The album’s lead single, “Recognise,” serves as a bridge between Shura‘s previous work and her new material, encapsulating lessons learned during six years of uncertainty. The track begins with ethereal synths and delicate airy vocals, then bursts into an unexpected surge of energetic drum. The lyrics explore themes of artistic identity and the perception of selfishness in chasing one’s dreams, ultimately concluding that life’s unpredictability makes existence itself worthwhile.

Of the track, Shura stated: “Arthur Russell sang ‘being sad is not a crime’ and yet somehow when I went through a period of despair in January I felt that the best course of action was to hide myself away from the world. I think Recognise is a song about coming out the other side of that feeling. Slowly coming to the understanding that everything is ok. And that ok – is good. That I can sit quietly, read a book, sip a coffee and deeply appreciate being here and everything that has happened and has yet to happen…”

Cassandra Jenkins, who has released An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, one of our favourite albums of 2021, recently covered Eartheater’s “Faith Consuming Hope” for an episode of Sounds Of Saving and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline‘s “Song that Found Me At The Right Time” project.

“I was struck by the beauty of the song,” she detailed. “I, of course, was just completely in love with the string arrangements. And when I dove deeper into looking at the lyrics, they were talking about some things that I’ve been thinking about deeply through the past probably two years and hit me harder than I kind of expected. The opening line of this song, it’s something that we’ve probably all heard before, which is that the only way out of this is through. It is the main lyric, which is something you might see on like a motivational poster or something, but re-contextualize into this deeper look at what faith and hope are. We think of these words attached to religion a lot of the time. And I think this isn’t specifically talking about religious faith, religious hope. This is talking about a much broader hope and faith.”

“Faith Consuming Hope” is taken from Eartheater‘s excellent 2020 album Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin.

Like every June, our team hold a very serious – not so serious – committee meeting and pick their favourite tracks of the first semester. That way, you can go on holidays with a cool soundtrack. No need to thank us. You can find these 20 entries in alphabetical order below as well as in our Spotify and Apple Music playlists, which also contain some other great contenders that were released over the last six months.

Anika – “Change”
Bobbie Lovesong – “Organic Orange”
Burial – “Space Cadet”
Cabiria – “Abrigo de Sol”
Cassandra Jenkins – “Hard Drive”
Dawn Richard – “Boomerang”
Erika de Casier – “Polite”
Japanese Breakfast – “Be Sweet”
Jordana + Magdalena Bay – “Push Me Away”
Katy Kirby – “Portals”
Kero Kero Bonito – “Well Rested”
L’Rain – “Two Face”
Mette – “Petrified”
Mia Porter – “Pivot”
Mr Twin Sister – “Expressions”
Nana Yamato – “Do You Wanna”
Rachika Nayar – “The Trembling of Glass”
Slayyyter – “Clouds”
Theodora – “For One Heart”
Tirzah – “Tectonic”