Best Tracks 2016

In 2016, everything felt more intense. The most visible pop music was also some of the most political. The saddest songs came from people who passed away days after releasing them. Debut singles from some of the most anticipated releases sounded broken. One of the best songs of the year received its studio debut 15 years after a live version was released. Insanely catchy, meme-driven hits reached new levels of ubiquity. This is our attempt to make some sense of it all pitchfork

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3v4QD80QGPFIdVXR6IdrSn?si=QTeTUG29QJqtQ_9L1vVz-w

Beverly – Crooked Cop its descending chord pattern owes just a smidge to Big Star. Singer/guitarist Drew Citron says this about it’s lyrical themes: “Sometimes it seems like cops can get away with anything, and that’s what it feels like to be led into the weeds by a crush. “Crooked Cop” is about a deceitful relationship, and how hard it can be to get a handle on someone you love. It was a fun way to write a song that’s been written a million times – using cops.” brooklynvegan

The Sun Days – Don’t Need To Be Them
“The song makes a tremendous first impression: a pristine jangle at a frantic pace, topped off by Elsa Fredriksson Holmgren’s voice soaring ever higher into this gorgeous sonic space between indie-pop and post-punk…. we get an exquisite clean guitar dream and the assuring refrain, “You don’t need to be them!” You do, however, need to listen to this right now.” stereogum

Deerful – Some Nights Emma from Deerful was a doctoral candidate in the Music department of Goldsmiths University of London. Her research focused on identity and expression amongst ukulele players, and in ukulele groups.

This is electronic music yes, but at its core is humanity, with all its fragility, emotion, and yes beauty – like a god of miniature synthesisers, or a particularly clever mechanical marionette master, Deerful gave these tiny circuits life, and unlocked the potential they perhaps always possessed fortherabbits

Emma Russack – If You Could See Me Now the track’s repeated refrain, which lends itself to the song title, is delivered with a thoroughly knowing sense of intrigue, like a diary deliberately left and in plain view, tempting you into worlds that aren’t for you but feel almost inescapable goldflakepaint

Real Numbers – Frank Infatuation It’s got that strange dichotomy that proliferates in the best pop: the band revels in sheer nostalgia and influence worship, maintaining a chipper melodic streak throughout, while dealing with entirely forlorn topics drownedinsound

The Tuts – Let Go Of The Past three women from West London who batter their instruments, crowdsurf, and write punk pop tunes that demand dancing” wonderlandmagazine

Nap Eyes – Mixer Over a bassline that’d otherwise feel at home on a Chills record, Chapman details a party and wondering “if [he’s] really here,” a distressing, nihilist musing that makes his otherwise warm pop song feel wonderfully and beautifully frigid bspin

The Wedding Present – Rachel there’s still enough evidence to back up the late John Peel’s famous claim that “the boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the Rock’n’Roll era”. For Gedge has always understood how love really is – messy, exhilarating and all-encompassing. And when, over 30 years into his career, he can effortlessly produce something as delicate and wistful as Rachel or as heartfelt as Little Silver, it’s clear that he’s still got that talent in spades musicomh

Martha – The Awkward Ones A characteristically melodic riff carries it, meaning the chorus of “We were the ones / Who always felt awkward / Socially cornered / And I still feel the same” somehow comes off like a statement of defiance, reclaiming inelegance and turning it into something resembling a virtue drownedinsound

Teenage Fanclub – I’m In Love there is the rarest kind of musical love: the group you loved when you were young, but who grew old with you, without turning into a caricature, or going through the motions – the kind of group whose songs pinpoint your life at different points – first love, becoming independent, settling down, becoming a parent. Teenage Fanclub are that group, for me at least. I don’t think they’re my very favourite group ….the Fanclub are the model of a cardigan band: you look at your wardrobe and you’re distracted by clothes that are smarter, cooler, brighter; but as soon as you put the cardigan, all you can think is how warm and comfortable it is.” theguardian

Kate Jackson – Metropolis stomps and stamps beautifully while Jackson recreates that sense of urban ennui, singing that “this city pulls me to pieces” musicomh

