Listen: Swishers by Softmax

Swishers is Softmax’s first release since the Chicago native released her debut EP, But What If There Isn’t, back in 2022. Produced with Joel Ford, who has worked with Oneohtrix Point Never and How To Dress Well, together with Berlin based electronic producer Gabriel Gifford, the new track has a crisp, sultry feel to it.

Targeting its sights on modern communication in 2023, Swishers is about the way our sense of identity becomes distorted as a result of a carefully edited online presence. The feeling can manifest in us searching for a connection, whilst ultimately editing and receding into ourselves. Our real, complex identities become hidden behind a carefully constructed facade, as Softmax describes:

“It’s about wanting to connect with the world and understand people while feeling further and further from it.”

Inspiration for Swishers came from Softmax’s own experiences. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged, her previously dormant symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder began to manifest in a “paranoid OCD spiral”. She felt like her privacy was being invaded via social media — something she leverages in the song.

Softmax’s musical journey started as she learned guitar and keys, taking inspiration from Chicago’s blues heritage. As she discovered electronic music, the possibilities afforded by digital production became apparent, and she found herself able to create full songs out of nothing more than her imagination. Softmax cites OutKast and Timbaland as her musical heroes — artists who challenge their listeners, presenting avant-grade ideas within an accessible pop framework.

There is more than a hint of Timbaland on the growling synths, overdubbed and filtered vocals, and clean percussion Softmax employs here, but she makes it her own. The sound embellishes her lyrics, creating a stark, digital sound that sees her voice filtered and partially obscured in the way we all tend to appear online.

Listen: Take A Time Out by Odd Relics

Odd Relics is the creative endeavour of multi-instrumentalist and producer Brian Squillace. Born and raised in North Carolina, Squillace is currently based in Los Angeles. As a producer, Brian’s focus is on bringing a DIY mindset to his work, writing, recording and mixing all his music himself. In addition to solo work, he also works as a member of psych-pop duo LANNDS.

Drawing inspiration from Bonobo, Toro Y Moi and James Blake, Odd Relics looks to capture a dark and psychedelic aesthetic. Squillace leverages synths and samples to place an emphasis on texture, something that is abundantly apparent here.

As a fan of musical attention to detail, I find I am often drawn to songs that have a highly textured feel (indeed, it is something I fairly frequently reference in the music I cover on BlackPlastic.co.uk). Take A Time Out creates a structured, dense feel as a result of the way the drums and densely layered instrumentation come together. The result has a tangible sense of presence to it, the synthesisers given an earthy aesthetic as a result of their proximity to so much detail.

Take A Time Out is the first single from a forthcoming six-song EP, due in November. Each single looks to capture the feelings of isolation that exist within a bustling city, heartbreak, and spirituality, as Squillace describes:

“2022 was a really hard year for me. I had just moved to Los Angeles and went through a divorce that left me by myself in a new place. I had a lot of feelings and not much to do with that energy. I poured it into working on a new musical project that felt like therapy. It’s like observing my reactions to my situation carefully and then translating them in to what I think they sound like. I’ve never quite experience loneliness like that, especially in a place surrounded by so many people. I really wanted to paint that picture.”

Listen: St. George by Caroline Romano

Caroline Romano is a Nashville-based musician, who at just 21-years-old has already managed to generate millions of streams across her catalogue of music. Her new EP, the wonderfully titled A Brief Epic, is made up of three past singles, This House, Guts, and Mississippi Air, together with three new songs.

Across its duration, A Brief Epic depicts the start, middle, end, and aftermath of “a whirlwind relationship”. Being the individual that I am, my getting on point is the new track St. George, which portrays a relationship that has come to a close, as Romano describes:

“St. George is about when the goodbyes have been said and the parting niceties have been exchanged. It’s also about the anger and wanting all of the memories gone, but also wanting it all back at the same time. It’s about wondering what could’ve been done differently, but also knowing you couldn’t have done anything at all to change the outcome.”

Records about relationships that don’t quite happen — jigsaw puzzles where the final piece doesn’t fit — are my emotional security blanket. This is evidenced by the fact I only just covered the thematically similar Never Right, by Sea Glass and Yes Kid, a couple of weeks back.

St. George boasts a strong Taylor Swift vibe from its opening voicemail message, which reminds me of Swift’s iconic phone call from one of her own epic break-up singles, We Are Never Getting Back Together (see below). Here the phone call is from Caroline to her ex, pragmatic in intent, yet emotive in the memories an old sweater, a beach and a forgotten book can evoke, all played atop a Taylor-esque piano refrain.

The resulting production uses that gently heartbroken piano melody to create a sense of vulnerability, and a steady heartbeat-like rhythm provides an emotive sense of pace. As Romano hit the chorus, a crisp, quickening drumbeat gives St. George a sense of determined resolve.

Side note: In writing this post, I stumbled upon this epic performance by Taylor Swift at the 2013 Grammy’s, where she employs a British accent and states “I’m sorry, I’m busy opening up the Grammys”. Worth a watch.

Listen: Always Forever by Dance Yourself Clean

Having appeared on BlackPlastic.co.uk back in December with their thick, big room focused track Losing Focus, the Dance Yourself Clean crew are back with something a little different.

For those unaware, Dance Yourself Clean started as an indie-dance party in Seattle in 2013, before branching out with a touring party, and subsequently starting record label Lights & Music, a production outfit, and ultimately, a music and remix project.

Always Forever retains the no-nonsense, big room aesthetic of Dance Yourself Clean’s previous work, but in contrast to Losing Focus, it is imbued with a light playfulness. That comes from the muted guitar and angelic vocals of Donna Lewis’ 90s classic, I Love You Always Forever. Here it is combined distortion embracing bass and epic synth chords to create something emotionally resonant, amplifying the feelings of the original. It is, undoubtedly, the kind of obvious-once-you-hear it treatment that feels well-suited to wider mainstream success, and yet at the same time I love it all the same.

Listen: Imminent Danger by Hot Foxes

Hot Foxes simply describe themselves as, “Three friends, maybe we lived together at some point”. It’s a level of mystery I felt inclined not to dispel, and so that’s all you get to know, too.

Here on Imminent Danger, the trio channel 80s-hair-spray, synth-sheen and cinematic drums to create a sound both crisp and melodic. New wave chords open the song as a sole vocal charts its way through musical darkness, culminating in a chorus built on a big synth melody and powerful vocals.

The song charts a dual narrative that feels born to soundtrack a celluloid juxtaposition that would sit at home in an episode of Stranger Things… In one thread we see our heroes charting the upside down, danger around every corner, and in the other, we see some teens getting ready for a night out, the prospect of romantic liaisons on the cards. That’s because the imminent danger the song depicts is inspired by the alluring feeling of entering the unknown territory of uncharted love with another person.

Check out Imminent Danger below: