Listen: Leave It Behind by Frankie Knight & Submyth

New single Leave It Behind is a collaboration between childhood friends, Frankie Knight and Robert Swaine (working as Submyth). Together, they have pulled together a wavy breakbeat sound with progressive instrumentation to create a reflective-yet-uplifting piece of music.

With Frankie’s vocals floating in space, she is initially joined with the kind of guitar-ambience used by The xx. Things are quickly complimented by chunky beats and a vocal sample, evoking a sound somewhere between post-punk, early-90s rave and early-00s progressive breakbeat. The result is a little mystical, haunting and introspective.

Having grown up in Hammersmith, Frankie moved to the Sussex coast, where she found the inspiration to start writing and recording music. Having produced a number of solo releases, including her debut album Blue Marble, Knight is now back on the live stage following an enforced break through COVID-19. Performing live together with her drummer and co-producer Submyth, the pair are currently on tour with Kosheen.

Leave It Behind is a purposeful attempt to move on, as Frankie describes:

‘I wrote this song as a reminder to myself to stop ruminating over painful things in my past. I wanted to conjure feelings of freedom often felt on the dancefloor and write something a little bit witchy inspired by all the Buffy and Sabrina I watched as a kid.’

Listen: Two More Years by Caleb L’Etoile

Starting with the kind of garage-influenced percussion leveraged by Hot Chip, Caleb L’Etoile’s Two More Years is a song made of just two notes.

The whole record rides along in the same grunge-y, dirty synth pattern. With L’Etoile’s vocals layered into the mix, and atop one another, the simplistic nature of his performance contrasts to the distorted chaos of the instrumentation.

The combination of the vocal and instrumental elements provide the song a kind of internal innocence. As a song, Two More Years is about the experience of losing someone important from your life, and imagining running into them again. Caleb’s vocals have the feel of an internal monologue, his mind ticking over as he envisions bumping into this person… the mental exercise of trying something on and exploring how it would feel. Does my pulse race? Do we click back into a familiar repartee? Does this still hurt?

Overall, Caleb L’Etoile has made a remarkably affecting piece of music out of something surprisingly minimal. The rawness he employs only adds to the sense of emotional honesty.

Listen: lØve! By Ambergrove featuring Dre Ishmail

lØve! is a chaotic, psychedelic and beautiful collage that recently I have found myself consistently coming back to it.

Originally created to be a b-side by the artist collective Ambergrove, lØve! is a song they have been sat on for some time. Having initially decided not to release it, the group unearthed it again, just as they wrapped up the recording of their debut album.

The song lØve! is actually a riff on an Ambergrove fan favourite, dØves!, taking that earlier song and reversing it. Despite being just two minutes long, dØves! moves through two distinct movements, creating an almost two-act, theatrical feel to the song. lØve! is similar, but arguably more dramatic, extending things by a minute, and adding what feels like a third act.

The crunchy, sample heavy production style clearly owes a debt to Bon Iver’s landmark album 22, A Million. Ambergrove leverage the same contrast between multi-layered electronics combined with the crisp and clean vocal that opens up here at the one-minute mark.

In contrast to dØves!, itself a distinctive and experimental track, lØve! is bolder, the sound of a group of artists pushing confidently into new sounds. This is particularly the case in the way they create the space for UK hip-hop artist Dre Ishmail to deliver a heartfelt, clear eyed vocal as the song draws to its conclusion.

Overall, I found the track affecting, distinctive and original. Check it out below:

Listen: You Wanted This by Jodie Nicholson

It has been almost four years since Newcastle-upon-Tyne musician Jodie Nicholson first appeared on BlackPlastic.co.uk with Move, a sophisticated, dark piece of progressive pop.

Since then, we have also heard from Jodie with her single Why Would You (Go), a song with the drama of far off thunderstorms. The fact that even this song is now almost three-years-old breaks my brain a little. Jodie’s music has stuck with me in a way that means I find myself often coming back to it, and I had no concept of how much time had passed since first hearing of her.

The good news is that she is back with not just a new single, but a whole album. Entitled Safe Hands, the new album opens with this latest single, You Wanted This, making it the perfect (re-)introduction to Jodie’s sound and latest vision.

With gentle-yet-insistent piano chords and a hushed vocal, Nicholson’s latest song unfurls slowly before these initial elements are joined by slow, considered synths and a dubby, heavy four-four beat. Jodie’s vocals take on a filtered effect, creating the intimate feeling of a voice note left on your phone, but also providing remarkable contrast as she opens up on the bridge. As ever, the effect is astounding, both cinematic, and remarkably restrained.

Those hushed vocals are perhaps intended to be the sort of memo you record for yourself, with You Wanted This being a song about the complex feelings Nicholson has about being a musician. The song is an overt reminder of the drive that led Nicholson to make music in the first place, as she describes:

“To me, You Wanted This is about remembering why I fell in love with music in the first place. As a kid, I was obsessed with Avril Lavigne, wished I was one of Roger Waters’ backing vocalists, always searching for cool music that no-one else was listening to, wanting to be on (British TV talent show) Stars In Their Eyes and sitting in the back of the car pretending I was in a music video, singing all moody through the window… It’s thinking back to how I viewed music then and regaining that child-like excitement for the music I make now as an artist. I’d like to think that if I ever have a wobble, this track will serve as a personal reminder of why I love being an artist and what I can be capable of. Unintentional, but it’s a pretty nice feeling.”

You Wanted This is out now, and will be followed by the album, Safe Hands, via Quiet Crown / Absolute on 10 May 2024. You can also see Jodie live in the UK in May and June, with tickets available here:

18 MAY | Glasshouse ICM, Gateshead

04 JUN | Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds

05 JUN | Lower Third, London

06 JUN | Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham

08 JUN | Crofter's Rights, Bristol

09 JUN | Komedia, Brighton

11 JUN | YES (Basement), Manchester

12 JUN | SWG3 Poetry Club, Glasgow

Watch: Round And Round by Primer

Starting with a grimy, robotic synth line, Round And Round quickly establishes itself as a song of contrasts.

Post-intro, the crunchy electronic sounds are swapped for soft instrumentation and slow drums, LA-based musician Primer’s angelic vocals introducing a serene atmosphere. Round And Round is at its best, however, when it brings the robotic and angelic together, in the chorus. The analogue-sounding synths give the song concrete foundations upon which the vocals have the room to explore.

The resulting song has the hallmarks of the glam-rock-channeling work of Goldfrapp, particularly as the song descends into the bridge. Whirling melodies break into a canter, a carousel where the horses have come to life and broken free. Primer’s vocal takes on a more earthly sound in the final run through the chorus, shaking free of their otherworldly sound as we strain against the song’s growing centrifugal force.