Sophie
Unisil
Released two days before Sophie’s shocking death, Unisil was actually made five years ago but previously only available to people who bought Sophie’s Silicon Product, an EP delivered as a £50 sex toy. Despite the gestation period it still sounds fearlessly contemporary – a phone-game death spiral of doomsday synths and shattering black mirrors. It often felt as if Sophie was stretching the edges of pop into the fourth dimension. A huge amount of future has been lost.
FKA twigs, Headie One & Fred Again
Don’t Judge Me
What starts as a simple plea for relationship-based trust is stress-tested by an ever intensifying glitch beat and Headie One’s spoken-word intervention, in which internalised judgment becomes a treatise on prejudice and self-belief. The result is a record that sounds like that feeling where you can’t remember what you were arguing about but are red with rage.
Clean Bandit ft iann dior
Higher
It can be quite intoxicating, I would imagine, to make music in this utilitarian way: having successfully decoded all the elements that create a radio hit without any concern for whether what you’re doing is of any inherent value. Proficiency without artistry can still be admired, but now and again it’s good to look in the mirror and just ask why.
Rag’n’Bone Man
All You Ever Wanted
One of the biggest bandwagon jumpers in music today, Rag’n’Bone man has quickly given up on urban-flecked Radio 2 soul to briefly see if there’s any room at the George Ezra guitar party, returning with a shameless indie single that sounds like something the Futureheads would have spaffed off for a Q magazine cover-mount CD.
Selena Gomez & Rauw Alejandro
Baila Conmigo
Baila Conmigo – which roughly translates as “Is it too late for me to jump on the Latin-pop boom without it looking cynical?” – is taken from Gomez’s forthcoming Spanish-language EP. There’s not loads going on here beyond the normal reggaeton presets, but, like Nick Knowles fronting a National Lottery gameshow, Gomez always gives a decent turn at whatever format she’s presented with.
