Editor’s Note: Anyone who says there isn’t good music coming out these days — and quite literally, every day — simply isn’t paying attention. Vanyaland’s compilation feature The V List highlights the best in new music, both homegrown and national, over the past month, pulling together the sounds that have soundtracked the website in recent weeks. It’s all the stuff we’re bumping here at Vanyaland HQ, one new bop at a time.
Boy Deluxe, ‘FERAL’
Darker days demand darker beats, and Boy Deluxe have answered the call to beam down from the shadow of heaven and crack a strobe-light whip on our faded mental blackout. The Los Angeles electronic music project of Ever So Android members True Murra and Hope S continue to seduce with “FERAL,” an intoxicating head trip of EBM, darkwave, and electroclash that served as the latest potent dose of sinister post-wave death rave from this past weekend’s all-bangers EP From Black Sheep to Icon. That record title comes from a Hope S lyrical mantra in “FERAL”, and it’s delivered with such deadpan delight we’ve decided to follow Boy Deluxe straight off the catwalk cliff and into a deeper realm of lust and trust. Word on the street is the duo’s beats and treats can also be experienced on The CW’s All American and the latest Chevrolet Equinox EV “Unplug and Unlock” commercial (enter the mutant disco of SOTY contender “FEEDBACK”), so this may not be a hazy daydream after all. Get into the full EP below, as new all-caps tracks “PUSH THE PAIN” and “WAR INSIDE” round out this devilish record that’s destined to soundtrack the summer you actually deserve.
Slow Crush, ‘Thirst’
Sometimes a song isn’t so much a song as it is a confrontation, and within that confrontation is a chance to escape, if only for a moment, the blackened malaise of life. Providing the type of portal we need the most right now is Slow Crush, the Belgian shoegaze and noise-pop dynamo who in mid-May unleashed a strategic fit of calculated chaos called “Thirst.” It’s the unrelenting title track to the foursome’s new album out August 29 via Pure Noise Records, just ahead of a North American tour that delivers them to The Sinclair in Cambridge on September 6. “‘Thirst’ is about an unquenchable desire for what’s next, with focus on essence and balance,” the band offers. “Not losing yourself in the ever-growing distractions that surround us. A yearning pulse for renewal, ‘Thirst’ ripples with a craving for something pure, something vital. It churns with an unrelenting drive, building an electrifying momentum that surges forward and breaks through, offering both release and rebirth.” Plug this into your human mainframe and allow it to flush out the unwanted noise.
Sydney Sprague, ‘As Scared As Can Be’
When a person tells you who they are, it’s best to listen. And when an artist declares a new track “the most unhinged song I have ever written,” well, that warrants full attention, too. Enter Sydney Sprague, the Phoenix singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who delivers “As Scared As Can Be” as a full swandive into the chaos that only charred emotional wreckage of unreciprocated love can bring. “It is a manic, headbang-able doom spiral about unrequited feelings, paranoia, and the humiliation of being desperate for attention from someone who clearly doesn’t want you back,” Sprague says. It’s also decidedly catchy as fuck, and has the type of sun-kissed indie and alt-rock glow that should make us forget all about the losers who can’t hang. Pop it onto a summer playlist and start dishing out love only when it’s served back.
Kilo Kish, ‘enough’
The New Music Friday slate from mid-May delivered an intriguing EP from Kilo Kish titled Negotiations, and given the sneaky, seductive allure of yesterday’s (May 14) aural appetizer “enough,” it shouldn’t take much convincing to side with the Brooklyn artist. “enough” explores the desire for validation through a hypnotic synth-soul glide, the type of dance track that allows the listener to move while standing still. It has us in a trance. “This song is kind of about throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and the fantasy that we play out on the internet, how things are not always as they seem,” says Kish. “Wanting the affection and love of complete strangers, but not really knowing why. The need for viewership and adoration that’s become a mainstay in the way we live nowadays, not just as artists but as everyday people.” Check out the “enough” visual below, co-directed by David Laven with Kish and produced by Even/Odd, and offer any and all approval to this enchanting slice of modern pop.
Wet Leg, ‘CPR’
It’s the Year of Wet Leg, and none of us can stop it. A few weeks after releasing fresh-hell banger and unhinged SOTY contender “catch these fists,” which feels like something Elastica should have put out in the late-’90s, the Isle of Wight indie oddballs resurfaced at month’s end with a galloping love bop called “CPR.” It’s just the right amount of sleazy as it flashes some new wave vibes mixed with the band’s usual cocktail of post-punk and alt-rock, and we’ll be riding that hypnotic bass line all the way back to our broken hearts until Wet Leg bless us with white-hot sophomore album moisturizer on July 11 via Domino. It’ll be a rare highlight of what’s expected to be a fairly shit summer. But perhaps we can love again? Bless you, Wet Leg. Two months after the album drop, if we make it out of the sweaty season alive, the band rolls into Roadrunner in Brighton on September 14, as part of their stylization-is-everything moisTOURizer tour of North America. Allow our feelings on romance to be resuscitated with the spiky “CPR” below.