From Singapore/London
Recommended if you like Fennesz, Four Tet, Laurel Halo
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The baked floral scents and hot breezes of the UK’s mini heatwave this week pair perfectly with the work of Yingtuitive, AKA Singapore-raised, London-dwelling musician Hannah Chia – though you sense that her shifting, almost synaesthetic music will take on new colours in the drizzle or snow.
Chia’s debut album Letters To Self 寫情書 was released late last month: recalling the bucolic electronics of early Four Tet but subtly nodding to a range of ambient and club sounds, it doesn’t ever settle into predictable emotional beats. Chia focuses on piano on tracks such as Pandan, poignant ambient jazz in the style of Matthew Bourne or Ryuichi Sakamoto; Blue, a study in thick, aqueous reverb; and Do U Forget a Feeling?, with more reverb set against a crisp beat, as if tapped out on an MPC sampler.
It’s the first of three excellent rhythmic tracks at the album’s heart: make sure to stick Exhibition on the best system you can to appreciate the penetrating bass, as well as the melodic effects which recall grime productions (especially Skepta’s signature video-game squelch). As this cosmopolitan album plays through, it’s like being carried with dream logic from garden to mall to club and back again. Chia has said the album is, in part, borne out of “a contemplation of a split soul from living between two places for so long”. She captures the poignancy of living so restlessly, seeing such varied beauty, but never fully building a life around it. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
This week’s best new tracks
Dijon – Higher!
After co-writing Justin Bieber’s recent UK No 1 Daisies, the R&B musician follows up with his own astounding, surprise-dropped second album. Higher! is charged with gospel fervour, and touched with greatness. BBT
William Tyler and Claire Rousay – Covert Services
The Nashville guitarist’s recent foray into haunted ambience makes him a perfect match for the Canadian experimentalist, though the result is surprisingly poppy, like a whacked-out Alex G. LS
Militarie Gun – B A D I D E A
Hardcore punk’s Hot To Go!? Those letters are chanted as if by a demotivational cheerleader squad, as the brilliant LA band return with 109 seconds of pop-minded pogoing. BBT
The Belair Lip Bombs – Hey You
The Third Man-signed Aussies tone down their debut’s power-pop euphoria for this tough confrontation of a relationship on its uppers, produced by Joe White of their equally excellent countrymen Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. LS
Just Mustard – We Were Just Here
The only trace of dream pop left around the Irish band here is in Katie Ball’s searching vocals; the music buzzes, vibrates and grinds like a city electrified. LS
Neko Case – Winchester Mansion of Sound
A very Neko devotional: comparing a wild friend with “too much life for just one body” to a haunted mansion, seemingly played on its piano and swooping through its ballrooms. LS
Chy Cartier – Miu Miu
A masterclass in rap hook-writing from the north London MC, her rhyme scheme locking with perfect symmetry as she trumpets her purchasing power, not forgetting a Merc for mum. BBT
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