From Leicester
Recommended if you like Bladee, OsamaSon, Clams Casino
Up next A self-produced album, plus UK live shows
Snoa is prolific even by the standards of underground rap: the 19-year-old from Leicester has released 71 singles so far this year, plus three albums. But while some of his peers casually throw any old chum into the sea knowing that fans will still feast on it, Snoa keeps his quality at a remarkably high level.
The ethereality of producer 444Jet’s beats on Snoa’s July album 2il De4th Du Us 7art make it a classic of the cloud-rap genre, while the bass he tends to rap over, maximally throbbing into redlined distortion, means he feels somewhat aligned with the ragers thrown down by Playboi Carti, Che, OsamaSon and other contemporary US names. But one track he’ll sound like Bladee warbling about existence, the next like Giggs gruffly slating his enemies, and this mutable flow and his equally varied beat selections (some self-produced) mean you can’t hem him into any one sound.
His home city is rarely documented in rap so it’s nice to have local details, whether sarcastically upbeat about the drug trade on Plan (“Welcome to Leicester, it’s popping here / K2, whip, e-scooters are profiting”) or morose on City: “It’s like talking to a brick wall when you in Leicester … Race wars, postcodes, 25 sides, everybody so divided.” He sounds superb slinging club-ready chatter over classic grime on 1ne After Another, while Dodecahedron is like a lo-fi Neptunes beat made for a bouncing secondhand Toyota Yaris. “How much longer do I have to wait before I blow?” he complains on the latter. On this form it shouldn’t take another 71 tracks. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
This week’s best new tracks
Jennifer Walton – Sometimes
Plucked strings mark out a steady beat in this masterful ballad for fans of Julia Holter and Caroline, as flurries of drums and noise bear down and Walton ponders selfhood and self-direction. BBT
Claire M Singer - Gleann Ciùin
Building from mournful softness to celestial maximalism, the Scottish organist’s new recording of a piece written in 2019 shows her sensitivity with the instrument, straddling Stars of the Lid’s ambience and Kali Malone’s grandeur. [Not on Spotify: listen here.] LS
Blue Bendy – Poke
The London post-punks turn a calamity into a typically vivid, vibrating chorus that actually sounds quite appealing: “Ten days down here just ends in disaster / WhatsApp me back, I can’t get there fast enough.” LS
Ebbb – Eyes
There are shades of Everything Everything to the spirited latest single by the Ninja Tune-signed art-pop trio, with a chirruping vocal melody over head-rush synths and clattering drums. BBT
Fine – Portal
The Danish artist – and Rhythmic Music Conservatory graduate – splits the difference between Fade Into You, Joanne Robertson’s gorgeously washed-out folk and Fiona Apple’s impressionistic blues, threaded together with dreamy recorder. LS
JJJJJerome Ellis – Vesper Sparrow (ft Haruna Lee, James Harrison Monaco, Ronald Peet and Starr (Busby))
The New York musician, who has compellingly charted his stammer in his work, returns with a striking jazz ballad: voice, sax and piano held in orbit with the lightest of magnetic forces, before burning up in static. BBT
Rafael Toral – Easy Living
The jazz standard made famous by Billie Holiday is given a stunningly imaginative cover played on guitar, clarinet and the Portuguese musician’s self-made instruments, the song’s chords spreading like molasses on polished marble. [Not on Spotify: listen here.] BBT
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