Listen Up
A sparkling ditty, an improvisatory neo-classical track with Latin American influences, an affecting indie-folk anthem and more new music
Bryan Senti: Manu
With his new, improvisatory and mesmeric single “Manu,” composer, violinist and violist Bryan Senti blends neo-classical composition with influence from the Indigenous Latin American music of his upbringing. The track, which will appear on Senti’s album Manu (out 24 June), debuts with a music video directed by Jared Malik Royal and recorded with collaborator Noah Hoffeld and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble at Dreamland Studios in the Hudson Valley. “My daughter was born on 10 February 2020 and, as we all know, a month later the world would be reeling from the Covid pandemic,” Senti shares with us about the song’s origins. “As my nascent family and I began to settle into our new monastic reality, I began to meditate on the story of my Hispanic family, my perception of reality (Covid and an Ayahuasca ceremony I had attended a few months prior had no doubt informed this), and finally the purpose and meaning of music.” For Senti, Manu became “a therapeutic journey to trace a musical corridor between my world and that of my parents and ancestors.”
beabadoobee: See You Soon
The second single from beabadoobee’s upcoming second album, Beatopia, “See You Soon” is a sparkling, sweet ditty about tenderness and acceptance. “I feel like the idea behind ‘See You Soon’ is that it’s meant to make you feel like you’re tripping on shrooms. I feel like the chorus especially—I want it to sound like a breath of fresh air, like… a realization of some sort,” she says. “I wrote it during a time where I was away a lot and making a lot of mistakes and doing a lot of things to help me figure a lot of stuff out… It’s OK to make mistakes, as long as it makes you a stronger person, as long as it makes everything makes sense. And it’s important to be by yourself sometimes.”
Ab-Soul: Hollandaise
Ab-Soul’s first new solo music in two years, “Hollandaise” features a beat by Top Dawg Entertainment in-house producer Kal Banx. Ab-Soul (aka Herbert Anthony Stevens IV) reflects on his childhood, aspirations and self-assurance on the track, which is rich with wordplay.
Bird Streets: Unkind
Brooklyn-based Bird Streets—the collaborative project of singer-songwriter and musician John Brodeur—debuts the thoughtful and affecting indie-folk anthem, “Unkind,” produced by Michael Lockwood and featuring Aimee Mann on bass guitar. It’s Brodeur’s first new release in three years and it transforms the recording artist’s emotional intelligence into a rich composition. “I used to write about finding ways out of the darkness, now I’m more interested in exploring and creating a map of that place,” Brodeur tells COOL HUNTING. “In some ways, adopting the Bird Streets name allowed me to write more openly about myself.”
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 shabalaparabala/beabadoobee
