From North London
Recommended if you like Helena Deland, Billie Eilish, Okay Kaya
Up next Headlining Bermondsey Social Club, 30 July; playing Green Man festival, Brecon Beacons, August
London-based singer-songwriter Sarah Meth makes eerie, skeletal dream-pop cut through with a self-deprecating, very online sense of humour. A scan of her artist page on any streaming service offers a gratifying biography of an artist slowly but surely chipping away at her style in search of a distinct point of view: the lounge jazz stylings of 2020’s Dead End World give way to piquant, post-King Krule bedroom pop on 2022’s Leak Your Own Blues and Billie Eilish-ish pathos on 2023’s Steps EP.
What could feel like a dog’s dinner of genres is held together by Meth’s warm, laconic voice and knack for resplendent but pathologically small-scale production. Winnies, a song from last year’s NY ILY single, is built atop a delirious, translucent organ line. Unlike many of her songs, which deal in winking self-subjugation, Winnies is about a blooming sense of self-determination, and Meth smartly plays it as something that could disappear at any moment.
At a recent show at London’s Theatreship, a cabaret theatre on a boat in Canary Wharf, Meth previewed new songs that alternated between amenable folk music in the style of Julia Jacklin and Angel Olsen, and shimmery, skew whiff pop songs that she sang over a prerecorded track. The modes proved surprisingly complementary – indie music ego and id, maybe, or a real-time battle between extroversion and introversion. The new songs were indelible and exciting: memorable odes to growing up, and falling in and out of love, that stand out in a crowded field of indie-pop newcomers. Shaad D’Souza
This week’s best new tracks
Debby Friday – Bet on Me
“Scared of what just might happen / If I go ahead and bet on me,” the Canadian pop star exhales over anxious breakbeats, building to a cheerleader chant riotous with self-belief. LS
Galya Bisengalieva – Alash-kala (The Bug Reflection)
From a new EP also featuring an ambient reinterpretation by KMRU, this remix of Alash-kala sees Kevin “The Bug” Martin blow the Kazakh-British composer’s lonely, glacial crackle up to an end-of-days cataclysm. LS
Danny L Harle & PinkPantheress – Starlight
Harle is a hard dance revivalist and a pop producer for Caroline Polachek and Dua Lipa, and both impulses cohere on this soft-donk stomper with Grimes-ish vocals from PinkPantheress. BBT
Agriculture – Bodhidharma
Anyone lamenting the loss of Black Sabbath this week should turn to this crushing post-metal anthem, with a splendid sky-scorching riff as well as eerie sound design and quiet-loud thrills. BBT
Geese – Taxes
After frontman Cameron Winter became an indie darling thanks to his classic solo debut Heavy Metal, Geese return with a winner: a rumpled slacker tune that straightens up and sticks out its chest for a joyful chorus. BBT
SJ – Ozil
With cool, softly swinging jazz obliterated by the arrival of a hard-headed drill beat, the Tottenham MC sprinkles references to his footballing past with the nimbleness of a boy-wonder midfielder. [Not on Spotify] BBT
Fever Ray – Now’s the Only Time I Know (Therapy Session)
Karin Dreijer is releasing an album of studio mixes of live versions of old songs: this spooked song about domesticity from their 2009 debut becomes a savage, ravey exorcism. LS
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