Memories

A week of new music comes to a close today- this week's posts have featured KiF's Still Out, a pair of new tracks from 100 Poems, new singles from The Charlatans and The Orb, and Richard Sen's remixes of John Grant (from 2016 admittedly but unreleased until now). Today we start off with two new releases on Brighton's Higher Love. The first, out yesterday, is from Polish duo Jazxing whose Pearls Of The Baltic Sea album was one of 2022's best albums, a blur of dub, indie, cosmic disco, Balearica and pop. 

The new Jazxing single is Memories, a full on 80s pop song with a lyric looking back at youth. Imagine Cupid And Psyche era Scritti Politti glazed in honey but with a hefty slice of 2025 production, laced with a shot of regret and nostalgia. There is a much longer alternate version, the Full Disco Purrefection Mix, that breaks it down and stretches it out, starting with percussion, disco strings and some congas and then building, snatches of vocal drifting in, a choppy rhythm guitar, sequenced bassline and more synths. Memories is at Higher Love's Bandcamp. 

Out in early August on Higher Love is a single from Puerto Montt City Orchestra, And We'd Be So Happy. More nu disco/ Balearic musically, an insistent rhythm, prodding bassline, hints of guitar and piano, all very chilled and lovely and on top band member Tim's daughter's spoken word piece, more memories, describing days out to the seaside, the simple pleasures of amusement arcades, penny falls, piers, car picnics and having fun despite the rain as all the while the guitar line floats away on top. There's a second version of And We'd Be So Happy too, The Cruel Mistress Mix, that slows it down, adds some dub space and echoes of early 90s Saint Etienne. And We'd Be So Happy is sounding like one of the singles of the summer round these parts. It'll be at Higher Love on 6th August

Coming from a similar place but a bit hazier is an EP from ddwy called Beaming Backwards, four slices of dreamy electronic Balearica with a Cocteau Twins/ One Dove feel, ethereal but with a pulse running through it, more early 90s influences and sounds, the feel of those songs that made up Creation's 1991 Keeping The Faith compilation, bands like Hypnotone, Love Corporation and Sheer Taft. The title track is a joy, forwards momentum with some backwards sounds and a distant vocal. 

Stars, Stars is led by a very mid- 80s Cure/ Cocteaus/ New Order guitar line and then a low slung bass. Peak Smile pushes on, aiming for the dancefloor, with a bleepy topline and crunchy synths. The EP finsihes with Hueldro'r Haf, a hazy, blissed out song with piano and viola. Buy/ listen to the whole EP here.  Like me, you may keep going back to it.