Listen Up

Folk, synth-pop, jazz, rock, electronic and more new music this week

Jessica Winter: Funk This Up

Jessica Winter shares a glimpse of her upcoming EP Limerence with the new single “Funk This Up.” The catchy, ’80s-inflected pop song grooves upon hard synths, haunting falsettos and heavy breathing. Lyrically, it sees the artist and producer conversing with herself as she oscillates between opposing identities, which the accompanying Ella Margolin-directed music video delightfully captures, as it becomes as unconventional as the banger.

black midi: Sugar/Tzu (Live Fire)

Today black midi—the English band composed of Geordie Greep, Cameron Picton, Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin and Morgan Simpson—release Live Fire, a live version of their latest album Hellfire available exclusively as a limited vinyl at Rough Trade. Within lies “Sugar/Tzu,” a gorgeously chaotic collision of jazz and rock. It opens (in place of the studio version’s spoken intro) with snarling guitar before giving way to soothing keys, only to erupt into a rambunctious, frenzied riff. Listening to the track feels like a dizzying rollercoaster with a thrill that thankfully never ceases.

Weval: Forever

Amsterdam-based electronic duo Weval (aka Harm Coolen and Merijn Scholte Albers) floats a melodic vocal layer atop a feel-good electric soundscape in their new single, “Forever.” “The way in which many ideas from us come together is by combining different demos with each other,” Weval says in a statement about the dynamic song. “So we had made this beat that became an acid DJ-ish track, and recorded the vocal for a different demo. We ended up sampling our own work and felt it just clicked and fit together in this way. It’s so fun to mash up ideas that in themselves had a completely different life and distinct energy to them. So it feels sometimes we end up with something that we wouldn’t be able to do from one linear process.”

Christina Galisatus: I Want To Know Her

LA-based composer and pianist Christina Galisatus has released a resplendent new folk-infused chamber jazz track, “I Want To Know Her,” drawn from her forthcoming debut album, Without Night. For the composition, Galisatus tapped Erin Bentlage for vocals and brought in top-tier musical talent that includes Michael Blasky on tenor saxophone, Steven Lugerner on bass clarinet, Brandon Bae on guitar, Joshua Crumbly on bass and Zev Shearn-Nance on drums. “The music that I’ve always been drawn to, whether it’s listening to music or performing and composing, has always been music that just feels beautiful to me,” Galisatus says in a statement; it’s a sentiment that reflects the values of her new single.

Listen Up is published every Sunday and rounds up the new music we found throughout the week. Hear the year so far on our Spotify channel. Hero image courtesy of black midi

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