THE PLAYLIST
Christina Aguilar/ Thur
Thailand’s certified dancing queen Christina Aguilar has returned with Thur [You], her first piece of new music in more than a decade, since 2007’s C. SPACE. Don’t go expecting a floor filler, though, because Thur is a self-empowering melodic pop ballad that showcases Aguilar’s pristine vocals. She’s also needlessly assisted here by Georgia-born, Bangkok-based rapper UNDA, who supplies a few token English verses about congratulating and believing in yourself — more or less a word-forword translation of the Thai lyrics.
Kylie Minogue/ Dancing
Like the old (and completely made up) adage says, when all else fails, go country. And that’s exactly what Kylie Minogue has done on her new single, Dancing. The track, lifted from her upcoming 14th studio album Golden, sees the Australian pop diva embracing her inner country belle, giving us a euphoric country/electro hybrid that’s pretty on-trend right now. “No one wants to stay at home/ Nobody wants to be alone/ When you come knocking, I’ll be at your door,” she sings with a minor twang. “Can’t stand still/ I won’t slow down… When I go out/ I wanna go out dancing.”
George Ezra/ Paradise
As evidenced by his 2014’s debut album Wanted On Voyage, British singer-songwriter George Ezra has an uncanny way of crafting infectious little tunes that just beg to be hummed along to. The same applies to Paradise, the second cut off his forthcoming sophomore effort, Staying At Tamara’s. Set to driving guitar lines, the song comes with jolly, call-and-response lyrics dedicated to all the wonderful feelings you get when you’re in love.
The Chainsmokers/ Sick Boy
EDM bros The Chainsmokers are putting on quite a serious face on their latest offering, Sick Boy. Described as “a song about self-identity in today’s world and standing tall in the face of what you can and can’t control”, it offers an oblique, somewhat noir narrative of being stuck between the United States’ East and West coasts (“I’m from the east side of America/ Where we choose pride over character… I live on the west side of America/ Where they spin lies into fairy dust”). Seemingly ‘woke’, singer Andrew Taggart then asks “How many likes is my life worth?” – a confounding stance coming from someone who became famous through a song called #SELFIE.
Mount Eerie/ Distortion
In many ways, Mount Eerie’s latest offering, Distortion, is a clear continuation of his previous record, A Crow Looked At Me. Running close to 11 minutes, the sparse, densely worded track finds Phil Elverum tracing back to his childhood’s notion of mortality and (still) coming to terms with his wife’s death. “But I don’t believe in ghosts or anything/I know that you are gone/And that I’m carrying some version of you around,” he muses in the opening verse, setting the stage for full-blown stream-of-consciousness lyricism as he recounts the times when he first saw a dead body and watched “a movie on the plane about Jack Kerouac”.