New music guide The Neu Bulletin (Alma Elste, Manuka Honeys, Jorja Smith & more)

A few blog-busting, buzz-mined singles are one thing, but it takes a lot more to stick around. Enter ‘Limitless’, Alma Elste’s latest and greatest, and evidence of a staying power like few others in these circles possess. Built around shivering percussion and deep-rooted wobbling bass samples, it’s haunting in its defiance. “I am not limitless,” she half-whispers, but her ever-developing backdrop suggests otherwise.

Shimmering synth-work doesn’t come much more widescreen than on Japanese Breakfast’s ‘In Heaven’. Aping Sky Ferreira in its chart-shrugging hugeness, it’s an expansive take on pop immediacy that wafts away its own haze with pin-point melody.

Mixed by Kristian Smith of none other than The Magic Gang, there’s a similarly woozy bob to Manuka Honeys’ latest single. Repeated drawls of the track’s title up the nonchalance, and it’s that slack grip on melody and pace that makes ‘Let It Go’ such an intoxicating brew.

Sampling Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Sirens’ is one way to grab attention, but it’s Jorja Smith’s social commentary that helps ‘Blue Lights’ stick in the mind. Driven on by a huge, soulful voice, it’s a murky, thoughtful take on the all-too-often ignored subjects of inner-city disillusionment.

Written, recorded and mixed “alone in my shed out back”, Worn-tin’s warmth is every bit as rooted in the dirt as his techniques might suggest. Filthy surf-pop with a left-field pop twist, he shies away from the mic for the majority of ‘Doug’, letting the melody do the talking. By the time he offers up his words, that shed’d become a full on party pad - “stop chasing dreams that you never had,” he implores, a desire to live simply in the moment defining his every move.

Tags: Jorja Smith, Listen, Features, Neu, Neu Bulletin