🐣 TSUKI — OXYGEN

⌾ LISTEN TO TSUKI, OXYGEN ⌾ The feel of being bed-bound with the window open and nature spills in. Bright mornings. Birds chirping like book ends wrap the sweetness of the song in pastoral, the synth even feeling leafy and organic in its rhythmic sparrow-sized chords, pastel-coloured trembling with minute vibrato.

'Oxygen' by TSUKI – a duo comprising Chanlar Rose and Levi Chappell (and one of the first songs they wrote together back in 2015) – is part natural idyll, part honest convalescence, an atmosphere conjured by Chanlar's vocals. The lyrics, referencing lungs, oxygen, souls turning black, lacking strength to lend, were written by Chanlar "while she was recovering from a fairly invasive surgery," Levi tells us.

"She was out for a few months and the lyrics are a reflection of the strain that that the entire experience ended up putting on her personal relationships."

The gravity of those lyrics – the way Chanlar's voice vaults into the air, how words seem almost spit out, how light distortion touches them – contrasts with the candy-coated instrumental, resonating only with the thump and heft of the beat, comparatively brutal compared to the delicacy of the cute synths. The birdsong, by the end, is crushed as the song, instead of fading out, decays.

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• 🔔 You can stream TSUKI's 'Oxygen' variously, but it's on Spotify too.
• 🔔 It doesn't feature 'Oxygen', but if you liked this you should probably take a listen to TSUKI's debut album, Severance Package.

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MORE MUSIC BY TSUKI → LAPSE

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🐣 LEJKEYS — CHEERS FEAT. ARI AFSAR

Julian-Quan Le aka LeJKeys creates this voyage of calm in 'Cheers'—a sort of kinetic stillness, a lovely slow sway of sound, like watching fish dart and float around in their submarine homes in shallows where seaweed streams in the current and anemones curl and stretch in slow motion, all of it shone upon by glassy dappled sun through the wobbling waves. It's a simple perfect scene summoned by the track's own gorgeous simplicity.

The slowness and friendly calm that LA-based pianist and producer LeJKeys conjured with soft synth boops and unassuming sparse beat, a lazy cheerful whistle that folds into it all, moments of intensity with the brimming happiness of fizzing synth chords, not to mention the clear upbeat vocals of Ari Afsar – sometimes gently layered and pitch-shifted, beautifully drawn-out, but always lilting sweetly – is a testament to positivity and wonder.

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• 🔔 'Cheers' featuring singer and actor Ari Asfar is taken from LeJKeys' album Between Worlds. Listen to or purchase it on Bandcamp.

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🐣 OH MY MUU — WORTHY

There is something beautifully sad about this song—even before you learn of its origins, which makes it sadder still, there is an air of farewellness to it, the slumping gentle feeling of the plucked synth that weaves through, the poignant space left between each resonation: the emotion behind it rather than the melody itself, which itself is wistful in its slow cheeriness, like bright blurry eyed melancholy. And the title: 'Worthy'. It hits the heart, combining with the music – the frustrated whispering glitch of percussion, the close intimate feeling of the beat, the warmth and welling-up of the thicker synth and bass, the watery outdoors samples symbolic of life and living – to summon this small heroic hope in the downtrodden swirl of depression.

But in 'Worthy' its creator, LA-based producer James Im aka oh my muu, is not only building this emotive and inspirational soundscape in and of itself; rather it has been created as a tribute to Kim Jong-hyun, the K-pop star who committed suicide on 18th December 2017. As such the song takes on a whole different persona, and becomes bigger than it is: especially when it is imbued as it is with Jonghyun's spirit—a sample from the singer's 2015 song 'I'm Sorry' crackles throughout, broken and decayed, as if heard from an unknown elsewhere, uncovered by you personally amidst digital debris; a truly touching, intense element of the track that feels instantly timeless; a sweet swansong.

After more soft, playful synth, the track ends on a crescendo of fluttering grainy synth chords atop columns of bass, like tears and pain mingling with determination; or, having felt devoured by despair, it's the shock of having someone tell you, "it's ok, you are worthy." Catharsis and letting go.

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• 🔔 More excellent production from oh my muu over on his SoundCloud.

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🐣 BLIND POSES — FADING

The progression of this track is quite something, from the basic semi-industrial mechanics of its first steps as a slice of sound, until its final moments faded and out of fuel, it charts futility and energy transfer, one thing turning to another thing, the flash of a flame before it fizzles into the ether, into nothing, and how fitting then that it is titled 'Fading'. It's exactly what it sounds like. The occasional retro lo-fi drum machine thump of the kicks twinned with the pulsing zing of its cymbals keep things steady as a plaintive musicbox melody plays, an innocent meandering of harp-like plinking reverbing mistily into the air. Further clanks of percussion make their way into the mix, a fluttering garbled wow-wow of synth grabbing space for itself before later a tiny flute, melancholy, homely, plays its sweet song in the increasing jostle of the beat, drips with aching nostalgia like a phantom.

