Listen: Drowning by Sean Ross

And now for something wholly different.

Recently, I have been awash with emotive, shoegazey indie and experimental art-punk. At the same time, the UK has been undergoing something of a spring teaser, with temperatures just about reaching 20 degrees Celsius, and almost every day seeing clear blue skies and sun.

It no doubt won’t last but, right now, Sean Ross’ slice of dubby, soulful electronic tech-house hits perfectly. Drowning hints at sunny days and warm nights, bouncing bass providing the perfect soundtrack for sneakers sliding across dance floors and hands reaching into the air. Having taken a seven-year break from solo work, Drowning represents the debut single for South London producer Sean Ross.

Ross combines crisp, clear synth washes with garage-influenced percussion to make something modern and unmistakably British, even whilst it channels dreams of the Mediterranean. Looped vocals, deep in the mix, only add to the heady, hot sense of yearning. Describing the process of creating Drowning, Ross says:

‘This is one of the first tracks I produced when I decided I wanted to start releasing again. Listening through to the other tracks I have in the vault for this year, ‘Drowning’ is an eclectic mix of all of them, and it really helped me develop my sound. I thought it was only right to release this one first and show my workings.’

Listen: Lassos And Lasers by LB Beistad

Born and raised in rural East Tennessee, LB Beistad led a somewhat isolated childhood. That changed at age 10, however, once her family purchased a computer. Music had been a passion from a young age, but the limitless nature of the internet enabled her to fall fully into new worlds, full of experimentation and varied genres.

Lassos And Lasers sits in a dream space as, somewhere between the cowboys and aliens, Beistad’s vocals gently float in the uncertainty that she, and we all, inhabit at times. ‘Don’t you worry about me, and I won’t worry about you’, Beistad sings, in a way that suggests it is more an ambition than a definitive instruction. She continues with the foreboding ‘I’ll keep my lassos and lasers, I’ll shoot you first and tie you down’. Deeply atmospheric, you can sense the dread and nostalgia bubbling beneath the surface, before Beistad opens herself up, ripping off the bandaid in the song’s closing third and acknowledging her vulnerability.

With the negative consequences of modern technology all too visible these days, it is easy to forget just what a force the internet and phones can be for connection… The very thing they were originally designed to facilitate. Lassos And Lasers feels like it channels that need for connection, and LB Beistad still loves her family computer.

Listen: Biking Standing by Avery Friedman

Having appeared on BlackPlastic.co.uk back in January with her tribute to change and evolution, Flowers Fell, Brooklyn musician Avery Friedman has just unveiled her debut album, New Thing.

Taken from New Thing, Biking Standing is a slow and contemplative piece that resonates with a sense of nostalgia and reflection. Inspired by her struggles with insomnia, Avery describes flashbacks and memories. Describing a bike ride, she sings, ‘I was biking, I was standing, riding up the hill,’ before going on to hint at a deeper connection, ‘July nighttime, they played country, I stood and danced with you’. Avery paints a soft, vulnerable picture of human connection, the potential of romance on the tips of her fingers, as she gently plays guitar.

The song was created in response to Friedman’s experience at a country music show, prompting her to write a song with a simple C to G chord progression. Whilst both the song and the lyrics have a quiet sense to them, Friedman still manages to land a sucker punch of a chorus, as she eases into the song’s gently heart-breaking hook, ‘Don’t you worry about me… I can sleep in my dreams’.

Check out Biking Standing below, and look for New Thing, out now via Audio Antihero.

Listen: I Hate You, I Love You by Christian Alexander

Opening with baggy drums and a pair of crestfallen guitar melodies, Christian Alexander’s new single, I Hate You, I Love You, represents a time of upheaval in the musician’s life. Living in London but having grown up in Preston, England, Alexander found himself making the move back home amid a sense of general anxiety.

Deliberately showing its raw edges, like a fabric, the same signal of authenticity you may find on the inside seam of a pair of heavily worn selvage jeans, Alexander’s single was recorded at home, in the moment. The result is a performance that conveys a need for self release, and a strength of feeling that would be difficult to capture in a more polished environment. As he reaches the song’s chorus, Christian’s voice cracks, emotionally buckling beneath the strain, his truth no longer something objective, and instead a messy confusion of his contradictory feelings.

Alexander’s lo-fi, textural approach has garnered attention from the likes of The Face, Pigeons and Planes, Highsnobiety, Complex, Hypebeast and musicians including BlackPlastic favourite Mura Masa. Describing the experience of creating I Hate You, I Love You, Christian says:

‘I was in an anxious state, a pattern of feeling good and then getting anxious about something. I wrote the guitar and recorded the drums and then had an idea for the melody, but I was too scared to actually write anything. I didn’t want to put myself out there too much, I didn’t want my overthinking to take a hold of what I was writing, so at first I backed away from the idea. Then I thought fuck this. I went back to the studio and I remember not caring, just letting everything out. That’s where this song came from, with the “why do I try, why do I care” line.’

Watch: Dead Clade by HLLLYH

Back in 2008, I had just started working at a digital ad agency on Brick Lane, in London, and I was literally across the road from the East London location of music institution Rough Trade. Every week on music release day, which back in 2008 was Monday*, I would head to Rough Trade. Once there, I would flip through the new releases, listen to what the staff had playing over the shop’s speaker systems, and check out the CD listening posts. Most weeks I probably bought two new albums and, more often than not, these were releases I knew little about.

One of those little mysteries was HLLLYH, from LA outfit The Mae Shi. The group’s thrashy, trashy garage art punk shimmered with candy coloured neon, an energising combo of dirt and bright electricity. In mainstream culture, The Mae Shi’s closest brush with commercial success likely came much later, when HLLLYH’s opening track, Lamb And The Lion, appeared in the underrated Covid-era straight-to-Netflix gem, The Mitchells vs The Machines.

The Mae Shi have been teasing the potential of a new album since 2022, with founding member Tim Byron traversing California as he worked to engage former members and reassemble the band. In time, Jeff Byron came back on board as producer and engineer, as well as singer and guitarist. Ezra Buchla, Brad Breeck, and Corey Fogel also all return. The resulting forthcoming album, URUBURU, which was originally intended to be The Mae Shi’s last, began to feel less like the closing of an old book than the opening of a fresh one.

All of which leads us here, to the release of the new single Dead Clade, not by The Mae Shi, but instead by HLLLYH, which represents a step forwards into something fresh, yet still connected to the group’s past. As a song, Dead Clade is unmistakably the product of the same minds as The Mae Shi, with chunky riffs, Day-Glo melodies and an abundance of chaos and sugar.

It is unclear how representative of the forthcoming album Dead Clade is, and indeed it is the oldest song on the forthcoming album, with origins all the way back in 2009. Regardless, it hints at the fact that HLLYH’s sound has a little less of the overdriven electronic synths of the Mae Shi, with a feel that is just a touch softer in aesthetic. Which is not to say the chaos nor energy are gone — indeed they are here in abundance — they are just filtered through a slightly more naturalistic lens.

I sound my age in writing this, but I’m unashamedly an album person, and I miss the days of prising open compact discs and vinyl, with a sense of excitement at the possibility of what they contained. I’m grateful to have HLLLYH back, even if the medium of delivery lacks the mystery of my physical copy of The Mae Shi’s HLLLYH.

*It moved to Friday in 2015 and, arguably, the release of music took a further step towards irrelevance.