Video: Carousel - Skylar Spence

Carousel is the kind of pop song that captures that optimistic-but-totally-lost-in-love feeling of meeting someone and discovering just how into them you are. That dizzy and magical realisation that the person who brings you so much joy somehow also happens to get a similar level of joy from being with you.

Infused with disco sounds - a little chic, a little Daft Punk - what makes Skylar Spence’s track great is the contrast between the music, upbeat and sunny, and the vocal, which sounds unmoored and overwhelmed. And that feels so right, because the form of love Carousel describes is disconcerting and a little terrifying… It represents an extreme form of vulnerability, as you effectively outsource a chunk of your emotional happiness to someone else.

This is Skylar’s first release since his breakout album Prom King, and was written following a trip to Disney World with his girlfriend. With a chorus that is deliberately cyclical, the track is a reference to the experience of a carousel.

Check out Carousel below:

Stream: Bullet - Stasney Mav

Stasney Mav is a new musician who writes, plays and produces all of her own music out of her base in Nashville, TN, and just happens to be both in your face and gay. It’s a definite positive to find people with different voices and backgrounds not just making music but also producing…

Stasney Mav’s real name is Caroline Shumate and Bullet is her debut solo release, having previously been involved in side project The Queen and King. And let’s be clear: if Bullet is anything to go by then Shumate has a bright future ahead of her producing and making music.

Bullet is the sort of song my feeble middle-aged straight-white-guy body just can’t help but move to. There is this moment when the beat kicks in at the start of the chorus and it feels like a warm electronic body-blow, as though you just got smacked in the face my your own emotional irrationality. This is sensitive and raw and honest - acknowledging that you can feel two opposing things about a person at the same time, yet them both be true. It’s also catchy as hell.

Stream: Kiss The Matter - Bad With Phones

Bad With Phones is a London/Berlin based songwriter and producer with a penchant for dogs and making music in his shed with his friends.

Following on from his debut single Needles, Bad With Phones is back with a new EP, Bang Bang Chicken. Taken from that EP and available to check out here is Kiss The Matter.

Kiss The Matter is a track resplendent in warm synths and softly sung vocals tracing out weird lyrical motifs against swirling melodies. Kiss The Matter feels both uplifting and compassionate and deeply pedestrian. A lover tries to keep things together whilst faced with the mundanity of modern life. Sometimes we just can’t make the pieces fit... Is it me or is it you?

Check out Kiss The Matter below and listen to the full EP Bang Bang Chicken here.

Premiere: Stroller - Tunnelview

Stroller is the new single from Tunnelview, and the second track to be lifted from their forthcoming EP Thurzdazed.

Tunnelview is the name for multi-instrumentalist Bradley Peters and producer Zachary Thomas. Having originally started making indie-rock, the pair gradually became increasingly interested in pop music, synthesisers and drum machines, or which there are plenty here.

With thick bass lines and funky drum patterns, Stroller has a lovely warm and baggy feel. The big beats create a sound that is part 90s R&B, part hip house, all brought together by some vocals that plead for just a moment's calm, please. With influences that span Prince, Phoenix, Blood Orange, Toro y Moi and Wild Nothing you should be expecting something with plenty of left-field charm.

The band describe Stroller as being about holding loved ones close whilst it feels like the world is spinning out of control, and that’s a feeling I can get behind. I love this track - positive sentiment married to quirky and inventive pop music. Check it out below:

Stream: Everything (She) - LOYAL

It has been over 18-months since I last featured Brighton collective LOYAL on these pages, but their latest track Everything (She) is the kind of beautifully enigmatic track I just can’t turn off. And I want it in your ears too, because it’s lovely.

Everything (She) is the band’s first song since their Light Up For You EP last year, a release that awarded LOYAL with comparisons to the xx, James Blake and Rhye. This new track comes ahead of a forthcoming EP which pulls together disco, house and funk into a glistening piece of nostalgic pop.

Describing the track the band say:

”Everything (She) is our first single since Light up for You. Towards the end of our last EP, the world we were crafting with our music was beginning to become slightly less pixelated and more defined. Maybe too defined...Our mission has always been for our words and music to tell the listener more about themselves then it tells them about us and our experiences. Who are we anyway? We are just a vessel - and we respect that what listeners may gleam from our music has potential to be far greater than our initial design. It may sound cryptic to some - but for us it's simple. With "Everything (She)" we explore the power of our 'everything'. It may be a lover to some, a drug to others, perhaps a hero who lights your eyes when not all is going your way..."

Take a moment to figure out what your Everything is and then hit play below...