Listen: Your Favorite Girl by Country Girl

With summer, both seemingly feeling relentless, and yet inevitably drawing to a close, I continue to find myself basking in a series of sun-kissed slices of melody.

The latest of these perfect-for-summer records is Your Favorite Girl by Country Girl, a record that basks in its scattershot percussion and hushed vocals. Those voices evoke the feel of a perfect, soft kiss, as the lyrics depict the experience of directing our movie scenes in our heads, the construction of a movie narrative of our latest crush.

Raised in New York and now biased in Brooklyn, Country Girl was homeschooled in preparation for studying classical composition at Juilliard. Insulated from the impact of popular culture, his influences instead came from the likes of Maurice Ravel and Steve Reich. On Your Favorite Girl, the debut single for Country Girl on the FADER label, Country Girl combines his classical upbringing with contemporary pop sensibilities. The result is modern, yet also has a touch of 90s Britpop to it, with echoes of Teenage Fanclub and James, whilst simultaneously evoking the Country Girl’s own environment, as he describes the song as:

‘The very essence of sticky New York summer, an exploration of those little moments when your heart bursts out of your chest, when you have to pour a whole bottle of water on your head and you don’t even feel cold when it hits.’

Your Favorite Girl is a little perfect capsule of summer fancy: apply liberally like sunblock.

Listen: Make Believe by St. Anthony Mann

We are in the middle of a bit of a sustained heat wave in the UK, which is a little rare for August. Typically, as soon as the schools break up for summer at the end of July, the weather turns wetter. Instead, I find myself regularly trying to keep my newly laid turf alive as the sun beats down.

As a result, I’ve found myself leaning even more heavily into the kind of warm synth sounds, falsetto vocals and skittering percussion that I love so much, and that always feels even more perfect in the sun. It’s into this headspace that St. Anthony Mann’s Make Believe arrives.

With the kind of vocal that sounds like fruit that has just reached peak ripeness whilst still on the vine, Make Believe combines an emotive performance with thick and glossy synth melodies and choral harmonies. The effect feels simple and restrained, yet only happens as a result of a careful combination of layers. This beguiling sense of complexity and simplicity perhaps stems from the song’s creation, with the song starting as a simpler acoustic song before mutating into something more energising:

‘This song started out as a soft acoustic piece, but somewhere the arrangement itself went down a different path and came up with all this energy behind it, which was exciting. At that point, it all came together quite naturally. Later on my good friend JT Bates (Bonny Light Horseman, Big Red Machine, Taylor Swift) did some arranging of the drums and percussion sounds after I had recorded the initial guitar-stutter track.’

Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Mann starting making music in high school, with finger-style guitar and experimental alternate tunings. Having spent time in the Midwestern plains, he returned to Minnesota and started recording music under the moniker St. Anthony Mann.

On Make Believe, Mann is inspired by the notion of transition and change as we head down paths unknown, as explained below:

‘This song, for me, is about that point of transition as you step onto a new path or a new journey. (…) A portal or a doorway has always symbolized a new beginning, and folks often might feel some trepidation before the path, as what lies ahead is the unknown. This song meditates on both sides of that decision; those who spend all their time in a sort of liminal space and those that decide to walk the path into the unknown.’

Listen: RC30s by Derek Simpson

Following on from previous singles Wonka and Saturn Returns, Derek Simpson is back with a new single, as he releases each track from his forthcoming third LP, Somehow, week-by-week. This is Simpson’s third time appearing on BlackPlastic.co.uk since April, making him one of my most consistently featured artists of 2024.

Somehow is ‘an examination of falling in love’, each track exploring a romantic experience. As is the trademark of his sound, RC30s blends subtle experimental electronics with guitars and soft, emotional vocals that explore the experience of human connection. RC30s depicts the kind of evening where two romantic lovers feel absorbed in one another’s presence. The sound is intoxicating and entrancing — a perfect sonic depiction of the experience of infatuation.

Hand claps, low slung bass stabs and falsetto vocals give RC30s a playful sexiness, Simpson’s open invitation to ‘call me if you’d like’ desperately trying, and failing, to be casual. Looped guitars, presumably leveraging the RC-30 loop pedal, create a dream-like, hazy quality, and the overall effect is spellbinding. Simpson creates the beautiful joy of finding deep human connection.

Listen: Tired Of Being Tough by JJ & The Mood

Having recently featured on an Apple iPhone ad, duo JJ & The Mood are back with their latest single, Tired Of Being Tough.

Made up of LA-based cartoonist Jack Sjogren and Cincinnati-based songwriter and producer Joey Joseph, JJ & The Mood create disco-pop whilst drawing on the punk-funk influences of Talking Heads, ESG, and Liquid Liquid. The result has the taut thrill of LCD Soundsystem, with the populism of MGMT and Jungle. The pair bring this to bear with a knowing demeanour, adding a slight wink to the delivery without tipping into full-on pastiche, in a way that I find reminiscent of Hot Chip.

Tired Of Being Tough is a relatively rare commentary on the impact of societal expectations of masculinity. On it, the band reject emotional distance and James Dean whilst embracing cosmetics and dancing. From a musical perspective, layered vocals, tight funk-influenced bass and melodic synths combine with clipped drums. The whole song has a functional and focused rhythm section, creating space and contrast for the vocals and synths to embrace the very fun the song is inspiring men to have.

Check out Tired Of Being Tough below:

Watch: The Thanks by Roman Around

The Thanks is the latest single from Roman Around, the musical vehicle for Roman Rivera, and it swims in loose guitars, slow and off kilter bass and a spectral vocal that gives the song a distinctive, sun dazed aesthetic. It follows on from the hazy track DNT, as featured on BlackPlastic.co.uk back in 2022.

There are traces of Animal Collective, Phoenix, and Kindness on display on The Thanks, all wound up in a tight little art-pop package. The song conveys a growing desperation in Roman’s heavy vocal performance, a sense of lethargy coming through as the performance depicts the complexities that exist within unconditional love.

In addition to the song’s general aesthetic, which shimmers with a distinctive sense of emotive style, the song playfully experiments with rhythm, with distinctive stops, starts, and fills. The result is surprising, particularly given the song’s short run-time, yet it never risks derailing the overall performance. The result is playful, yet emotive.

Growing up as a multi-racial artist in Fresno, California, where they currently serve as a music educator, Roman Rivera has looked to create a safe space for themselves, and others, in the LGBTQ+ and POC music, and general, communities. Bringing together complex rhythms and hazy textures, Rivera takes inspiration from shoegaze, drone, and chillwave outfits like the Cocteau Twins, DIIV, and Toro Y Moi.

Check the video for The Thanks below: