Watch: Between The Lines by JoBee Project

With a slow, purposeful start, Between The Lines gently enters my ears with JoBee’s distinctive, cinematic vocal performance. With an earthly quality, her voice strikes me as a folksy imagining of the theatricality of a Björk or Róisín Murphy performance.

Born in the small town Lubartow, in eastern Poland, JoBee started her musical journey, at the age of 15, as the lead in a punk group. Taking inspiration from Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Polish jazz and pop-rock, she saw her career take another step in 2008, when she was invited to perform live in Belgium on FM Brussels, leading to her making a career there.

Against her striking vocal, JoBee’s performance on Between The Lines is complimented by gentle, organic sounding instrumentation. Drums hit, pause, stagger and catch themselves in a naturalistic performance that manages to convey the sound of plant growth, animals and natural ecosystems.

Whilst Between The Lines has an earthy feel, it combines this with a starstruck, astral atmosphere. The song is ultimately a love song, and JoBee’s lyrics, ‘read between the lines, my messages from the sky’, are a deliberate invitation to experience and embrace a cosmic form of love.

Listen: Feels Like Home by Dream Say

Hailing from Boston, Dream Say are an electro-pop outfit drawing inspiration from modern both modern acts like Chvrches and MGMT, as well as Prefab Sprout. There is clearly something in the water right now because all three have recently been cited by artists I’ve covered. Or perhaps that’s just my taste showing.

Having connected on Craigslist in late 2023, duo Zach Balder and Sebastian Badon quickly got to work, releasing their first two singles in just a few months. With Balder providing vocals, keys and sax, and Badon guitar, drums and production, the pair create the kind of full, rich sound I love. The clean electronic lines provide the perfect space for Zach’s sax to really shine.

Opening with crisp synths melodies and snappy drums, Feels Like Home has an instantly clear-eyed aesthetic. Starting its life as an instrumental track created by Sebastian, the uplifting sound reminded Zach of the supportive friendship he had found in his housemates. Inspired by the track, and a group of friends who have encouraged his music making since he started last year, the song came together as Balder wrote lyrics in tribute to them.

Overall, Dream Say have created a record full of feeling, underpinned by classy instrumentation and production. I love the modern and uplifting sound created here, and can’t wait to hear more.

Listen: Take My Picture by future.exboyfriend

Take My Picture is the first collaborative effort from future.exboyfriend and previous BlackPlastic featured artist Bad Heather. Here together, the pair channel a sleazy, tongue-in-cheek aesthetic. _Take My Picture_is partly riffing on the sounds of LCD Soundsystem and MGMT, but with an extra dose of modernist pop.

Beyond collaborators, Bad Heather and future.exboyfriend are friends and room-mates. Together, they were inspired to make Take My Picture based on their ‘shared experiences and candid talks about the music industry's competitive edge and local scene challenges’.

What draws me to this song is the way it plays with styles in a way that manages to keep introducing surprising elements through to the end. The initial clipped bass and snarky vocals are very noughties post-punk, but the bridge drops in rave-y synths and distorted drums, like a kid gorging themselves in a music-candy-shop. More than anything, it is the sound of playful confidence. The chants of ‘get a good look’ that follow the chorus are so distinctive and in-your-face — it feels like the culmination of the song. And yet somehow it holds one final surprise back, a final surge of snarky aggression as the vocals resolve into a near scream and the instrumentation descends into a drum and bass cacophony.

Listen: Orbit by JW Francis

JW Francis is an intriguing individual. Born in Oklahoma, raised in Paris and now based in New York, he was once the assistant to someone who won a Nobel Prize, is a licensed NYC tour guide and owns a murder mystery business. His scratchy, lo-fi indie-alt-pop has a similarly eclectic feel to it, taking inspiration from the city Francis now calls home.

Taking inspiration from The Velvet Underground and the music of New York over the decades, JW Francis sounds a little like a three-minute distillation of Meet Me In The Bathroom, Lizzy Goodman’s oral history of New York’s post-2001 music scene. There’s a little Vampire Weekend in here, and a whole lot of the Strokes.

First things first, though: Three-minutes is short. Orbit is brief, but bubbling over with energy and ideas. It is a lesson in the value in leaving people wanting more… The ideas JW Francis employs here barely stick around long enough for you to really wrap your head around them, let alone long enough for them to get old. I find myself reaching to scrub backwards before the song has even reached its conclusion, looking to just taste a little bit more of the sunshine Francis has captured here.

And that’s because this is a bright, beautiful, heartfelt record about falling in love. Inspired by his feelings in meeting his partner, Milla, Orbit is so unselfconscious and earnest, and so in tune with the bright, adrenaline-fuelled instrumentation Francis employs. In listening to it, I can’t help but feel the love and affection that drove him to make this song, as he describes here:

‘There are many things that have changed about my life since I wrote my last album, and one of those has been falling in love. I wrote Orbit after falling in love with my partner, Milla. I was awe-struck, dumb founded, blinded by the light, however you want to call it. I could not believe my luck, and I wanted to write a song about it. I wanted the song to race fast like a heartbeat, and to get up in your face like feelings. The music video is about finding harmony with all the different parts of yourself.’

The whole song is restless and excited and difficult to keep up with. As JW Francis hits the bridge, calling out, “I want you… I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you”, he reminds me of Tom Cruise, sofa-bound, in love and losing his mind. Whereas Cruise felt unhinged, however, JW Francis sounds genuinely besotted.

Listen: Let Me Out by Meg Chandler

Meg Chandler is a 23-year-old singer-songwriter hailing from the British countryside of Shropshire. Growing up in a home of music lovers, the impact of her parents playing music impacted her, and the sound she now channels through her music making.

That sound sees Meg marrying elements of folk, together with Indie and pop. The result, on display here on new single Let Me Out, has a textured, earthy feel to the production and instrumentation. This only helps to further accentuate the dream-like quality of Chandler’s vocal performance, with layering that creates a sense of separation, both in the mix and the listener’s experience. Let Me Out has the feel of an internal monologue, as Meg reflects on her experience of growing up in a small place, yearning for a bigger space to define herself against… She feels distanced from the world around her. Chandler describes how this experience informed her latest song:

‘I’ve often felt while growing up that escaping to the city was the only way to make something notable of myself, that perhaps my dreams were too big for the tiny village I grew up in. This song embodies my complex thoughts of trusting there’s a whole new, exciting world waiting for me, but being too scared to take that leap and leave my comfortable life back home. Ultimately, I realise that no matter where in the world I end up, I’ll always have a deep adoration for the place that made me into the person I am!’

As someone that definitely felt trapped in my own small-town upbringing, at times, there is definitely a feeling here that resonates for me. Meg brings it to life with a beautiful sense of honesty, as she reflects on her experience.