🐣 ISAK THOMAS — SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW

⌾ LISTEN TO ISAK THOMAS, SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW ⌾

With a feeling like being invited into the worn pages of a diary tinged with VHS static, 'Somewhere, Somehow' beats with a soulful horizontal heart. Sweeps of warped guitar play somewhere between a dripping bleak-empty coastal town and late night psychedelic bedroom introspection as lyrics float by haunted by the shade of a person, all set to the buzz and thump of a disintegrated beat.

"Lo-fi sounds from old jazz standards to acoustic folk and blues has always been a huge inspiration," trackmaker Isak Thomas explains over email, "so I was aiming to bring that nostalgic, scratchy sound to a more accessible platform."

And after a crescendo of crushed guitar sounds and vocals interrupting themselves in mantra form – "I know you from somewhere somehow / I know you from somewhere somehow" – sun breaks through swirling clouds for the final third of the song, the groove changes tack and jagged chord progressions streak in.

Isak Thomas' well dusted time capsule of a track, an opened Pandora's box of desire and apprehension, presents a crowded mind carved into a love letter destined for another realm.

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• 🔔 You may purchase 'Somewhere, Somehow' by Isak Thomas via iTunes should you wish to do so. Or if Bandcamp is more your thing then you can grab it from there, too.

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🐣 CAM OUTLAW — IT'S TRUE

⌾ LISTEN TO CAM OUTLAW, IT'S TRUE ⌾

The bass booms, the bang and bounce of nascent notions in mind, orbiting themselves in the swell and bulge of the sub rumble. But Cam Outlaw's track 'It's True' isn't just about looking inwards—it's all about these thoughts exactly projected onto external stimulus, namely the "you" sung in the slow sultry hook: "I've been thinking about what I'll do with you..."

Alongside the vocals, sumptuously drawn out and sometimes cut-up, skipping glitch-style like a nervous stutter, the beat zips and fidgets, rattling and cracking the air with razor hi-hats and slapping snares—the anxious, excited physiology that matches those cyclical thoughts.

The R&B feel of those vocals, spinning their lovesong amidst gossamer lo-fi melodies and in the depths of that blinkering bass, pays homage to Cassie's 'Me & U' halfway through, injecting the familiar, quoting lines like romantic poetry – "tell me if you like it" – to further position this as a pre-tryst croon, a kinetic vehicle of infatuation.

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• 🔔 Stream Cam Outlaw's 'It's True' variously via your fav service.
• 🔔 We'd also like to take a moment to appreciate the Twin Peaks style artwork for this track; the otherworldly yet recognisable tone of the track very much suiting the half-soap opera, half-interdimensional timeless crypticism of the infamous series.

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🐣 PASTEL — CLOSE

The space afforded by this track, the expansiveness of it, how it manages to put you in this swirling realm of love, yet also retain this very intimate feeling, as if your ears are being privately whispered into, is testament to pastel's efforts as a musicmaker. And not only this, but this atmosphere is summoned with great simplicity, a seeming effortless swathe of sound that utilises sparse elements to maximum effect: mainly a simple beat, a bit of soft synth, and voice. The difference between the sense of space and intimacy is best illustrated in this song by the big rush of sound that is the chorus, the only moment where there is any sort of loudness, representing a swell of feeling. Still there is an underlying mist of loneliness here, a distant wind that is like a sadness that cannot be shaken.

But, that said, 'close' is a lovesong, that's for sure (it's dedicated to Valentine's Day, so it'd better be). And as such it's full of lovely moments, small parts like the sudden downturned chord change at 1:15, the constant fluttering heartbeat of the kicks as they propel the song nervously forward, the sparing use of a little soft melody that gently bloops on-and-off in this gorgeous minimalist morsel. Last time we heard from pastel it was a different story: the sandstorm ambient abrasions of 'stammer' from absent, just dust summoned an almost inexpressible sadness and isolation. His vocals were lost in the noise.

Here, however, the vocals are clear, liquid, bravely at the forefront and completely a capella sometimes: long tracts of the vocal begin the unexpected hook, "Do you think about my body? ..." Warm harmonies abound. It's beautifully honest, heart-on-sleeve songwriting sung with caramel smoothness, touching moments treated with gorgeous simplicity – "you held me a little longer than the last time we met" – inspire real images of real romance, and stealing your own heart in the process.

