Now, she deepens that world further with “SS26”, a grungy, fashion soaked new single that turns the runway into something closer to an apocalypse fantasy. In the Torso directed video, Charli xcx moves through the glamorous chaos of a major fashion show, changing looks, walking the catwalk, and watching the whole spectacle tilt toward disaster. Former Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld appears in the front row and sets the tone with the line, “Fashion won’t save us. But let’s go on the runway and walk.” Abra also makes a cameo, while Charli leans into the track’s end of the world mood with the lyric “Walking on a runway that goes straight to hell.” It is stylish, strange, and sharply Charli: a pop star turning collapse into a look.

The video is awash with those whimsical, homespun qualities that characterise Usbeck’s impressive catalogue as a multi-disciplinary artist. Depicting her walking through New York dressed like a Manta Ray, it’s a lovely watch; one bound to place at least the smallest of grins on your face and inspired, the artist says, by a trip to an Ecuadorian island…

“I remember walking along the beach on Floreana Island, the sound of the waves surrounding me,” says Usbeck. “As I watched, manta rays emerged and disappeared with the current, their graceful movements captivating. It was a rare moment of perfect harmony, and there are few times I’ve felt so at peace.

The single itself, “Mantarraya,” exemplifies that balance of sincerity and synthy experimentalism which has made Maria a favoured artist of HighClouds over the years. Through the song, she sings in Spanish about the titular animal, delivering concise, simple and infinitely sweet lyrics about manta rays move through the ocean “without any problem”, like “jewels of the sea,” over a wash of synths that make the track sound like a warm bath or a cosy hug.

“Mantarraya” is the first release from Naturaleza: a record that, like her previous, sticks with a concept, this time focusing in on nature and our relationship to it.

“Each song on my new album, Naturaleza, tells a layered story of moments in nature, reflecting on the contrast between how we live and how we should,” she explains, adding, “And, of course, it touches on the usual existential dread. Are humans the true invasive species? How can we cultivate a more symbiotic relationship with our ecosystem?”

Maria Usbeck has always been a boundary-less and shapeshifting kind of artist, influenced both by the Brooklyn electronic pop scene and her Latin American background. After fronting the New Wave band Selebrities, she recorded her debut Amparo in 2016 with her friend, alt-pop royalty Caroline Polacheck, and followed it up with Envejeciendo, a highly conceptual, meditation on aging. Out in April, Naturaleza will definitely be an exciting new chapter in her journey…

The song starts off with “I wanna be like Jesus out in the desert,” Dick Texas places herself with a desire for 40 days and 40 nights amidst temptation. She’s not alone though, singing “You won’t say a word to me and I won’t talk to you.” The song evokes a wistful loneliness that brings to mind the Americana western of Paris, Texas or Lost Highway. Long empty roads stretch for miles through barren landscapes.

After each verse, Dick Texas lets the guitar begin to unravel until it almost reaches the point of atonal before immediately bringing it back to a tight semi-blues stomp. Her ethereal voice softly sings over the music, not competing for attention, but complementing it.

This exciting and highly-recommended new track heralds the upcoming release of Dick Texas’s debut album, All That Falls. The album is expected to live up to its debut single and Dick Texas will be one to watch in 2025 and beyond.

Pearly Drops are unique in their ability to draw inspiration from their own earlier work. Compared to “Breathless,” the lyrics to “Lost In The Dark” still draw on the same themes of dissociation and dismalness. In a distorted voice, Tervonen sings, “All that’s sweet / And prime in me / Hides somewhere inside so deep / Hibernating / I’m hibernating.” The chorus solidifies this feeling of stuckness and remove, with the deceptively sweet vocals continuing, “Lost n the dark / I couldn’t breathe.” Against a background of bouncing synths, the bleak lyrics feel like an invitation to dance away (or perhaps toward) the darkness. “Lost In The Dark” shows proof of development from the group– While “Breathless” was catchy and cute, this new track contains a depth that is perhaps less apparent in earlier releases.

Pearly Drops‘ “Lost in The Dark” video is creepy, strange, and stunning

“Lost In The Dark” comes with a short film directed by Joonas Lind. The video is creepy, strange, and absolutely stunning, with Andrea Villarreal confidently leading the macabre ordeal in her role as The Bride. The film depicts a dangerous and devilish relationship between a bride and her groom, with Villarreal dancing and writhing beside a deliciously menacing Sebastian Freiberg as The Man. Lind‘s direction brings a creative edge that amplifies and adds onto the otherworldly texture of Tervonen and Malin‘s work. In a music landscape that is increasingly focused on short form video content and clickable short clips, it’s refreshing to see artists create a more involved narrative that will really engage the audience.

This release is part of Pearly Drops‘ release of a deluxe vinyl edition of their 2020 album Call For Help. For now, get lost in “Lost In The Dark” below.

Oxford based Anglo-French talent Julia-Sophie is back! Following from her stunning solo EPs – 2020’s y? and 2021’s heartbroken

A melting pot of indie pop, electronica, alternative and something decidedly undefinable, “numb”, opens with Julia-Sophie’s whispered vocals over a thrumming synth drum line. Haunting and building, the lush electronica beat swells beneath her words, her ruminations on life orchestrating the rising synths. Her steady and breathy vocalizations lead the ebb and flow of the soundscape, gorgeously dichotomous against the pounding electronic synths.

The accompanying visuals show fractured vignettes of Julia-Sophie, warped and distorted like her tormented thoughts through the crackled shots of film. Each grainy shot reinforces the mood of chaos that pervades her chaotic and messy stream of consciousness vocals.

Of the track, Julia-Sophie commented: “The song “numb” is my attempt to express the chaotic thoughts I have swirling in my heart and head, dreaming of ways I could live, love, and be free, unfortunately, this escape only lives out in my dreams, for in the ‘real life’ I am stuck too stuck in my spiralling and self-destructive ways.”

Watch this space as Julia-Sophie introduces us to her forthcoming album.

Having found their sound in 2019 with their debut album SMVT, Las Nubes have spent the years following touring and recording across the US and Mexico.

Now, the Miami based band return with their second guitar laden offering “Would Be”, taken from their forthcoming sophomore LP Tormentas Malsanas. Finding inspiration in the announcement for the rumoured live-action Powerpuff Girls series, the single charts the life of an aging superhero.

Of the track, Las Nubes commented:

“There was a rumor going around about a live-action Power Puff Girls series being made by Diablo Cody. It was going to be set in the future and have them portrayed as adults looking back on their lives as crime-fighting little girls who missed out on being kids. I (Ale Campos) grew up in the ‘90s and PPG was one of my favorite cartoons, so I was really excited about this. One day Emile (Emile Milgram) and I were talking about how cool it would be to write the theme song for the show, so “Would Be” was the result of that.”

“Would Be” displays Las Nubes signature blend of garage pop guitars, dreamy layered and harmonic vocals and raucous drum work. It’s angsty and nostalgic, wonderfully yearning and angry at a life that seems to have passed you by. The jaded vocal refrain of “I know the more I give, the less I’ll get back” followed by the minute long guitar solo allows you to live out your best, bitter adult reality; “Would Be” truly is the anthem for all millennial disappointment.

The single is paired with a delightfully grainy and nostalgic visual; a home video that shows band member Ale Campo’s father playing with a soccer ball, the intention of which was to capture the essence of the track which is “the desire to take back those years you lost and just cherish them.”

Speaking of the accompanying visuals and the inspiration behind them, Las Nubes continued:

“At the time I felt like my best years were flying away before my eyes and I used that as inspiration for what it might feel like to be an aging ex-superhero. For the video I edited an old home movie of my father in his late 40s doing tricks with a soccer ball. Growing up in Argentina, he always dreamed of going pro. Soccer was his first love and he finally had his chance and played professionally for a year before getting seriously injured. He wasn’t able to continue his career in soccer after that, but he always carried the love for the sport in his heart.”

Originally formed in Lima, Peru by Adele Fournet and Felipe Wurst, Brooklyn-based group Tipa Tipo isn’t afraid to mix sounds, textures, and ideas. Their music melds genres and melodies, breaking new ground as they fuse older pop conventions with Latin-inspired rhythms. On their latest release, “Grifo,” Tipa Tipo even blends languages. In the multilingual track, the group reflects on the connection between life and death, ruminating on the dead that live among us, from the animal carcasses that make the gas that fuels our cars to the bodies that sit in the graveyards in our communities. With its groovy baseline, Fournet‘s smooth vocals, and drummer Jordan Auber collaborated with funky drums, the track perfectly balances fun and fatalism in a flamboyant fashion.

