Listen: Our Flowers Grow by Cy Noel

Cy Noel’s new single, Our Flowers Grow, arrives on pillowy soft keys and a gentle kick drum, all in anticipation of the arrival of Noel’s vocal. The song’s lyrics cuts through the gentle instrumentation with a clear-eyed sense of humanity, reassuringly intimate as Noel declares, ‘I’ll be there’.

What Cy Noel has created here is the perfect pairing of vocal and production, the two components mirroring one another. During the opening moments of Our Flowers Grow, Noel’s voice benefits from the canvas afforded by the delicate and spacious production. As the song builds towards its conclusion, however, the vocal’s crescendo is met by a collage of musical detail… percussion accelerates and vocals are layered and pitched, accentuating the song’s emotional gravity. The result is a song that basks in the warm embrace of human connection, the music providing the equivalent of the quickening heart-rate that comes with feeling seen, understood, and cared for, by someone.

Overall, Our Flowers Grow is a warm, refreshing capsule of sonic love. Check it out below:

Listen: Ain’t Talking by Cutty

Comprised of singer Amy Precious and multi-instrumentalist and producer, Kev La Kat, Cutty are an artistic duo hailing from the UK. The pair first forged their partnership off the back of a seemingly simple conversation at a local bar, where Amy worked and Kev DJ’d, with Precious asking Kev for support producing music for an upcoming art exhibition. Having bonded on a shared love of 90s trip-hop, Björk, funkadelic, and electronic music, they established a deeper collaboration in Cutty.

Having caught the ears of BBC Introducing and DIY Magazine, Cutty have since established a following in their hometown of Hull. Drawing inspiration from diverse influences, their sound combines disparate styles with a high-energy aesthetic to create something raw, dynamic, and yet accessible.

Having initially released a portion of their work, Cutty took a break to further refine their sound, creating a number of new songs over the past year. They have now selected the best of that material to make up their forthcoming EP, Pump Funk. The first single from that EP, Ain’t Talking, is a statement of intent, demonstrating the way the duo’s sound is evolving.

Ain’t Talking opens with a swagger, chunky drums and thick bass providing a concrete platform for Precious’ vocals and attitude, as her lyrics explore a sense of running in contrast to those around you. This sentiment reflects the song’s articulation of what the pair describe as “defying the need to speak when what’s being said around you doesn’t matter”… It is an embrace of the notion of connection with others, whilst also taking the time “to piece together our own truths”.

Overall, Ain’t Talking is the kind of song that constantly keeps you on your toes. Taking a pause mid-way through, Amy’s vocals are joined by a slowly building guitar riff, before veering off into a cacophony of liquid drum and bass. This unpredictable nature makes Cutty’s latest single feel alive, thrillingly divergent and disruptive. I can’t wait to hear more.

Watch: Touch Me There by Ruby Gill

Born in Johannesburg but now based in Naarm/Melbourne, Ruby Gill is a breakthrough musician who has received coverage from triple j and BBC 6 Music, NME, Clash and the Independent. On Touch Me There, Gill is unveiling what she calls her ‘most special creation’.

A raw piece of anti-folk, Touch Me There bristles with authenticity and vulnerability. Gill wrote the song for herself, and it represents the moment where she first came out to herself, sitting writing the lyrics on a riverbank.

The song’s production and style is relatively simple — Gill’s vocals sung against a gentle background melody, strummed by Gill on an acoustic guitar. As the song progresses, however, her vocal is gradually joined by those of Gill’s ‘found family’ choir, made up of local queer, female and gender-diverse musicians Annie-Rose Maloney, Hannah McKittrick, Hannah Cameron, Jess Ellwood, Angie McMahon, and Olivia Hally (Oh Pep!).

As it slowly builds, Touch Me There reflects a growing determination and self-awareness from Ruby herself. Her lyrics, which include phrases like ‘want someone to know what I like when I’m tired’, and ‘tries to convince me that I am an angel when I just want you to fuck me on the table’, reflect someone who has long denied themselves the kind of connection we all need. Hearing Gill open up and articulate her own desires is a deeply moving and inspiring experience.

