.png)
7 hours ago
6
From Cape Town, South Africa
Recommended if you like Summer Walker, SZA, Shekhinah
Up next Some Strings Attached out now
Rowlene Bosman learned to sing in a Cape Town school choir, and the discipline never left her: she is a precision vocalist in a scene that rewards volume. Most South Africans first heard her in 2018, delivering the hook on Nasty C’s SMA – she was the first signing to his Tall Racks label – and the featured artist circuit kept her busy for years. But while South African pop stampeded towards amapiano, Rowlene held her ground as a balladeer, writing slow, confessional R&B in which heartbreak is examined instead of danced away. Her 2020 debut album 11:11, a set of aching, close-quarters soul songs, brought a South African music award nomination for best pop album, and three of her originals – Cupid, Stay and the Nasty C collaboration I Need You – landed on the soundtrack of Netflix’s SA teen crime drama Blood & Water, carrying her voice far beyond home.
Hurts 2b Reminded, from her new album Some Strings Attached, is the best argument yet for that patience. Over spare, unhurried production with a faint Afropop pulse ticking underneath, she sings about the ambush of memory: the places and small details that resurrect someone you thought you had let go. The twist is who she is mourning: not the dead, nor an ex, but friends who are alive and well yet simply elsewhere, people whose lives moved on without her. Losing them, she has said, was the price of finding herself. After 10 years of stealing the show from other artists, she sounds ready to headline her own. Mary Chiney
This week’s best new tracks
Power Snatch – Born Dead
Paramore’s Hayley Williams continues her fruitful artistic evolution with her new band’s surprise second EP. Balancing murky alt-rock grandeur and serpentine intimacy, this highlight winds its vines around you. [Stream at Bandcamp]
Heavensouls – Dawn of the City
Chidi Obialo, 20, has already released an album of the year in Westside Trapped. Now comes a 10-minute odyssey evoking a malfunctioning Dance Dance Revolution machine, dreamy chiptune and frenetically lapping IDM. [Stream at Bandcamp]
Sophia Stel – Now I’ve Got a Lot You Know
The breakout Vancouver star’s latest song threatens to spill from robot ballad to confetti-canon rager, although the EDM risers that peak two minutes in bring surprising clarity and warmth to her devotional.
Axel Boman and Superpitcher – True Crime
New Boman is always cause for celebration, not least when it’s seven delicious minutes of ribboning, swirling synth trills undercut by a beat as fine and spangly as tinsel fronds.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Kill for the Steel
“We don’t wish death upon you,” a alien voice incants reassuringly on the latest from Gizz’s Cyberdog techno turn; instead, their apparent wish is a state of dripping, warehouse-induced transcendence. [Stream on Bandcamp]
Shabazz Palaces – Ahh World (I Won the Alpha Bet)
Ishmael Butler delivers life lessons – never gossip, hit fastballs, take risks – on a shadowy, bassy track so cool and imperious you could imagine it emanating from an ancient court.
Garefowl – Buthaigir/Puffin
From the Scottish archipelago of St Kilda come this avian-inspired group, whose new album for AD93 contemplates the island’s birds. The lead single is a gorgeous, violin-led lament.
Laura Snapes
Subscribe to the Guardian’s rolling Add to Playlist selections on Spotify – or transfer it to Apple, Tidal or other services
