Listen: Silencieux Témoins by Monde Ray

Monde Ray is the musical solo project of French artist Manon Guiol, and here she unveils new single Silencieux Témoins.

Riding on a wave of heavy synths, Silencieux Témoins is a deep slice of electronic R&B, leveraging darkwave and EBM bass tones. Crisp drums punch, soaking the listener in wet reverb, all whilst Guiol’s French vocal creates a cinematic atmosphere that oscillates between a dark paranoia and an ethereal uncertainty. She gives way to the song’s hook, however — her voice silenced to make way for a dark, instrumental chorus.

There is an appropriate sense of aloofness at play on Silencieux Témoins, reflecting the fact the song is concerned with ‘the superficiality of certain relationships, particularly when entering a new environment where no one truly knows you’. This is a song that deliberately keeps you at arms length, mysterious, dark and unwilling to fully let you in, yet capable of captivating the listener all the same.

Having made music since childhood, Guiol learnt classical piano and music theory before shifting towards electronic composition and production. Initially working under the name Manone, focusing on darker electronic sounds, she joined dream pop outfit Tender Tones as composer, keyboardist, and vocalist. In 2023, Manon made a move south from Paris, and at the same time embraced 80s textures and EBM, completing her transition into Monde Ray.

Check out Silencieux Témoins below:

Watch: Shine by The Yum Yum Tree

The Yum Yum Tree are a longstanding Atlanta garage rock outfit who formed after lead singer Andy Gish moved to the city back in the early 2000s. With a couple of album releases under their belt, the group went on something of a hiatus, pursuing other projects, before reforming in 2019.

Following the reunion, the band went through an extended period playing live and working on new material. They are now back with their first full-length album since 2007’s Paint By Numbers, with the forthcoming Turn Down the Noise. Shine is the first single to be lifted from that record and on it, we get to experience a kind of grungy, female-fronted guitar brand that we got lots of in both the 90s and late 00s.

With this new single, the band marinate in a kind of golden wonderment, reflecting on feelings of connection and introspection. Gish’s vocals have a honeyed beauty to them, but she delivers them with a naked vulnerability that resonates with authenticity. Citing Brené Brown as an inspiration, her work has encouraged Andy to embrace discomfort in her writing.

Shine is about wanting someone you can’t have, yet making peace with that experience and finding yourself wanting the best for them. The performance here finds itself pitched right between a sense of yearning and a kind of acceptance — watching someone across the bar, and just being happy you got to experience them.

Check out Shine below, and look out for Turn Down the Noise, which is set for release on 10 April.

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.