StuckSongSyndrome#4

The best new music I've heard recently has either been from solo female artists or originates from Scandinavia. This post sticks to former though there is one track that fits into both categories...

Here's the first three songs:

It took a couple of listens find the heart of Julia Holter's new single 'Feel You' but it repays the effort - the sadness and longing at core of this song make it really moving. The phrasing is exquisite and the chorus that begins after the line "Are you mythological?" is like toppling of a cliff, but in a pleasant way :-)

In stark contrast 'Dragged Out' - the first song I've heard by Chelsea Wolfe, though this is by no means her first album - has a much darker melancholy at its centre. It sounds like the soundtrack to a soul's descent into hell, a thing of obsidian beauty and is hypnotically compelling.

On a slightly lighter note - though perhaps only at the surface - is Roisin Murphy's 'Evil Eyes', another song which repays repeated listens.  Playfully dark with subtle interplay between the instruments, especially the guitar chisel that kicks in in the latter half of the song...

Finally there's Anna Von Hausswolff - where Scandinavia and female solo artist meet - with 'Come Wander With Me/Deliverance', a 10 minute track which combines a church pipe organ, prog, metal and doom into something spectacular. On the basis of this first track I'm really looking forward to the album in November.