Talking about what the song means to her, Ruby Gill says:

‘During the longest dry spell of my life, I came out to myself. The first time I said it out loud was in this song — all that sitting by a river waiting for the truth to come out led to me being honest for the first time about who I was attracted to and what kind of sex I wanted in my life. It took almost two years of zero kissing to get to that point of self-knowledge. Not intentionally, haha — everything just felt so wrong and scary after being touched in really unsafe ways before that. I was numb for years, but I finally felt sensation in my body again after writing Touch Me There. It broke me open. I hope it breaks other people open too, whether it’s about queerness or otherwise. You have a say over your love and pleasure.’

Check out Touch Me There below:

Listen: Hearts Fall In Line by Ian McFarland

The latest single from Ian McFarland represents a departure from his usual sound, citing a musical rebrand as leading to a repositioning from ‘punk and edge’ towards pop and dance-ability.

The resulting sound, at the fore on Hearts Fall In Line, is warm and textural. The song opens with arch, fuzzy guitars as McFarland produces a slightly whimsical vocal. The result has just a dash of the nostalgic feeling of something like Smashing Pumpkins’ 1979. Having gradually opened up, the short chorus at the thirty-second mark transitions the song into a kaleidoscopic instrumental bridge, drums and instrumentation giving the song a freewheeling, dream-like quality.

McFarland’s exploration of music began whilst studying abroad in Spain, where he started writing music and performing music under his own name, leading to him taking a minor in music production at Berklee College of Music. After moving to New York, Ian’s career began to take shape, with him performing in numerous live venues and, ultimately, assembling his current trio of musicians.

Opening with the line, ‘Picking up the pieces of our time’, Hearts Fall In Line was written on the USA’s election night back in November. It represents McFarland’s attempt to make sense of what he was seeing, manifesting in the chorus’ line, ‘Hearts fall in line for you, hearts fall out of time for me’.

The song has a playful feel to it, almost ferris wheel like, conveying the ups, downs, and circular nature of politics, society, and history. At the same time, there is an underlying sadness to McFarland’s performance, and you can sense him attempting to retreat into the innocence of youth, particularly on the line ‘Putting back together fragments of my youth’.

Ian McFarland has created a compelling musical collage on Hearts Fall In Line, whilst conveying the weird alienation many of us feel in this specific moment.

Listen: Flowers Fell by Avery Friedman

The latest single from Brooklyn-based musician Avery Friedman opens with soft guitars and hushed harmonies, a layered blanket of sound that ushers in a fragile vocal. Flowers Fell finds more stable footing as its solid drum beat cautiously thumps out, like feet testing the ground. Avery’s music here floats on a complex ocean of noise — distortion and fragments glimmer, but the overall texture pulls together to create a sense of buoyancy.

Having originally felt that songwriting was something reserved for other people, Friedman began taking music seriously following both a transcendent live music experience and a traumatic mugging, that led to her seeking solace in music. Having first taken to the stage in July last year, she has since shared it with a number of artists, including h. pruz, Dead Gowns and Sister. She is now in the process of releasing her first album.

Coming ahead of Friedman’s debut LP, New Thing, the song Flowers Fell represents its lead single. Weaving together grungy, distorted instrumentation, Avery creates a soundscape that slowly builds, as she explores the human experience of change and transformation, most directly paralleled in our sensation of the changing seasons:

‘The opening melody for Flowers Fell came to me on a headphone-less walk home one night down Greene Avenue in Brooklyn. I had noticed that the flowers that once lined the branches had been replaced by leaves — seemingly in the blink of an eye. I was briefly disappointed until I considered that the petals had made way for something more sustainable – and equally full of life. The song became a meditation on the concept of place – how things of our surroundings like “sidewalks,” and “balconies” and “trees,” can act as fixed backdrops upon which we measure our personal evolutions (and the evolutions of our relationships) across the span of many seasons.’

I’ve already referenced how relevant this notion of change feels right now, in early January, not just seasonally, but politically and from a more macro-societal perspective. I find the Stoicism Friedman employs on Flowers Fell comforting. It isn’t about letting go and giving up on creating the change you want, but instead reflects a recognition that things naturally evolve, and cycle. Check it out below: