Listen: Bug by Maxime Dangles & Tommy Rizzitelli feat. Craig Walker

Opening with a low industrial growl, the latest collaboration between French electronic artist Maxime Dangles and drummer & producer Tommy Rizzitelli is equal parts thrilling and threatening.

Entitled Bug, the song sits at the intersection of post punk and Krautrock, clattering drums propelling a dark grind of instrumentation. Bass fizzes as a guest vocal from Power of Dreams vocalist Craig Walker spits a disoriented stream of consciousness. As gloriously noisy as Bug is, there is a moment of peaceful beauty as the song drops into an ambient bridge, Walker’s vocals suddenly isolated and angelic, floating in the aether. All that noise returns with vengeance, however, acidic wonder and swirling synths consuming Walker, who seems to sing to us, clear-eyed with acceptance, as he disappears from view.

The overall performance is an emotive and cohesive piece, and Walker was clearly focused on building on what was already in the music, as he describes:

‘I’d had the line “I’m a bug in amber, stuck in perpetuity” sitting in my ideas folder for a while. When Tommy sent me the instrumental, it immediately clicked … It was important that the vocals didn’t hinder the free spirit of the track, but instead added tension and repetition.’

Bug comes ahead of Dangles & Rizzitelli’s forthcoming album, Sonars, and sets the tone for the release. The project was born out of the pair’s longstanding collaboration with BeBEST, a French-Québécois marine ecology laboratory. Having visited scientists in the field at Rimouski, a city in Québec, the duo were struck by the emotional weight carried by those trying to conduct such important and unique work, as Dangles describes:

‘One scientist had just returned from diving under Arctic ice. When his daughters asked him how it was, he was so overwhelmed he couldn’t say more than two words. That silence haunted us, and made us want to turn his emotion into music.’

The result is an album that reports to channel the sound of cracking sea ice and ‘the haunting quiet of remote landscapes’.

Check out Bug below, and look for Sonars when it is released via Amoor Records on 20 March 2026.

Listen: In the Open by Korora feat. Schwarz

Ahead of his forthcoming debut EP, Hopium, German artist Korora has just unveiled his single, In The Open.

Opening with stark tones and the chiming of bells and keys, In The Open brings together a beautiful combination of crisp, clear melodies and warm bass notes. Percussion crunches like frosted leaves as elastic synths slide and twist in on themselves, all of it underpinning layers of vocals that glide across the surface with the aesthetic of polished metal skating across glass. Those vocals come from Berlin musician Schwarz, whose performance is a buoy of humanity, around which the instrumentation swells, and the crisp melodies flow from Korora’s self-built glockenspiel organ.

The overall result is a piece of music that is considered and poised, yet packs emotional depth. Lyrics hint at an apprehensive sense of vulnerability and exposure, where the self is laid bare. Played up close on headphones, there is an almost overwhelming feeling of intimacy and detail to In The Open.

Having already received praise from the likes of Ólafur Arnalds, Korora appears set for great things. The EP Hopium will be one to look out for when it is released.

Listen: Socialites by Moulod feat. Rûn

Haling from Stockholm, Moulod is a musician whose art starts first with words. Constantly processing and working through his experiences, writing lyrics is a way of understanding his reality. The importance of message runs through his latest single, Socialites.

On the song, Moulod teams up with Rûn to create a deep piece of dubby electronic R&B. Mechanical sounding bass kicks as hushed vocals breathe heavily, exploring the notion of public and private identities, and ‘the cost of peace in a status-obsessed world’. The song hums with a dark push-and-pull, between what we want, and what we need.

Overall Moulod has created a cinematic and emotive piece in Socialites, dark, sultry and yet longing for a little tranquility. It surrounds the listener, much like the distractions of our modern world, yet those words push us to look for something deeper.

Listen: Matrimony by Don’t Get Lemon

With stark keys, reverb kissed drums and vocals that invoke an operatic yet clear-eyed aesthetic, the latest single from Don’t Get Lemon channels the feeling of the 80s New Romantics.

Texas trio Don’t Get Lemon appeared on BlackPlastic.co.uk back in 2023 with their similarly retro-inspired Autocratic Gore. The dream pop feel of that song is still present here, but on the new single, Matrimony, some edges have been filed off. Scratchy guitars and Hooky-esque bass lines have been replaced with rounded synth melodies and a warm glow of affection. The result is a song that retains a crisp frisson of the analogue, but basks in the loved-up feeling the lyrics depict.

Matrimony is dedicated to the conflicting sense of love as both something eternal and yet simultaneously fragile. Check it out below:

Listen: No ID BY Softmax

Featured on BlackPlastic, in 2023, with her growling exploration of disconnection and modern communication, Swishers, the Chicago artist has just released her new single, No ID.

With production duties shared between Softmax herself and partner Sam Hudgens, No ID has a similar sound to Swishers, chunky, robotic and dark. Thick, fuzzy guitars come from Cameron Winter collaborator and MGMT guitarist James Richardson, and they provide the skeleton for Softmax’s performance.

A product of the system it portrays, No ID is an exploration of the nature of the music industry. Artists have to seek approval and support from a system that encourages inauthenticity, effectively contributing to a disconnect between artist and audience. This theme extends to the song’s artwork, where Softmax sits on the floor, disengaged, as she is photographed in front of a giant print of an image she herself took on her travels.

Throughout the song, Softmax repeats the refrain, ‘Nothing I do, will ever be good enough for you’, and yet in doing so she has created an infectious, authentic and, frankly, catchy depiction of the actual reality of being a musician.