Listen: Sugar by Chris James

Having built up an impressive record that includes a co-writing credit on the BTS Billboard Hot 100 number one song, Life Goes On, Chris James has accumulated a brain-breaking 1.7 billion Spotify streams across his collected work. Here on Sugar, James turns his hand to an indie-folk influenced style of energising pop.

Sugar is the kind of instantly infectious record that you can’t help but move to. The song’s magic is in part in its ability to weave together an authentic, raw vocal together with polished electronic melodies and moments of thoughtful vocal overdubbing. The result feels joyful, uplifting and yet also surprisingly genuine. The rest of the magic is all in a chorus that bubbles with energy, as James delivers the song’s repeated refrain, “The air, it tastes like sugar”.

Chris James’ song is a somewhat therapeutic exercise, and the sense of warm relief that runs through the song somewhat ironically reflects its difficult incubation period, followed by the relief in its conclusion. As James describes:

‘I was going through a little creative rough patch while I was trying to crack Sugar. It‘s funny cause the song itself is really about the feeling you have when coming out of a situation like this, and you finally get to breathe again, so in a way, the song's theme reflects the journey to making it.’

In Sugar’s closing minute, Chris pulls back all that polish and electronic instrumentation to deliver the song’s vocal on a basic microphone, giving the song a naked aesthetic, sounding like something he might record on his phone, in his bedroom. The result is surprisingly emotive, revealing the heart of the song and letting the melody stand tall, free of the production wizardry that embellishes the first two-thirds of its duration.

Listen: Daughter by Darkstates

Just last week, I had a conversation with a friend and fellow parent, who asked me if I sometimes worry about the world we have brought children into. “Of course,” I answered… for who couldn’t? I never regret having my son, even for an instant, but I wish I had more confidence in the world, and his future wellbeing. Our parents and grandparents used to push for their children’s lives to be better, and easier, than their own. Such an aspiration feels difficult right now, and I would settle for a life experience that just resembles the comfort of our generation’s.

On Daughter, North London-based producer, vocalist, and songwriter, Darkstates has created a beautifully heartfelt piece of emotionally impactful electronic music. His inspiration for the record comes from his experience of thinking about the trade-offs of bringing a child into the world, or choosing to forge a path alone out of concern for what their experience could be. The daughter of the song’s title is imaginary – the record sung to the child Darkstates has opted not to have. In his words:

‘I came up with this concept of writing a song to my imaginary daughter – if I had the opportunity to speak to her now, what would I say? I thought about her getting to adulthood and living on an uninhabitable planet. I would want to explain to her that I thought it was best not to bring her into the world, to protect her from all that. I guess it’s a sort of apology to her, really. I hope she would understand and forgive me.’

I find both this description, and the song itself, utterly heartbreaking. The sense of mourning in Daughter is palpable. The haunting vocal sings of warming seas, waste, and air pollution, filled with a sadness about a future potentially denied for all of us. Yet, it is the personal way Darkstates sings about these that resonates most strongly. The lines explicitly for an unborn child — ‘Take you home now, on my shoulders’, for example — that resonate with the most personal loss. That chorus of disastrous environmental impacts hits home precisely because it opens with the line, ‘Though I would have loved you, in the boiling seas’. It is a tribute that can’t help but feel devastating.

Underpinning the heartfelt vocal is a restrained, electronic production style that combines a nagging melodic, melancholic synth and subtle percussion. Darkstates creates a textural and cinematic feel, blending live instrumentation with analogue synths, creating the kind of genre-agnostic music Thom Yorke is known for.

I found Daughter deeply affecting. I may have made a different choice to Darkstates, but I feel and share that heartbreak all the same.

Listen: Whisper All My Secrets by Ella Lockert

With the kind of dramatic, electronic-infused elements synonymous with the music output of the likes of Ariana Grande, Whisper All My Secrets is an emotional powerhouse of a record.

Hailing from Norway, Ella Lockert is an 18-year-old solo musician who has already built up a substantial catalogue of material, including her debut EP, Confusing, released in 2021. Here on Whisper All My Secrets, Lockert depicts the experience of being in love with someone, whilst knowing that person isn’t good for you.

Opening with a gentle piano riff and placing Lockert’s vocal at the song’s centre, it quickly establishes the emotional stakes. As she lays out her confusion and the emotional conflict gently, Whisper All My Secrets really reveals Lockert’s inner turmoil as she sings the line, ‘You have misled me before — this time it’s war’.

