Listen: Live 4ever - Magdalena Bay

Having appeared on BlackPlastic a couple of times over the past year, US-based duo Magdalena Bay are back with their most intensely energetic track yet. Consisting of Mica Tenebaum and Matthew Lewin, the pair came together whilst studying at school to make fun and clever pop music.

Live 4ever is one of those songs that needs big sound and confined space: play this on your headphones, in your car or just on the biggest speaker you can find. That’s because whilst Magdalena Bay’s latest single isn’t subtle, it does boast an extreme amount unbridled excitement that I found infectious. It’s best experienced in a way that makes you literally feel it.

Big rumbling bass combines with hard drums and laser gun sounds to create a starry-eyed pulse-quickening kitchen-sink style record. In just two-and-a-half-minutes, it manages to cram in multiple genres and styles, resulting in something somewhat overwhelming, yet blissfully fun. Check it out below:

Listen: Don’t Look Down - Superheart

Superheart is an established UK songwriter, vocalist and producer who has focused on producing stripped back, dreamlike, electronic pop music. Having achieved success across a number of prior singles, he is back again with Don’t Look Down, a sun-drenched song that feels like floating on water at sunset.

Combining Superheart’s blissful vocals with electronic guitar work, piano and horns, Don’t Look Down creates a warm, 80s-tinged Balearic atmosphere. The song depicts a universally-relatable feeling of determination to stay the course, with Superheart singing:

“I still wake up every morning though a wave may come without a warning...it's okay I just don't look down.”

We are all living in uncertain times and it can be hard to know how to respond. Discussing the song, Superheart says:

“I've written about feeling low or worried before, but this time it was from the perspective that perhaps sometimes you have to lean into whatever you are feeling and accept it rather than trying to fight it or pretend it isn't happening - or even just admit that it is happening.”

Don’t Look Down makes me feel weightless... Sometimes the first step to overcoming the emotional pain we feel is to acknowledge it. Sharing a feeling gives it a tangibility and scale that somehow feels more manageable, and it is that sense that this song created in me. Listening to it makes things feel just a little bit more okay.

Listen: Pretty Pills For Broken Hearts - Cloudy June

Cloudy June is a 21-year-old, Berlin-raised-and-based musician. Having previously performanced for three-years as the singer in a death metal band, Cloudy June is now challenging our expectations through dark, intelligent pop music.

Having previously broken into the top 30 on HypeMachine with her single High Waist To Hell and topped 120,000 streams on Spotify, Cloudy June is back with unique new song Pretty Pills For Broken Hearts.

Opening with a sultry and moody vocal and guitar performance, Pretty Pills instantly portrays an image of someone struggling with how to address the way they feel, to move beyond a person that refuses to get off of their mind. With the song directed at a mysterious individual named Alice, the titular pretty pills are used as a way to just move beyond the pain. Sometimes it is tempting to numb ourselves to just stop the feeling.

What makes Pretty Pills stand out for me is the way it depicts the injured swagger that can sometimes come out of the experience of heartbreak… You no longer care what other people think, and so you can embrace a sense of being aloof and distant, self-absorbed, lost in feelings whilst insulated from everything except the hurt inside your own head.

'Pretty Pills for Broken Hearts' out now everywhere! → https://lnk.to/prettypills Connect with Cloudy: Instagram: www.instagram.com/cloudyjunemusic Facebook: www.facebook.com/cloudyjunemusic SoundCloud: @cloudyjunemusic Twitter: twitter.com/cloudyjunemusic

Listen: Where Is It - Meyta feat. Shib

Opening with Shib’s hushed vocal, Where Is It feels a little like floating. The song’s use of layered vocals creates an introspective feeling, like talking to yourself, and the song’s economical use of space only further emphasises that.

Alabama-raised producer Brett Edmiston started making music at 16, adopting the pseudonym of Meyta after the release of his debut single, I Need Your Love. In making music, Edmiston’s focus has been on storytelling through the soft, emotive dance music we find here on Where Is It.

Where Is It is a song that represents the search for love that never fails. Between humans, such love is rare… Instead we often seek it spiritually, or within ourselves, and just occasionally in fundamental bonds, such as the one between a parent and a child. Yet almost everyone longs for the security that such a love brings, and in some ways I suspect we all hope to be able to offer someone that same form of love too. This is a comfort and security from knowing you will not just be loved, but that you will love others.

Watch: Delilah - Stephen

Stephen is an LA-based indie-electronic musician, and Delilah represents the centrepiece of his upcoming album Akrasia.

Created in response to Stephen’s struggles with drugs and his exploration of his sexuality, Akrasia is the sound of an artist pushing at the boundaries of their own identity.

Delilah sounds like the act of pulling something apart… Strands worked loose and threads rapidly unravelling. A haunted piano melody establishes a seemingly delicate platform for Stephen’s vocals, with the song’s opening sounding like the midpoint between Radiohead and the Weeknd. Delilah feels like gradual disintegration before reaching a chorus that sounds like rebirth, all the fragility punched through, tanned and turned tough. Drums and vocals capturing the sheer raw feelings of frustration and alienation life can inspire in us.

The result is a staggering performance - bold, artistic, experimental and sad, and yet somehow infectious and enticing all at once. The video is similarly weird and wonderful and intimidating.

Describing the song, Stephen says:

“Delilah is the name I've given my shadow - my repressed, unrecognized potentials and desires. She is temptation. She is seduction. The process of getting to know her has been scary and exciting, a deep sense of self-acceptance and power reached through self-annihilation.”