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• 🔔 This Valentine's Day special arrives courtesy of Very Jazzed (part of Frenchkiss Label Group)

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🐣 JESSI LEE — NEVER NOT [初演 • PREMIERE]

This song has a very easy way of draping itself around your head and enveloping you in its softness, in its blanket of silken sound that is evident from the very first depth-charge sub-gloop bass, synthetic yet with this deep organic tenderness, a classic feel, that seems as though it could be a plucked double bass. And adding further softness to 'Never Not', Jessi Lee spins aching vocals, whisper-crooning from far-off, taut and quavering with memories, or as the producer-singer herself calls them, "those ghostly things that stay with us."

"And even though they're still there, we can move forward and look back on those things from afar as lessons learned fondly."

The NYC-based musicmaker takes us through the song via email. "'Never Not' is about love that endures even after it has been lost," she explains. "[It's] a dreamy experimental take on deconstructing a '50s style doo-wop ballad."

Self-admittedly more a producer than a singer, Jessi Lee tells us that this song – a minimalist exercise in experimental yet familiar styles – is quite personal to her: "I felt like I really had to be the one to vocalize it," she says, "and honestly use this music as a device to come to terms with my own love lost. It was very cathartic to say the least."

The twirling modern imaginary ballroom of 'Never Not' is realised in a video directed by Frankie Leroux>, which uses Coney Island as the backdrop—"a location personal to the story behind the song," says Jessi Lee; "Everything was very deliberately placed," she continues, "from the setting sun to using Coney Island as a character itself."

The slow steps of the bass underpin the fabric of the song, this intense rumble, these notes each one a cloud of pastel fog slo-mo exploded from thin air. Simple drum machine aesthetics make up the rest of the beat, an electronic tom keeping gloriously slow time. Chords like a mist sweep their way through. Ticking percussion peeps out at the chorus, warm and dreamy, it embraces you, the illustration of closeness.

Equally, it is distance, the miasma of feelings that float in the air after a relationship ends, a sultry sashay of tragic proportions, a slow dance till the lights go out.

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• 🔔 'Never Not' is taken from Jessi Lee's Deep Rest EP.
• 🔔 Jessi Lee plays saxophone in The Love Experiment and also is a sometime writer and performer with future soul duo, Broken Luxury.

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🐣 GEO — FOR YOU

There it is, that liquid sound, that trickling water, the jagged trajectory of a countryside rill becolumned with rocks and pebbles and clear as glass, all of it glistening atop and refracted below, glinting glinting, overhanging plants, the gnarl of ancient trees, flowers, heather, stone and water, angular and fluid. And it's all created with percussion, plumes of percussive sound that jingles and rat-tat-tats metallic and clinking, all light and lo-fi, a constant trundle, close to haunting with the vintage crackle infused in this textured tapestry. Romantically titled 'For You' this wildly ornamental piece of sound bedecked in silver and gold and iridescent gems was created by LA-based producer GEO, sultry and splendrous, smooth and shivering.

The clanking evolves into more woody sounds, clopping clonking robust hollow tick-tockings lashed together with sharp sheafing hi-hats, blessings of percussion that make the skin quiver, hairs tightening in their follicles on the nape of your neck. As if that wasn't enough, bass with a beautiful thick rounded tone scoops out the underlayers of the track and fills it with slow bubbles of groove for a slow-jam feel, soon joined by warm piano chords that lock in with the bassline, play with organic power the hot sighs of a beating heart. Vocals lifted from somewhere paint in silken soothing brushstrokes crooning romance. Little squelchy bleeps act all playful with soft melodies and synth peals soar into the sky. Streaming and flowing riverine and pastoral, here is that sonnet of sound, that melodious pouring forth of emotions, something beautiful carved for a beloved someone.

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• 🔔 You can find GEO's stunning 'For You' on Hype Machine and give it some love if you like.

