5 songs you should hear this week – w/e 6th April
Every day we play you a track that has just grabbed our attention. As soon as we hear it, we send it into the digital ether for you all to enjoy. Sometimes it's an exclusive, sometimes it's a favourite artist and, at other times, it'll be someone brand new. Here's this week's choice selection. Just click on the links to see the full Just Added playlist:
Lizzo – Fitness
We began the week with a body positive banger for your post-Easter exercise playlist. Lizzo – the Detroit-born hip hop artist Melissa Jefferson - looks majestic in her music video (whilst possibly not rocking the most breathable of workout fabrics). She says this song “is a celebration of movement, highlighting the power in all body types. I hope to inspire women all over to put themselves first. And next time someone has a critique about you or your body, say “I don’t do this for you.” Extra disco kudos to Lizzo for the “toot toot, beep beep” nod to Donna Summer.
Melody's Echo Chamber – Breathe In, Breathe Out
Melody Prochet is a musician and singer from France and this dreamy track is taken from her second album, Bon Voyage, which will be released in June. It’s been a while since Melody’s 2012 debut because she spent an extended period of time in hospital last year, following a serious accident. The English lyrics (she also sings in French and Swedish) could be biographical, with references to “fighting”, “healing slow and feeling low” but the animated video is psychedelically colourful and hospital-free, depicting a “pilgrim trying to reunite with his source of inspiration and light, his muse.” She recorded the album in Sweden and has said the setting – in “a majestic forest with a lake three minutes’ walk from my home” - soothed her in “times of anxiety.”
Beach House - Dark Spring
Synth-pop duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally are set to release their seventh album next month (they may have run out of titles, as they’ve gone with 7). Dark Spring is the third single and we sincerely hope it doesn’t foretell the season ahead. Yes, it’s accompanied by a monochrome video but it does open with time lapse of a flower blooming, so we’re focusing on the positives. The Baltimore duo has said it’s one of several songs on the record which examine “the empathy and love that grows from collective trauma” and “the beauty that arises in dealing with darkness.”
Sudan Archives - Nont For Sale
Sudan is a 24 year-old violinist and vocalist who writes, plays, and produces her own music, fusing folk music with electronic production. “I started mixing my violin into beats,” she says, “I'd just sing straight into the iPad." But she’s since refined that early DIY style to create most of her songs, synths and bass lines on a violin synthesizer. And it sounds brilliantly unlike anything else we’ve played this week. Sudan will release a second EP at the end of May, called Sink, which she says describes the way I want my music to make you feel, whilst being inspired by her “love of fluidity, movement of jellyfish and water.”
Ólafur Arnalds – Re:member
We closed the week with something beautifully soothing from the BAFTA-winning, Icelandic multi-instrumentalist and producer, who spoke to Mary Anne Hobbs just last weekend about the future of music composition. And he's got the chops to talk about the future, because this has been made with ground-breaking software, which transforms the piano into a unique new instrument. Re:member also features string quartet, synths, electronics and drums and is out now. If you need a quiet moment, just pop your headphones on, and enjoy a 6 minute musical meditation with Ólafur.
You can hear all the tracks via the Just Added Playlist
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