Stream: Ouch! - Sasha

Sometimes you get caught in a moment and something happens and it’s like you just pricked your finger or stubbed your toe. Only the pain you feel isn’t physical, it’s emotional.

Sasha’s new single Ouch! captures that experience perfectly. With a melody that rattles along like a absent minded lover it all comes to a crashing stop at the point where Sasha deadpans the line, “Ouch! That hurt more than it should... Ouch! That hurt more than I thought it would.”

In her own words, Sasha describes the feeling that inspired Ouch!:

“It’s about knowing deep down that a situation is eventually going to hurt you, but seeing things through rose-tinted glasses at the time. And then kicking yourself when everything goes to shit because you saw it coming from the start. Tragic!”

The track manages to recreate that dizzy feeling of getting carried away with something - cinematic synths swirling around beautifully, yet ultimately shown up for their dramatic lack of realism when contrasted to the song’s chorus.

Video: Armadilla - Kitzl

Armadilla is the latest single from Kitzl and on it she creates a weird tripped out piece of frantic pop music that feels like things slipping through your fingers.

Kitzl is focused on creating electronic soundscapes that leverage found sounds - gates, pottery and branches - and weaves them into something akin to pop. The result manages to be instantly infectious and yet weird and woozy. Backwards sounds, hollow drums... its alien and strange, the multiple layers of overdubbed vocals depicting a mind wrestling with multiple divergent thoughts at once.

The video fits the music perfectly - Kitzl somehow perfectly lit by headlights, looking like she is in daylight against a pitch black sky. Backwards footage and weird symbolism provide the visuals whilst she repeats the refrain “I don’t ever wanna see you again”. You have to wonder just what this person did. The result is innocent and yet threatening - perhaps the sound of innocence pushed over the edge.

Video: Stories - Refs

It has been over a years since I last featured Refs on BlackPlastic. Back then it was for the lovely track Fool, but they are back to close out 2018 with new one Stories.

The new track builds on the established Refs sound - soulful, bruised vocals combine with stark rhythms and beautiful melodies to create something that feels emotional and human but mechanical and futuristic.

Paired with a video that gives us the first proper glimpse of the artists themselves, Stories sounds like the pair gearing up for a big 2019. The emotional honesty and musical sophistication on display here are a lovely combination. Stories sounds raw, and yet it also feels like a salve.

Video: Grow In Me - Lee Triffon

Grow In Me is a collaboration between the Israeli-born, LA-based artist Lee Triffon and LA-based musician and producer Roy Regev. The pair have actually known each other since high school and had long been hoping for a point in time when they would be able to collaborate. Over the past two year both Triffon and Regev ended up living in LA, creating the opportunity to work together on creating music. Whilst they come from different musical backgrounds, the pair complement each other and are able to deliver against a musical vision they ultimately share.

Grow In Me is the first track to come out from a year-long period of collaboration, a slowly shifting, dark piece of music based around the chilling combination of Triffon’s vocals and minimalist analogue synths. The song was written shortly after Lee found out she was pregnant with her first child, with the stark monochromatic video itself shot towards the end of last year when she was almost 9-months pregnant. It captures the transformational and turbulent experience of entering motherhood and experiencing lots of things changing.

Check out the video for Grow In Me below, and look out for a first official single, Meditate, in 2019.

Stream: Nobody But You - Highschool Jacob

Nobody But You comes on softly, dreamlike synths unwinding and shifting beneath musician Highschool Jacob‘s vocal. It isn’t until one-and-a-half-minutes, a third of the way into this song, that we really begin to feel the full drama of this record. Those quiet opening moments give way to a series of big chords and a bolder vocal turn that would feel right at home on a Twin Shadow record.

This is a song that isn’t content to be one thing though, and so it switches between intense drama and hushed intimacy quickly, before shifting back. The key vocal hook - “You’re looking at me like I’m somebody else, I’m looking at you like there’s no-one else” - comes on suddenly, a layered pitch to a drifting loved one, overdubs giving force to Highschool Jacob’s pleas. This is the sound of someone still in love being left - the feeling of disappointment, grief and desperation wrapped up in a sense of not fully understanding what just happened. I thought I was your person, now I’m not sure who I am supposed to be.

It’s a beautiful record. Check it out below.