Japanese Breakfast – Everybody Wants To Love You leaps swiftly from a one-night stand to marriage through varying emotional and physical demands—most notably, “When we wake up in the morning, will you give me lots of head?” These songs are never as clear-cut as dominance versus submission, and Zauner doesn’t apologize or rationalize her desires, which is refreshing pitchfork

Kevin Morby – Dorothy The moment of real magic in this track occurs in the bridge as the drums cut out and Morby sings with astute confidence that show he’s ready to take to the biggest stages drownedinsound

Whitney – No Woman a gooey and aching country ballad that meditates on one of dad rock’s most hallowed themes: the melancholy of crossing city limits to escape everything about your old life and old loves pitchfork

The Goon Sax – Boyfriend a teenage indie-pop group from Brisbane. The best moments on their debut are as clever as they are sad, a dynamic frontman Louis Forster perhaps inherited from his father Robert Forster, one-half of the songwriting duo behind The Go-Betweens pitchfork

Tegan And Sara – Boyfriend flips your average sapphic experimentation anthem — think Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” — on its head. Instead of being told from the perspective of a bi-curious protagonist, we’re finally hearing the other side of the story. (ie. from the person getting their heart stomped on, out of genuine confusion or sheer insensitivity) idolator a moment of unrequited affection that sears through the buoyant synths and strike at your heart without halting the pace of the party. It’s rare to find complex, personal songs about love and relationships matter-of-factly sung from a queer perspective pitchfork

Patience – The Pressure contains every aspect of early synthpop that makes it special. The lead riff 17 seconds in is as striking as anything Vince wrote for the first incarnation of Depeche Mode and the addition of the primitive yet perfect beats 40 seconds in only serve to take the song to another level. The chorus is as joyous as you’d like and the synth lines that flutter in and out add layer upon layer of icy electronic perfection to the song almostpredictablealmost

Connections – Month 2 Month Keeps the band’s lo-fi grit well intact, but aims to be heard up in the bleachers rather than just by those against the rails. Lead singer Kevin Elliott disguises a gnawing fear of uncertainty in blistering pop-hooks, shouting “I’m better off that way!” on the chorus over an anthemic bassline and chugging drums. The song dedicates its last minute and a half to guitarist Dave Capaldi’s frenetic solo, all acrobatic twists and turns that churn in the mud as often as they soar in the sky stereogum

The Close Lobsters – Under London Skies This year has really sucked, but at this moment it feels as if the dark clouds are dissipating. What is there to smile about? Just listen… lineartrackinglives

Fear Of Men – Island a gorgeous and resolute assertion of self from Jessica Weiss and her bandmates. “I’m like an island/ I don’t need to feel your arms around me,” she opens. “You tell me impossible things that break me/ You tell me impossible things that shake me to my core/ I will do what I want/ Woman of wax, forever more” stereogum

Boys – All My Friends a woozy, often beautiful tale of two-halves; the track growing from the tender opening sketches in to something far more dynamic as it expands across four-minutes of somewhat scorched sentiments, Karlsson’s glorious vocal the most faithful of protagonists, swooning and sweeping its way through the entire thing goldflakepaint

Young Scum – Out Of State Younger minds will surely hear on this 5-song tape Allo Darlin’s constant melody and mayhem or The Lucksmiths’ Warmer Corners or Dream Boys’ sun-soaked psychedelia. Older minds might recall The Rainyard or Another Sunny Day or Razorcuts. Whatever way you look at it, Young Scum combine pop perfection with serious volume. These songs are dynamic, noisy and irresistible didnotchart

Lucy Dacus – I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore offers an escape, but still feels held back by the fear over forging your own path and bucking societal expectations: “Is there room in the band? I don’t need to be the frontman/ If not, then I’ll be the biggest fan.” Later, she embraces all of the different aspects of herself: “I don’t want the joke to be on me/ I’ll buy the clothes and I’ll be the best dressed/ I’ll read the books and I’ll be the smartest/ I’ll play guitar, and I’ll be the artist.” Getting people to take you seriously is an uphill battle, but it’s all worth it, and that confidence shines through in Dacus’ music stereogum

