Listen: Silent Solitude by Aves featuring Markus Perttula

Aves appeared on BlackPlastic back towards the end of 2023 with their collaboration with Icelandic vocalist, JFDR, on Hunting Points.

Here, on new single Silent Solitude, the Helsinki-based trio are back with another collaboration. This time, vocals come from Finnish singer-songwriter Markus Perttula, whose delicate falsetto glints with a glossy, translucent quality.

Hunting Points was a gentle embrace — heavenly vocals combined with slowly paced melodies to create something calming and beautiful. In contrast, Silent Solitude is a slowly heated slab of crystalline synth pop. Ethereal electronics shimmer gently atop a tightly tight-yet-simple bass and percussion backing, vocal snippets looping as the song slowly carves out its own space in your mind.

It takes a-minute-and-a-half to get to the vocal proper, and by the time Silent Solitude gets there, it has earned your full attention. Much like Hunting Points, this is a mood piece, and it invites you to luxuriate inside the atmosphere it creates. As the song nears its conclusion, it briefly drops into a stuttering, filtered loop, like a cd-player skipping, before giving the floor back to Perttula’s impressive vocal. I can’t help but wish he just got to carry on, indefinitely.

The way Aves create a sense of moment and space is purposeful, as they describe in relation to this song:

‘Being present means embracing the current moment, allowing yourself to disconnect from distractions and fully engage with what's happening now. It involves focusing on what truly matters, letting go of unnecessary worries or minor details that might cloud your perception. Ultimately, it's recognizing that in the grand scheme of things, many of the small stressors or concerns fade away when we prioritize the present and cherish what's essential in our lives.’

Listen: Orange Juice by Alma Leta

Alma Leta is a California-born, New Zealand-raised artist. Having moved to NZ when she was seven, Alma headed back to the US at 20, spending half a year there, living with her father.

Whilst she started writing songs as a child, and took singing lessons through her school years, it was in this period back in the US when Alma got a microphone and starting recording her own music. She has since gone on to work with producer Nik Brinkman on several songs, and Orange Juice is the latest single to come from her forthcoming debut album, Time Of Our Lives.

Alma looks to create music about ‘the complexities of relationships, anxiety, social issues and internal dialogues’, with lyrics being of particular importance, writing ‘in such a way as if motivated to taste the words’.

That mindset reflects a vivid, raw sensibility that exists in Leta’s vocals on Orange Juice, and in particular, in the awkward vulnerability of the song’s chorus. Alma’s lyrics are striking as she sings, ‘Whenever I miss you, I’ll be in my room, dancing naked to your playlist”. The production that surrounds Alma’s vocals is similarly distinctive, gentle melodies hovering like haze in the morning as drums snap crisply.

The song deliberately straddles a feeling of innocence and something more adult, as Leta describes the song as being about first love, experienced as you are becoming an adult:

‘I wanted to harness that feeling of falling in love at the pivotal point of growing up, where you are right on the cusp of change, but hold on to this pure belief that this love can persevere (through) anything.’

Check out Orange Juice below:

Listen: One Of These Days by Cadenti

One Of These Days opens with gently played soft keys and melancholic sounding bass tones before being propelled by an industrial sounding drum beat. With a similar retro-futurist aesthetic as Chvrches, with the uplifting stadium feel of the Killers, Cadenti has created a song brimming with romantic, neon urgency.

Cadenti is the musical solo project of UK musician Chris Paul Martin (not that Chris Martin), known for his work with Nottingham group Wolf Club and on the soundtrack to the film Infamous. Check out the single, One Of These Days, below:

Watch: Amsterdam by Iversen

Iversen are a self-described “DIY Synth Pop band”, hailing from south-east London, and here they unveil their new single, Amsterdam.

The song is inspired by a trip to Amsterdam, on which musician and songwriter Josh Iverson accompanied bandmate and co-songwriter Jonathan Royall, on the latter’s stag do. The song looks to capture the experience of getting lost in a foreign place, both in the sense of being alone in an unfamiliar location, but also the sense of internal reflection that comes with that.

The music itself rides a series of warm, introspective synth notes, slow ambient tones shifting in the song’s background as the band gradually piece together poetic vocals, percussion, and guitars. There is a feeling and an aesthetic here that reminds me of John Martyn’s sometimes-maligned but under-appreciated album, Glorious Fool, which, as it happens, also features a song titled Amsterdam. The high-fidelity production employed by Phil Collins on that album reminds me somewhat of the richness Iversen display here. Iversen’s sound, which they say is in part inspired by the sophisticated pop of Prefab Sprout, is undoubtedly more electronic, but has a similar attention to detail.

In addition to being about the introspection brought on by being in a new place, Amsterdam is a tribute to Johnny, as Josh describes:

‘This song is for Jonny — an appreciation of him as a friend and collaborator. So many of our tracks have a poppy, romantic slant to them, and one of the most important things to me are the friends in my life, so I wanted to channel my love for him in this track.’

The song is accompanied by a deliberately lo-fi video, which was filmed, animated, and edited by Josh, jokingly swapping the canals of Amsterdam for the more budget-friendly ones of Hackney. Check it out below:

Listen: Grain by Billy Vena

Having appeared on BlackPlastic.co.uk a number of times before, the extremely talented Billy Venas is back once again, this time with new single Grain.

The latest release from Panama-native, Texas-based musician, Grain doesn’t mess too much with the Vena’s formula. His yearning, Prince-like vocal stylings are here, wrapped up in a familiarly 80s-tinged sound. In contrast to some of his other releases, however, Grain has a slightly slower, soft-focused aesthetic. Warm synths and slow bass notes remind me of some of the finest moments of Blood Orange’s album Cupid Deluxe. Overall, it’s a little like a warm embrace from someone who you know is going to look after you.

Check out Grain below: