ListenUp
Twin Shadow channels Tom Petty, plus new jams by Matt & Kim, Lou Phelps and more
Lou Phelps feat. Jazz Cartier: Come Inside
Canadian rapper Lou Phelps joins forces with KAYTRANADA (who also happens to be his brother) and Jazz Cartier for the buoyant bop “Come Inside.” Seemingly crafted for a summertime outdoor dance floor, the tune is bouncy and sunny. Phelps borrows some lines from Missy Elliott’s “I’m Really Hot” and name-checks Rick James, while maintaining a smooth, effortless flow.
Matt and Kim: Happy If You’re Happy
Built upon arpeggiated vocals, Matt and Kim’s brand new “Happy If You’re Happy” layers voice, finger-snaps and nothing more for an acapella delight. Lyrically, it’s a straightforward love song but certainly greater than the sum of its parts. The track appears on their forthcoming sixth studio album ALMOST EVERYDAY, out in May.
Czarface + MF DOOM: Bomb Thrown
Hip-hop supergroup Czarface (7L, Esoteric and Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck) have teamed up with masked rapper MF DOOM for the potent “Bomb Thrown” from their upcoming collaboration Czarface Meets Metal Face! Booming and gritty, the song makes mention of Spiderman and Atari while also sending support to A Tribe Called Quest via the line, “very necessary like a Q-Tip Grammy rant.” Perhaps not for the faint-hearted, but certainly for ’90s hip-hop enthusiasts
Book Club: Heartbeats
For all the genres in the music industry in flux, in development or getting overhauled, it seems like good old grungy hard rock hasn’t been met with the same effort. And yet, this is what’s at stake with Book Club, a Brooklyn-based band with gravity, energy and an earnestness that refreshes with each listen. “Heartbeats,” the lead single off their just-released debut Volumn, acts as an entry point, with a dark emotional layer everyone will understand.
Twin Shadow: Brace
Featuring Rainsford, “Brace” appears on Twin Shadow’s Caer—the first LP to be released since the band’s tour bus accident, and frontman George Lewis Jr’s subsequent reconstructive hand surgery. It may borrow those pulsing synths from Art of Noise’s “Moments in Love” and chords from Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin,” but the complete track is entirely Twin Shadow. The song undulates seamlessly from verse to chorus, and the result is a tune that’s compelling and tender.
Superorganism: Havana (Camila Cabello Cover)
The very multi-cultural eight-piece band Superorganism has members from England, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, and have just taken on a track named for Cuba’s capital city. The cover version of Camila Cabello’s hit “Havana” featuring Young Thug is full of harmonies and adds some glitches, plus Orono Noguchi’s smooth vocals, all adding up to a laid-back, cruise-y iteration.
ListenUp is a Cool Hunting series published every Sunday that rounds up the music we tweeted throughout the week, also found in Listen. Hear the year so far via Cool Hunting Spotify.
