This month’s mixtape rides the wave of new music that continues to wash in this year as artists come out of creative hibernation and gear up for festival season—with SXSW now in the rear view, we’re still sifting through new discoveries, some of which made this mix, some of which will surface in months to come.
We’re starting out with North London duo Megan Markwick + Lily Somerville, better known as IDER, who reside somewhere in the Venn diagram overlap of R+B, folk, and electronic pop. We’re following the new up with some old though—fellow Brooklynite-turned-Angeleno and longtime favorite, Twin Shadow, (AKA George Lewis Jr) who brings us a danceable single featuring sisterly trio HAIM that has us very excited about the new album. Vienna’s Leyya follows Mr. Lewis with another uptempo single from their excellent full-length Sauna; then we’ve got a new one from the man who pretty much unanimously won SXSW last year, Anderson .Paak, and a fun one from Jacksonville newcomer Yuno (who happens to be hitting the road with Twin Shadow next month).
Brisbane’s Mallrat gives us a promising single and plays southern California next month; Bay Area artist Still Woozy stays nicely laid back with “Cooks”; some uncharacteristic but great, almost J-pop-ish music from Melbourne’s Woodes; we’ve got a great, string-filled single from fellow Maggie Rogers tour mate (in addition to the aforementioned HAIM) Caroline Rose (who wins for best cover photo ever—see below); and Oakland’s Madeline Kenney proves rhythmically + melodically agile with her track “Still Learning” (feat. Naytronix) (Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak + Flock of Dimes is working with Kenney on her next album which will inevitably be one of our favorites of whatever year it comes out).
After that, the mix careens into new wave/post punk territory with the bands Ought + Corridor—both out of Montreal—the return of NYC’s Parquet Courts, and much-buzzed-about Brits, Shame (they have an awesome video for another track that we couldn’t help but embed below). Finally, we’re easing into the great musical void and ending things off with one more Brisbane band—eclectic four piece Cub Sport, who bring us a glitchy R+B track “Good Guys Go”.
Enjoy the music and your respective lionlike weather, east + west coasts—lambs are supposedly right around the corner.
