Watch: What Are The Chances by Man Alive

Man Alive is the solo project of Mark Prendergast, of Dublin outfit Kodaline, and his new single is the kind of song that feels instantly recognisable. The opening guitar refrain invokes familiar melodies as Prendergast lays down a wistful, heartbroken vocal.

Rather than shelter in timidity, however, What Are The Chances is full-throated, the chorus arriving in a golden carriage built of piano chords and melodies that ratchet the emotional drama of those gentle guitars. The result is undeniably cinematic, and it would risk being derivative if it wasn’t for two things.

Firstly, through Prendergast’s lyricism. The artist weaves together universally emotive themes, from small details, like visiting the old haunts of a loved one, to the big thematic hook of wanting to start a relationship again, with his promise of being better.

Yet Prendergast contrasts these, almost like an unreliable narrator — the odd disconcerting line hanging over his earnest vocals like a trailing question mark. Chief among them is the admission that, “I know I burned your neighbourhood to the ground”, but there are other details — walking in the rain, smoke in his room, and ultimately the reflection that “I’d probably end up doing the same”. It’s the kind of love song that straddles epic romance, and something quite a bit darker.

The second reason What Are The Chances transcends its form, however, is just how deftly it is constructed. Unwilling to rest on its laurels, the song further ratchets the chorus on its second iteration. In addition to the piano, it introduces dramatic reverb-heavy percussion before giving way to a bridge that has Prendergast’s vocal ad-libbing its way into the sunset.

Describing the song for BlackPlastic.co.uk, Prendergast shares how it is very much rooted in personal experience:

“What Are The Chances is a song about being at fault for a break up happening, for being on the other side of it. There’s no way around it, I let someone down and it’s about that. In the past I’ve written more from the other perspective because that’s where I was at.”

I was a little blown away by What Are The Chances, a song that feels so familiar and yet so memorable all at once.

Listen: PseudoFriends by Gold Spectacles

Gold Spectacles are a London-based outfit with a polished-yet-DIY aesthetic who draw inspiration from artists as broad as Paul Simon, Lykke Li and Phoenix.

Having released their eponymous debut LP in 2019, Gold Spectacles have had a busy start to 2023, producing music with Mysie, SOFY, Johnny Stimson, and Viddy, and also releasing their EP, More Heart Than Sense (Pt. 1). PseudoFriends is the first song from follow-up EP, More Heart Than Sense (Pt. 2), and the source of both EPs’ titles.

PseudoFriends is a dive into the kind of connections that portray themselves as more meaningful than they are — superficial connections that can be mistaken for real friendship.

The song is built around a central bassline that vibrates with a kind of life, almost a growl, loose yet heavy feeling. Indeed, the band note this is where the song started:

“We’ve been sitting on this one for a little while. The bassline came first. We spent a few hours jamming to it before we had solidified the lyric. The rest then followed pretty quickly. We had just got off the phone to an old friend who had been really let down by her mates, and we wanted to write about this and the idea of not ever knowing who to put your trust in. Being burnt by who you think are dependable protagonists in your life is never fun. Don’t worry, they’re doing a lot better now!”

The magic in PseudoFriends, however, is in the details Gold Spectacles have created around it. Whilst there is an easy, freeform aesthetic here, it feels like every detail has been sweated over… the percussion, the interplay between the vocals, little guitar licks, and the touches of instrumentation all feel meticulously planned. It is this subtle attention to detail that shines, with the song having a lived-in feel to it, whilst benefitting from a highly produced, detailed aesthetic. Check it out below.

Listen: In The Way Or Disappear by DD Walker

I think that we all have a fondness for the music from a certain period in our lives. For me, the period where I felt most connected to and inspired by contemporary music was in the period of 2003 through to about 2010. Much of the music I felt attached to in that period informs the music I write about today.

Electroclash; the influence of post-punk, DFA, and LCD Soundsystem; Daft Punk’s second era; Cut Copy’s reimagining of Fleetwood Mac on In Ghost Colours; Phoenix’s technicolored Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix; Soulwax’s grungy take on dance music… All of these sounds tickle my pleasure senses when I hear echoes of them today, even as I recognise that they, themselves, were echoes of their own.