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🐣 CLAIRO — 2 HOLD U

Aiii, this song floats with all the optimism of a hopeful romantic, as much as a cute comic strip as a beautiful tract of balladic understatement, the pounds and ounces of a crush fall hard in your hard, the weight of it visible in the happysadness of those chords—those chords, broad and breezy, stuck in a cycle of major-minor grief and grandiose hope, not robust and oaky like a real piano, but stripped-back electronic and lo-fi and tinny and small-sounding like a toy piano, but which gives it this feeling of an impromptu burst of feeling, like if a livelong is getting played now then now it will be and with any instrument I have to hand. There is a spontaneity in Boston artist Claire Cottrill aka Clairo's internetty love letter '2 Hold U', a sudden dazzling flare from the warmth of fond feelings for another human, and one that exudes true versatility and originality as much as being highly relatable.

As the drum machine click and thud of the beat drives the song along, the rhythm of a half-depressed window-gazing gold of a rainy day spent pining and yearning, Clairo's vocal seems to effuse from the music, almost ghostly in effect but vital and current, the sweet tone of it lilting in subtle curves as it spins simple lines like "everywhere i go i just see you, i see you"—glorious down-to-earth listicle lyrics like, "i wrote it down, i told my mom, my friends all know we get along / i want you to want me too." And as if to counter this romance, slices of chiptune-tinged electronica find their way into the track, one such being a descending melodic breakdown in the middle the flavour of lightly salted gloominess; and the other, the song's finale, dramatic melancholy 16-bit chords that crumble the song's otherwise sunny outlook, beneath its breeziness the truth swirls solemn and serious.

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• 🔔 This is one of many great tracks taken from Clairo's SoundCloud, and also tracks that are reposted which she features in. Her most current original track 'Flamin' Hot Cheetos' is an endearing minimalist's dream of lo-fi beats-and-vocals only.

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🐣 TOUCH SENSITIVE — LAY DOWN

There is something instantly classic in this track, something that is instantly gratifying, a dose of familiarity with just enough unfamiliar infused, a sound an atmosphere that virtually lives in our collective memories with the easy sway afforded by the clean bouncing syncopated synth bass throughout, with the clonking stabs of piano chord that summon a resurging era of yesteryear, kicking up dust and giving this track the raw organic feel that effuses from real instruments like that, the sweating bodies hot skin real life humans on the other side of the speakers, a sense of sensual reality also rising from those vocals: "Why don't we lay down for a while?" The poetry in this simplicity is too much to bear: the electric charge behind those words, what it suggests as a situation, what preceded, what follows, it quivers carnally.

Australian musicmaker Touch Sensitive has certainly evoked something in 'Lay Down', that is for sure. Lyrically, because language is what we understand, but also in the warm crowded varying layers of the vocal, the aching reminiscence of the melody, the repetition of "lay down for a while" calling to mind some unnamable nostalgia—and then that shivering falsetto. And next to all this human organicity is of course the synthetic, the neon chords that fade in and out towards the end, the French touch splat and thud of the beat, the construction of it all, its artificiality, desperate desire for closeness in closed quarters, in private, spinning mantra-like in this track that both suits and evokes public dancing places, where you are alone in a crowd, an internal juxtaposition that combined with its timeless retro appeal gives 'Lay Down' a sense of tragic beauty, a yearn for something that was never there.

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• 🔔 The very fitting video for 'Lay Down', decidedly of a different era with its flashing fonts and collages of dancing 3DCGI objects and imagery – and directly inspired by Prince's lyric video for 'Sign 'O The Times' – was directed by Lost Art with the 3D bits created by Melbourne-based Adam Parata.
• 🔔 'Lay Down' is the latest single by Touch Sensitive released by Sydney-based record label Future Classic. You can purchase and stream the track variously if you click upon this link right here.

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🐣 COOL COMPANY — BENEATH THE LIGHTS (JEAN TONIQUE REMIX)

While the original 'Beneath The Lights' by Brooklyn duo Cool Company is an intimate stream of warped ukulele sounds and trickling textures, exuding this atmosphere of sun-drenched romance, some fluidity of emotion existing in its slow closeness, the lips-to-ear silken vocals—while all this is true, this remix turns things up a notch, takes this atmosphere and expands it, increases the tempo and casts a level two spell of danceability with undeniable body moving effects. Set now to a lightly shuffling house beat, joined by electro tom accoutrements, a soft indomitable bassline swoons with subtle elasticity and low robust tones, gorgeous repetition of the plaintive groove the actual backbone of this new rendition—"adding a groovy spin to it to make you nod your head," the remixer himself Jean Tonique tells us.

