Stream: Armour - Minke

Back with a follow up to her debut single Gold Angel is alt-R&B / rock artist Minke.

Armour is focused on the sensation of letting go of your desire for guarded self-preservation and exposing your vulnerability. The track boasts gorgeously soft production work from Rory Andrew, whose complex layering adds to the song’s complex-yet-uplifting emotional core.

Most of us have moments of wrestling with when we need to wear that armour and when we are okay to reveal how we feel. Minke’s new single captures the sense of relief that can come from being at one with how you feel and finding other people that accept that.

Describing the track, Minke says:

"I wanted to celebrate being vulnerable, celebrate the people around us who pick us up, that it's fine not feeling fine - you’re not alone. Everyone goes through shit and the best thing we can do is to be ourselves, truly, always. Even when sometimes its not that pretty."

Video: Kaleidoscopes - Transviolet feat. Reo Cragen

Announcing their first release of the year in the form of a forthcoming EP are LA four-piece Transviolet. To kick it off we have the opening track from the EP, Kaleidoscopes, featuring Reo Cragen.

Melding big synth waves and clattering percussion, Transviolet have created a lovely piece of atmospheric pop here. The male / female vocals skirt around crisp production to create something positively tropical.

Check out the video below:

Stream: 4AM - Sorcha Richardson

I've been kind of in love with Sorcha Richardson's form of melancholic narrative driven folk pop since 2015's gorgeous Petrol Station.

Following on from last year's Ruin Your Night, Richardson is back with a new single in the form of 4AM. The track's most instantly recognisable component is the unrelenting bass that underlines the majority of the song, snatching the subtle momentum created in the bridge and running with it. It's the moments of exposed fragility that really make this though - Richardson's emotional honesty as she lays down her frustration at her lover's door at the at the two-minute mark: "You always think you can just stay 'til the morning like it's not even important what I want / you really think you can just tell me your sorry, and I'll be ready and waiting to move on?"

These moments act as a sharp contrast to the desperate and emotionally battered lines "Please don't say you're coming over, I just finished cutting all the cords from the telephone"... You can't help but feel uncomfortable as Sorcha pleads "It's four in the morning, I think you should go" on the track's chorus, over and over. It is almost like that insistent bass line is a metaphor for a partner that doesn't quite know how to give a bit of space.

As is typical for her music, Richardson has made another song that is both beautiful and thoughtful.

Stream: If - Wens

Following on from recent single Bleed, Wens is back with new track If.

Treading a similar path to Bleed, If is another doped up track dealing with feelings of love and fears of rejection. It's a tribute to the moment of honesty when you confess your true feelings, although in this instance Wens confesses she didn't get what she wants. Sometimes unequited love is the most honest kind.

Stream: Abandon - Charles Fauna

I'm getting spaced out and dreamy on this big thumping folk / electro / pop piece from Brooklyn based musician Charles Fauna.

Drawing on the alt pop sounds of Phoenix (wub) and Passion Pit, Abandon takes some dark bass stabs and blends them with Fauna's fragile vocals and some melodic keys to create something otherworldly and unafraid.

In his own words Charles describes the track:

"I wrote this song to prove to myself that you don't have to pick a comfortable role and embody it for the rest of your life. If you abandon what you know then all that remains is what you don't, and a world of limitless new beginnings."