But the buck doesn’t stop there for Tipa Tipo. The group has also released a visually and artistically astute music video, directed by the band’s very own Adele Fournet. The video features dynamic dancing and eye-catching backdrops. It’s a visual spectacular that romanticizes the dirty and wasteful, a dance that finds choreography in both natural and mechanical movement.

The resulting product is a track and accompanying video that are both meaningful and catchy. HighClouds was lucky enough to catch up with Tipa Tipo to discuss the process that went into creating “Grifo,” their headspace as they look toward releasing their first full-length LP, and the challenges and triumphs they’ve experienced since transitioning from Lima to the Brooklyn music scene. Read our entire conversation below, and don’t forget to stream “Grifo” as soon as humanly possible.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

HighClouds: Talk us through the process of writing and recording “Grifo.”

I wrote this song while in quarantine with the Omicron variant of COVID, and my window overlooked two gas stations at a big intersection in South Brooklyn. I wrote the opening lyrics in a feverish state while looking at the throbbing lights of those desolate stations. I saw the gas stations as homing beacons, calling all survivors after the apocalypse. The song grew into a meditation about life running on death, especially in the form of the liquid fossils that we pump into our vehicles for fuel. The second verse develops this theme further, but this time in the context of The Green-Wood Cemetery. This cemetery is very close to my house, and is one of my favorite places to spend hours admiring the enormous trees and imagining past lives of the people who nourish them.

We recorded “Grifo” at our studio in Brooklyn. Like many of our tracks, it was a process of reconstructing the Logic demo by replacing and augmenting the MIDI arrangements with real instruments. I knew that I wanted the instrumentation to juxtapose the mosquito-like electric guitars of old chicha recordings with the luscious electric pianos and synths of disco in order to conjure this hybrid genre we’ve been going for that we’re calling “tropical disco.” Highlights from the studio include recording with our Tipa Tipo drummer, Jordan Auber— Who really took the drums and percussion to a whole new level on this track– and recording a real vibraphone with our friend Erica Mancini. Getting Felipe‘s lead guitars to sound both danceable and annoying was also a fun challenge. We had a lot of fun creating the ambient disco vocal stabs that occur throughout the track by running many layers of harmonies through our SurfyBear spring reverb pedal. SurfyBear is definitely a big part of this track.

“Grifo” is a multilingual track, featuring both Spanish and English. Does your songwriting approach change when you compose in different languages?

We are a bilingual band, so in a way writing bilingual songs is the most intuitive and natural outcome. Felipe‘s native language is Spanish, my native language is English, and we talk all day in Spanglish. However, I’ve often feared that writing in two languages could alienate a listener – if the song starts in English, and then switches to Spanish, maybe the English-speaking listener could feel lost or confused, or vice versa? But with “Grifo,” the verses came to me so clearly in English, and the choruses in Spanglish, that it felt like the only way to do justice to the song was to write it in both languages.

The video for “Grifo” is super engaging with its unique shooting locations, trippy effects, and imaginative choreography. Where did the idea for the video come from? What was the shooting and editing process like?

The music video for “Grifo” takes place in three different Brooklyn locations that contrast the industrial and organic elements of the city—The gas stations that originally inspired the song, The Green-Wood Cemetery, and a scrap metal processing plant in Gowanus right next to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I have a longstanding collaboration with the Peruvian choreographer and multidisciplinary artist Moyra Silva, in which we create site-specific dance pieces and installations that interrogate the relationship between human bodies and urban spaces. We did a site-specific videodance piece in Perú right before the pandemic, called “Limas Utópicas,” and were excited to have the opportunity to work together again after so many years. Moyra and I developed the movements for “Grifo” in response to the locations and the music, while implementing the imagery of oil pumps, machinery, connection, and running. I really like the aesthetic and feeling tone of non-narrative experimental films like Godfrey Reggio‘s Koyaanisqatsi, so we decided to blend the shots of our choreography with a collage of archival footage to create a series of tableaus portraying the relationship between fossil fuel consumption, death, and human connection.

While “Grifo” is an upbeat and dancey track, the video and lyrics certainly have fatalistic undertones. What is it like to create art when it feels like the world is ending?

The end of the world as we know it has always been a subject matter that interests me as a songwriter, but with a twist and a sense of humor. I love writing upbeat dance tracks about the world ending and fleshing out a lyrical portrayal of what that might look like. I think it makes me feel existentially better to sing about hard topics while everyone is dancing—It’s a catharsis in which we can hold opposing feelings at the same time. I love the science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin, in part because much of her world-building occurs in post-disaster scenarios. What do we do once the world as we know it ends? In “Grifo,” we have a dance party at the gas station as everyone stocks up on provisions.