The quicker pace of this track takes away the personal nature, somewhat, of the original, with the vocals now faster, more like something you can sing along to rather than something to be serenaded by, as in the original. With this, cool mists of synth veil the beat, pockmarked by sidechain, melting paradise steel pans, sharp guitar licks adding to this sense of tropico-casual, this hand-in-pocket slow sway with a holiday romance feel of it, the undeniable cool now heightened. It feels very much like the precursor to or the aftermath of the intimacy of the original track, Jean Tonique moving the soul of it from the sultry confines of four walls and carnal romance and leading them outside, out into the open to feel the world, truly under the lights, for a spin beneath an aching vast sunset on a tropical sky.

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• 🔔 You can download this track for free, as you can see above.

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🐣 LUNAR — GLAD YOU STAYED

Swirling with emotive intensity this track exists in a mist of sound, an all-encompassing atmosphere that seems to veil everything around as you listen. A dreamy slow-jam drenched with feeling. Piano chords reverse-resonate from distal zones between the percussive punctuation of the swaying beat, fading-in to the warm dusty clonk of the chord, plaintive and balladic. These layer up, forming cushions of sound upon which the voice of Lunar herself floats lilting and mumbling, the colloquial endeavour of the singing style effusing honesty into the nebulous haze of the track, her words sometimes nuanced with quavering ornamentation.

The lovesong quality of 'Glad You Stayed' shows itself through those cradling vocals, the to-and-fro embrace of the beat with its swishing hi-hats and powerful drum fills and its skittering percussive thickets, where sometimes Lunar's voice quivers without instrumental interruption, whirling and caressing the air with its creaking silken tone. High string sounds twinkle achingly in the chorus, the acute pinch of longing, gut-twisting desire, glimmers sharply, contrasting with the syncopated thump of the kick throughout. The track ascends at the end, whooshes of sweet textured sound rising with sparkles of vocal sample ringing out in the crystalline white noise of it all, the rush of love in a crescendo of memory.

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• 🔔 This is Lunar's first upload on SoundCloud—keep an eye on it for more from this London musicmaker.

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🐣 IMS — STILL CRYING OVER YOU FEAT. IEVADELI

It is this gentle freefall feeling, the misty atmosphere that washes all around—the thick warm waves of synth curling like clouds and fluttering with energetic pulse, the twinkling simple melodies pinging off into the starry distance of the song, the nocturnal feeling of abiding loneliness, a strange comfortable longing, the feeling of a break-up yet still being in love, sprinklings of pinprick hope scattered on the melancholy majesty of the soft chords. London-based producer Imad Salhi aka ims crafts this vessel of emotive sound with not just a certain optimism in the sound, but in the rhythm, the shuffle of the beat, the gloopsome robust bass groove: in the hopeful bounce of it all.

"The track was inspired by a conversation with a friend, as she shared her plans to win her boyfriend back," explained ims. "The energy of the song comes from her eagerness, whilst the melancholic feel reflects her despair." Lithuanian singer ievaDeli provides vocals that reflect the feeling of the song, crooning with doubt and ache in the verses, whilst in pre-hook parts her voice raises up, beginning to soar and take flight, bright and positive. Still there is uncertainty, in the synth vox that bubbles as the hook, in their wordless worry the sounds are cyclical, the way internal anxiety and sadness create circles that sometimes feel unbreakable. Yet glimmers of goodness are the mainstay of 'Still Crying Over You', suggesting that a positive outlook on life means everything.

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• 🔔 You can download 'Still Crying On My Own' over here if that is what you desire.

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🐣 SAUX — FOR I KNOW

Instantaneous. The lush pop rhythms and delicious pop flavours flowing and bubbling and resounding and spreading like a magical ether have a rare timeless appeal, an ease and fluidity that enables the track to reach you with instant effect. The first few seconds: the shuffling groove in the percussion, the indefatigable retro gloss of the glassy chords. It really is a lightning strike of pop. In 'For I Know' Netherlands musicmaker Saux has it covered: the simplicity, the sumptuous sounds, the summer-ready sulter. Barely any accoutrements dangle from the bones of the track, xylophonic luscious bones that frame the vocals lilting with pop melody, making this a minimalist's dream, a groovesome abstraction of cool longing.

