When I think of David You, I think of morning coffee rituals and subdued light filtering through linen drapes. I think of soft summer evenings and sharing a bottle of wine with friends in the park as the sun sets over the trees. I could describe his voice as gentle or angelic, but really it’s the feeling of safety that his music invokes that I find remarkable. Much like the park, it allows a person to forget the busy rush of city streets just outside its perimeter. “Moon is in Charge” is You’s first single since his springtime EP, Beautiful, Like Pyramids, and after retreating home from a busy day it feels right to let the tender whisper of his voice fill the four walls of my room.

The simple arrangement of acoustic guitar and airy vocals makes for intimate lo-fi without any of the posturing. You sings about the repetition of the ocean waves, crashing over and over, and how he’d rather be “just like a small stream that joins a river's flow / knowing where I’ll go,” which is especially poignant in a time where we’d all like a little less chaos and a little more clarity when it comes to the future. Sweeping textures give substance, and You’s signature harmonies layered with the subtle hint of percussion and a shaker here and there complete the halcyon tableau of his songs. So pour yourself a cup of tea, put on your comfiest and give David You a listen.

Emulating a Sylvan Esso style vocalization on this track, Fake Dad serves up a summer's end song with their latest single "Summer Hill." Dreamy, ethereal guitar ushers along the psychedelic and surrealist lyricism of this easy-going, vibey tune. "Summer Hill" is about living in the moment. It's an observational tune about the quick passage of time. 

The musicality, similar to the track's themes, is taking its time. It's gentle, plodding and intentionally placed. Andrea de Varona's vocals here sound exceptionally striking. In an effort to live in a headspace that appreciates daily beauty instead of wishing the day away, "Summer Hill" is a great reminder to stop and smell the roses (through your mask, of course).

Check out this new single from Fake Dad and listen to the rest of their tunes wherever you stream!

“thank u love u”— that’s all boylife, aka LA artist Ryan Yoo, wrote when he released his newest single. 

“boston” has a nostalgic kind of texture, like the intimate grit of an old mixtape. It gives body to that stickiness we’ve all experienced from a song when it transports us back to a very specific time and place—a person, a scent, a state of emotion, a certain cast of streetlight. I’ve lived in Boston, but the magic of this song is that “Boston” can represent any place where you’ve dreamed in or dreamt of. With soft organ and reflective gospel-like call and response, it offers a reminder that the relationships and experiences we have in these places shape us for better or worse. For that, we can appreciate them, grow, and also let go with a simple “thank u love u.”

Evolution is a natural part of being a musician, and tracking the evolution of an act from their first release through the rest of their career is one of the most rewarding aspects of following an artist. Some artists hop between genre and sounds as they see fit, incorporating new elements as a means to progress their sound or diversify their fanbase; others opt to take their initial approach and refine it, working within their existing soundscape to find new angles and methods with which to improve their art. When it comes to British dream-pop duo Jadu Heart, it seems that they have opted for the latter. “Burning Hour"—the sixth single from the duo’s forthcoming sophomore effort Hyper Romance, out September 25—traffics in the same ethereal vocals and jangly guitars as a majority of tracks from their debut album, Melt Away. However, there are clear signs of artistic development on display throughout the track; the songwriting is more direct, there’s less hesitation to be loud to get a thematic point across, and the duo’s voices seem more complementary to one another than ever before. The end result is one of the most addictive singles yet from the duo and one that will keep expectations high ahead of the album’s release next month.

“No Risk," the recent single from Cults, is a tribute to brave beginnings, and a testament to the power of dynamic manipulations. Through their expert instrumental arrangement, the band is able to communicate three unique interpretations of the same set of lyrics and take the listener on a complete journey. The first time through the chorus, the vocal is accompanied only by a piano. When the singer opens with the line “no risk, no believing or leading,” there is a hint of doubt; like she’s not yet fully convinced of the sentiment, and needs to say it out loud in order to believe. The second time through a driving drum beat bursts in, and it feels like the journey has officially begun; risks have been taken and there’s no going back now. The final iteration mirrors the first, just vocal and piano. It feels like the protagonist is taking a moment to glance backward, both reflecting on how far they’ve come and recognizing the doubts that still persist.

To close out the song the drums return in all their inspirational fervor, and the singer delivers repetitions of the title, “no risk.” Here, the song acknowledges that stepping into the unknown will always be frightening, but reminds us that such is the cost of new experiences which often prove to be worth the risk.

“We can’t seem to find a reason to stay quiet,” urges Ela Minus on “megapunk," a new single that propels revolutionary fight from its blistering opening line. The Brooklyn-based Colombian singer’s staccato speech-singing over a trance beat manifests her passionate movement for change within us. Post-punk and new wave influences drive the hallucinogenic beat while her message on the current political climate sits in the heart of punk rebellion, drawing undoubtedly from her time as the drummer of Colombian hardcore band Ratón Pérez when she was just 12 years old. “When I wrote this song last year, I was worried it would lose context if not released immediately,” she said on the track. “I could not have been more wrong. This is the perfect time to put this out. We have to keep going. Ánimo y fuerza.” The track is accompanied by a hallucinogenic music video following her black, white, and pink punk aesthetic, and marks her second single released on Domino.

Biig Piig is the stage name of Irish-born, Spanish-raised, London-based singer-songwriter Jessica Smyth. The first I heard of Biig Piig was her single release “Switch,” which came earlier this year, but, admittedly, I was late to the party. Known for her hip-hop beats and sultry vocals, Biig Piig has garnered millions of streams on songs like “Perdida,” “Sunny,” and “Vice City.” With her unique blend of vocal techniques—transitioning from singing to rapping and back again seamlessly—on “Don’t Turn Around,” Biig Piig sticks to her guns. Maya Angelou famously said, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” In her latest release, Biig Piig not only believes them, she lets them know where they stand, as she riffs, “I see you now, exactly who you are / No place for patience, no need to press restart.”

If “Don’t Turn Around” sounds familiar, it’s because in this latest release, Biig Piig samples from Montell Jordan’s iconic 1999 R&B track, “Get It On Tonite.” Jordan’s song had, in turn, sampled Jamaican-born Claudja Barry’s 1976 soulful disco ballad, “Love for the Sake of Love,” another iconic number. For “Don’t Turn Around,” Biig Piig collaborated with cowriters Joerg Evers, Jordan Reid, and Juergen S. Korduletsch, and producer JD. Reid. The result is an instant groove with just the right mix of nostalgic R&B and neo-soul, and a splash of disco, bringing the sounds of decades past into the contemporary genre-bending realm of indie-pop. Bet you can’t listen just once.

With love from Madrid, garage-pop band Hinds releases a wildly emotive and reverberant cover of The Clash’s “Spanish Bombs." With their gorgeous Spanish accents and a more deeply rock-forward sound, the dream ladies of Hinds give the track a bit of refurbished energy. Bringing additional chaos into what is already a chaotic concept—the bombing campaign of several holiday resorts in southern Spain—the girls of Hinds holler and yelp into static-riddled darkness. This rendition of “Spanish Bombs” is the musical equivalent to the tenderness and fire of being a young, devil-may-care creature of living.