It is at this point that Whisper All My Secrets mutates into a bonafide pop banger, chugging bass providing the backing for Ella’s loudness to really break through. On the song’s central hook, she sings, ‘You don’t deserve my love’, and you can’t help but feel buoyed by her empowerment.

Listen: London In June by Jarrod Jeremiah feat. Lily Agnes

London In June possesses the kind of unique, easy-going production charm that readied Frank Ocean for the stratosphere on his debut LP, Channel Orange.

Proving the point, the jaunty, jazzy piano keys that provide the consistent momentum through London In June’s duration feels like a callback to Ocean’s similarly piano-centred Super Rich Kids, albeit here deployed against a more upbeat, optimistic end. Jeremiah’s vocal wraps itself around the music, his subject, and the listener — his desire for long-distance romance contagious.

At the song’s midpoint, Lily Agnes’ vocal provides a counter-point, lyrically and stylistic… her vocal sweet-yet-syrupy, rather than saccharine. It contrasts with the percussive, punctuated flow of Jeremiah’s own performance. As he launches into the ensuing chorus, the song’s production slowly shifts, loosening as additional detail is introduced, like a dream where momentary elements distract its author, the narrative loosened and shifting. The song concludes with a suitably relaxed guitar solo, and the whole song is incredibly accomplished.

Perth/Boorloo-based Jarrod Jeremiah is 21, and he would have been just ten at the point of Channel Orange’s release. Having started on drums at a young age, Jeremiah began to sing, produce and mix his own music. Here sharing production duties with Calvin Bennett, Jeremiah takes his inspiration from the dream of a European summer, and a longing to escape and have a fresh start. Describing the song’s inspiration, Jarrod says:

’London in June is partly inspired by a couple of things, first of all, the hot girl euro summer (which) was taken at the time this song was written. And partly wanting to run away from your problems and bad relationships and start all over again in a city… In fact, I attempted it — after I wrote the track I went to London for 6 weeks and while it was amazing; I learnt that as much as we want to always run away and start afresh, it’s better to face those big problems or relationships that might be a bit complicated.’

Check out London In June below.

Listen: 5pm by Sea Glass Feat. Jared Saltiel & Yes Kid

Following on from their beautiful tropical-paradise-gone-wrong ballad, Never Right, Sea Glass and Yes Kid are back with another collaboration. Here Sea Glass, real name Jake Muskat, is also joined by Jared Saltiel. Together with Yes Kid, real name Yael Kaufman, the trio have created a less sun-kissed record, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.

Where Never Right felt like the sort of record recorded on and for beaches, 5pm is suited to the time of year that sees it released… which is to say, it is a more autumnal affair. There is a haunting aesthetic to the reverb-laced vocals laid down by Kaufman, but she is complimented by additional vocal harmonies and the kind of sturdy instrumentation that provides the song a sense of cosiness.

5pm is deliberately a slow build, the stated intention behind the song being to create ‘a deliberately paced, nearly imperceptible build toward a climactic, emotional ending’. And on that, it delivers — the song very much constructing a vibe, and then being carried, by that vibe’s steely guitars and hushed vocals, to a conclusion. The song started as Sea Glass and Saltiel first experimented with the song’s chord progression and structure as they worked as artist residents at Silver Sun Foundation in Woodstock, NY. At the same time, Muskat was interested in working with Yes Kid, and began to construct the music around her sound:

‘ I wrote the chords with Yael in mind. I had known that I wanted to work with her since I first discovered her music in 2021. I was enamored with her songwriting and the texture of her voice… Sincere, sensitive and haunting. I told Jared about the idea, and we listened to some of the tracks I wanted to model ours after. (…) The sunny, cool October day that he joined me at my artist residency in Woodstock, we set up a makeshift studio. The room and moment felt spiritual, to us both I think, and we decided to wait until 5pm to christen the space. We ended up working straight through until 5am, creating the most emotionally palpable music bed I’ve had the pleasure of making.

‘When I returned home, I sent Yael the song and within a day, she sent me most of the recording you hear on the record. The sense of longing for everything to be OK and the resolve despite knowing it may not be moved me so much. Since that day, I’ve probably listened to the song 1000 times. For me, it’s the perfect driving record, hence the cover art.’

Check out 5pm below.