Kicks thump, handclaps clop organically. The simplicity is one of the crowning glories of this track. Few elements come together to make 'For I Know' what it is. For added tropical poolside conjurations the constant stutter of a palm-muted guitar makes its sunlit entrance into the track, summoning a decades old adage of sound, heightening the retro quality, the simple lyrics as sung by Saux and friend Sjaak Thissen with its subtle harmonies slowly unfolding in the sashay forwards. Minor additions in the beat, the regularity of it, hi-hats, some shakers in the finale alongside, the guitar that mirrors the vocal hook. The sounds dissolve wonderfully into the well preserved space, reverb painting a sense of expansive universality whilst the dusty instrumentation, the intonation of the vocals rich and whispering, creates a sense of carefree intimacy, closeness not yet attained.

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• 🔔 'For I Know' can be downloaded courtesy of this link here.

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🐣 DOT — GRAVITY

It's the raw guitar with fingers sliding on the strings, its cyclical melody, the first indicator of an opened-up, unfiltered feeling that characterises the soundular beating-heart organism of 'Gravity'. This natural guitar trickles beneath Dot's vocal which flutters and soars by turns, twists and aches in rich layers, velvet vibrato, each consonant lustrous and whispering into the distance soaked in reverb, how they whirl and mist in the chorus: "It's heavenly to fall into your gravity", sung with slow jam dreaminess.

Heavenly indeed. The intensity of it all magnified by quaking rumbles of sub-bass, the simultaneous beauty ornamented by flighty crystalline glitterings of high-pitched harp-like notes, just audible, modulated chords lasering warmth into the mix. The luscious soundscape gets treated to a treasury of percussion, slow cymbals, clopping fingerclicks, jangling metallics, tick-tocking woodblocks. That's before a boom-bap of a beat takes the reins for a spell, sharp hi-hats keeping time, as Dot sings "I've lost the ground"—a signal of that spiral up to heavenly heights, a herald of majestic movement. You give yourself to this song and let it take you where it goes.

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• 🔔 'Gravity' arrives from upcoming album Retrofuture, out 12th May on Unspeakable Records. The label was founded by Dot, who incidentally is also a member of Team Supreme.
• 🔔 'Gravity' and previously released single 'No Filter' are purchasable on iTunes—the album too when it's out.

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NEON BUNNY FEAT MARK REDITO – ROOM314

Mark Redito (the artist formerly known as Spazzkid) features on this latest track from South Korean singer and songmaker, Neon Bunny (real name Lim Yoojin). It's called 'Room314' and it probably has nothing to do with this book entitled The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School, nor anything to do with this film called Room 314 (might do though). It's a towering sweet romance of a track.

As NB alternates between singing softly in Korean and singing in English the touching refrain 'if you like me now it's fine, why don't you stay here with me? / maybe you will like me tomorrow, why don't you stay here with me?', fluttering chords lead into instrumental sections alive and electric with energy, buzzing synth and aching melody playing in these parts where unbridled emotion bursts in waves. Decorations throughout the track include gentle chimes and wonderfully placed dynamic drum fills – the skittering beat, chopped samples of Yoojin's voice, loving chords that fill the last half a minute of the song – little moments where your heart swells with love for the care and attention that's been placed on making this sound as perfect as possible.

Swaying between brooding calm and floods of frenzied feeling, the track reflects in this sonic twoness the nervous trembling and out-of-body vibes that swirl in your body in anticipation of romance, the wild longing, and the unreal moments that fly timelessly afterwards; being on the edge and then tipping over; kinetic human emotion, physical unending passion.

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• 'Room314' is taken from Neon Bunny's recently released album Stay Gold, which you can listen to enjoy and download for 9$ over here on Bandcamp.

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LULU + MIKENEKO HOMELESS – WATERMELON

三毛猫ホームレス or Mikeneko Homeless (that's "homeless tortoiseshell cat") is a musicmaking duo from Tokyo composed of Tokinori Kakimoto, a double bassist and composer who also makes music as mochilon, and Masahiro Oba aka hironica. These two have teamed up with singer Lulu to come up with the instant infatuation of 'Watermelon', a supremely bouncy and immediately likeable musical morsel that speaks of … how funny; I was just about to write that it speaks of crisp autumn days and the continuance of the early days of a developing romance, a tale begun and spun during the hot and humid hours of summer, when I read in the description of the track on SoundCloud: "Where you and me will be when autumn comes?"

