Watch: Deja Vu - Frank Ivy

Coming from Bay Area indie-electro songwriter and producer Frank Ivy, Deja Vu opens with a video slowly following a man into a shop to purchase a drink. We are 20% through the experience and have been confronted with our COVID age, in the form of a shop worked in a face mask, before the melody actually kicks in.

When it does happen however, it’s worth it. Deja Vu has a dreamy, disorientated sound. There is a glossy, sun-kissed West Coast feel here, evidenced in Ivy’s highly processed vocal delivery, but it also feels distinctively mediterranean. Synth melodies drop like heavy acetate as woozy psychedelic chords play out, the music wrapping in on itself. Deja Vu sounds like Frank Ocean fronting a Tame Impala track, and that’s a sound I can get behind.

Musically, Ivy typically starts his writing process with an instrumental melody before crafting lyrics, which in turn further refine and shape the melody. It’s a circular process that in some ways feels appropriate for a song called Deja Vu. The lyrics here are deliberately ambiguous, and it lends the song more of a feeling than a thought. I find myself enjoying existing in the space, without knowing exactly what that space is.

Listen: Loneliness Pt. II - Aaron Taos x Spill Tab

Both Spill Tab and Aaron Taos featured on these pages in quick succession in February 2019. I’d like to think that I personally brought them together, because on Loneliness Pt. II they have collaborated to make something just a little bit wonderful.

Loneliness Pt. II is a little more grounded and straight up than what I have heard from either artist before, but it really gives them both the space to shine. The song opens with a traditional melodic progression, Aaron’s vocal wrapped in reverb, giving a sense of music played to darkened rooms in a way that reminds me of dark nights searching for hope in The Roadhouse. Claire from Spill Tab lends her vocals to create a duet, and instantly turns Loneliness Pt. II in something that feels earthy and human, two star-cross’d lovers facing off against the world.

The gently played instrumentation forms the perfect home for the bruised vocal duet that Spill Tab and Taos have created, before a heart-breaking guitar riff eventually plays the role of some unknowable choas, consuming them both in darkness, amidst percussion that sounds like gun shots.

Loneliness Pt. II is a follow up to a song Taos originally made in response to a bout of depression, a tribute to the at-the-time girlfriend who saw him through the period. Having long wanted to recreate the song as a duet, Taos found the found he was looking for when he heard Spill Tab’s Calvaire. He reached out to her to ask if she would be interested in a duet, and as he explains, she said she was:

“I’m honored that she was and then when I finally heard what she had written I was blown away. Her vocals are so beautiful and haunting and in my opinion add a really unique perspective/vibe to one of my favorite songs I've ever written.”

Listen: Crying In Your Sleep - Iska Dhaaf

Iska Dhaaf are a producer-songwriter duo based in Brooklyn. Together they create indie influenced electronicic with a focus on textural soundscapes and lyricism.

Crying In Your Sleep is the latest song from Iska Dhaaf and it creates a lush, cinematic feeling. A slow pulse of electronic percussion gives the song a sense of movement, the sounds gradually layered upon one another whilst soft instrumentation comes together to create a dreamlike sound. If this is crying in your sleep, it sounds peaceful.

Overall it is Benjamin Verdoe’s falsetto vocals that really make Crying In Your Sleep stand-out, enveloping the subtle production with a sense of drama and emotion. The overall sound here evokes a warm, quiet type of disco, the result sounding like Yumi Zouma fronted by Rhye’s Mike Milosh. Crying In Your Sleep is soft, subtle, raw, vulnerable and blissful. Check it out below.

"Crying in Your Sleep," the newest release from Iska Dhaaf, tells a multilayered story that revolves around two separate dialogs: one from the waking world and one from the dimension of dreams. The production of the song has an ethereal delicacy that cycles around a driving bass line and clusters of electronic percussion. Beautiful pads and arpeggiations flutter and dance around the steady beat and heavenly keys. The main melody drifts in and out as a sweet lullaby as Benjamin Verdoes's gentle voice lilts and sways. Melancholy and sincere, "Crying in Your Sleep," flows through the currents of a lucid dream.

Listen: Set Fire To The Night - Lazer Owl

Lazer Owl’s Set Fire To The Night slides its way into my mind with a casual over-familiarity that reminds me of drinking with new-found friends-of-friends at the end of lost nights… It feels easy, and way more worn-in than it should.

Lazer Owl is a musical alter-ego of Italian musician and songwriter Anthony Lazaro, which when embodied frees him from his acoustic skin into a multicoloured synthetic identity.

Lazaro’s vocals evoke a feeling I can only describe as low-slung, embodying a unfussiness that instantly makes him sound cool. I’ve always been a sucker for slacker rock, a sound epitomised by Pavement, a band that often sounded like if they were any more laissez faire they would be asleep. On Set Fire To The Night, Lazer Owl somehow manages to apply that aesthetic to disco, and gosh is that my jam. I will follow you anywhere Lazer Owl, my lovely Italian mystery, as you lazily point the way to some mystic heavenly rave in a distant forest. Sure, let’s set fire to the night, but let me just pull a stretch and slip on a comfortable sweater first.

Watch: Permanent Maniac - GRAE

Back with a follow up to April’s Slow Down, Toronto musician GRAE has just released her second EP, Permanent Maniac, together with the title track and its accompanying video.

Where Slow Down was a dramatic, electronic piece of pop music, Permanent Maniac fizzes with a nervous energy, a glittering indie sound perfectly complimenting GRAE’s wistful vocals.

On first listen, Permanent Maniac could be mistaken for a conventional love song, but GRAE confesses it is really about her love of the Cure’s Robert Smith, whose music has clearly influenced her sound here:

”Permanent Manic is a love letter to Robert Smith from The Cure. I’ve had a real obsession with him since I was a teenager and even went through a phase where I did my makeup like him and dressed like him. The Cure’s music hits me in a way like nothing else has, and I’m so inspired by Robert, his sound, his writing. This song is about how I love him, and he’ll never know. Permanent Maniac is definitely the vibe I’ve been trying so hard to create for a long time. So, thank you once again, Robert Smith (if you’re reading this, I love you)."

The video features GRAE wigging out in her room, surrounded with references to the Cure as she draws pictures of Smith, writes words and music about him and ultimately makes music that expresses his influence on her. It all culminates in GRAE’s fabulous, steely guitar solo as her adulation triggers her musical creativity.

The video, created by co-directors Iris Kim and Priya Howlader, is a wonderful intro to GRAE’s sound and energy. I also love the credits to the video, which boast another brief blast of post-punk noise that recalls both The Cure and The Jesus And Mary Chain.