What We’re Listening To

Petros Fessas is back with his pick of tracks for the week

Tkay Maidza at an awards ceremonyFlickr: PeterTea

by Petros Fessas

Friday November 28 2014, 8:30am

Give this track the ten minutes it asks for and it will take you where it wants. It is probably not true that for a band to choose to break the five minute mark there has to be a lot to say. Hardly so: during ‘Picture You’, the mood hardly changes. Its psych-pop guitars create a rainy air that gains weight as the lead singer Christoffer Gunrup’s voice swells up, in an atmosphere reminiscent of Tame Impala’s less sunny side. It denies the listener the cathartic chorus it builds to, instead serving as a post-rock jam session that creates an emotional story in two parts.

Switch Lanes - Tkay Maidza

An obvious comparison to Azealia Banks is not uncalled for as Tkay Maidza releases her latest promotional single - before her debut EP comes out later this month. It is playful and infectious, much like ‘212’ that first introduced us to Banks: Tkay’s rap flows seamlessly and balances out the unconventional electronics of the song. The production is owed to Paces, who does a great job channeling sounds that we can probably associate most closely with the likes of SBTRKT, albeit sounding a bit more garage.

You’re Always Good - OOFJ

The best part about songs described as ‘cinematic’ without soundtracking any movie is that each listener associates something different to them: this one definitely could lend itself to the big screen, seeing as Jenno Bjørnkjær is known from his work on Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia. This track forces the imagination on a visual journey. The result is a class-A dream-pop track that is built around contradictions; the menacing strings thrown against occasional glimpses of sunlight are accompanied by a self-falsifying mantra of “You’re always good” that is eerily unconvincing.

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