The Buildings – Different Shades Of Blue The motley crew of fuzz devotees The Buildings is made of pretty short people, but they make up for it with a lot of guts, dirt and anti-guitar hero fretwork. With barely any money … recorded their debut album “CELL-O-PHANE” over the course of five months in a bodega surrounded by commemorative plaques and souvenirs, and a small room in a high-rise apartment in the urban sprawl of Manila bandwagon.asia

Angel Olsen – Never Be Mine lives up to its three chords and its girl-group beat with a chorus that the Ronettes could have sung — “You’ll never be mine/But I would watch you, I would watch you turn and walk away” — even though Ms. Olsen gives it a slight twist near the end: “I would watch you, learn to love you/and her, too, if you’d only stay.” nytimes

Flowertruck – Sunshower Alright, listen up, you denouncers of pop, David Byrne Jr is here – split into four fragments that grew up in Australia instead of Scotland/Canada. This version (hereafter referred to as DBJ) grew up on The Chills, and formed a band that have swiftly become one of my favourites in Australia. FLOWERTRUCK are two songs deep, have performed a handful of awesome live shows..but fuck, they make you pay attention, kind of like Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but out of wonder, not terror.” ryansaar

Meilyr Jones – How To Recognise A Work Of Art What is it with the Welsh? First Super Furry Animals then Gorkys then H. Hawkline. They all seem to have a knack of making bouncy, catchy pop with nods to the sort of people who used to make bouncy catchy pop in the olden days….’How to Recognise a Work of Art’ ain’t at all bad with it’s horn breaks, pounding drums and Welsh valleys lilt, throw in some decent soulful chord changes and just the hint of Paul Heaton in his voice this could be a daytime 6 music smash normanrecords

Regina Spektor – The Light At first with just her voice and piano, she sings of the simple things in life. As the instrumentation grows in volume, the once simple subject matter becomes more vulnerable. The candor with which she reveals this inner self is stunning: “I know the morning is wiser than the nighttime/ I know there’s nothing wrong, that I shouldn’t feel so down/ So many things I know but they don’t help me/ Each day I open up my eyes to look around.” consequenceofsound

Hello Shark – Jackson Browne
“Confession: I’ve kind of kept Hello Shark to myself. Aside from sharing one track from Lincoln Halloran last year, there hasn’t been much of a mention of his work on these pages, which sits wildly at odds with the amount of time I’ve personally spent listening to his records. Both releases on his Bandcamp page sit as two of my favourite online discoveries, well, ever, and for some reason I wanted to keep them all to myself; to keep those fascinating lyrics, those sweet guitar pop interludes, as something just for myself, with nothing else attached. So, apologies for that” goldflakepaint

Jamie T – Joan of Arc Oasis-y choruses nme

Anteros – Breakfast flawless scandi-non-scandi-bounce pop with abrupt lyrics spread on top. Lead singer Laura Hayden was pissed off with a guy that she used to date because he would just wang on about himself until stupid o’clock in the morning. So the band did the best thing and made the most upbeat and click-a-long-able song they could about someone boring their brains out. Brilliant whenthegramophonerings

Flowers – Pull My Arm Instant ear worm hooks attach themselves to blown-out distortion with ease, the stripped-back nature of a three-piece ensuring every element is fine-tuned beneath the fuzz. “Early Madonna through a broken tape machine” was apparently the band’s early artistic aim, and it’s not hard to see how they’ve succeeded as to-the-point pop melody pairs up with their lo-fi aesthetic diymag

Cats Be Damned – Soft Collision drips with a quiet sense of detached isolation; drips, very well, like tiny beads on faded rented walls, where the aged cracks in the cheap paper hold just as much solitude as they do dust and grime.

