Helena Gao’s new single ‘lao shi 老师’
Gao co-wrote Zara Larsson’s ‘Midnight Sun’ and is now very much the main character with a cheeky, glimmering 2-step about wanting to be taught how to please a lover, with vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Caroline Polachek record. A cute and catchy banger.
Charli xcx’s new single ‘SS26’
If ‘Rock Music’ was the night before, this is the morning after. Grungey guitar, melancholic electronics, Charli walking a runway into the void. Quietly her best of this run.
Olivia Rodrigo’s new single the cure
Five minutes, builds slow, and she says it’s her favourite on the album. Rodrigo also sang ‘Just Like Heaven’ with Robert Smith at Glastonbury last year of course, so the title isn’t entirely accidental.
Hyd’s new album ‘Hold Onto Me Infinity’
Recorded in Iceland, built around grief - SOPHIE, her partner, died in 2021 and her brother was killed in a hit-and-run in 2024. The drum-forward production is designed to be felt as much as heard, somewhere between PC Music euphoria and something much heavier underneath. One track - ‘Makeover’ - has a recording of SOPHIE’s actual voice on it.
Joy (Anonymous)’s new single ‘JOY (Light In The Dark)
The duo who started playing impromptu sets on the South Bank during lockdown and ended up going B2B with Fred Again at Alexandra Palace, warm, gospel-flecked house music that hasn’t changed and doesn’t need to. The sound of a sunny bank holiday weekend.