made entirely in self-isolation, the song carries and appropriately titled song and theme, that of waiting. While specifically speaking on waiting for a love, the song can translate to one of waiting for those things we love over on the other side of all this.
Emily Afton – Just The Two of Us
A timely cover shortly following the passing of the great Bill Withers, queer indie-pop artist Emily Afton released an endearing and beautiful rendition of hit classic “Just The Two of Us” via Counter Culture Records. Coming off her EP Consideration this March, the artist has spent her time in quarantine working on new music and digging into her artistic inspiration. She began working on this song for a play that was canceled due to COVID-19 but became entranced with its chord progression. The final result of her quarantine musical immersion provides us now with this enchanting version of the hit classic.
Ela Minus – they told us it was hard, but they were wrong.
Ela Minus brings us a haunting electro-dance track with visuals to match. The machinic synthesizers bring an aura of bewildering sounds that culminate in a beautiful track highlighting what we can take out of a time like this. Through seemingly disconnected and strange pieces, we can extract something purely and utterly beautiful. The track also now marks the Colombian-born, Brooklyn-based artists first debut single under Domino Records.
Hayley Williams – Why We Ever
Better known as the front-woman to supergroup Paramore, Hayley Williams has taken her ventures into solo music. Why We Ever is the latest single and lyric video from her individual project. She travels both lyrically and visually down a road to revisit a lost love. With much time on our hands during isolation, its a relatable experience i’m sure many have or will experienced. Might as well have this song to share in the memories.
New Music Videos
La Doña – Cuando Se Van
The Bay Areas very own La Doña released an incredibly timely and compelling music video for her single “Cuando Se Van” from her debut album Algo Nuevo out now via Human Re-Sources. The track + visuals are an incredibly vivid and empowered love letter to her hometown intertwined with the very real critiques on displacement and gentrification across the city. In a shared instagram post, the artist shares in relation to the current climate we are experiencing, “We always knew this project would be haunting because we have been haunted by it but we never thought we would be releasing this video during a pandemic. We never knew that we would release it to empty streets, that our question “cuando se van?” would be partially answered. The first time I felt the true power aI answer myself time and time again that what I am honoring, what I am giving thanks for and upholding as our saving grace is that we will have each other.”
Have any favorite releases we missed this week? Feel free to comment and let us know!
You can now listen to our full playlist on Spotify below!
