sbcltr recommends the music you should be listening to right now

We don’t like summer. It is cruel, relentless and comes with a mandatory playlist of music that sounds and feels like a rehashed version of whatever is trending at the moment. How many songs about pools, beach and the sun can one enjoy before their ears start to bleed. So let’s take a moment to thank god for being a tad merciful this year. The end of April and beginning of May saw two mega releases, Lemonade by Beyoncé and A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead. Both artists that are as mainstream as they can be, yes, even Radiohead. While the world went crazy with them on loop, we decidedly gave them a miss, because let’s be honest, the latter sounds a bit like Coldplay and we just don’t get super woman Bey. Her issues seem more marketing ploy than candid honesty. Call us supercilious, but here is what we are listening to right now.

Tim Green: Only Time Remains/Beautiful Girl
The first single from his highly anticipated album Body Language, Time Remains, is a beautifully arranged gospel sounding hypnotic groove that is layered over a big bass sound that makes it a very seductive tune. Quite possibly, the best thing that may have happened to Green in years. The second track is a nine-minute remix of Junge Junge’s Beautiful Girl featuring Kyle Pearce. It features some smeared pads, spaced out vocals and melodies that is both romantic as well as dreamy.

Surachai: Instinct and Memory
Surachai has always been eponymous with soundscapes and dronish sounds weaved together. The latest release Instinct and Memory from the Chicago based producer is no different, if not better than his previous work. A vast bank of analog noises, intricate rhythms and his signature drone soundscapes. All eight tracks kick absolute ass and are set against a canvas that amalgamates the visual art form and music. This is an album that has machines running across abandoned sonic deserts.

Escape Sequence: This Isn’t Working
Bangalore based composer and producer, Akaash Mukherjee, aka Escape Sequence is the latest in line to come out with his own flavour of drone laden ambient electronic—something that artists from Bangalore are getting synonymous with. His latest EP This isn’t working is an absolute work of art that finds its roots while grappling in an ambient electronic space that is easy to get lost in.

And The Kids: Friends Share Lovers
Friends Share Lovers, yes we know that the title sounds a little too groupieish, the album is not. It is a set of tracks that hop and skip the walls of romance and the blurry boundaries of pain. Recorded in Montreal, Canada because of Visa issues (Megan Miller’s) this is an album that is a beta version of their brilliant debut album Turn to Each Other (2015). FSL takes over where their last album left off. With an outward, bigger approach to sound in its reverb drenched guitar lines, swirling synth and layered on psych-pop soundscape, this is a dream. The album officially comes out on 3rd of June, but here is a preview of the kind of sound to expect.

Esmé Patterson: No River (We Were Wild)
The latest offering in terms of genres from the rock world is synapse-rock. Esmé Patterson is not the first, nor is she the only one making this kind of music (Frances Quinlan, Katie Crutchfield and Julien Baker are a few more). Synapse rock explores the relation of self-awareness and the mind’s own chatter with feedback from alternate lives, both considered and rejected. So think of it as layered storytelling, With No River  Patterson weaves together thoughts on the assumptions people make up of women and sings them to breezy rock beats and a playful intone of vocals, I can’t keep running, I’m no river, she says.

Systemhouse 33: Lift This Plague (Regression)
Mumbai trash rockers are at it again, this time with their new album Regression. Regression that features tracks which deal with the atrocities that women in India generally face. One such track is Lift the Plague. The video also features edits from various coverages of the notorious 2012 Delhi gang-rape. They came on our radar with their much anticipated US tour, supporting giants Dying Fetus.

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