Weekend playlist: Vince Staples, Yves Tumor and more new music you need to hear - Toronto Star

Keeping up with new music releases can be a difficult task. Your Weekend Playlist offers a brief introduction to a broad range of the most interesting new tracks and emerging artists.

This weekend’s playlist features new music from Low, Tirzah and Helado Negro, plus a Blood Orange remix of a classic Sugababes track.

Click here to save the Spotify playlist.

Yves Tumor: Jackie

It can feel difficult to get excited about rock music these days. Turn on hard rock or alternative radio, and you’re forced to listen to Imagine Dragons or the new Foo Fighters song, which sounds a lot like an old Foo Fighters song. Or head over to the Billboard Rock Chart, where until this week Queen’s latest “Greatest Hits” album occupied the #1 spot for about six months.

In reality, rock music is alive and well — the industry’s gatekeepers simply haven’t kept up to the changing dynamics of the genre. Previously crowded out by white male artists or bands, rock has in recent years seen a rise in female (Mitski!), LGBTQ (Jay Som!), and racialized (Bartees Strange!) artists pushing the boundaries of the genre and elevating it to new heights. (The Grammys do get some credit after they nominated only women-led acts in the Best Rock Performance category last year).

One of the genre’s brightest emerging artists is Yves Tumor, who over the past five years has transformed from an underground curiosity into a modern-day rock star, “blending tart psychedelia and maximal glam rock,” in the words of music writer Alex Frank.

Last week, Tumor, who uses both gender-neutral and he/him pronouns, released “Jackie,” their first new single since 2020’s masterful “Heaven to a Tortured Mind.” Bursting with crunchy guitar and big hooks, the track’s raw energy and jagged edges feel more vital than anything else you’ll hear on the radio this summer.

Vince Staples: Law of Averages

(Warning: Explicit Lyrics)

Vince Staples doesn’t miss. Since exploding onto the scene with the massive single “Blue Suede” in 2014, the Compton/Long Beach artist has become one of the most consistent MCs of the decade.

Like his contemporary Kendrick Lamar, Staples is a storyteller, painting gritty and complex portraits of growing up surrounded by police and gang violence. And like Lamar, Staples has kept things interesting by working with cutting-edge producers or musicians to expand his sound to incorporate new and exciting elements.

In 2015, Staples collaborated with cloud-rap producer Clams Casino for the classic “Norf Norf,” a track so potent and provocative that it spawned its own viral discourse about explicit content in rap music. In 2017, Staples teamed up with a series of avant-garde electronic producers, including the late SOPHIE, for “Big Fish Theory,” an album that could have easily bombed in less capable hands. Initially regarded with skepticism, today it’s a classic.

On his newest single, he teams up with the in-demand producer Kenny Beats for “Law of Averages.” The down-tempo and bitter-sounding track signals yet another sonic direction, one that may explore a new side of the ever-evolving artist. “It really gives much more information about me that wasn’t out there before,” Staples said in a statement. “As you go on in life, your point of view changes. This is another take on myself that I might not have had before.”

Low: Days Like These

It’s a rare and special occasion that a new song has an immediate impact on you, such that you listen to it two or three times consecutively.

“Days Like These,” the newest song from the veteran “dream pop”/“slowcore” duo Low, feels like a magic trick: what starts off sounding like a wholesome pop ballad slowly disintegrates into a swirl of static and distortion, until finally tapering off into stunning ambient haze.

Loading...

Loading...Loading...Loading...Loading...Loading...

Low, which formed in 1993 and is made up of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, conjured similar wizardry on their 2018 album “Double Negative,” which combined soulful harmonies with lurching rhythms and deftly composed noise to create uniquely moving and dark soundscapes.

Three years later, Low’s music sounds a touch more optimistic. “There may never be peace to be found in this life,” writes Michael Swiz, “but Low continue to learn how to quiet the unease with their own transfiguration.”

Helado Negro: Gemini and Leo

Summer 2021 is ripe for good vibes. As the pandemic slowly recedes here in Canada, many are feeling a sense of lightness, relief and even joy as the economy reopens, and as friends and families are able to reunite after months apart.

This week’s dose of good vibes comes courtesy of Roberto Carlos Lange, a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist who records under the name Helado Negro. Lange, whose sound incorporates elements of folk, jazz and Latin music, possesses a voice that is so inviting and charismatic so laid back and unpretentious, that the positive energy seems to emanate directly from your speakers into your soul.

On June 21, Lange released the first single from his upcoming album “Far In,” which is set to drop in the fall. A sunny, upbeat track, “Gemini and Leo” feels like a perfect soundtrack for a long-overdue road trip, a late-night dance party or simply relaxing in a hammock with a fruity cocktail.

Tirzah: Send Me/Sink In

Remember the 2013 science fiction thriller “Under the Skin”? The widely acclaimed film in which Scarlett Johansson plays an alien disguised as a beautiful woman who preys on the unsuspecting young men of Glasgow?

Much of the film’s brilliance stems from its otherworldly soundtrack, composed by English producer and songwriter Mica Levi. During one of the film’s key scenes, a synthesized string score distorts and quivers, producing a disquieting sensation as Johansson’s alien discovers what it means to be human.

Since April, Levi has produced two new singles with her long-time friend and collaborator Tirzah, an English artist whose debut album “Devotion” was released in 2018. Both tracks are studies in contrast, juxtaposing Tirzah’s sensuous vocals with Levi’s lurching, hyper-minimal productions.

On “Send Me,” Tirzah’s voice floats above a hypnotic guitar line and drum beat before the song suddenly implodes into snarling guitar distortion. “Sink Me” is similarly hypnotic: Music writer Eric Torres suggests the song “evokes a dream half-remembered, a place where the atmosphere is unsettled and hazy with abstraction.”

Tirzah and Levi’s chemistry draws you in and commands your attention, despite an uneasiness that lurks below the surface.

Bonus Track

Sugababes: Same Old Story (Blood Orange Remix)

Dev Hynes, the prolific pop phenom who records under the moniker Blood Orange, has been (relatively) quiet since his last mixtape in 2019, focusing his efforts instead on several film scores, including the soundtracks for “Queen & Slim” and “Mainstream.” His return to the realm of pop music comes in the form of a Sugababes remix, which reimagines the British girl group’s classic from the album “One Touch,” which is set to celebrate its 20th anniversary this fall.

Adblock test (Why?)

Weekend playlist: Vince Staples, Yves Tumor and more new music you need to hear - Toronto Star
Read More