Listen: Powertrip — Ney Liqa

Powertrip is a dubby new electronic track from producer and singer and producer Ney Liqa. Raised by a mother who was a vocalist in all-female punk band Mögel, and exposed to R&B by her older brothers, Liqa exudes a particularly eclectic and dynamic musical sensibility.

The sound Ney creates manifests in Powertrip’s dark and aggressive production style — mixing equal parts techno and R&B to conjure something trippy that pulsates with a brooding menace. The darkness in the track reflects the inspiration behind it, as Ney Liqa explains:

“I was quite angry when I wrote the song I had had an argument with a friend, so I wrote it imagining what it would be like to confront them in a huge way”

Powertrip comes from Ney Liqa’s new EP, Fade 2 Black, also out now. Listen to the track below:

Listen: Can’t Rely On You — Halan

Hailing from Singapore but based in Los Angeles, Halan is both an electronic music producer and a singer-songwriter. Having started performing in a variety of 80s rock cover bands and an original theatrical metal band, Halan launched her solo music career in 2019. Within her solo music, Halan has looked to blend alternative pop and electronic music together to give her lyrics, which tend to skew towards a little sad, an upbeat sound that enables her to dance away her tears.

Sometimes relationships, even friendships, can be complex — when you know someone well it is easy to forget about the wider context that exists in their life. Your best friend can be the person who best understands you, and yet there are still times when that individual may not be able to be there for you in the way you want.

This is the experience Halan’s single Can’t Rely On You depicts, as she describes:

“Can’t Rely On You is a song I wrote about my best friend. When I’m down I seek him out, but he struggles with his own mind and sometimes disappears when I most need him because he gets stuck in a mental ‘tunnel hole’, as he calls it.”

This is an experience I know, but I have also learned that it is important to try not to project in those instances. My experience tends to take a certain form, in that I have a hunger to be there for friends when they need. Yet, that doesn’t mean that someone who is unable to be present in a particular moment doesn’t care.

Regardless, Halan’s reading of the situation is easy for me to empathise with. There are times when anxiety can result in a loss of perspective, and in those moments I am almost unable to help myself. It is as though I need some form of external reassurance and validation to pull myself out of a particular mood. At the same time, every person has a different experience of mental health… It is no more reasonable to empathise with Halan than it is with her friend, who appears to have their own struggle in the moment and with the form Halan desires it. All we can do is try to be understanding and empathetic, and aware of the needs of those closest to us.

Check out Can’t Rely On You below:

Watch: Rather Be Blind — Scout

The world takes a tentative step forward, and I’m in an emotive retro-kissed dream… Snatches of my youth collide with the anxieties of my present, and the future feels hopeful even when the experience we inhabit right now is sad.

Following on from last week’s Fever Dream by Courtney Paige Nelson, this week brings us another slice of 80s-influenced electronic pop music in the form of Rather Be Blind by London-based musician Scout. Channeling modern artists MUNA and Christine & The Queens, Scout has one foot in the past and one in the future. The result is something that feels very now, and yet unapologetically plays with sounds and aesthetics from the New Romantic movement. It makes that sound feel more relevant than ever.

Rather Be Blind is a tear-jerking tribute to realising too late what you had, as Scout explains:

“I wrote this one over a beat I found on YouTube last year. It kinda lives in the same world as the other songs on the first Scout EP and is centered round moving back to North London/Enfield. I speak multiple languages and I heard this line that translated to “I rather be blind than see my life without you” and right away knew I wanted that line in a song. It worked out with the rest of the lyrics so I literally just took it and used it. The song's quite nostalgic, about situationships and not realising what you have until you no longer have it. I want Scout to make people feel a little less lonely in their human experience.”

In addition to the song, I also love the video that accompanies Rather Be Blind. Economical though it is, it takes a mood board approach, weaving together visuals that don’t so much tell a story as make you feel one.

Listen: Fever Dream — Courtney Paige Nelson

Fever Dream opens with the kind of chugging electronic bass and melodic synths that invokes memories of wishing that my life was soundtracked like the movie Drive. The sound here recalls the lo-fi electronics and 80s-production techniques that became popular again with Electroclash, but applies them to big pop hooks to create something accessible yet emotive. The result is little bit Chvrches, a little bit Italians Do It Better.

In contrast to all-out pop music, the slight edge the production lends to Fever Dream conveys a more authentic sense of emotion. I can’t help but feel that polished pop music can feel like it puts a barrier between the listener and the audience — both literally, in terms of the sound, and metaphorically as a result of the process. A song starts with a feeling and an idea. By allowing more time and more hands to interact with that feeling, does it not begin to become diluted?

With Fever Dream, the title track from Nelson’s forthcoming debut EP, it is as though the emotions can sit at the surface… A little like the way the pixels on our phones appear to have got closer to the surface of the glass in recent years. And yet, the production work is not without embellishments — the instrumental bridge only enhances the emotional core of the song before dropping back away to make space for Courtney’s vocal.

Nelson created the song during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as she wrestled with her ambition at a point where, for many, life seemed to slow down. That ambition feels like a direct result of her upbringing, where she was banned from singing at home and ultimately got kicked out aged-17.

Having moved to LA at 22, Courtney pursued a career in modelling and placed fourth in the final of America’s Next Top Model, but ultimately never really got her big break. Then when visiting Australia she got her first experience singing in front of other people, and was hooked. The fact she came to music later in life has shaped her sound:

“Because I don’t have a musical background, everything I have written and everything that comes out musically is just this raw part of me I hid for so long. And, honestly, music is the only thing that makes sense to me.”

That is audibly on display here on Fever Dream. Discussing the song’s creation, Courtney says:

“I wrote this in relation to how I was feeling during the pandemic. I really focused and hustled all of 2020. I put my head down and made sure I worked my heart out because of how much I wanted to be on top of things after the pandemic. This song is about how I want this so bad, to make it in music, but everyone around me just isn’t being serious or motivated. (...) I felt a bit isolated because I don’t have a plan b. I can’t relax because if I’m not 10 steps ahead, there’s someone who will gladly try to be. I didn't get a lot of security and breaks in my upbringing, so I feel like I must work a lot harder sometimes because I’m my own support system, and I’m my own person to fall back on. It was hard being so focused and having people not understand/drift away from me because of it.”

Check out Fever Dream below:

Listen: On My Mind — Don’t Connect

On My Mind is a track from London-based collective Don’t Connect, and it represents a deliberate choice to eschew expectations and go against mainstream conventions.

With raw production, On My Mind weaves together tight, punchy drums, loose acoustic guitar and synths. Atop this, a lazy drawl delivers a diatribe against money and conformity, and the song’s aesthetic and message converges on a single point: That integrity and experiences trump bragging and self-image.

That message comes to the fore in the closest thing the track has to a chorus, which rejects the value of money and drugs:

“Fuck a bill, take my money any day, wanna feel, shit you can't buy anyway … Fuck a pill, I don't wanna marry Jane, I'm for real, high enough on night and day”

The slightly downbeat yet pacy aesthetic give On My Mind a grunge-meets-hip-hop feel that I can’t get enough of, and I love the honesty of the message. Check it out below: