Stream: Sucker - Tyzo Bloom feat. Gigi

Sucker is the debut single from Tyzo Bloom and it was created in collaboration with Gigi and songwriter Parker. Together they created a record about the difficult realities of love, as encapsulated in the line “I’m a sucker for boys that leave”.

Tyzo Bloom is the musical alias of 27-year-old LA-based producer and songwriter Casey Chen. Describing the record Chen said:

“We wanted to make a song that tapped into the idea of love coming from a place of insecurity and self-doubt. Love shouldn't come from dependency or be a bandaid that tapes over your issues, yet we do this all the time. We wanted to illustrate the very emotion brought upon people when intimacy becomes a test of self worth and desperation.”

Gigi’s vocal perfectly captures that feeling of earnest and frankly well intentioned desperation and Tyzo sets it against carefully constructed melodies and delicate shuffling rhythms. We can’t help what we want, but what we can do is recognise our role in a situation and how we react. Sucker is one of those gentle records that feels beautiful as a result of just how honest it is with itself.

Stream: New Friends - Cuja

We’re almost at a holiday break and the end of a year I sometimes felt would never end, but here’s one last cheeky little record looking to worm into your head space so it can hold you hostage.

New Friends is a record about the kind of irresponsibility insistent romantic love that feels impossible not to prioritise over everything else. Here LA-based musician Cuja sings with reckless abandon about giving up on her friends so she can be with the person she really wants, as she makes clear on a catchy but ever so naughty chorus: “We can make new friends baby!”

In all honesty, my favourite thing about this record, even more so than how brazenly head-over-heels it is, is the the dog bark. It’s the sort of touch that made me double check whether I heard it correctly... “1:06... Was that a dog bark?” And yep, there it is... there is a dog lurking here. So my conclusion is this song is a love record about Cuja and her pup, and she has decided that frankly her other friends were just getting in the way of that love.

Cuja herself neither confirms nor denies the dog overtones here, so maybe I’m projecting. All we know for sure is this is a song about two friends falling for each other, and taking a gamble on where that leads. In Cuja’s own words:

“New Friends is about taking chances. It’s an anthem to put your fears aside and go for that thing you want. Perfect for that New Years Eve, ‘Ah, f**k it’ moment.”

We can indeed take chances and make new friends. Happy New Year folks!!

Stream: World Below - Raindear

Following singles Sky, Coins and Elephant Heart (which appeared on BlackPlastic back in August), Raindear is back with another piece of glittering electronic glam pop with World Below.

World Below is instantly recognisable as Raindear’s work - analogue-sounding electronics shifting beneath swirling and sultry vocals whilst a throbbing bass line kicks things up a gear

Raindear is the musical persona of Swedish artist Rebecca Bergcrantz. Raised by parents known on the jazz and classical music scene, Bergcrantz quickly absorbed as much music as possible from a young age and released her debut album in 2016.

The focus World Below is losing yourself and briefly feeling above everything, as described by Raindear:

“It's edgy, sinful, playful and hazy. It's the feeling of having the world wrapped around your finger for a while. I wrote it after a wild summer night that ended as a dance party in the dawn in an abandoned train tunnel.”

Stream: Just A Little Longer - SHY Martin

SHY Martin is the pseudonym of Swedish musician Sara Hellstrom, a musical an who has written with established artists like Kygo and The Chainsmokers but is now transitioning into an artist in her own right.

From her debut EP, Overthinking, comes Just A Little Longer. It’s a gentle electronic pop record full of the sort of bubbling excitement that comes with intense feelings of the kind of love that feels hard to give up on. The song itself sees Hellstrom plead for a bit more time and another chance in a relationship that may not have quite found it’s groove but still feels too good to let go.

There is a beautiful urgency to this song that I find hard to resist. The vocals and music building to a determined climax as SHY Martin tries to win us over.

Check out Just A Little Longer below and look out for the EP Overthinking in all the usual places.

Stream: In My Mind - Du Tonc feat. Vania

In My Mind is a surprise end-of-year release from Du Tonc, a collaboration between Matthew Haynes (AKA Mighty Mouse) and Matt Van Schie (of Van She). Whilst they haven’t appeared on these pages with a standalone release since 2015’s Animals, they have been a fairly regular feature of Eskimo Recordings’ long-running colour Collection series (Orange & Yellow, to name two).

Ahead of a planned album release in 2019, Du Tonc have released this collaboration with Vania, who features heavily on the duo’s debut album. Vania wrote her vocals to match the cinematic 80s feel of Du Tonc’s music and they were impressed at just how good the resulting track was:

“It was a pure joy writing with Vania, when we sent her the music we were blown away with what she came back with, and we knew we had to release it.”

The result is a sweeping melancholic love song - alien yet emotionally alive. Check out In My Mind below: