Listen: Easier — Vorsen

Vorsen’s Easier is the sort of feeling that starts softly, a gentle nagging that eventually becomes all you can think about. Vorsen’s delicate vocal manoeuvering its way sympathetically around layered guitar melodies and ambience, before a chorus kicks the song up a notch, propulsive drums and pulsing bass injecting an energy into the performance.

Yet_Easier_ doesn’t let up there. It builds and builds, synths and distortion joining the instrumentation. And then it drops out for a bar where, for just a moment, it feels as if Vorsen has lost his confidence… Only to slam his foot back onto the gas again, the desire for something a little less painful seemingly manifested into song, through sheer will alone.

Vorsen is the musical project of London-based, British/Australian product Oliver Halvorsen. Having moved to Western Australia when he was young, Halverson got into music-making in his teenage years, before being invited to study at the Western Academy of Performing Arts. Having initially got experience working in studios with some of Perth’s best known producers, Oliver returned to his town of birth, London, and joined the act Night Flight. From there, Halverson started producing solo material, getting picked up on Triple J for his debut single, Say All The Right Things.

Easier is talent from Vorsen’s debut EP, Real Life, which Oliver started working on in 2020 following the dissolution of a significant relationship. Check it out below.

Listen: 4X4 — Paige Bea

Paige Bea’s new single, 4x4, floats like a bee and and stings like a butterfly... Thick bass grinds your guts and bones to dust, whilst Bea’s vocals simmer and roar, the song’s production evoking like the titular 4x4 it is named after.

4X4 depicts what it is like to be bowled over by someone new, Paige’s vocal cursing her own infatuation, as she sings, “I could put you on a loop and I’d never get bored... You could run me over with a 4x4”. Describing the song’s inspiration in more detail, Bea says:

“It’s an ode to the twisted honeymoon period after you first meet someone mesmerising, when you feel yourself falling hard and fast for someone and have the dark realisation you’d probably be happy to lose large parts of yourself to be with them. I wrote this song to perfectly encapsulate the feelings of dread and excitement that accompany a late night journey to that new romantic obsession - while also riffing off the sensory assault that London can be. Drinking in the cold air, watching the street lamps flicker, glass glistening, couples arguing on the street.

Having originally trained as an opera singer, Bea realised that the world of classical music wasn’t for her at the point her singing teacher told her that if she wore a suit to an audition, people might think she is fat. Following a degree in Russian, Paige spent several years as a journalist in Moscow, Kyiv, Hong Kong and Reykjavik. Eventually music called her back, but this time to songwriting, and an ensuring role in growing the musical community, co-running Higher Ground. The latter is a monthly jam session hosted at 91 Living Room, founded by musician and vocalist Sofia Grant. Bea also documents the real life dating and music-making experiences using her honed craft for writing in the form of tell-all monthly newsletter The Beamail.

With a wonky alt-pop sound that recalls Caroline Polachek, Tirzah and James Blake all at once, there is a sophisticated emotional rawness to Paige Bea’s sound that is infectious. 4X4 is taken from her new forthcoming and self-released EP, Goodbye, Then!. You can check her out live on 10 November, when Paige will headline The Lexington in London, with tickets available here.

Listen: A New Life — Amy Stroup

With a gently plucked guitar and a shimmering vocal, Amy Stroup’s cover of Jim James’ A New Life glitters with the kind of pearlescent beauty that evokes thoughts of the Double R in my mind… Sweeping romance, an earnest sense of desire, and just a dash of magic and, dare I say it, doom.

For the unfamiliar, Jim James leads country-psyche outfit My Morning Jacket, a band whose music I have always admired from afar, despite never reaching a personal heavy-rotation status. His original of A New Life is a bluesy-country piece that gradually builds, a dash of rockabilly giving it a sense of movement. Stroup’s take is itself more aligned with James’ own Alt Version — stripped back, his vocal bruised, yearning and just a bit desperate.

Both James and Stroup just about bleed out the line, “Hey, let’s get one thing clear… There’s a bit more stardust when you’re near”. But it is Stroup’s version that feels like it floats amongst the stars. Her spectral vocal and the surrounding instrumentation seems to float in the air, unmoored from gravity, as she lays out her unvarnished desires for her audience. Her stomach is in her throat and heart in her hands, just waiting for some sort of response from the one she loves so completely.

The experience of giving oneself up to love is both terrifying, and yet completely fulfilling… The need to hide who you are or what you feel can vanish in an instant, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem like anything else matters. Of his song, Jim James told Rolling Stone,

“It’s about making a conscious choice to open a new door for oneself. To step forward out of safe stagnation or fear and into beauty or peace or whatever you would like to call truth in your heart in order to begin a new life in and of love.”

Based in Nashville, A New Life is Amy Stroup’s first song since her 2018 solo release, Helen of Memphis, and the first from her new album Since Frank. Following encouragement from friends, Stroup engaged with producer Chad Copelin (LANY, Broncho, Ben Rector). “You have to work with him, you guys would love each other,” said her friends, and yes, she did – she loved working with him. Amy claims A New Life as one of her all-time favourite songs, and it shows. This is a performance that hits me right in the gut – honest, raw and beautiful.

Listen: Get Away — Ayelle

Gently glittering with a naked vulnerability, Ayelle’s new single Get Away puts the Swedish-Iranian songwriter’s vocals front and centre. With a delicately picked guitar, soft bass tones and subtle percussion, Ayelle’s chorus gets all the space it needs to create an emotional impact.

Get Away is the result of Ayelle struggling with the ability to define boundaries and avoid a repeating pattern of over-investment to the point of burnout. Ayelle explains:

“I wrote 'Get Away' from a place of frustration about the repeating patterns in my life and how I can't ever seem to stay in one place. It actually started out as a letter to the music industry and the way I'd been pouring myself into my work yet feeling like it was never enough. Then those feelings merged with that of a recent break up, and I realised that I sometimes feel similarly about my romantic relationships as I have with the music industry. (It’s) like I'm pouring all of my energy into something or someone until I reach a breaking point and have to step away from it all, or continue forward in a new direction, in search of replenishing my energy and restoring balance to my life.”

Having grown up in Sweden and Spain, Ayelle moved to London to pursue her passion for music, gaining support from a list that reads like a who’s who of music media and cultural commentary — Billboard, Pitchfork, 1Xtra, NYLON and Highsnobiety. Created with Swedish producer Pontus Persson, Get Away is taken from Ayelle’s upcoming project shadowselfluv, which is described as “a space for merging shadow work with self love”. She has previously appeared on BlackPlastic.co.uk with the beautiful Regrets.

Listen: Staying Tuned With — Le Jank

Staying Tuned With is a new pop-meets-surf-rock song by Le Jank. Featuring former members of legendary reggae outfit The Maytals Band, an group known for their work with many musical legends, the song was recorded in the historic Abbey Road studio in London.

Drawing together a restrained and yet generous approach to production, Le Jank’s song floats with a sense of inner-peace. This reflects the overall description the North American duo apply to the song:

“Staying Tuned With is a song to help people quiet their mind and align with their internal direction.”

On first listening, I found Staying Tuned With a little simplistic – it arrives at and locks into a groove quickly, and then stays there. Yet, I quickly realised this is far from a derivative take on reggae — the way it inhabits that groove is purposeful. Indeed, the song’s second half is instrumental, the lyrics backing off to give the musicians space.

The instrumentation, conjured by the ex-Maytals members and Le Jank, joyfully plays around in the space afforded within the structure. Steely guitars slip and slide, reverb and echo, creating a sense of depth. A Hammond organ shines in the song’s final minute, rescuing the song at just the point where it feels like it is on the verge of disintegration. Staying Tuned With is clearly such a deliberately created performance that the song’s structure is really only the ground upon which it is built… It’s the playing that really matters.

The feeling Staying Tuned With evokes is stabilising, giving a sense of presence and pulling me into the moment. I only wish there was more — that I could stay tuned in, longer, because it is truly a stabilising place to be.