The mounting tension of this thicket of sound created by London musicmaker Blind Poses with its metallic mire of percussion plays aside this wonderful pastoral synth melody, rounded and retro-feeling, a filmic vision of returning home and of domestic scenes, of comfort and stability, heartfully emotive. There is a moment of teetering over the edge and an insistence of beeping from 2:35–2:58, and then synth splashes in oily explosion, distorted tracts of keyboard-born sound following the original melody and then warping so that it is noisy and atonal and crashing crazily whilst that innocent melody struggles in this sonic storm, the beat now with brutal gnashing teeth bashes its way along. Gradually it becomes calmer, the beat a now a clatter of percussion, noises falling away until there is no more, the living-breathing analogue organic journey of this track lodged like a memory in your mind.

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• 🔔 'Fading' is taken from Blind Poses' upcoming debut Muddy Thoughts EP, described by the musicmaker themselves as a "collection of hazy synths and tape-crusted drum samples created with an MPC1000 and some guitar pedals."

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🐣 VENESSAMICHAELS — AFTER HOURS

Here we are in a world where past and future meet, a teetering limbo of a place that pops with pastel lightness, bold bass booms buttressing beneath the breezy surface. Here is a slice of post-rave late-'90s-early-'00s electronic dance music with syncopated synth chords chewy and sweet, wobbly fluttering neon chords like cotton candy, and all with a rumbling backdrop of beats that tumble noisy mouthwatering. 'After Hours' is a bright lamination of sucrose flavours founded on substantial elements that give the cradling haze of cuteness a standoffish sense of dance dislocation, highly impersonal but also highly loveheartable too.

Created by LA-based producer VenessaMichaels and inspired by Yūta Nishio (西尾雄太)'s manga After Hours, the track feels smooth to the touch, light but heavy like freshly kneaded dough, decorated with variegated tracts of synth that swirl sometimes half-abrasive and reflective of a feeling of confusion, echoed by the vocal samples which also call out not necessarily celebratory or triumphal but more like internal yells of life and living. The intro feels somewhat grave, verging on melancholic in the guitaresque arpeggio resonating with a cooling loneliness over the stumbling stutter of the beat. Raving and cute, inward facing yet extroverted, solid but hazy, 'After Hours' blows hot and cold in a really neat way, displaying two sides of the coin at the same time for an illustration of internal struggle and finding one's place in the world.

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• 🔔 VenessaMichaels collaborated with Viz Media for this track, which is of course named after the manga which they licensed towards the end of last year. The media group describe Yūta Nishio's After Hours as "a heartfelt story about a young queer woman coming into her own and finding her place in the world."

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🌭 BK BEATS — STRANGERS

There is a touching sense of heartbreak in this track, or not even of something so specifically affecting, more a sense of something oppressive in the face of innocence, a feeling of being weighed down, on the cusp of suffocation, something about yourself at risk of being flattened. Simultaneously co-existing with this atmosphere swirling and enclosing, summoned by the same robust twinkle of that melody that rings out with icy clarity, that cold resounding polygonal sharp-softness, a melody like javelins of mist that are fragile and precious and that sounds childlike, like an ethereal music box, carefree. There is the threat and the threatened, as created by LA-based musicmaker bk beats in this whimsical yet vital track, 'Strangers'.

Adding to this push-pull of an atmosphere, pitch-shifted digital interruptions in the form of an iPhone message sent sound make haphazard chirps into this ice sculpture of a track, growing rapid and agitated around halfway through. Opposing the sharp icicles of sound are the overdriven drums, a contrast of natural sweetness and natural ugliness, the trap-ish beat leading itself trampling rhythmic amidst the delicacy of the melodies; it serves itself up pugilistically, thrashing with thudding kicks that thump and roll, sword-swish cymbals, distorted bass crumpling, decaying, a tide of strangers, the internal violence of anxiety making itself known, the march of never wanting to show yourself in public marches on. Wrapped up in each other, we face the world.

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• 🔔 This comes from bk beats' recent EP, also named Strangers, which consists of the title track and remixes by Airynore (serves it up frayed and crashing), Bosstone (livens it up, focuses on sweetness) and Scalade (juddery, brooding). It's out courtesy of entity/label ONE EIGHT HUNDRED. You have the freedom to decide whether or not you download the release for free from Bandcamp.

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