There’s a beauty here too, as is so often the case with such undertakings. It comes from the human side of it all; the person sat inside such rooms, quietly deliberating on the large world outside the paper thin door, the sprawling grey car-parks, the rows of empty shops, the human lives happening all around the crushing quiet within goldflakepaint

Gurr – Walnuts specialize in hooks that feel both malleable and robust. The one on their second single, “Walnuts,” has a German-language equivalent in “Walnuss,” and both versions of the track exhibit a sunny sentimentality that’s infectious and calming stereogum

Britta Phillips – One Fine Summer Morning a cover of Evie Sands’ 1969 track “One Fine Summer Morning.” Exploring the desirable allure of spending time alone with another person, the song evokes a feeling of serenity through Phillips’ romantic voice and the sound of her nylon acoustic guitar. It feels blissful, like the promise of endless possibilities at the dawn of a summer day.” stereogum

Matthew E White – Cool Out (Feat. Natalie Prass) White and Prass trade hushed croons like late-night secrets. Despite the chill vocal affair, there’s an R&B sway to the arrangements that gives the track… a certain sense of emboldened swagger consequenceofsound

Billie Marten – Bird Writing music can be hard. Writing music with far fewer years of experience may prove harder, but not for 16-year-old singer/songwriter Billie Marten….The Yorkshire soloist has been writing songs for her latest EP, As Long As, admirably between studying for her GCSEs. On “Bird” we hear much of what of what the blogosphere has praised her for: a breathy, angelic vocal that resonates far beyond the notes it leaves behind. ” thelineofbestfit

Savages – Adore “Is it human to adore life?” asks Savages vocalist Jehnny Beth…She repeats the question at least a half-dozen times before the song is finished, as if convinced she’ll get closer to the answer by digging into the words themselves. consequenceofsound

Woods – Morning Light stands out as one of their clearest songs to date, concise in delivery and old-school in its analog aesthetic diymag

Stephen Steinbrink – Absent Mind It’s hard to say what he does well, either here or elsewhere, as he seems to do so little with the simple tools he uses. The soft sway of instrumentation is exactly that, a barely noticed breath of wind that you only notice by its absence, and so it’s the voice, or more the rich melodies it’s piped through, that catches the eye, and it’s as striking here as it’s ever been, projecting a glow that was lifted from some lackadaisical summer venture that’s yet to happen and placed upon us here like some alluring calling card that pulls our absent mind out of the heady rush of the day and lets it journey a while, to be not what was expected goldflakepaint

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes – No Love Like Yours Since restyling himself as charismatic bandleader Edward Sharpe, Alex Ebert has enjoyed considerable success – most notably with raucous 2009 single Home, on which he and now-departed vocalist Jade Castrinos sang about their feelings for one other as if they lived in an old barn, rather than 21st-century LA. Affectation is part and parcel of Ebert’s work with his band…On No Love Like Yours, Ebert, in a typical show of faux naivety, claims not to know his “name”, “style” or “a thing or two” theguardian

Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop – Valley Clouds grab some hot chocolate, put on the most comfortable pair of sweatpants that you can find, and let Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop serenade you with their majestic voices. If that’s not magical, nothing is popmatters

Swimming Tapes – Set The Fire The resulting package is indie-pop gold; there’s nothing new at play but the feelings that the music evokes are so familiar that it just works and instantly causes one’s heart to swell. Complete greatness clothed in a simplistic, understated charm. Needless to say, we’re totally smitten thelineofbestfit

Florence and The Machine – Too Much Is Never Enough builds from flutes and harp to a triumphant chorus that showcases her massive vibrato rollingstone

Radiohead – Daydreaming Tidal… great swathes of piano washing back and forth as synths glisten over the top and Thom Yorke’s idiosyncratic joins in fits and starts like a struggling FM radio. It resists the urge to build and is all the more wounding for it, maintaining a surface tension as strings begin buzzing overhead but never come in for the kill theindependent

The Avalanches – Harmony Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue…and beatwise one-man-band Jonti serve up giant blocks of sun-baked vocal goodness on the gorgeous, Curt Boettcher-by-way-of-Kay-Slay “Harmony.” spin

Night Flowers – Glow In The Dark a calming dream-pop tune with a dash of shoegaze, and ironically provides the perfect soundtrack for frontwoman Sophia Pettit’s nighttime stroll through Shibuya allthingsgo

The XX – On Hold poised and prettily sad (“My young heart chose to believe we were destined,” sings Madley-Croft at one point) …The xx are shuffling towards the dancefloor, seemingly no longer the shy wallflowers that first emerged in 2009…whirlwind romance gone sour never sounded quite as glorious as this nme

