RIYL: Weyes Blood, Nelly, elegant doom, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, singer-songwriter

Best moment : Lana lingering in her grief on “Fingertips,” singing about the death by suicide of her uncle, whose funeral she missed because she was performing for the Prince of Monaco. I mean, you really can’t make this up. Where is her mother? She’s a lacuna, an ellipsis in a later verse: “What kind of… was she to say I’d end up in institutions?” Del Rey sings. “What the fuck’s wrong in your head to send me away,” she cries, and suddenly, it’s no wonder she’s having second thoughts about motherhood on the same song.

Best songs : “A&W” / “Peppers (feat. Tommy Genesis)”
Companion LP: Jess Williamson – Time Ain’t Accidental

Best moment : The midpoint highlight “Contact” with Kelela’s delicate melodies over a scuffed jungle beat and warped synths that give way to a sweet rush of lust. So glad to have her back after five years!

RIYL : Shygirl, Rochelle Jordan, FKA twigs, Pinkpantheress, Solange, drifting ambient pop, pensive sex
jams

Select gems : “Contact” / “Closure”
Companion LP : Pinkpantheress – Heavy Only Knows

Best moment : On opener “x_w_x” yeule raging about their coping with existence (“Feel too much,
medicate/ Overwhelmed, isolate”) and their own man-machine creation story. “God created man/
Motherboard, wires and/ Blood, bones, flesh, breathing/ Suicide engineering!” they scream. On the other
hand, yeule’s lyrics are sprinkled with reminders that a digital body can be as flawed as a physical one via
rust, malware, and malfunction. What a breakthrough

RIYL : Eartheater, My Bloody Valentine, Cecile Believe, Purity Ring, Grimes, Billie Eilish, Arca, art pop,
glitch pop, ambient, post-industrial

Fav Songs : “softscars” / “dazies”
Companion LP : Eartheater – Powders

Best moment : Jessy drawing on Janet Jackson’s frisky sensuality more than ever on “Marathon,”
a spangled standout originally written as a demo for another artist. It’s transforms it into
something buoyant and outwardly lustful; the sultry workout peaks with an ecstatic, surprising
sax solo she played herself. (“Show me you can run it like a marathon,” sung in a sweet melody,
ranks among her most memorable refrains.)

Select gems : “Don’t Leave Me Now” / “Marathon”
Companion LP : Tirzah – trip9love…???

RIYL : Janet Jackson, Junior Boys, Kelly Lee Owens, Tirzah, Kelela, Annie, Night Jewel, electro-pop,
club-pop, footwork, synthpop, crisp 808s, make-out jams