Listen: OK - Maple & Beech

Maple & Beech is a musical project led by Minnesota producer Tyler Tholl. What started as a solo project has evolved into a seven-member collective that includes Tholl’s friends and family members.

Following on from their 2017 debut album, RUNDAWDAW, new single OK is the first to feature the vocals of singer Nicole Wilder. Nicole joined Maple & Beech last year, working with Tyler to create OK, a song the group describe as a “cello-heavy artpop song”.

The vocals and string heavy instrumentation on OK are moulded together by some sparse but well orchestrated electronic elements... The result is an arresting vision for modern pop - emotionally powerful and raw yet danceable.

Discussing the song’s meaning, Wilder says the song is about “the tension that’s created when you try to present too many different selves to the world, when you try to control people’s perceptions of you at the expense of knowing your authentic self.” In a world overrun with social media personalities where we all curate not just our public personas but also our own internal narratives, OK feels especially relevant.

Check out OK below. It is the opening track for Maple & Beech’s forthcoming album, which is due out summer 2019.

Listen: You - Saeyers

Saeyers is the musical project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Marshall Lewis, who creates dreampop with electronic elements.

You sees Lewis create something that is dreampop through the lens of 80s AOR... glassy, muted guitar riffs slide by whilst a soft drum beat kicks the song along gently. It’s laidback, somewhat aloof, a glossy sense of disconnection worn somewhat defensively. Musically, You gives me the feeling of someone masking the strength of their feelings in an attempt to avoid getting hurt. Every element of this was performed by Lewis, including the wonderful guitar solo that opens up at the end.

This is the sort of music I find entrancing - it feels so carefully constructed, and yet so effortlessly human. If you have ever wondered what a chillwave take on War On Drugs covering Tears For Fears would sound like, I’m pretty sure it’s this.

Listen: Heartbreak Hollywood - Ladysse

Ladysse is the name for the new musical project from Stephanie Lauren, launched from the ashes of her previous act, Golden Youth. The focus for Ladysse is creating music that sounds like her personality - outgoing, cheerful and a little bit weird.

Heartbreak Hollywood is about a city that can ultimately swallow people up, “It’s basically a playful way to stand up for friends who have fallen into the drama and stresses that can stem from the lights of Hollywood”, says Lauren.

With an appropriately cinematic feel, Heartbreak Hollywood sounds like late night drives down Mulholland Drive and long days waiting for your moment to come as you dry up in all that west coast sun. If St. Vincent had a post-Electroclash period, this is what it would sound like. It’s a feeling Lauren addresses in her description of the intention behind the song:

“I used very playful and descriptive words in Heartbreak Hollywood. I try and paint a vivid picture of what comes to my mind. I wanted people to get a feel of the dim lit bars of perfect people enjoying fake conversations haha! It sounds so dreary but that’s the point! Behind the glamour, show and beauty of the west coast dreamland is a lot of struggle, competition and crushed dreams. I wanted people to feel the darkness in this as well as the hope that no matter what your struggle is, you’re not the only one.”

Listen: I Punch The Clock - Dorvin Borman

Dorvin Borman is a musician and songwriter based in LA. With a focus on dream and psyche pop, he uses drum machines to specifically bring a sense of rigidity to a genre known for being anything but.

As you can here below on new song I Punch The Clock, the result is stark and yet intimate. Those drum beats feel crisp and Germanic and yet the vocals and guitars wind around them to make something more humane and natural, more Californian in sound.

I Punch The Clock is a nostalgic song about our preoccupation and obsession with nostalgia. Borman sings about our feelings regarding the past whilst simultaneously drawing on elements of it in the psychedelic feeling of his guitars and melodies. It is hard not to get pulled in by that feeling...

Check out I Punch The Clock below:

Listen: Tides - Onni Boi

Tides is the kind of song that feels like it is bursting with energy from the moment it starts... A drum snap, a bubbling electronic bassline shimmies along with a sense of excitement and desire, a falsetto vocal carries a sense of independent determination. This is the new single from Onni Boi, a musician from Helsinki who likes to blend the sounds of electronic music, indie, house and R&B.

Onni Boi is the work of Onni Poika Pirkola (Poika means boy in Finnish). Music is his vehicle to cover things he finds it hard to talk about, focusing on intimate and difficult to discuss topics.

Tides is a record that has been a while in the making, covering a topic that the artist finds difficult:

“I had a verse for 'Tides' laying around for a year or two. A little loop in the head. There was something irritating but exciting about it so ended up waiting a while before recording it. I think Tides turned out cool and cheesy and also kind of personal. There’s this feeling of trouble with letting someone close (and keeping them that way). And how those are seasonal things, cycles, tides. It’s so much easier to please people than to let them in on where you head’s at.”

Tides is out now through Lyktan Records.