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1 day ago
5
From Denmark
Recommended if you like Arthur Russell, ML Buch, Rachel’s
Up next Ressed / Falter EP out now on Untitled
The Guardian visited Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory recently to find out how a single music school was producing such a ridiculous amount of new experimental pop innovators: Clarissa Connelly, Smerz, Erika de Casier, ML Buch, Astrid Sonne. While writer Sam Davies was touring the classrooms, he unearthed GB, another talent finishing off the record that doubles as his master’s project.
It’s the stage name of Danish musician Gustav Berntsen, and his coursework submission is Ressed / Falter, a double EP that follows last year’s debut album, Gusse Music. (He also co-produced four songs on classmate Molina’s 2024 album When You Wake Up.) He shares with the famous RMC alumni an uncanny, limpid tone and a deconstructionist approach to pop, but his open-hearted naivety feels different from their mysterious sound worlds. In his boyish vocal modulations and unabashed yearning for someone he can’t stop thinking about, “dressed as a black cat” at a Halloween party while he’s dressed as Jesus, he sounds unavoidably like Arthur Russell; as does his off-kilter guitar pop, the guitar often taking a percussive role in his appealingly emo world of echo.
That’s just the first part of the record: after three delicately turned pop songs, Berntsen plunges into wordless ambience, with eight tracks that recall the Kentucky post-rock scene of the 90s – the Rachel’s-like blend of beautiful guitar melodies and unsettling field recordings; heavy, Slint-y murk – and processed, lonesome Scots pipes. It’s such a distinct record, it only adds to the mystery of what’s going on at this innovative institution – but long may it turn out acts like this. Laura Snapes
This week’s best new tracks
Mavi – Landgrab (ft Earl Sweatshirt)
With a sample of a rapturous old soul track by the Metaphors, this is a brilliant study in disparate flows: Mavi steadily hopscotching on the beat, Earl mooching around it. BBT
Alex G – Afterlife
He’s written dozens of songs across nine albums of much-loved slacker indie, but the lead single from Alex G’s 10th might just be his best: a mandolin-powered anthem that flings its arms wide at life’s promise. BBT
Silvana Estrada – Como un Pájaro
What starts with pristine simplicity – just the Mexican songwriter’s pollen-bright voice and acoustic guitar – elegantly expands, adding piano, strings and swooping depth to a rueful ballad wrought from insomnia and heartbreak. LS
Lorde – Man of the Year
“Can’t believe I’ve become someone else / Someone more like myself,” Lorde sings of a post-breakup transformation, the explosive evolution mirrored in the song’s shift from borderline a cappella to unabashed, mutant distortion. LS
Tops – Chlorine
Canada’s best soft rock band have announced their first album in five years, teed off with this sparkling yet morose single as singer Jane Penny struggles to slip the bonds of a toxic relationship. BBT
Lucrecia Dalt – Divina
The Colombian musician conjures a waltz from piano that sounds like marbles rolling over glass, with snapping fingers and her smoky, savouring lyrical delivery giving Divina a gasping sensitivity. LS
Cleyra – There’s Nothing Happening Between Us
Shifting through sustained passages of ambient techno like subtly changing weather, this is the 17-minute centrepiece of the Bristolian producer’s distinctive, dreamlike new album Remember This Body? BBT
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