Listen: More To Say by Banyan & LeyeT

Opening with muted piano keys and soft electronics, More To Say has a delicate sense of introspection from the get go. Rounded synth sounds pick out a gentle melody as vocalist LeyeT sings about the personal growth that can come from pain and heartbreak.

Banyan are a musical duo who have built up a following with their remix work for a collection of artists. With a focus that places more emphasis on the emotions their music stimulates than genre, they are looking to bring a unique vision to the electronic music space.

On More To Say specifically, Banyan and LeyeT have looked to create something that inspires hope, as LeyeT describes:

“For me, like for all of us, there have been tough seasons in life. Reflecting on them, I’m proud of the resilience I’ve had to keep going, whether that be in love or in the pursuit of my dreams. The choice is always ours to let what’s difficult hold us back or drive us forward. It never gets easier, but singing these lyrics are a sort of mantra for me to remember that nothing is ever for nothing and to always keep moving forward.”

I’m left with a sense of warm compassion in listening to More To Say, and the production has a subtlety I appreciated. Check it out below:

Watch: Pockets by Low Girl

Pockets is the first new music from up-and-coming band Low Girl since their acclaimed EP, Uh-Oh, and its BBC 6 Music play listed single, Bored.

Vocalist Sarah Cosgrove is once again at the centre of Low Girl’s latest release, but the instrumentation that surrounds it feels purposeful. A fast-moving bass line sets the pace, together with sharp drums that punctuate the song’s melody. The result has a daydream-like feel to it – a stripped-back reimagining of the aesthetics of artists like The Shins and Beach House.

The song itself is about those thoughts and feelings that constantly resurface — an attempt to take them and tuck them into one's pocket. This comes through in Low Girl's description:

“Pockets is about trying to repress something that constantly resurfaces. It’s all about the allure of the ‘what-if’ and it’s a rose-tinted way of viewing those possibilities. My life was all over the place when I wrote this track, and there was a real sense of anticipation and being on the edge of something.

“I’m grappling with trying to figure out who this person I’ve bloomed into is, all the while trying to find some tangible light to look to. There’s an element of deluding yourself into believing in an impossible dream. I imagine this warm, settled imagery of the afternoon and how I feel like I never quite reach it.

“My way of coping with all of those issues has been to write something where I kind of trivialise and try and laugh about it. Is that healthy? Who knows!”

Check out Pockets below, and look for Low Girl when they tour the UK in September and October:

2nd Sep: Darlington – Last Train Home Festival 28th Sep: Portsmouth – The Wedgewood Rooms 30th Sep: Luton – Castlefest Festival 1st Oct: Cambridge – The Blue Moon 4th Oct: London – Paper Dress Vintage 12th Oct: Manchester – Beyond The Music Festival 13th Oct: Birmingham – The Victoria 14th Oct: Bristol – The Lanes

Listen: In This Together by The Landing

With tight percussion, colourful synths and slick vocal harmonies, Washing D.C. based musician The Landing creates a distinctly European feeling sound on new single In This Together.

The musical project of classically trained musician and amateur astronomer Jon Bell, In This Together builds on the meditative nature of track This Way, released back in May. Bell sees The Landing as a project “seeking to turn the struggle of finding one’s place in the Universe into an anthem for the optimistic”.

A Casio-calculator-watch dance aesthetic evokes Hot Chip, but the verse has the refined, clean lines of early Phoenix and Erlend Øye’s The Whitest Boy Alive. The chorus is a comparative explosion of sound – arpeggiated melodies providing a sense of forward momentum, lifting Bell’s vocal delivery.

In the closing minute of In This Together, Bell briefly strips his song back to a minimal piano accompaniment to his vocal, before re-applying each layer, and finally dropping an angular, post-punk style guitar solo. The result is infectious, urgent and over quickly. I find myself wanting more.

In This Together is the third single lifted from The Landing’s forthcoming debut LP, Beautiful Human Beautifully Human. The song is partly inspired by the Carl Sagan quote, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love”, leveraging Bell’s love of space and astronomy as he reaches for into the universe for meaning. Check it out below:

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.”