And really, since this sort of sentiment is what came to mind when listening to the song – even without understanding the lyrics – you can say that the trio have achieved certainly asked the above question with their music.

In fact, it is a story told in different parts; firstly beginning with a cascade jazzy synth chords and tumbling rapid-fire acoustic guitar arpeggios; secondly launching into a jaunty upbeat chorus with fluttering synths soaring up to meet it, playful vocal melodies skipping over the dop-dop-dop-dop of chipper chords; thirdly we skim into a part where chords cushion a scorchingly modulated bleepy solo melody, the beat slow and evocative with virtuoso hi-hat rolls; fourthly, the realisation part – where perhaps what went before in summer will not carry on as days become chilly and leaves curl and crisp, falling orange and red – Lulu's melody is slower, emotional, the chords softer, gentler, rippling vacant and numb, you especially notice it in the song's final part, with Lulu singing wordless "ahhh-aa-aa…", a slight lament at unforseeable futures, unpredictable circumstances.

Even without paying this much attention, this is a sumptuous slice of electronic-flavoured, atmospheric, sunny-meets-chilly atmosphere-summoning music, the vocals by Lulu compelling, subtly harmonised at times, flustered with romance and uncertainty against the virtuoso nu-shibuya-kei city pop vibe effused from Mineneko Homeless; it seeps into your head, inspiring happiness as much as a pang of doubt in the heart.

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ERIKO TOYODA – SEDUCTIVE EYES / BECAUSE YOU WANTED IT

Here is a lovely slice of music courtesy of Eriko Toyoda, a Japanese artist whom I stumbled upon a couple of years ago. Her previous work has been marked by glitch-laden production, which makes this relatively stripped-back song, 'Seductive Eyes / Because You Wanted It', a surprise refreshment for the ears.

It is characterised for the most part by a guitar chord progression played on loop, muted tones in a bossa nova rhythm, soothing and soft, though tinged with a certain empty sadness, like looking back on heartbreak or unrequited love from a perspective of lonesome calm.

One of the song's tags, alongside "loop station", is "broken microphone" – and if this refers to the actual microphone being broken, well, it's a great effect; Toyoda's voice ends up with this thin, metallic quality which, whilst giving it a stylised delicacy, also gives it the sense of being recorded in a very DIY fashion, adding endless romance to the song. She lays down arresting harmonies as she sings the song's refraining lyrics – "I try to forget those seductive eyes" – which by the end of the track becomes a cloud cushion of ear-satisfying richness, occasionally different lines weaving through one another in an impressive show of polyphony.

Add to this ornamentations in the guitar parts, gently sweeping, lightly plucked arpeggios, giving it a dreamy and expansive feel, as well as softened lines of sparse just-discernible guitar melody, and decorations in her vocals – with a brief moment of subtle delay added later in the song, as well as it ending with an ebb and flow of wordless duetting as the guitar pauses playing random ambient notes – and the song is complete: a languorous poem painting a far-off memory of romance, told with a simple and evocative looping guitar accompaniment.

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SAMUEL – THESE DAYS

Ever since I first heard Samuel's debut EP, Falling Star I was hooked. Here was a very fresh, very haunting new voice seeping into the music world. The EP was produced by Okzharp (of London-based outfit LV) and paired Samuel's aching vocals with a futuristic post-R&B sort of sound to a stunning degree of hypnotic clarity – though his voice, both then and now, feels as if it transcends any association with "dat future bass". Just like Samuel as a person, his voice is unique.

So thankfully this rare voice, this anti-commonplace set of vocal chords and their unconventional owner, is back for your ears to enjoy, beaming themselves into a new morsel of music called 'These Days'. Produced by London producer Kwes, it's a different sound to the type that graced the Falling Star EP – the cold, glacial, future-forward sounds are gone. However, the minimalism, which basically translates to the producer's careful consideration with Samuel's voice, is still there.

The production is bright, summerful and sunny, soft and soothing synth chords cushioning the vocals, with pockmarking plunks of bass left to peddle their simple subtleties below the meandering croons of Samuel rather than rumbling in-your-face. Clusters of homemade-sounding DIY-esque percussion clink and clankle in the chorus alongside shakers and the lonely thud of a kick as Samuel sings the cryptic hook, "These days are brighter than the sun, so tell me what you want / tell me what you want" – a sentiment reflected in the dripping innocence of this heat-warped music.

