Listen Tracks: Jelani Blackman, serpentwithfeet, Jazmin Bean & more

A beat with one hook, a chorus with another – one that’s just as prime for bucket hats and pints in festival fields as it is viral success – even before getting to the fact this year’s Mercury-shortlisted Kojey Radical has lent his voice and platform to it, Jelani Blackman’s latest cut pretty much already had it all. Give it a week and “izit” will replace “bottle of water” as the default Britishism for Americans’ awful impressions. (Bella Martin)

It would be, we have begrudgingly accepted, inappropriate to make a feet/hands joke with regards to this new offering from forthcoming film The Inspection despite the material being RIGHT THERE. But luckily this meditative, six-minute devotional from Baltimore’s Josiah White brings with it enough elegiac beauty to distract idiots like us from such cheap thrills. Slow and weighty, buoyed by intoxicating gospel choir harmonies and some undulating electronics courtesy of Animal Collective, ‘The Hands’ is as cinematic a track as its purpose suggests. (Lisa Wright)

Inspiration can strike in all manner of places. Sometimes it could be from a relationship, sometimes it happens during a certain experience, and sometimes it’s after watching a cannibalistic love story play out on screen. Or, at least, that’s where Ethel Cain came up with the idea for latest single ’famous last words (an ode to eaters)’. Released on a whim after not being able to get Luca Guadagino’s new romantic horror flick Bones and All out of her head, the dreamy new lovestruck single is dedicated to the film’s leading couple Lee and Maren, as Ethel sings of an all-consuming love over a rich and woozy melody, “you were the one i’d have starved with /til i can’t hold out no more /you were the one i’d come looking for /over and over and over again.” (Elly Watson)

Jazmin Bean’s been relatively quiet since the release of jovially-titled 2020 EP ‘Worldwide Torture’, but the eery jewellery box twinkles that underscore the sonic maelstrom of ‘Carnage’ show that subverting pleasantries and prioritising discomfort (sorry, Self Esteem) are still very much the singer’s MO. A bratty, Ashnikko-adjacent rap verse from Lucy Loone is a highlight, exaggerating the faux-saccharine delivery of Bean with a Poppy-like knack for mixing the sweet and very sour. (Lisa Wright)

The ability to control and channel anger is an enviable trait at the best of times. Coupled with a similarly demonstrative image of him holding a burning copy of The Smiths’ ‘The Queen is Dead’ – on ‘Vandal’, Kele manages to couple his just lyrical rage with a strikingly simple, hypnotic series of guitar loops in a manner so funky as to make himself a one-man LCD Soundsystem. (Bella Martin)

Pulling influence from hyper-pop, emo, and with a slight euro-club tint thrown in for good measure, daine’s newest track ‘shapeless’ is yet another intriguing genre-blurring bop from the Melbourne-hailing rising star. Describing the song as a “dark track about becoming what people want but using that as leverage to get what you want”, their chorus follows them transforming into a “flawless CGI character” as they sing “lips fake, eyes fake, teeth fake, facelift /I got it all, now I’m shapeless”. The title track of their upcoming new mixtape, ‘shapeless’ is yet another impressive evolution for daine. (Elly Watson)

Tags: Jelani Blackman, Listen, Features, Tracks