From Boston, via Texas
Recommended if you like Grace Ives, Porter Robinson, Grimes
Up next Touring EU/UK in November
Riya Mahesh has perfected her own sweet, whimsical brand of plunderphonics; her seventh project as Quiet Light in six years, this year’s Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2, sounds a little as if it’s been chopped together from samples of Mahesh’s own memory. On Berlin, she sings to a wayward love interest over a moony breakbeat and IDM glitches, as a spoken-word part – what sounds to me like a recording of a lecture – floats in the background. Star100 starts all whispers and garbled laughter, before ceding space to Mahesh’s multitracked harmonies. Sometimes, Mahesh will suddenly deliver a wildly catchy chorus, something she clearly has an aptitude for – check Dealerz, her collab with Danish band A Good Year.
Mahesh’s music is avowedly feminine in its tone; she seems to advocate for sample-heavy music, as a form, as a perfect way to deconstruct and reconstruct fantasies and memories. True to that idea, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2 is moody and magical, and recalls singer-songwriter projects such as Samia (in its vocals especially) and Pinegrove while also tapping into the exacting, dreamlike production of artists such as Grimes and Desire.
Mahesh was raised in Texas and played piano from a young age, thanks to the urging of her mother, a sitar player. She self-describes as “an insanely Texas girl” – she was prom queen of her high school – but still wanted to play music when she graduated. After failing to get into Juilliard, the prestigious music college, she decided to pivot and currently balances medical school with her burgeoning music career. It’s an unorthodox backdrop for unorthodox music, which splits the difference between dazed ambient production and big-tent pop melody as if it’s nothing. Shaad D’Souza
This week’s best new tracks
Chat Pile – Deep Blue
An awesomely funky howl of frustration and fear from the Oklahoman sludge-groove noisemakers, horrified at how technology has poisoned the groundwater of our lives.
Wishy – Lovesick
It may sound like it’s beamed directly from 1993, but lean into the nostalgia: this is scuzzy indiepop perfection, anchored by Nina Pitchkites’ lead vocal as she gets swept up in the sweet torture of romantic yearning.
Debit – Encasadelciegoeltuerco
Taken from her absolutely slamming, top-tier new album Potpourri out today, the Mexican producer sets galloping distortion-laced beats under a gunmetal sky of sustained ambient tones.
Rose Gray – Club to Your Arms
Sounding a little like Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s wayward younger sister, the Brit award nominee sings of making a beeline from nightclub to bedroom tryst, backed by rapturous electro-pop.
RealYungPhil – 2x
We’ve long loved this Connecticut rapper’s flow, somewhere between a sensei dispensing wisdom and a mate grumbling about his lot: 2x is another winner, rejecting bothersome rivals over a woozy yet uptempo beat.
Daisy* – Punch
The artist formerly known as Babii has left her old name behind “due to creative differences with myself”, and she certainly sounds refreshed: Punch pairs whispery singsong vocals with whomping speed garage.
Interpol – This Mirror Weighs a Ton
The title track from their forthcoming eighth album has huge drama, a kind of gothic trip-hop topped with Paul Banks’ poetic angst: “The maniac in your head still sleeps in archways / alone as an act of faith”.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
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