What else is good about this? The soaring vibe, the delicious synth sounds, the whole atmospheric, far-off feeling, the spirit of new romance, the deepness of the vocals coated in rich textures snaking through this cloud of production like a lone bird hovering silhouetted against vast blue, or even a the fleeting glint of a passenger plane caught by shards of sunlight amidst nonchalant clouds as it flies lonely and steady out of sight.

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• Please feel free to pre-order 'These Days' from Ninja Tune online shop (the Ninjashop) – or from Bandcamp. It gets released on 31st July via Ninja Tune subsidiary Big Dada.

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☟ Samuel Social Media Presence ☟
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SEIFUKU – NEED U GIRL

This song is just like… Well when I first heard it… It's one of those songs, you know the type: an immediate all-encompassing feeling just seems to emanate effortlessly from the music, each sound playing its part in the effusion of whatever emotion happens to be in the process of being conjured at the time. Just as many musical minds over the centuries, even millennia, have done, this song wrestles listlessly with romance: matters of the heart lie at its core, lovelorn and dreaming.

It's funny you can get all this just from 2-minutes-8-seconds of indistinct music centred around a vague samples from an (internationally) obscure pop song. But that I suppose is where its strengths lie, in the shapes of meaning and intent moving beneath the smooth ambience of the track, like attractive alluring shadows of a mystery crush moving behind a curtain at a high-rise window as you look across from your own apartment… but this is fantasy.

Of course, the title helps in these matters of sonic semantics also; it's called 'NEED U GIRL' and it's by a producer called seifuku.

Founded on a bed of organ-feeling dusty-far-off chords, the heavy muffled thud of expertly placed kicks make up the gentle contours and curves of the track, playing call-and-response with a beautifully simplistic finger click cutting through the soft tide of sound, hi-hats ornamenting it with accented rattle, a brief section of muted bloops intersecting the unending slowdown sample of the chorus from South Korean singer-songwriter Taeyang's 'I Need A Girl'.

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ARIANA GRANDE & THE WEEKND – LOVE ME HARDER (BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD FLIP)

Call it a flip, call it a remix, call it a re-rub, rub-a-fuckin-dub-reworking – whatever: It's a different angle on an existing song. And in this instance Blackbird Blackbird has improved upon the original. The Weeknd teamed up with maybe-heir-to-Mariah's-throne (if that exists) Ariana Grande for the sexual epic, 'Love Me Harder' – the video is a pretty standard allusion to orgasms, a sleek drawn-out euphemism. Hm. We see this everywhere. New mouths sing about old things.

But it's ok, everyone does it. It's just great that people want to remix songs like this, people who can see the promise and potential in the words and vocals and take these energies, this human spirit, and place them in a new setting, a new musical vessel from which they can shine a different light.

As such, San Francisco-based producer Blackbird Blackbird's version of 'Love Me Harder' features pitch-shifted vocals, sometimes low and rich, sometimes high and chipmunk-like, sometimes fluctuating dynamically between the two, set in a gently swaying fantasy world of feeling. Fragmented beats mark out the sensual journey, rolling melodic snares and rattling hi-hats playing above gloopy heart-boom kicks. Soft electric piano chords mutate into fizzing tremolo synths, winding and wiggling through your mind and conjuring a hazy, narcotic lust – A far cry from the crescendoing fireworks of the original.

Attentive breaks in the beat appear throughout, making the track gloriously slow and considerate, allowing you to better hear delicate music box twinklings. It's an honest reworking, more true yet with more fantastical elements throughout (take the chipmunk vocals, for instance), a variation on the idealistic elements at work in 'Love Me Harder'. And there also seems to be a sample of a dog whining, which basically feels like the perfect epithet for longing lust.

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☟ Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Last.fm • Songkick • official site • Twitter • Tumblr • YouTube

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IN LOVE WITH A GHOST FEAT. ECHO – FUSIONAL

I dunno how or I can't remember how I stumbled across Parisian singer-songwriter ECHO – it was a while ago. I followed her on Twitter, occasionally checking her SoundCloud; all I know is that she's good. For instance, you may want to check out her Midnight Chronicles EP, released recently on French label Cosmonostro.

