The 20 best songs of March

Waxahatchee

Right Back To It

Katie Crutchfield’s latest album Tigers Blood is another great collection of country indie music after 2021-s Saint Cloud, that wears a aura of strong songwriting, as heard on opener ‘3 Sisters’.

‘Right Back To It’ features MJ Lenderman on backing vocals, and is a Americana song with a classic feel about a significant other being as solid as a rock, which leaps off the screen in the performance of the song on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert this week.

Waxachatchee has announced dates in Dublin and Belfast as part of an upcoming tour.

New Jackson

Out Of Reach

David Kitt’s electronic project New Jackson will release a new album on Permanent Vacation called OOPS!… POP on April 19th.

It features collaborators Rita Lynn, Donnacha Costello, Riche “Jape” Egan, Yenkee, Kean Kavanagh,Margie Jean Lewis, Meg Cronin and Fehdah so it’s all-cast affair this time around.

‘Out of Reach’ was one of the first songs released from the record, a fine mix of Kitt’s songwriting and electronic production skills.

“Out of Reach was the last track I wrote for the album. I had a version of the album that Iiked but the whole thing didn’t feel quite ‘oops’ or ‘pop’ enough. I had the melody and chorus of Out of Reach knocking around for a while and I wrote and recorded the lyrics and vocals in one long session the day before mastering was booked. It gave the album a shot of pop urgency that made it really gel as a whole. I get a mild bang of Jason Donovan off it but it has giddy techno-pop sugar rush that I really like and it makes it a worthy addition to the New Jackson canon. And hey Jason D via Stock Aiken and Waterman is definitely part of my pop musical DNA.

Empress Of

Lorelei

The backstory of Empress Of latest’s album, the bilingual For Your Consideration has a compelling origin story.

“I was in love with a director and he was announcing his ‘For Your Consideration’ campaign for the Oscars. He took me up on a hill and said he was emotionally unavailable and he kind of broke my heart. I went into the studio that day and we wrote a song called ‘For Your Consideration’ that reflects on glam and Hollywood. That was the gateway for the album and it gave me the opportunity to explore broader themes.”

‘Lorelei’ continues the disappointing lovers theme, with a song about being cheated on.

Bolis Pupul

Ma Tau Wai Road

Last seen with Charlotte Adigery, Bolis Pupul’s debut solo album on Soulwax’s DEEWEE label Letter To Yu, an album set as a love letter who his mother who passed in 2008.

A trip to Hong Kong for Bolis, where his Chinese mother was born, set in motion the album, exploring grief with a backdrop of tightly-constructed techno pop, like on the Salah Pupul-featuring ‘Ma Tau Wai Road’.

The trip to Hong Kong informs the album’s with field recordings from the subway and songs inspired by the Kowloon Walled city, a spicy crab menu item, a signature Hong Kong dish he experienced there.

Four Tet

Skater

Three is the twelfth studio album from Kieran Hebden is more on the subdued side of his discography but still identifiably his own work. The lack of really banging club music on Three is a welcome return to solitude headphones-friendly listening.

‘Skater’ is a meandering production in Hebden’s classic vein, notable for its spectral vocals and rarely used guitar lines.

Marie Davidson

Y.A.A.M

Marie Davidson is back on a Soulwax buzz once more as she releases a new single on the Belgian brothers’ label Deewee.

After the Soulwax remix of ‘Work It’ , Davidson returns to the fold on their label with ‘Y.A.A.M’, an electro fist-pump produced by Pierre Guerineau, a track addressing the power dynamics of the music industry and standing for “Your Asses Are Mine”.

“About a year ago, after receiving a very condescending email related to the business side of music making, I took the opportunity to write down how I felt about the words and the overall tone of arrogance of what I had just been sent.

Group Listening

New Brighton

Interloping woodwind and delicate keys form this rolling organic ambient wave of a track from the twosome, Paul Jones and Stephen Black aka Group Listening.

It’s from the band’s new album Walks, which is released May 10th on PRAH Recordings.

Walks draws from the field recordings of Ernest Hood; the abstraction of Harold Budd; the saxophone of Sam Gendel; the “heightened naturalism” of a Martin Parr photograph; the clarity and site-specificity of Japanese ambient, environmental & new age music of the 80s and 90s, and, prominently, Robert Walser’s pseudo-biographical novella The Walk — an appreciation of the philosophical space gifted by walks to walkers.

TraviS, Elzzz, Sello

Franklin Flow

When ‘Blockbuster’ dropped, I said the drill rap duo of Travis & Elzzz were circling the ring for a big year to come.

This month, the pair have a number 1 album for Doghouse, and the collection of music features a high-bar collection of Irish rap music that extends beyond the duo’s previous drill templates.

Guests include Sello, Reggie and Monjola and production by Liam Harris keeps that bar set high, as heard on the one of the highlights ‘Franklin Flow’.

Glass Beams

Mahal

Recently signed to Ninja Tune with some massive organic listening figures and trailing hype, the enigmatic trio of Glass Beams are a Melbourne band who draw inspiration from their South Asian Indian heritage, creating an infusion of slithering psychedelia and worldly rhythms.

Much like Khruangbin before them, Glass Beams create new sounding worlds with the collision of old ones, with inspirations including traditional Indian artists Ravi Shankar and R.D. Burma enhanced with modern polyrhyms and studio recording techniques.

