From London
Recommended if you like All Saints, Frou Frou, Nelly Furtado
Up next EP out now; on tour with After in May<\/p>\n
The first time I heard Gianna\u2019s Shadow of a Bird, I was instantly transported to a place that smelled of Impulse body spray. It is a track that has perfectly nailed the polished boho-pop of early 00s Nelly Furtado, All Saints and Corinne Bailey Rae \u2013 the sort that features arpeggiated acoustic guitar, vaguely trip-hop beats and a gently distinctive voice swooping through them.<\/p>\n
Other clear influences on the 23-year-old Camdenite\u2019s debut EP Behind the Wings are the cinematic sweep of Everything But the Girl and the rave-adjacent Ray of Light-era Madonna, but also Gianna\u2019s own childhood steeped in Albanian television and folk songs. When she started writing songs to combat the boredom of lockdown, she wrote them in Albanian over beats she found on YouTube. You hear tiny hints of that Balkan aesthetic in her new music, though Shadow of a Bird was inspired by an experience dozing in her parents\u2019 native Kosovo. What she thought was a brick falling on her turned out to be a hummingbird flitting by. Turning that split-second into a Pure Shores-esque meditation on reality distortion is quite the move.<\/p>\n
It feels wrong to describe music that has roots so deep in Y2K nostalgia as \u201cfresh\u201d, but Gianna\u2019s songs are also as bright and effervescent as the era\u2019s face-wash ads. She is not the only artist inspired by that period, of course \u2013 Addison Rae and Erika de Casier have been harking back to it of late \u2013 but she makes another convincing argument that coffee-shop pop is ripe for reassessment. Kate Solomon<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s best new tracksNia Archives.<\/p>\n
Nia Archives \u2013 Danger
A playground chant acronym runs through the UK junglist\u2019s return \u2013 \u201cG is the spot, E is what we drop\u201d etc \u2013 which swerves between a rushing chorus and verses worthy of second-album Sugababes: high praise.<\/p>\n
deBasement \u2013 Aftermarket Bass (ft Nikki Nair)
Special Interest\u2019s Alli Logout and DJ Margo XS ply the sort of fuzzed-out, thumbscrew-turned dancefloor bass and commanding icy vocal \u2013 \u201cdon\u2019t stop, make the chocolate shake\u201d \u2013 that demands total submission.<\/p>\n
Downtown Boys \u2013 No Me Jodas
The Rhode Island punks return for their first album since 2017, expanding their spit-and-sawdust squall with enveloping clouds of doom. Suits them.<\/p>\n
Brennan Wedl and Waxahatchee \u2013 Six O\u2019Clock News
Katie Crutchfield and Minnesota-raised Wedl \u2013 a songwriter who splits the difference between Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow \u2013 beautifully essay Kathleen Edwards\u2019 2002 lament to outlaw love.<\/p>\n
Empress Of \u2013 Dream House
\u201cUp in the mountain just how you remember \/ I wanna build you a dream house,\u201d Lorely Rodriguez sings to sweet, shuffling R&B \u2013 a literal offering to her family, whose home burned down in the Altadena fires.<\/p>\n
Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry and Mouse on Mars \u2013 Rockcurry
Many people have claimed Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry\u2019s \u201clast\u201d recordings, but his true final sessions were with this German electronic duo: Perry remains cool as ever amid their synth-winking, caper-worthy music.<\/p>\n
Khun Narin Electric Phin Band \u2013 Poet Wong Pt 1 (\u0e40\u0e1b\u0e34\u0e14\u0e27\u0e07 \u0e15\u0e2d\u0e19 1)
Hailing from remote northern Thailand, this marching band are by turns serene, intricate, psychedelic and pulverising on this first taste of a record produced by Tommy Brenneck (Amy Winehouse, Charles Bradley).<\/p>\n
Laura Snapes<\/p>\n
Subscribe to the Guardian\u2019s rolling Add to Playlist selections on Spotify \u2013 or transfer it to Apple<\/a>, Tidal<\/a> or other services<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From LondonRecommended if you like All Saints, Frou Frou, Nelly FurtadoUp next EP out now; on tour with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-368176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}