Called 'Fusional' it is a creation of fellow Parisian In Love With A Ghost, a purveyor of substantially chilled sounds – as you can instantly tell from the endlessly arpeggiated harp sounds at the beginning of this track. But as soon as the robust beat drops, thick with bass and the crack-rasp of snare, it becomes a different beast: an odyssey of cool plucked ambience, like a fresh breeze, paired with the stifling heaviness of trap-inspired beats, a soothing yet spooky adventure through musical phantasms.

And of course there is the voice of ECHO, singing with an endearing lilt and layered with a pitch-shifted equivalent that follows her like a murky shadow. Her brisk delivery has an almost rap-like air to it, following a simple melody, evoking calm-faced ghosts singing with otherworldly beauty; it's hard not to like the way she sings "So many clouds above me…" or "I want to free myself from this / I'm so in love with a lie" – and with that sludgy low-end doppelganger layer almost growling beneath, it's perfect for this track.

It comes from In Love With A Ghost's aptly named Love Ghost EP, something that lives up to its title – in the same way that 'Fusional' does it, these four songs demonstrate not only phantomatic vibes but also those of styles often used in songs of love and lust, think R&B slo-jams distorted, played backwards through haunted apartment blocks, and you're pretty much there. It feels sad, but it also feels accepting of that sadness – a nice mix.

• Download this song on a name-your-price basis from In Love With A Ghost's Bandcamp (CLIIIICKY CLICKY).

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CRAIG DAVID – FILL ME IN (GOOD DISH REMIX) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Wow. Well. Here's a damn good remix of a song that was damn good anyway; Craig David's 'Fill Me In' was like the popular garage song when it came out – a strong and immortalising debut solo single for Mr David, and another garage song in a year that was big for garage in the UK's mainstream: 2000 (which saw hits such as 'Flowers' by Sweet Female Attitude, 'Movin' Too Fast' by Artful Dodger, and 'Bound 4 Da Reload (Casualty)' by Oxide & Neutrino, to name a few).

In any case, the remix by Norwegian producer Good dish revitalises this track with some next level euphoria – not Balearic euphoria, but pogo-sticking, happy-happy euphoria. Listen.

Starting with the original, it's soon interrupted with dancehall-esque kicks and the original sounds are cut and looped into stuttering rhythm. And if there was ever a song to include those cheeky little bed-spring sounds, it's in this remix of a song about a guy trying to "romance" the girl next door. They feature heavily, as do a whole host of heavenly-triumphant snare rolls, which provide a sonic red carpet for the soft synth sounds and muted marimba chords that fit perfectly with Craig David's vocals. The end section marks a final 2-step to the finish; I picture people sneaking round their next-door neighbours' houses only to start dancing with them in their bedrooms, not creepin' for romance as was the original track's story.

Whew, I mean, it's just a heavily heavily addictive sound, one that is as delicious to the ears as pear-drops or unadon or I dunno pizza, burgers— basically, it's something mad tasty, but for your ears. Lol and I totally forgot this guy was called Good Dish: makes sense that his music is as nice as nice food, right?

Quite fittingly, the producer who's remixed this old classic is grounded in a particular style not all dissimilar to garage; not in that the genres themselves are similar, but more that Good Dish is part of Rytmeklubben ("Rhythm Club" in Norwegian) collective – a group of producers who produce a kind of footwork, to be extremely generalist about it. Garage has a specific sound; so too, kind of, does this breed of footwork. It could be a Norwegian phenomenon (songs are tagged #NorClub), one that seems (SEEMS) to have started with Cashmere Cat and which shows no sign of stopping – and I'm v glad about that.

THAT SAID: futuristic R&B-inflected juke-flavoured bass-simmering stuff like this is popping up everywhere. To say it's a particular country's speciality in this connected digital age is reductionist and a bit sensationalist, so I'm sorry about what I said. But I kind of still mean it lol. Either way, if this is NorClub then I need to get myself to a NorClub.

• And, to make this even more of a treat, it's a motherflippin' free download.
• Also fyi: this track was presented (onlinely released?) by Malmö-(Sweden)-based blog/digital label Discobelle & Raw Juice Records\, a Norwegian label & club-night-runners.

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