Tipa Tipo was originally formed in Peru. Can you tell us more about your origin story as a band? What was it like adjusting to the scene in Brooklyn?

Felipe and I met in Lima in 2010 and started collaborating on original music soon thereafter. We played in a band called Humanimals and were in a small but blossoming experimental pop scene in Lima, with bands like Alejandro y María Laura, La Lá, and Kanaku y El Tigre. I got an opportunity to do a PhD program in Ethnomusicology at NYU, so we moved to New York and basically started over as musicians and artists in the US in 2013. The music scene in Brooklyn was enormous in comparison, and a lot more competitive and demoralizing. We stopped playing original music as a duo for many years and only played as supporting musicians for other people’s projects and worked on our own solo projects. Notably, I released a solo instrumental album in that time under my own name called Foremothers and Felipe was playing with the Latin experimental band La Mecanica Popular. In that time, we also started learning about production and engineering and slowly started to experiment more with analog recording techniques. We bought a Tascam cassette recorder and recorded our first EP as Tipa Tipo, which reignited our passion for creating original music despite the challenges of the New York scene. While living in Brooklyn we also developed a passion for Peruvian bands from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that were developing their a unique cumbia sound, including Los Orientales de Paramonga, Los Mirlos, and Los Destellos. These bands have gone on to influence our sound as we explore this nexus between tropical and disco.

Your new first full-length LP Cintas will be released early next year. What should listeners look forward to hearing on the record? What has been the biggest challenge in preparing for the release? What part of the process has been most joyous?

This record is an inflection point between the yacht rock en español we were doing with our previous EP, El Chari, and the dance-oriented tropical disco we’ve started pursuing more recently. The new album has songs that fall all along that spectrum. It’s taken two years to write and record Cintas, and we’ve especially enjoyed honing our process and techniques as producers and engineers. We’ve overcome a lot of creative fears when it comes to writing and recording, and are more fluid with our flow working individually and together. Some of the album was recorded to tape, some of it is digital—We just did whatever felt right for each song in each moment.

Now for a few quickfire questions. If you could open for any band or artist (alive, dead, active, broken up— everyone is fair game) on tour, what band or artist would it be?

Wings.

If you had to create a cocktail to pair with “Grifo,” what would the drink be?

Definitely a Chilcano with gas station ginger ale.

What will 2024 bring for Tipa Tipo?

Our album release, more shows, and more new music on the way!

Ever since her debut singles, Dua Lipa has consistently exuded a popstar aura. However, it was her phenomenal 2020 album, Future Nostalgia, that catapulted her to the status of a serious artist who transcends the boundaries of conventional pop. While she wasn’t the pioneer of the disco revival trend — Madonna‘s Confessions on a Dancefloor (2005) and many precede her — Dua, much like Kylie, ironically dropped her collection of cathartic and danceable bops during a time when clubs had been shut down and the world grappled with lockdown. Perhaps it was our collective yearning for warmth, solace, and glitter in those challenging times that propelled the album into the top five best-selling albums of the year. With hindsight, the timing was perhaps perfect.

Dua Lipa is now ushering in the DL3 era with the synth-illating “Houdini,” a fresh banger produced by Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker and Danny L Harle. She co-wrote the track with Caroline Ailin and Tobias Jesso Jr. The press release refers to the whole team as the “essential collaborators” for the yet to be detailed album. Right from the get-go, with the thudding baseline intro and the visuals reminiscent of the “Hung Up” dance room, it’s clear that Dua is gearing up for a full-on performer mode in this new chapter — are more dance memes or even a TikTok mirror challenge in the making?

On “Houdini,” the unmistakable Parker and the larger-than-life Harle‘s psychedelic touches aren’t mere nuances; they permeate the bass and synths with brilliance. But despite these influences, Dua maintains her core formula: this isn’t a 180-degree turn akin to Gaga‘s “Perfect Illusion” produced by Parker, or the angular pop found in Polachek‘s huge Danny-produced albums. The ongoing debate about whether there are traces of Tame Impala, Daft Punk, or Soulwax in “Houdini” already attests to its potential broad appeal well beyond the usual pop crowd. While the double entendre of the lyrics may touch on ghosting and the title pays homage to the master of escape, one thing is for certain: Dua Lipa isn’t vanishing from the scene anytime soon.