There is an artist from that same period, however, that I would classify as having produced the album I love the most that you (yes you) are least likely to have heard of. And that, dear reader, is the chaotically wonderful How About That?, by the relatively unknown Icelandic musician Gisli. The sound employed on that under-appreciated album is undoubtedly heavily indebted to Beck, with a dash of anti-folk, and yet Gisli took his sound in a more overtly accessible direction. His reward for that was, I sense, obscurity.

Still, How About That?, and songs like The Day It All Went Wrong and Mind Games, soundtracked a period of my life… Early days with my (now) wife, hanging with one of my best friends from school, in the early days that followed university, the course of life uncertain.

And so when I heard the gently strummed guitars and overdubbed vocals of DD Walker’s In The Way Or Disappear, I heard the echos of that period of my life. Walker embodies a similar aesthetic – grungy vulnerability meets a loose sense of creative experimentalism. The opening two-minutes plays gently, heartbroken as Walker unpacks a break-up, before a wall of guitars blows away the emotional cobwebs. It’s precisely the sort of thing Gisli would make, and I love it.

Describing the song, DD Walker talks about the urgent pace with which In The Way Or Disappear was written, which is abundantly clear in just how vital it sounds… This is the kind of song that violently comes out of someone, all at once:

“I wrote this in 15 minutes at 2 in the morning after a months-long low after this dramatic break-up. I was crashing in the room I made music in when I was growing up and just put together a little make-shift recording setup for 2 weeks back there. The nostalgia was palpable in that space and with this wish to be back with this person and how we were before it was a negative thing… I demoed a record’s worth of material in a couple (of) weeks, and this was the most direct and quick to finish.”

NYC-based producer DD Walker is currently working on the release of his forthcoming EP, Night At The Arcade. The EP was co-produced and mixed by Andrew Maury, who has previously worked with Post Malone, Shawn Mendes, and Ra Ra Riot. Check out In The Way Or Disappear below.

Listen: Universal Angel by Guava featuring Maddie Ashman

With softly played melodies and low-slung analogue-sounding bass, Universal Angel has a dream-like quality to it from the get go.

Fuzzy synths, low-key percussion and a wonderful vocal from Maddie Ashman create an other-worldly feel. As the song descends into the bridge — a hushed, glitchy section where the music almost seems to stop entirely — Universal Angel manages to nurture a sense of yearning. The abundance of space, and the confidence in the time the song takes, mean that when Ashman’s vocal comes back in, sliding across appropriately angelic melodic notes, it is the aural equivalent of a balm.

Guava is Berlin-based producer, DJ, and multi-instrumentalist Bradley Hutchings. Currently gearing up for his debut LP, Hutchings is set to release the album, titled Out Of Nowhere, via his own imprint, Guava Noise, on October 27. The album sees Hutchings draw on the themes of bittersweet romance, isolation, and yearning, knitted together with elements of shoegaze, breakbeat and electronica. Describing the album, the artist says:

“I can only talk a little about where this album came from. It's tough to intellectualise what happened. I was going through a lot, but also, by that stage, I had started meditating. I've been practising transcendental meditation for years, allowing me to accept who I am and my creative impulses. Leaning into my strengths, but also embracing my shortcomings. I got to a point where I just said, ‘it's time – I'm going to do this’. And whatever comes out, comes out. What I have learnt from all those tours as a session musician and what I have gained from my friends and collaborators is what you hear.”

Check out Universal Angel below, and look out for Out Of Nowhere next month.

Listen: Something You Said by Sasha & The Bear

Channeling an emotive synth pop sound, Something You Said rides the kind of celluloid-soaked 80s-vibe I find so infectious. Big kick drums and snares pulse, as dark chords and arpeggiated melodies rise, slowly enveloping the vocal duet at the centre of Sasha & The Bear’s latest song.

Depicting the challenges and irresistible force of love, Something You Said is an exploration of the wild, unpredictable feelings that flow in the wake of desire and attraction. The song’s melodies and atmosphere are a deliberate reflection of that feeling – both epic and intense.

Sasha & The Bear is the musical pairing of singer, songwriter, and producer Sasha Daniel, and songwriter, producer, and singer Dov Igel. Having both created music individually, the duo came together in Brooklyn under this new guise, back in 2016. The pair subsequently took a break to work individually, with Dov moving to Tel Aviv. Following the tragic death of Dov’s mother, however, they became closer still, travelling to Scandinavia together to make music depicting “nature, loss and friendship”, and more recently to the suburbs of Madrid, where they worked on their debut EP.