Alberta-born, Toronto-based musician Rebecca Emms aka TOVI fuses contrasting forces on her latest output, pouring an equal measure of light and dark, brisk and calm into the mix. Synths roll in a steadily animated fashion, as it were a single car smoothly drifting down the empty highway late at night. It wouldn’t be hard to get lost in the pleasant melancholy of tender vocals and drift off completely into some neon-lit dreamworlds. But the coarseness of the drums is a periodic reminder of some undefined danger potentially lurking ahead.

TOVI‘s “Hard Feelings” is a call out on self-sabotage; it is a reminder to herself to stop longing for anything that is all too distant and thereby beyond her reach. An article she stumbled upon inspired the track, she explains: “It was talking about people who often find themselves yearning for someone or something that is completely out of their reach, geographically or otherwise. You get to play the victim; you get to avoid change.” The tune is a gentle yet firm push to stop mindlessly floating along and take the steering wheel in your hands.

Martyna Biłogan first stirred attention in her native Poland some six years ago with her folk-infused bedroom pop songs uploaded on YouTube and SoundCloud under the moniker Erith. Wandering the woods with her bare feet and plucking her acoustic guitar, she kept to the typical singer-songwriter image, even though her sound already reflected lights coming from much farther away than a campsite fire pit.

Indeed, Erith also seeks inspiration in elements of Asian cultures and the vastness of the universe. By the time she was compiling her debut album Speed of Light, released in 2018, she had leaned heavily on synthesisers and computer production. Even as she wired up some of her early songs, she managed to maintain their earthly ethos, seeking to carve out a niche for herself that she proposed to call alien folk. Singing about walking her dog in outer space, she flickered between devices and instruments onstage with the speed and elegance of some intergalactic fairy.

Three years after Speed of Light, Biłogan follows in a similar vein with Miasto Snów – “a city of dreams” in Polish – and once again employs her immediate sense of playfulness and her rich fantasy. Earthly gardens and cosmic galaxies have collapsed into her dreamy soundscapes, synthesiser herbage sprouts from under glimmering shatters, and a sirenic voice lures the lone listener into this balmy pocket of the universe. Erith embarks further into electronic realms, fluctuating between techno beats, pop melodies and an occasional ambient moment here and there, leaving the listeners to marvel at the luscious softness of her world.

The opener “Niewiele Mnie” hushes you straight to the dancefloor with its dark undercurrent of a beat, atop which sits an imaginary palace with imaginary walls echoing the laugh of some translucent mystical beings. Energetic “Wyobrażenia” asks for the minimalistic dance we didn’t get to practice since the clubs closed, and “Cud” starts as a swiftly pulsing pop banger, drawing from a palette of assertive ohs and sensual ahs. Halfway, however, the singer abruptly pulls the brakes, and the track transmutes into a reflexive afterthought in the second part, ending with a broken tape glitch.

While Speed of Light was mostly in English, with only a handful of Polish tracks tucked in-between, on Miasto Snów, the ratio has turned in favour of Biłogan‘s native language, inviting you to relish its melody and the soothing softness of its vowels. “Morskie Potwory” revisits the theme of space travel, which, in the spirit of surrealism and unbridled imagination that is typical of Erith, includes turtles and wild cats flying overhead and dwelling with sea monsters in the ocean: “By giving ourselves up completely, we turn into miracle foam.” Let me not disappear is the wish Erith pronounces on “Żebym Nie Zniknęła”, singing about a spaceship flying outside her window, while “Czarna Dziura” sucks you into a black hole if you let yourself go.

Themes of acceptance and belonging resurface in the album’s quieter, gentler moments. “I don’t, I don’t know, where is my place,” Erith breaths out on “You”, as if she were slow dancing with a memory of the person she’s addressing. On “Nie Muszę Już Nic”, she ponders not having to do anything anymore. “Need to Be” is a delightful tune which raises the question of where one belongs once more: “Stay the same but different if you want to be here if you want to be.” Reiterating the song’s central line: “Sometimes, I need you to verify the space I’m in,” for most of its second half makes it instantly memorable but leaves you wishing it would progress into some grander finale.

As all pleasant dreams that pass quicker than one would hope for, Miasto Snów offers just over half an hour to let you wander through its lush alcoves. While it might seem less inventive, replicating similar patterns as its predecessor, the album does provide a safe hideout from the world out there, which is now more than ever highly welcome.

Karin Mäkiranta and Helmi Tikkanen mark the first anniversary of their second album, matter-of-factly titled 2, with a cinematic video directed by Joona Möttö. The pair are known for quietly meditative, sometimes gently playful songs, among which “2000” stands out as decidedly more dramatic, even though it wasn’t necessarily the band’s intention. “It started off as a quiet song with only kantele and guitar. Somehow it took a left turn in the studio,” discloses Mäkiranta, the duo’s singer and guitarist.

Karina‘s “2000” is a contained, melancholic drama; however, a private rage one sinks into in solitude. The guitars and drums gather to create a hazy wave that rolls throughout the song and periodically calms down as if to urge the listener to devote their full attention to Mäkiranta’s delicate vocal. The interplay between instrumental gradation and softer vocal parts maintains a flow that proves a perfect soundtrack for a short film. Camcorder aesthetics and washed-out colours of the childhood sequences brings back memories. It calls to mind carefree days, along with futile childhood endeavours and celebrations that didn’t bring the joy they promised.

In the video, a cocker spaniel pulls on the leash as she leads her human through the trees, casing down the white-powdered, red-cheeked harlequinesque character who keeps anxiously looking over her shoulder as she slowly shuffles forth on the forest path. Once, she used to cheer up a little girl who’d been sad to sit at her birthday table alone and couldn’t get her red kite to fly up. But the girl grew up eventually and turned her adult back on childish games and colourful cakes, letting her formerly dear companion sink in sorrow.

Exploring the themes of pain and longing, hope and disappointment, the song and the video fit perfectly into the strange mood of a second March spent at home.

MOTHERMARY‘s new track, “Give It Up,” might seem to be at odds at the very first glance, but speaking from personal experience, sisters Larena and Elyse Winn know very well that sometimes you need to let go of something to set yourself free. “Give It Up” is a love song they wrote for themselves and for everyone who is struggling, encouraging listeners to stay strong and persevere no matter the challenge ahead. As the general fatigue of 2020 spreads across the globe, who would say no to a confidence boost in the shape of a charming tune?

Fairytale chirping lures you in at the beginning, and luscious synths set up a backdrop for vocals around which the track unfurls. The sisters explain they usually improvise lyrics and melody over the chords for however long it takes to come up with something that sticks, consciously allowing their subconscious to surface. Listeners can chip in with their own thoughts at points when the words are hard to catch, after all, it’s foremostly the cadence of Elyse‘s voice which makes the track pleasantly addictive. The song alternates between mellow build-ups and bouncy highs which come in announced by drum kicks. It reaches its full bloom as the chorus line unfolds into its intended ambivalence: “Are you ever gonna give it up?”.

For MOTHERMARY, making music is their chosen mode of protest. The twins escaped the cocooned environment they grew up, giving up the protection of the religious community that had to be requited by conformity and obedience and chose to carve their own path instead. “Give It Up” is a reminder that letting go is just as important as fighting for something – both actions are a catalyst for change.

Watch the accompanying self-directed visuals below.

A photograph falling off the wall symbolizes the end of a relationship between the couple whose two-dimensional selves keep on smiling happily as gravity pulls the picture to the ground: “It crashed without a sound.” The Californian sun will take a while to fade the colours away, and the person who’s been hurt will need even longer to process the pain and let go. “Picture of the End” is for the most of it a comfort tune packed with smooth synths and upbeat drums, but at the same time has a lingering tinge of dreamy sadness built into its structure.

