Listen: Romantic Logic — Billy Vena

Billy Vena’s new single, Romantic Logic, fizzes with a kind of energetic Prince-like energy that I find pretty much irresistible. Made up of a combination of warm feeling bass and crisp percussion and clean lines, the song feels futuristic yet also like lots of fun.

That sense of playfulness, present in Vena’s falsetto delivery, permeates Romantic Logic’s lyrics too — likening love to a game, in a direct reference to the Nintendo 64, even the very notion of “romantic logic” being a thing.

Describing the song, Vena says:

“The clues lead to love, but love leads to someone else they’re a little more content with. I wrote this song about understanding what it takes to be in a healthy relationship, and not understanding why you aren’t in one with the love of your life.”

Hailing from Panama but now based in Converse, Texas, Billy Vena made his musical debut back in 2020. Three singles came that year, and last year Vena began to release material from his upcoming debut EP, led with the excellent Rabbit Hole. Marking the release of Romantic Logic, Billy is auctioning of a single one-of-a-kind NFT that grants the owner a 10% royalty share on all master recording income from Romantic Logic, after expenses. You can find the auction, which ends on 28 February, on OpenSea here.

Watch: Mariah — Anna Shoemaker

I’ve been a touch obsessed with Anna Shoemaker since she put out the gloriously intimate Change My Mind in December, together with its fabulous video. Now she is back with something a little different, in the form of Mariah.

Where Change My Mind felt like the kind of grimy and grounded indie that Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy might make, Mariah packs a more overtly commercial aesthetic. Warm bass notes gently unfold and bend slightly under the weight of the song as an 8-bit style rhythm clicks and bleeps, guitar adding a steely-eyed determination right before Shoemaker drops her chorus.

And what a chorus it is, for Shoemaker is becoming the queen of deadpan delivery… The emotion held back in the performance itself, and all the more resonant in the words Anna sings. Compared to Change My Mind, Mariah took a little while to sink its teeth into me, but I find myself a little more hooked on Anna’s tale of fire and gaslighting every time I hear it. The song is a haunting, beautiful, cinematic ode to being really fucking done.

Describing the release, Shoemaker says:

“This is a final straw song, the one where you borderline get in trouble for putting it out, so I figured if it sounds sweet, maybe no-one will notice how mad I am.”

Check out Mariah below:

Listen: Sofie — Cayo Coco

Sofie floats on a cloud of fleeting, ephemeral emotion. Muted guitar scratches an itch against ethereal melodies, as a vocal punches through an understated-yet-emotional performance.

As cool as the whole performance is at first, by Sofie’s final third it culminates in a gut-wrenching cry out. An insistent and repeated yelp, “You’re the last one left”, sees us through to a conclusion.

Cayo Coco is the solo project of LA-based multi-instrumentalist Lumen Loraine. With cited influences that include Lord Huron, King Krule and Mac DeMarco, you can get a sense as to the expansive sound Lumen is shooting for.

Describing the song, the artist says:

"This song touches on fear of abandonment, which is something I've experienced most of my life. Sofie represents a specific person, but I know I was writing to myself in certain moments. I feel I was questioning the part of me who abandoned myself every time I connected with someone else."

Check out Sofie below, and look out for the debut album from Cayo Coco on 22 Feb.

Listen: Impressions — Couch Prints

Impressions is the latest release from Couch Prints, an electronic synth-pop trio based in New York made up of Jayanna Roberts, Brandon Ton and Jacob Traux.

The vibe on Impressions is similar to the (now sadly defunct) Chromatics. In the verse in particular, there is a heavy David Lynch vibe — Roberts’ angelic, haunting vocal harmonies shimmer above the song’s instrumentation. With recording and production provided by Jake Aron, who has worked with both Solange and Snail Mail, the overall feeling here is one of understated brilliance.

With a somewhat threatening undertone, Impressions is a song about fear and about love, and the relationship between them. Every so often, the experience of falling in love is one of losing a part of yourself, and of losing a sense of control. Here, Couch Prints depict that experience, coupled with the desire of “wanting to slam the door before it opens”. Check it out below:

Listen: Déjà Vu — Ben Leit

Ben Leit’s Déjà Vu bubbles with a crisp, energetic buoyancy that gives me the urge to dance in public with my headphones on. It has an introspective feeling, but couples that with an extroverted energy — like the joke that no-one hears but you, leading you to laugh out loud in a room of straight faces.

Leit is a 22-year-old musician, a dabbler with a love for the very notion of variety, learning and experience. Ben began his musical journey from the point his father introduced him to Thelonious Monk, one of my all-time favourites, and the rest is history.

The eclectic taste enjoyed by Ben leads us to the kind of music we have here, on Déjà Vu. It is pop, it is soul, it is polished. And yet what it is not, is varnished. Because, yes, there is a difference: one is a deeper layer of abstraction, and Ben is right here, real and human and on the surface of this music, smoothing.

Déjà Vu is a love song, but it’s also a tribute to the feeling that both life and love tend to be cyclical… It can feel new, even whilst we know we have been here before.