Listen Tracks: BROCKHAMPTON ft Danny Brown, Beabadoobee, Jungle and more

After weeks of online teasers, Brockhampton have officially welcomed us into their brand new era with first cut off of forthcoming sixth album ‘Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine’. Linking up with Danny Brown for their first official track in two years, ‘Buzzcut’ switches things up from the mellow nature of 2019 LP ‘Ginger’, announcing their return with a bang. Opening with Kevin Abstract spitting “Who let the dope boys out?”, ‘Buzzcut’ immediately fizzes with excitement, channelling the boyband’s electric energy into a hard-hitting hip-hop number that shows off their flair for experimentation and keeps us on our toes with every twist and turn. The BH boys are back with a banger, baby. (Elly Watson)

If there was ever any doubt that The 1975 were at the heart of label Dirty Hit’s empire, then this month has seen them really hammer the point home. First came a collab with labelmate No Rome and Charli XCX in which the glitchier end of their sonic fingerprint was written all over it, and now comes ‘Last Day on Earth’: a co-write technically billed as a beabadoobee offering that’s actually a 75 track by any other name. All the hallmarks are there - the breezy, conversational tone; the self-referential lyrics; the fact it literally sounds like ‘Me and You Together Song’. As a well-documented Matty Healy stan, you imagine Bea is probably more than happy to sound like her mentors, which makes the whole exercise largely cute, if a little shameless. (Lisa Wright)

Since first arriving back in 2014 in an aura of mystery and concealed identities (anticlimax alert: they were two white guys from London), Jungle’s approach has been consistent: funk-laced, disco-infiltrating tracks, high on falsetto with an easily bop-able shuffle. ‘Keep Moving’, then, does what it says on the tin. It also sounds really quite a lot like debut album mega hit ‘Busy Earnin’’, albeit with more layers of gospel vocals added to the mix, which means that, isolated, it’s an undeniably addictive jam but, in the context of their career as a whole, it’s not really anything much new. (Lisa Wright)

Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’ hasn’t just found its way onto every single ‘80s playlist since playlists became a thing (and then, probably on all similarly-minded mixtapes before that), it’s also been a staple of covers and samples - most recently by Orville Peck and on Brandon Flowers’ ‘I Can Change’ respectively. On this first taste of upcoming solo album ‘The Waves Pt. 1’, Kele Okereke flips the track, the euphoric disco of the original swapped for plaintive guitar noodling; the softer side of the Bloc Party frontman’s instantly-recognisable vocal nearly whispering in place of a screaming falsetto. In doing so, he lays the pure loneliness of the lyrics bare. (Emma Swann)

Cataclysmic and somehow growing even more enthralling with every listen, black midi return with the limitless ‘John L’. It is a chilling hallucination overflowing with nightmarish vision and boundless influence that although subtly nodding to the likes of debut ‘schlagenheim’, actually plunges them into a far darker realm. Much like a car crash that you can’t tear your gaze from, the desire to understand more about what makes this band tick is precisely why we’re still firmly in their grasp. (Olivia White)

That a teaming up between Melina Duterte of Jay Som and Palehound’s Ellen Kempner channels major ‘90s college rock vibes should come as no surprise to anyone. ‘Stay in the Car’ is, it would seem, a love song aimed towards a woman who’s just popped into a shop, leaving her boyfriend waiting. Not the most romantic of scenarios, we’ll wager, but while we’re picturing a layby outside Tesco Extra, the parking lots of American strip malls might regularly throw up something far more glamorous. You never know. (Bella Martin)

Last month saw Talk Show guest on house act Eli Brown’s ‘Trouble’. An insistent number that, thanks to Harrison Swann’s punchy vocal take, and possibly also the production credits of Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Al Doyle, could almost lay claim to electro-punk status. But more exciting is this week’s flip-side. Taking the dancefloor-ready pace of the original and coupling it with the sonic intensity of a full live band - heavier still than Talk Show’s own output thus far - it’s a beast of a track, the repetitive refrain full of industrial menace, the whole thing begging for a circle pit. (Emma Swann)

Tags: beabadoobee, black midi, BROCKHAMPTON, Danny Brown, Jungle, Kele Okereke, Talk Show, Listen, Features, Tracks