American Football – I’ve Been So Lost For So Long the first new song from the first American Football record in seventeen years. Listen and hear those familiar waves of guitar, listen and hear how that voice recalls something far off in the distance like road signs, houses, faces, you’d forgotten existed. Listen and find out how the combination of these two things can still settle in the empty silence of a room like those motes of dust that appear to be everywhere when the light falls on them correctly. There will be more stories to tell, more words to be spoken and heard, but today let’s just listen. Listen with a tiny curl of the lips, like a secret smile reserved just for yourself goldflakepaint

Angelic Milk – Rebel Black With twinkling chimes, fuzzed up guitar riffs, and crooning vocals, angelic milk brings a nostalgic romanticism crashing feet-first into the 21st century. Swooning with the desire for freedom, “Rebel Black” is the break from the day-to-day you didn’t know how much you needed thelineofbestfit

Jawbreaker Reunion – Cosmos Upon hearing the track for the first time you might well be crippled by the want, not to just to replay the song instantly, but for it to be different, for the over-lapping vocals, for the crunching finale, to be stretched out and on, to last for five, six, seven minutes rather than the swift and sweeping actuality of its presence goldflakepaint

Hazel English – I’m Fine Here’s a multiple choice question for you. First take a listen to the song. Then ask yourself about its sound. Do you think it sounds as if it is

A Caked in Californian sunshine

B Straight from the heart of a London Art School

C A pleasing indie pop song

D Two people sticking their tongues down each other’s throats in the back of a taxi after a night out clubbing?

If you answered A you’re probably her PR representative. If you chose B you’re probably me. If you chose C you’re probably accurate but a bit boring. And anyone that chose D – you’re probably drunk breakingmorewaves

Choir Boy – Angel Dog Informed by a voice, and a set of songs, that channel the likes of Tears For Fears, while still sounding so excitingly present, “Passive With Desire” remains an astonishing feat, and one of the most resoundingly endearing, awe-inspiring journeys of 2016 goldflakepaint

MUNA – I Know a place The song is a call-to-arms for anyone who feels outcast by homogenous society, and it couldn’t come at a better time. Singer Katie Gavin and guitarists Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin sound deliciously accessible, but beyond the surface they ambush your heart with urgent ideas. “Baby your bruises are only your body trying to keep you intact,” Gavin sings, before a rush of a chorus that’s the Cure by way of Pat Benatar. The song promises to offer a shelter from harm where listeners can be unapologetically themselves, proud of their gender, race, and sexuality. “I Know A Place” is, then, the mainstream sound of a pluralist, progressive community: “I know a place we can go, where everyone’s gonna lay down their weapon.” pitchfork

Pumarosa – Cecile Rolling into life like a fiercesome, rumbling boulder, building towards a chiming haze of angular ducks and dives, ‘Cecile’ is a finely woven net of big ideas – it’s impossible not to get caught up diymag

Wild Pink – 4th of July beautifully intriguing, an antiquated voice, all grain and must, cracked by the weather and the passing of time but presented with the quiet voice you couldn’t help but ignore – as long as you don’t look directly at it” goldflakepaint

Snails – Go on Down I’m not going out on a limb by drawing a family tree that shows Snails at the tip of the Beatles, Kinks, Kevin Ayers, Cate Le Bon family tree finestkiss

David Bowie – I Can’t Give Everything Away he once again sounds like a frustrated Lazarus, stymied by a returning pulse. This tortured immortality is no gimmick: Bowie will live on long after the man has died. For now, though, he’s making the most of his latest reawakening, adding to the myth while the myth is his to hold.” pitchfork

Motorama – Tell Me being from the Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don truly gives them an icy backdrop that looks outward instead of inward northerntransmissions

Daughter – How takes all of about 15 seconds until it has grown its sound so big and glacial that it totally envelops you even in its simple riffs pastemagazine

Emmy The Great – Phoenixes a bittersweet memory, and it’s got some of the album’s snappiest writing. “We thought that weight loss was survival/ We thought that Vogue was French for Bible,” she reminisces to someone called “the screen-grab beauty queen.” One of the major themes of Second Love is the way in which technology has become a part of all relationships, like the photographs in “Phoenixes”” consequenceofsound