They play All Together Now this summer.

Kim Gordon

The Candy House

Iglooghost

Coral Mimic

The Irish-born UK-based producer and beatmaker Seamus Malliagh aka Iglooghost has long been making head-swerving electronic music with nods to hip-hop and sound design.

With the announcement of a Dublin show, the producer dropped this industrial-leaning dragged electro tune that sounds a bit like King Krule if he went rogue and dark in one of his many Mount Kimbie collaborations.

“‘Coral Mimic’ is my go at a new local subgenre people are calling Post-Coil. I made it on a horrible corrosive drum sequencer that can only be touched with gloves on. Every 4 minutes the LCD display gets obscured by an internal fuel leakage, so I had to keep stopping so I could siphon the excess diesel out in time. The tune turned out alright but you can tell I’m clearly really pissed off cos of the technical issues distracting me.”

Ezra Williams

Quick Fix

Cork-based singer-songwriter and recent Choice Prize nominee, Ezra Williams drops the first song from post album Supernumeraries. ‘Quick Fix’ has sweet rambling vibe for the artist.

It’s from the new EP Socks, out April 19th.

Fears

Times

Connie Keane’s second Fears album affinity continues in a vein of introspective delicately-spun electronic textures and confessional songwriting, with guest contributions from Ailbhe Reddy, Aga Ujma, Jemima Coulter and Sophie Gwen Williams (a friend who passed away and who ’16’ is dedicated to, whose cello playing is featured on the track)

‘Times’ is a desolate song with a delayed synth line that carries the brittle nature of the song through.

Fears plays The Sugar Club on Wednesday April 3rd.

Wed 3rd April – Dublin, IE – Sugar Club
Wed 1st May – London, UK – Oslo Hackney
Fri 10th May – Glasgow, UK – The Hug & Pint

Tickets.

Niamh Regan

Belly

Galway singer-songwriter Niamh Regan releases the second single from her second album Come As You Are, due on Faction Records in May, after last month’s ‘Madonna’.

“Belly is a light-hearted song with full band production, dealing with an idea of feeling like a broken record and not being heard.”

Declan McKenna

Mulholland’s Dinner and Wine

Declan McKenna’s third album What Happened to the Beach? arrives after nearly a decade of the English songwriter making music.

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Recorded in California last year, the sunkissed record has a new-found sonic maturity and cites St Vincent, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 album Ram as inspiration.

Declan landed in California last year to work with producer Gianluca Buccellati, the sunshine made the songwriter mellow a bit,

It’s wonky classic pop songwriting for sure, psychedelic, folky, variable vocals, colourful and exudes passion and fun in its creation as heard on ‘Mulholland’s Dinner and Wine’.

Papa Romeo

World Of Paint

Coming on like the chillwave side of Washed Out, London-based Dublin band Papa Romeo’s new track is a lush float in a summery sea waves.

It’s from the band’s forthcoming album out May 24th, on their theirown Cracked Skull Records label.

Papa Romeo is Paddy Rogers, Mark Rogers, Rob de Boer, Chris Wong and Dan Coyne.

Julia Holter

Something In The Room She Moves

‘Something In The Room She Moves’ is a meandering lush delight.

It’s an adventurous title track from Los Angeles songwriter’s sixth studio album which is inspired by both the birth of her daughter and the death of a close relative.

Tatyana

It’s Over

I’ve enjoyed dipping into the second album from English producer, singer and harpist Tatyana, whose It’s Over album would play nice with the poppier side of fellow countrywoman Georgia’s discography.

The title track is an electronic pop track with melodic lustre.

Tatyana was born in London, before moving to Russia, Holland and Singapore in her teens, before eventually landing in the USA to study music on a full ride scholarship at Berklee College, where, bouncing between Boston and New York’s underground electronic music & club scene, she began to further discover her sound.

Sloucho, Rory Sweeney

Come Around

The Irish producer Sloucho likes to play with form and identity in their artwork, and that idea has extended to the naming of the artist’s debut album NPC, (Non-Playing Character in video game terms ofc), and “explores the duality of his main character and non-playable lives.”

‘Come Around’ is the first track from the record, a collaboration with Rory Sweeney, on an bass-drivenalien two-step wub-featuring track.

With releases on Cloudcore of late, and a play out by Two Shell among the recent accolades (and an absolutely class 3D music video about to drop)

The album also features EMBY, Curtisy, Zack Oke, Yamagōchi, Rhosi, Vaticanjail and k-Caz.

Bad With Phones

Don’t Talk To Me

London artist Bad With Phones is on board with the indie sleaze revival by the sound of this silly funky little indie-pop-meets-electro-rap tune.

‘Don’t Talk To Me’ is from the Bad With Phones debut album CRASH out July 12 on Brixton label Don’t Sleep. The artist name comes from the artist’s 6 month phone-free social experiment and the album was inspired by an actual crash while on holiday in Lanzarote.

“I was in a weird space, doubting if I could deliver an album. It was really a hasty decision to go away. I should’ve stayed home doing my work, figuring out how I’m gonna do the music. It gave me the answer in a weird, dramatic way. I felt like a stunt man for life. It gave me a new drive and sense of purpose and allowed me to see where I needed to be and what I need to prioritize. The single is about those parties you end up stuck at for too long, having aimless conversations.”