Stream: Wounds - Ryan Vail

Derry-based musician Ryan Vail is inspired by both electronic and modern-classical music. Having previously released three EPs, soundtracked an entire BBC2 documentary The Longest Night and jointly released the album Sea Legs with Ciaran Lavery, Vail is now about to release his debut solo  album For Every Silence.

Wounds comes ahead of that debut album and features a restrained soft-electronic style of production, suiting the hushed tone of the track and its vocals perfectly. It sounds like a track gentle spun out of the night-time mind of a wandering insomniac.

Stream: Wildfire (Autograf Remix) - Seafret

Autograf has just put out this remix of Seafret's gently emotive folky ballad Wildfire, and it's a stormer. Having worked with Odesza, Faithless, Lorde, Fat Boy Slim and Avicii, Autograf have a track record of turning out popular remixes. Here they translate the gently strummed original into a taught electronic pop epic.

Album Review: Talk/Brag - Philco Fiction

Oslo duo Philco Fiction have been drop feeding us with tracks from their sophomore album midway through last year. Here together as a full album are singles Bodies, June 17, the title track Talk/Brag and Runimals, and they come alongside four new tracks to round out the release.

Which is to say Talk/Brag doesn't hang around and it certainly doesn't overstay it's welcome. The album is less than 40-minutes long, and with so few tracks it is hard not to want more, yet everything here is pretty much spot on. Carefully constructed and played Scandinavian pop music. Careful, understated and gorgeously infectious.

The previous singles still shine. June 17 maintains its smouldering sound and Turid Alida's soaring vocal, creating a track that sounds like it looks you in the eye as it empties your wallet. It's the aural equivalent talking to the smartest guy in the room. Runimals is both slow moving and funky as hell, the brass stabs in the bridge a stark contrast to the track's gently flowing verse.

The title track is still the sound of the band at their absolute best, an eighties riffing pop masterclass, Alida's vocals gently reverberating in the midst of strong drum kicks and smooth electronic soundscapes that feel part sassy pop, part meticulously plotted hi-fidelity dad rock.

The new tracks hold up their end of the deal. Move On Frank is moody and sparsely plotted, the lyrical harmonies betraying a sensitivity that recurs throughout the band's work. Album closer 2pm is a thrilling conclusion - a tale of dissatisfaction and malaise that descends into an extended electronic finale, pounding drums recreating the dance music Alida's vocals appear to be trying to avoid. It punctuates the album like a heavy-set exclamation mark, and leaves me wanting so much more.

Talk/Brag by Philco Fiction is out today via Killing Moon Records. You can currently listen to the album in full on Soundcloud below:

Stream: Direction - Hugh

Direction is the latest song from Joshua Idehen's band Hugh, and it's probably their most personal record to date. In Idehen's own words:

"I thought I'd share a track I wrote a few years back, around the time I was falling out of love with my own christian beliefs. I'd been following the LGBTQIA movement online and I thought the catholic stance on same sex marriage was kind of sad: I'd grown up believing 'God is Love' and it didn't make sense to include a 'terms and conditions' to it."

The song took six months to complete and it's writing concluded at the time in his life when Idehen realised he no longer believed in god. It's a beautiful record that portrays the inner conflict we feel when two fundamental beliefs, here religion and freedom and equality, are at odds. The middle section, featuring the line "Do you believe, believe in love? In all kinds of love?", gives me goosebumps every time. Over the past few years I've become even more aware of the importance of respecting the rights of others to love who they want to love and I admire the honesty and bravery on display here.

Stream: Body - Elle Watson

There are some seriously sultry vocals and big space at play here on Body by new artist Elle Watson. The track was written in Stockholm and deals with Stockholm syndrome - influenced by the novel You by Caroline Kepnes, the song comes from the troubled perspective of someone who is stalked and confined only to fall in love with their captor. A dark and troubling but cinematic track.