Lisa Prank – Starting Again
“ a power pop smasher with just the right amount of na na nas to fuel your most cathartic bedroom dance party. “It’s easy to say that you forget”, she sings, spinning the whirlwind that occurs when an ex suddenly rears its head into your DMs into pure gold.” thefader

Tapes Waves – Go Away a summery affair, full of hazy, gentle vocals and endlessly pleasant melodies bigtakeover

Mutual Benefit – Not For Nothing a quiet moment of retreat that has one of those all embracing melodies that instantly feels classic, for want of a better word goldflakepaint

Happyness – Anna, Lisa Calls
“This is our first phone call song and our fifth song in E major,” the band inform us. “We wrote it one day in the studio in June and recorded it straight away – I think we were going for a kind of Traveling Wilburys thing. Also we felt like we hadn’t put a synth in a song for a while, so… there’s a synth.” brooklynvegan

Mercury Girls – Holly the band insists on emotional integrity by way of a rollicking drum beat and dreamy vocals that float atop a swirl of guitar….the band conjures an organized chaos of reverb and distortion, around which a chorus of amplify your existence is finely layered thefader

Slumbers – Milkshakes figuring out life amidst a backing of twinkling instrumentals” thegreyestates

Muncie Girls – Gone With The Wind a vibrant slice of punk abandon that’ll stick with you for days to come upsetmagazine

Bad Moves – Shitty Tomorrow The bouncing guitar and upbeat delivery mask a resignation about a pretty bleak future: “They’re coming for the future, yeah. They’re coming and they’re taking it all.” cooldadmusic

PJ Harvey – The Community of Hope PJ Harvey has been criticised for the lyrics featured in her new song The Community of Hope, with local figures of authority branding her summation of a neighbourhood in Washington DC as “incomplete”. Lifted from her new album, which was inspired by a number of locations visited during a four-year period, Harvey’s latest single was inspired by one of the state’s areas, Ward 7.

While Harvey has yet to detail the context behind the song, the track refers to some vague mentions of a “drug town” inhabited by “zombies”, as well as mentioning some more specific Ward 7 references, such as Walmart’s since-scuppered plans to open two shops east of the Anacostia river and the Department of Homeland, she compares Benning Road a “pathway of death” and also claims that one school looks like a “shithole” theguardian

Arthur Beatrice – Real Life AB’s swooning pop oeuvres are bolstered by the dulcet tones of the London Contemporary Orchestra lineofbestfit

Le Super Homard – Dry Salt In Our Hair latter tracks have a very Stereolab feel particularly ‘Dry Salt in our Hair’ and probably the only thing that holds the record back is that the vocals lack the character of a Laetitia Sadier or a Trish Keenan and so can be a bit inconsequential at times normanrecords

Told Slant – Low Hymnal Like an idiosyncratic psalm from the church of hard knocks…overtly self-relating, dealing in third-person reprimands (“Felix you can battering-ram this life“) as the cogs of instrumentation, all stuttering percussion and half-buried runs of guitar, tick faithfully alongside Walworth’s grainy and drained lead vocal – as persuasive here as it perhaps ever has been before goldflakepaint

She Drew The Gun – Poem In a place where music becomes ever more banal lyrically (I simply can’t take any more songs about being ‘drunk in da club’ or ‘doing what we want’) Poem by Liverpool’s She Drew The Gun is the absolute antidote. It’s an outpouring of disbelief and anger, a song for those who want their pop music (and I use the term pop music in the broadest sense) to create a musical culture that is far more than just being about a narcissistic and hedonistic lifestyle.” breakingmorewaves

Cate Le Bon – Wonderful It’s easy to make music that sounds chaotic, but rare to capture the sense of disintegrating stability as acutely as she has here.” pitchfork

Dinosaur Jr – Be A Part Subtle organ hums in the background during the chorus to lend a bit of sunshine in an otherwise dour song pastemagazine

Maria Usbeck – Moai Y Yo was inspired by her grandfather’s stories of the statues at Easter Island (and interpolates bits of the Chilean island’s Polynesian dialect, Rapa Nui) thefader

Ciggie Witch – Meet Me In The Middle appears to be the very point at which Australiana and Americana make sweet, laboured love 4zzz

