6 hours ago
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From New York, USA
Recommended if you like Jessica Pratt, Minnie Riperton, Cocteau Twins
Up next Debut LP Follow the Light released via Jagjaguwar on 16 October
In Robert Silverberg’s 1973 sci-fi anthology New Dimensions 3, there’s a story by author Terry Carr called They Live on Levels. The simplest outline of this tale is that thanks to a technological breakthrough, humans are able to exist and communicate through different planes of existence. Through musical styles and generational layers, the spectral folk of New York-based songwriter June McDoom expresses this very notion in stunning fashion.
Learning her craft through jazz standards, McDoom found her bread and butter within the time-honoured harmonies of folk music (she covered the Appalachian ballad Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair on her 2023 EP With Strings). There’s a vast confluence of musical movements spooking beneath that foundation, anchored deeply within McDoom’s own family lineage. Growing up in a Jamaican household in south Florida, her father would build his own sound systems around the house. A generation before that, McDoom’s grandfather Colin Smith was a performer and preservationist of mento, the Jamaican strain of folk that would spawn reggae and dub.
On Without You, the first single from her forthcoming debut album Follow the Light, McDoom reflects on a momentary spell of distance from a lover. As the song progresses, the lush instrumentation – acoustic guitars, synths, harps and piano – float with almost aquatic grace, naturally as if rising towards the glow beyond the surface. It’s emblematic of McDoom’s output leading up to now: intimate and warm, yet somehow disembodied and mysterious as well. Her songs, indeed, live on many levels. Jasper Willems
This week’s best new tracks
Betty Hammerschlag – Damn Bird
An invitation to a private world: choppy lo-fi guitar with a little Chicago post-rock in its harmonics underpins the enigmatic songwriter’s mysterious incantations about a cursed bird.
Sylvan Esso – On and On
Flickering like a stomach full of anxiety, the intricacy of the instrumentation here is remarkable, the North Carolina duo joined by Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and Flock of Dimes’ Jenn Wasner. [Listen on Bandcamp]
Underscores – Unlimited Love
A second serving of a year-best pop album: a puckish hyperpop take on the acoustic guitar-addled pop of the early millennium, with a cataclysmic, Vegas-ready outro for good measure.
Sofii – God
Every sound in God is made by the human voice, spliced as if across church organ pipes, providing the backing for the French-American artist’s crushing hymnal about trying to forget a lover.
Sarah Meth – Don’t Touch Me You’re My Hero
For fans of Sophia Stel and Lana Del Rey’s casual self-abasement, the Londoner’s songs are lo-fi, droll and make blunt truths slip down easy: “Does it make you feel bigger to make a bitch wait?”
Jeshi – Linea Rossa (ft Cameo Blush)
The east Londoner’s new mixtape celebrates his youthful clubbing exploits. “Shoulda stayed home but I said that last night,” he raps over a beat that zips by like street lights seen from a speeding car.
Boy Harsher – Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)
The warped-mirror bass of Tough Luck is a time machine back to the best of gothy post-punk – nakedly Cure, transparently New Order – but decades on, it still hits the spot when done this well.
Laura Snapes
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