There are two kinds of nostalgia chasing each other’s end throughout the song. One stems from the lyrics consulting the weight of a discontinued relationship, and the other transmits through the form – the lo-fi sound which fuses smooth jazz with eighties pop, picking up bits and pieces of contemporary synthwave along the way. Alicia Beck clearly enjoys coming up with fresh ways to emulate the sound she grew up listening to, and to this day she can be found recording on the same kind of 4-track tape recorder that was long considered vintage when she was making her first demos in the mid-2000s.

Like the grain of a 35mm film photograph, Beck’s taste for playing around with older gear seems to lend her music cinematic qualities. She’s brought this skill to pretty much perfection on “Picture of the End”. Every next note sounds like a fresh burst of pastel pinks, washed-out violets and mint greens flooding your inner vision. Close your eyes for a moment, and you will find yourself in one of those charming eighties’ interiors, or could that be the set of some eerie romance? Make sure to open them again before the colours become too vivid and the chorus “I’ll never stop loving you” begins to sound Lynchian in its spookiness.

Listen and pre-save the track before it goes live everywhere tomorrow.

Listening to Takykardia‘s new track is like stumbling upon a delicate flower in full bloom: “Waving” charms with a soothing melody, refined texture and thoughtful lyrics. The self-proclaimed pop wizards have soaked in influences from a colourful palette of genres, and they’ve done their homework figuring how to employ them to their advantage.

As if tuning in on the radio just in the right moment, the listener enters the song to Luna Matz breathing out the line: “Cause I don’t like to wait”. Her voice is driven by patience and restlessness simultaneously, exposing the struggle people “running out of their twenties” face when navigating romantic relationships. “I don’t wanna sip wine with a stranger and test whether or not we’re a good match. I’m a romantic and I’d love to be completely swept away,” says the singer of her aversion to dating.

It may be hard to find a partner for life, but it’s easy to get swept away by the lustrous instrumental loops that exceed into joyous curls on several occasions throughout the song. The keyboardist David Nedergaard and drummer Troels Dankert provide a foundation which is enriched and embellished by three musicians joining the band on this track: guitarist Rasmus Oppenhagen Krogh, bassist Janus Bagh and harpist Selma Judith Trier.

With its pensive yet positive atmosphere, “Waving” is a sympathetic nod to other romantic souls out there, a comforting promise that their wait will be worthwhile. Watch the accompanying video, courtesy of the band’s very own Luna Matz and visual artist Ali Asperheim, below.

Playful synths give off a summery vibe, but it quickly becomes clear that “Sometimes” isn’t a track filled with sunshine and a pleasant breeze. Los Angeles-based singer Xelli Island (Lianna Vanicelli) takes to lighthearted ooh-ooh-oohs to grapple with a serious topic, and she doesn’t package her thoughts in any metaphorical bubble wrap. Her message is powerful precisely because she states it so plainly: depression can turn our perception upside down. We’ve all felt the crushing weight of something that brought us joy just the day before, and we’ve all had moments when we wished we could simply sign out.

“The world we live in is corrupt,” she stated. “That’s obviously no surprise. When you are struggling with mental health, this world becomes even uglier and more challenging to navigate. All of its toxicity and phoniness become crystal clear. This is a song about just that.”

It’s not Vanicelli‘s first time using a catchy tune as a platform to open up about mental health. Her first single “Fucking Retrograde” deals with frustration and mood swings tied to mercury being in retrograde, but “Sometimes” strikes a more serious note despite retaining the dreamy tinge characteristic of its two predecessors. The song stems from a tumultuous period that followed the musician’s relocation from Detroit to LA, or as she puts it: “I wrote it after going through some unexpected, major changes in my life that left me feeling hopeless. I wanted to convey that everyone is struggling in some way, no matter how together they seem to have it.”

With its lively highs and a darker undertow looming underneath, “Sometimes” is one of those tracks that you want to blast in your headphones when feeling a bit under the weather. Chances are it will brighten your day and help you power through.