Dream Wife
Hasta La Vista
Dream Wife might be best known for their disco-punk riffs and dance-party pop, but on Hasta La Vista the London trio bare their softer, more romantic side. Part It’s Blitz!-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs, part long-lost Cardigans B-side, their second track of the year is a strawberry-sweet, hazy ode to times gone by. Best enjoyed on your daily state-sanctioned walk beneath the late spring blossom.
Jamie xx
Idontknow
Feels weird for Jamie xx to return after five years with such a heavy dance track – thumping warehouse beats, whistles, cut’n’spliced vocal samples – during a time in which we can’t even go to the shops twice, let alone the club. How are people supposed to enjoy this? While baking their seventh consecutive banana bread? Fingers crossed it makes more sense after lockdown.
Bon Iver
PDLIF
Like him or loathe him, Justin “Bon Iver” Vernon has always been especially good at making music that sounds both mournful and full-hearted. Pairing euphoric, layered vocals with sorrowful piano, PDLIF is a hopeful anthem for frightening times. “There will be a better day / There will be a better day,” he sings alongside Kacy Hill, and you find yourself actually believing them.
Arlo Parks
Black Dog
While Bon Iver urges us to look forward to the good times, Arlo Parks reminds us that it’s OK to feel like shit and wallow instead (“I’d lick the grief right off your lips / You do your eyes like Robert Smith,” croons the 19-year-old). Despite the gloomy subject, Black Dog is a gorgeous, gentle creation, with Parks’s soulful vocals floating above blissful, swirling production. Who knew sadness could sound so sweet?
Released on Monday 4 May
Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp
Isolation
Has anyone else been having some really messed-up nightmares during isolation? Like, the kind where you wake up in a cold sweat because, idk, professional pirate Johnny Depp showed up in your dream with rubbery blues guitarist Jeff Beck (both of them in cowboy boots, eyeliner, possibly chaps) and they wouldn’t stop bellowing this woeful bar-rock version of John Lennon’s Isolation? Oh wait.