The Flaming Lips – The Castle Sporting a relaxed groove in the “Yoshimi…Pt. 1″ tradition, and a high, airy melody with airier lyrics (“Her eyes were butterflies/Her smile was a rainbow/Her hair was sunbeam waves…”), this is standard-issue Lips, but it’s not unpleasant. Enjoy the rollicking arpeggiators, and just let all that mushroom and dragon talk wash over you spin

Steve Mason – Alive the song, is about sleep walking through your life and never really pulling back and joining all the dots up to see that there’s a much bigger picture.’ This seems to sum up not only Meet the Humans perfectly, but Mason’s writing in general drownedinsound

Field Music – Disappointed ranks among the catchiest and most jubilant pop songs the band has ever recorded, even if the track itself is about managing one’s expectations pitchfork

Young Romance – Pulling at the Grey Guitarist Paolo Ruiu explains: “It’s a song about growing older and unsteady with where you ended up in life. After hearing about how Warhol made the first Velvets record, we decided to record through an old desk with the channel’s gain up full to get the warm and brittle tones on this one. It’s definitely the most dirty track on the record.”

Lowtide – Wedding Ring Drenched in reverb, “Wedding Ring” drives along thanks to relentlessly pounding drum work and a chunky bass line that ebbs and flows towards the blissfully satisfying refrain. The moody shoegaze hue is offset by this central emotional sentiment, which ensures the Melbourne quartet create something as dreamy as it is wholly forceful thelineofbestfit

Courtney Barnett – Three Packs A Day The title may seem like this is a song about cigarette smoking, but the single art hints at the true meaning. Over lighthearted guitar and a pleasantly meandering bass line, Barnett reveals her deepest, darkest addiction: instant ramen noodle soup. “That MSG tastes good to me/ I disagree with all your warnings,” she sings. “It can’t be true/ That they use glue to keep the noodles stuck together.” consequenceofsound

Blue Plutos – Disagree This is gorgeous jangle pop! psychotwee

Katie Gately – Tuck A chorus of pitched-up-and-down “oohs” whirls around like a dervish with no certain center. It’s a startling sound—sparkling, raucous, and childlike pitchfork

Warpaint – New Song this initial piece of Warpaint’s third chapter sounds like they’ve stripped away any lingering hints of darkness and fully embraced the light. It’s easily the poppiest thing they’ve ever done and probably the catchiest too nme

The Japanese House – Face Like Thunder “Thunder” could easily soundtrack an ad for one of those massive corporations that never actually tell you what they do. And just like those companies, a little digging reveals a hell of a lot of bad vibes. “I kiss the floor, curled up in a ball” is so opposed to the sunset bounce of the track that you have to double-check to make sure that line is actually there consequenceofsound

Jay Som – I Think You’re Alright articulates the narcotic allure of a one-sided romance, cooing soft images of subjugation atop a sagging beat: “I’ll be your old broken TV/Your stuttering baby/Your puppy when nobody’s home.” As Duterte put it, “I wanted to write about giving your all to someone you shouldn’t pitchfork

The Perfect English Weather – The Sweetest Feeling Simon and Wendy Pickles of the Popguns now return with a side project, calling themselves the Perfect English Weather. New album ‘Isobar Blues’ is a perfect storm of ballad and boom, and all are part of a warm front that drenches you with a downpour of pop hooks lineartrackinglives

Chook Race – Start Anew They have the pop sensibility of Belle and Sebastian’s sensitive jangle-pop and the casual playing style of Parquet Courts’ unpolished punk.” popmatters

Eskimeaux – Drunk
“Gabrielle Smith writes songs about attempted intimacy, about the effort required to breach the space between yourself and the person you want to be near to. Not all of the relationships she sings about are romantic, but when they are her lyrics seem particularly pointed. ” stereogum

Allo Darlin’ – Hymn on the 45 A fitting farewell, perhaps their best track ever, and featuring a number of people involved in their story “makes for a fitting finale, and not just because it’s about settling into a new city (singer-guitarist Elizabeth Morris and her husband relocated to Florence a few years back). The song is is quintessential Allo Darlin’: sentimental but not saccharine, Paul Rain’s guitar practically duetting with Morris as she spins clever turns of phrase into contagious melodies” stereogum