The best new tracks, picked by our staff
Rated by THE FACE: a playlist featuring Playboi Carti, FKA twigs, Charli xcx and Pa Salieu.
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Playboi Cari – All Red
At the start of 2024, Carti had millions of rap fans on the edge of their seats. He dropped a series of divisive singles along with murky music videos solely on Instagram, and his long-anticipated album I Am Music was set to be the most talked-about rap record of the year. Then… the roll-out just stopped. Carti’s voice has still been in the airwaves thanks to some major features – namely on Future and Metro Boomin’s Type Shit, FE!N with Travis Scott and Camilla Cabello’s I Luv It – but his black-clad fanbase have been wondering where the hell the album is for months. All Red is the first Carti track to be on official streaming platforms since 2020, and the vampiric rapper has finally dropped the pre-order link of the album, so it seems to be happening for real this time. Over a spooky beat by F1lthy, on All Red there are moments when Carti’s pitch-shifted voice sounds almost identical to Future’s. Weird.
Charli xcx – Talk Talk featuring Troye Sivan
Everyone got excited about Dua Lipa being on this rework, before Charli clarified that she actually just speaks a bit of French and Spanish, in reference to a lyric on the silky pop-house banger. Ah well, her tour mate Troye Sivan rises to the occasion. And maybe Dua can be heard elsewhere on the 16 track remix album.
FKA twigs – EUSEXUA
People who don’t go raving think it’s just about people getting off their nut. But little do they know, creativity can be sparked in the club. Case in point: EUSEXUA, a word which FKA twigs scrawled on the back of her hand in the toilet at a techno night in Prague, is now the name of her new album and creative concept. The title track sees twigs elegantly glide over synth arpeggios which build towards a pounding 4/4 pulse, and you can hear ethereal backing vocals from the song’s co-writer Eartheater if you listen closely. More evidence that you should get out more.
Memory of Speke – Wife Once
Wife Once is the debut single from Memory of Speke, but the six piece band have been at it for a few years, playing at London’s best sticky-floored indie venues like Brixton’s Windmill and The Shacklewell and, inexplicably, hanging out with A$AP Rocky. You can tell they’ve had plenty of practice. Wife Once is a slick, sly, sax-slathered song about matrimonial misery, and it’s paired with an eerie video which references a period I can’t quite pinpoint (I didn’t do very well in History at school).
Pa Salieu – Allergy
Pa Salieu recently returned from prison and he’s wasting no time. Allergy comes just one week after his comeback track Belly. “I’m young, I’m lit and I’m free,” the Coventry artists raps over a powerfully percussive track that’s closer to Afrobeat (as in the Fela Kuti variety) than Afrobeats. The UK music scene has missed him.
