This is his horizon. The intricate instrumentation of Last Time falls softly on welcome ears, and is reminiscent of the fluttering, psychedelic infused haze you’d find on Chance the Rapper's cult-classic, Acid Rap. However, it’s instead charged with candid tales from the outer-rim of Dublin. In a not so glamorous trifecta of heartbreak, depression and drug addiction, Curtisy imbues the track with a vulnerable rawness that leaves no stone unturned as he wears his heart bravely upon his sleeve. 
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‍Emanating a distinctive wooziness, Curtisy nonchalantly bounces from one strand of thought to the next, rushing for no-one. Yet despite the track’s therapeutic tones, Last Time speaks to that moment of painful realisation when you’ve run out of patience for your own cyclical toxic behaviours. Commanding a confident acceptance of his shortcomings, Curtisy acknowledges there are “demons at the door” and he’s doing his very best to keep them at bay. At surface layer the track presents a valiant effort at shedding one’s malformed feathers, but on a closer inspection you can’t help but question if we have been here before and if the demons are creeping in through the cracks. 

The track’s repetitive nature and irresistibly catchy hook suggest that perhaps this isn’t a new beginning, but rather a new cycle. We’ve been here before. There’s been 50 other ‘Last Times’, 50 other heartbreaks, and 50 other desperate dives into the crumpled corners of a plastic baggie. Harnessing the universal experience of stagnating within a succession of bad habits, the existential dread of progressively realising perhaps you will never be able to change makes up the spine of Last Time’s message. Cheerful hey.

To categorise the song as just indie however would quite simply be blasphemy. This is Mount Kimbie, they’re shapeshifters. Blending influences from shoegaze to their electronic roots, Fishbrain takes on a mysterious guise, not really sitting comfortably in any camp. Unbound by expectation, the track reflects Kimbie’s knack for experimentation and artistic playfulness, pulling listeners into their trippy, infectious storytelling. 

Accompanied by a whimsical music video depicting a world of cyclical factory conveyor belts and fish-headed humanoids treading onto land, the lyrics explore the necessity of stepping outside your comfort zone, or learning to thrive as a fish out of water, so to speak. Beginning with these airy, whispering vocals creaking through the cracks of solitude, we hear the narrator come to terms with his own isolation as he drifts ‘alone in the shallows’. As stacks of gritty guitars build up, we witness a shift in tone; a leap out of the shallows. Lyrics such as ‘I think I’ve been born again’ and ‘a new way to be on dry land’ coalesce to lift the track from the weighty silt that writhes upon the shoreline, as the narrator finds a beacon of hope in the most unlikely of places. Fishbrain is an ode to taking that unnerving jump into the unknown. Who knows? You might just land on your feet. 

Yatchy has always possessed this inherent nonchalance, and he seems to have found a wonderfully complementary sound for his vocals upon ‘A Cold Sunday’. Chopping up a sample from Citation’s 1977 jazz-funk track, ‘Inspiration Of My Life’, Yatchy discovers a plethora of enchanting electric guitar progressions, rhythmic drum beats and soulful vocal loops that he can tinker with to his heart's content. The result is an instrumental that’s somehow simultaneously as laid back as he is. Like strawberries and cream, lager and lime, it’s Lil Yatchy and jazz-rap. It just makes sense.

Without breaking a sweat, we hear Yatchy wrestle with his ensuing personal problems that arise in the wake of stardom. In particular the cutting phrase “I fought demons after fame” spotlights his vulnerable core amidst a seemingly opulent lifestyle. He confidently declares his own understanding that money can’t buy happiness, in turn realising his internal self-worth in a typically assured, effortless manner. The single is a breath of fresh air, superbly engineered to soothe the soul bright and early on a crisp, comforting, and indeed cold Sunday. 

From the word go, we are met with a flurry of chopped up jungle breakbeats and this spine shaking, grungy guitar riff that slams our head back at breakneck speed and seemingly steals all the air from our lungs in one fell swoop. Pulsating with an infectious energy, the track only accelerates from this point onward. Punctuated by Tom’s (Killer Kowalski’s) piercing vocals, incendiary lines like ‘stop muckin’ me about’ and rip through the track and expose the emptiness at the hollow core of corporate greed and the vampiric cycle of buying and discarding. 

Around a third of the way through, we enter a brief ceasefire from the sonic onslaught, and I mean brief. Five seconds to be exact, before the track ramps back up into an erratic rebellion of punishing drum beats and screeching guitar chords fuelled by a potent vengeance. So, next time Black Friday rolls around with its shiny discounts and teases the glutton in you, take a moment to ask yourself - can I live well for less? 

The recently bleak and barren landscape of winter, followed by the ensuing April showers that loom on the horizon work as Khrunagbin’s artistic frame through which they choose to explore the necessity of enduring hardship in order to nurture healthy growth, that in this case materialises as the blooms of May. Expertly composed, the track sits atop a cloud of gentle percussions, gracefully cascading guitar riffs and delicately murmured lyrics that yearn “for May to come”. The sonic scenery of the single perfectly encapsulates the hopeful peace that so often arrives alongside late spring. The clouds have been lifted, the showers have nourished the land, and new lustrous growth begins to peek through the cracks.

It’s around us at any given moment in the most ordinary of acts, Khruangbin simply harness its essence on ‘May Ninth’. Reeling back to the minimal and distancing themselves from the Jabba’s sail barge style sounds of ‘Time (You and I)’ in favour of something more pure; ‘May Ninth’ is ever-patient and speaks to the universal experience of not just waiting for the calm to come after the storm, but rather learning to dance in the rain. 

Maggie caught everyone’s eye back in 2016 when, still at New York University, she got the opportunity to sit with industry giant Pharrell and share her now hit single, ‘Alaska’, with him for constructive criticism. Potentially a baptism of fire, as the track concludes we see a star-struck Pharrell pause for a moment before an exalted “I have zero notes for that”. Still a mere fledgling in the music industry, Pharrell could instantly see that Maggie was off in her own space, doing her own thing. Creating, never imitating. Coined as post-modern folk music, we hear that Maggie hasn’t forgotten that conversation with Pharrel, she’s still doing her own thing and thank God. 

Backed by nothing more than a melancholic trifecta of an acoustic guitar, sombre piano melody and rhythmic drum beat, it’s a looser, more vulnerable portrayal of love. The track almost feels like a harmonised journal entry, with Maggie candidly unveiling her craving for simple baselines in a relationship, and ultimately “a good lover or someone that’s nice to me”. Watching all her friends pass her by and settle down into monogamy, Maggie doesn’t rush to the ‘finish line’, but rather stays in her own lane and courageously searches for someone she’d happily let “take my money” and “wreck my Sundays”, if it means the love surrounding her can survive just about anything. Never stop being you Maggie.