Watch: Pauline — Sunnbrella

Pauline gently arrives with a dream-like melody that, for me, invokes Sofia Coppola flicks and shoegaze. Sunnbrella claim their inspiration is actually Éric Rohmer’s 1983 movie Pauline At The Beach, a French film following two young cousins in coastal Normandy. It’s not something I have seen, but the yearning sound of Pauline definitely piques my interest.

The sound Sunnbrella conjures here has something of the earnest and serious emotion of Teenage Fanclub, shot through a misty gauze of nostalgia for the 80s and 90s. With additional vocals from Claire Peng, the chorus is as restrained as the rest of the record, yet is buoyed by soft focus layered vocal harmonies.

Having initially started as a bedroom lo-fi pop project, Prague-born and London-based musician David Zbirka has gradually refined the Sunnbrella sound into something fuller and more ethereal. Describing the process of making Pauline, Zbirka said:

“We went through a few different versions of this song. By the time we landed on the final arrangement, the old lyrics didn’t fit the vibe any more, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. When I got home from the studio that night, I decided to watch ‘Pauline At The Beach’ on a whim and when I finished it, I sat down and wrote the new lyrics based on the characters in the film. It felt good not to write from personal experience for a change. The film is about the collision of childhood innocence with adult lies, and about how age doesn’t guarantee wisdom. I tried to get these themes across in the lyrics as well.”

Pauline comes ahead of Sunnbrella’s eponymously titled debut EP, out on 1 September on London label Permanent Creeps Records.

Watch: Inappropriate — River

Inappropriate comes with a nostalgic video, drawing on 80s teen movies to create something that channels our youthful need for drama. It’s mysterious and exciting, much like growing up — a period where big things still feel unknowable and the edges of our experience are still expanding.

As a duo, River were California-bred but are now based in Hamburg. On their debut single, Inappropriate, they actively choose to take a hard-turn away from the clichéd traps of sorrow, anger, or regret, and instead embrace freedom, desire, and opportunity.

Describing the song, the pair explain:

“This song is like traveling back in time to when we were still kids living each day to the fullest, not a care in the world. Not taking life and ourselves too seriously can be a lot harder than expected, but with just the right bit of distance it’s a lot less drama than you think.”

Check out Inappropriate below:

Listen: Easy — Bowie x Naked Cat

Bowie is an independent songwriter from Hamburg, Germany, who is working on her debut EP, having written most of the songs whilst on one of her regular jaunts to LA.

Easy is Bowie’s debut single, and is an attempt to capture the value of being in-the-moment:

“The song is like a reminder to myself, so that I don't forget that everything is finite — and therefore valuable. I'm constantly on tour and often lose sight of the moment, yet in the end it's the only thing we have left.”

For a song entitled Easy, it boasts an appropriately effortless intimacy. Bowie’s vocals float above a bouncy melody with a sense of weightlessness that comes courtesy of producer Naked Cat. Check it out below:

Listen: iPhone — Bellatrix

Having performed live on stages shared with Jarvis Cocker and Imogen Heap, Bellatrix has been featured by the likes of Wonderland, Clash and Dummy. And whilst she has been on my radar for a little while, it is the brutal honesty of iPhone really takes her sound to another level, in the process pushes all my buttons.

Drawing on the kind of alt-pop sound I have grown to love from the likes of Empress Of and Dev Hynes, iPhone fizzes with a glitchy, infectious energy. Soft focus synths gently drop a reflective melody as Bellatrix sings about WhatsApp groups and the Northern Line, invoking a pedestrian background for Bellatrix’s internal anxiety.

The central melody on iPhone reminds me of the sublime title track from Thom Yorke’s solo album, The Eraser, in a great way… And the irony is that whilst the songs are tonally distinct, they both feel concerned with a determination to move through a level of existential dread. Yorke’s “The more you try to erase me…” echoed in Bellatrix’s “Don’t forget me… Please believe my love”. I’m almost sure these echoes exist only in my head, and yet they make a sort of perfect coupling of intelligent pop records.

iPhone is lifted from Bellatrix’s forthcoming EP, I Was An Aphid, the name of which is a reference to Audre Lorde’s 1978 observation that "women are maintained at a distant/inferior position to be psychically milked, much the same way ants maintain colonies of aphids to provide a life-giving substance to their masters”. Check out iPhone below:

Listen: Happy Now — Girlhouse

With crisp, sun-kissed guitars and hazy vocals, Happy Now feels like summer vacations bottled and spritzed, a film of warmth upon my skin. At the same time, it bristles with a level of anxiety — vocals puncturing the easy-breezy feeling melodies with the refrain of, “Are you fucking happy now?”

The lyrics themselves portray the experience of sacrificing a bit of yourself for someone else, and yet feeling that the sacrifice isn’t recognised. Discussing the song, Girlhouse, real name Lauren Luiz, says:

“Happy now is about trying to make someone else happy at the expense of your own mental health. I wrote it shortly after moving to Nashville and had a lot of anger at the time. It was recorded and produced in the basement of a frat house in Nashville.”

Having grown up in Portland, Luiz initially pursued acting in LA, and it was this that exposed her to the people and places that would ultimately form the basis for her music career. She met her future bandmate and producer Tyler Thompson in the UK whilst studying and working in Bristol. Once Luiz returned to LA, her and Thompson formed the band WILD with another bandmate, who saw success on streaming platforms and through advertising and movie exposure.

In the background, however, Luiz was writing music for her own project, Girlhouse. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Soccer Mommy, The eponymous Girlhouse EP was a breakup letter to LA. Now residing in Nashville, Luiz continues to make music as Girlhouse. Check out Happy Now below: