Olivia McShane and Alex Bloomfield are a new duo, making music under the name Atelier Blue. They self-identify their unique sound as 'Mood Pop'. Both tracks
they've released so far are endearing, infectious, perfectly-constructed synth-pop
gems. In the most recent, “Empty Lungs”, they put their ‘moodiness’ on full display,
as McShane longingly wonders in the chorus, her velvet voice drifting over groovy guitar and bass rhythms,
“Why can’t I get what I want???”
They are not just a band to watch, they're a band you'll want to set an alert for, to make sure you don't miss anything.
Now she is preparing to release Pang - her first solo album under her own name. Two singles have been released so far - “Parachute” and “Ocean of Tears”. After spending time working with giants and catching an oblique corner of the spotlight, here Polachek emerges fully formed, a pop artist with a singular sound. Phantoms of collaborators – like Charli XCX – and of others she presumably hasn’t encountered – Bjork(?) – resound in these tracks, but Polachek’s sound is by no means reducible to such influences.
“Parachute” excites me most. Devoid of percussion, it is a ballad that sees Polachek taking risks, slowly advancing through a lengthy, complex melody. Nobody would call the melody ‘catchy’; in fact, it takes so long cycle back around that you have a slight sense of dislocation, as though each new moment is entirely new, only bound to what came before by a thin, transparent tether. You won’t be surprised by her press-release statement that when she wrote the melody she was “unintentionally retelling a dream [she’d] been shaken by”.
Opening with with spare synths, the ballad slowly, assuredly builds in its intensity. Her vocals are characterized by off-kilter leaps, and by rapid runs that flit from note-to-note with such pace that they lend an inorganic feeling. Her producer Danny L Harle has also collaborated with SOPHIE (in writing for Superfruit), and the vocal production in these runs gives off a SOPHIE-esque twinkle, but this dissipates in the prevailing impression of sincerity; Polachek’s dreams are not that plastic. Treading the difficult line between the emotive and the artificial, Polachek does not stumble, and as the melody reaches its peak, we are pulled towards the sky. Gravity flips. We soar skywards in a weather balloon.
With this unique and daring piece of avant-garde pop balladry, I am waiting in anticipation for the album.
Kira Clark and Keith McGraw were living in Portland, OR, playing in a heavy metal band, before they decided to pick up and form a pop duo in (where else?) Brooklyn. Noticing the lack of female representation in the heavy metal world, they decided to try something new. This band formed out of a desire to be honest and to openly embrace sensitivity (hence their moniker).
Their debut album, Bedroom Drama, will be released on August 2nd. Meanwhile, they have put out three singles - the latest is "Caught in the Dark". Clark said of the single:
"'Caught in the Dark’ is the happiest song we’ve ever written. I felt as though I was emerging out of a long bout of unhappiness. Writing this record felt so much better to me than what we were doing before. I remember feeling light and inspired and hopeful and things felt possible again. It’s also about the intensity of being alive and welcoming that intensity… (Don’t wanna be in the world easily/I want to feel it in me/in this bag embodied I’m hungry…I was so tired of feeling vulnerable but that’s life/aren’t I alive?”). The production on this song is inspired by and an ode to NSYNC. We listened to some of their old hits countless times, trying to decipher what makes them so impossibly catchy. We didn’t succeed but this song is our attempt."
Despite their suggestion to the contrary, this track is pretty darn catchy. It's also an enjoyable 80's romp, complete with arpeggiating disco synths.
Today we get to hear "Red Light", the second single off Tei Shi's upcoming album, which will be the successor to her 2017 debut album Crawl Space. The single is an exercise in catchy, velvety R&B synth-pop. You can't resist being drawn in, enchanted by Tei Shi's characteristically airy, glistening vocals. I need the full album. I need it now!
Speaking about the track's inspiration, Tei Shi has stated that this is a diss track(in a sense), dealing with moving past toxic relationships:
"Red Light is about a few different relationships in my past – some romantic, some in the work space – that made me feel helpless and powerless. I spent a lot of time in dynamics with close people in my life who didn’t encourage or empower me but thrived in making me feel small. The song is about learning from these dynamics, earning more respect for myself and knowing better in the future. It’s kind of a diss track, but also on my end it’s about letting go of that frame of mind."
Yeule's mega-talent has been out in the open for awhile. While her releases haven't been as frequent as fans might hope - she's studying for a bachelors of fine arts, gosh - The Singaporean London-based producer has been quietly releasing - synth-heavy, shoegazey, often atmospheric - art-pop (enough descriptors?) for several years. Okay, one more - "witch house" (self-ascribed).
In 2017, The Fader called her "Coma" EP "dream pop perfection." More recently, she made it onto one of Grimes Spotify playlists!¡ She's getting recognized, that's the point. With her latest track, I hope more recognition is headed her way.
The music video for her newest song "Pretty Bones" (released on Bayonet Records) is out. Directed by Joy Song, the video explores self-identity, artificiality, and decay. Sundry luxuriant items, artificial and natural, are interspersed, heaped together on an exquisite banquet table: bowls of raspberries topped with glitter; shiny rose petals; shinier lip gloss; a bejeweled octopus. Then things dissolve, scatter, get destroyed. A pomegranate is torn apart; an engraved knife stabs a slab of raw beef; overfull bowls of fruit rot in half a second, are resurrected, and then rot again. It's miraculous. The whole thing brought to mind a quote from the end of Strindberg's A Dream Play (ahem): "Time and space do not exist. Upon an insignificant background of real life events the imagination spins and weaves new patterns."
One more thing: check out this interview by Milk Magazine.
Highlights: "Who are you, yeule?
yeule is my reflection, your reflection, your friend, your enemy, a cut in dimensional fabric, a disappearing space..." "How do you balance attending university while maintaining your career and artistry?This is a very good question, Gabriella — I’m a shapeshifter...."
Let me level with you: I don't think I wanted to like this. I was prejudiced. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe "Couch Prints" sounds a little like it would get spit out of a Brooklyn band name generator (right alongside "Tortoise Bed" and "Sailor Paw" (hmmm. not half bad)). Whatever, none of that matters. In their first single "Tell U", the Queens-based band give us a slice of emotional, softly shimmering indie-synth magic. My eyes and ears are peeled for whatever they put out next.
