Here’s a crazy fact: we’re already a quarter of the way into 2019! It felt like just yesterday that we at TFR were putting together our end-of-year lists, and now here we are. Wild, right? Anyway, without any further ado, take a look at our top five songs for March. And as always, let us know if you agree or disagree.
5. “In Your Head” – Nilufer Yanya
23-year-old Nilufer Yanya grew up in London, in a creative household with mixed Turkish / Irish / Barbados heritage. With a background that fluid, it is little surprise that Yanya’s approach to music is decidedly irreverent.
On her recently-released debut album Miss Universe, Yanya flits between bat-your-eyelashes pop moments and fuzzy rockstar vibes with an ease that simply can’t be taught. Perhaps the best song from the album is the lead single, “In Your Head”. “And I can do what I like / I’ll never know what it means / Some validation is all that I need,” she says, clear-headed about both her materialism and the lack of substance within. (Fittingly for a song that explores the emptiness of individualism, the music video is shot in Las Vegas.) In a way, she kind of reminds us of the best parts of the erstwhile Marina and the Diamonds.
Yanya stands out with her throaty voice, unique personal style and brazen lucidity. Keep an eye on this one – and take a whirl through Miss Universe while you’re at it!
4. “Patience” – Tame Impala
As die-hard Tame Impala fans, we would of course be remiss if we did not mention “Patience”, the latest song to escape the inimitable workshop of Kevin Parker’s brain.
It takes about 20 seconds for Parker to bring out his signature phaser sounds on “Patience”, but this time it’s different. With its dizzying synth garnishes and heavily processed bongos, the song winks at a sort of disco-by-way-of-world-music that no other Tame Impala song has really explored. Parker’s indecisiveness – and the dreamy psychedelia that results – is the real backbone of the famous Tame Impala sound, as we wrote about in our review of Currents (2015). On “Patience”, it’s clear that he’s still working on it. “Sometimes I get so tense but I can’t speed up the time,” he confesses, flipping around seconds later to ask his lover to take things slow.
Tame Impala are headlining a bunch of festivals this year, but haven’t yet announced a release date for a full album. “Patience” until we hear more, then.
3. “Black” – Dave
In many ways, Psychodrama – the debut album from British rapper Dave – is a spiritual successor to Kendrick Lamar’s good kid M.A.A.D. city (2012). Like K-Dot, Dave is blessed with an otherworldly talent to channel the realities of the world outside him into hard-hitting poetry – and with killer flow to boot. Our stand-out track from this album is definitely “Black”, Dave’s exploration of what it means to be a black man in the world.
With the oversaturation of American media, news and politics into global consciousness, it is almost easy to equate blackness – and the associated struggles – with a negativity-tinged African-American experience. Dave does better, thankfully. On “Black”, he shines light on truly personal experiences of what it means to be of African heritage in a Western country. There’s so many great lines here. On growing out of his surroundings: “Black is growin’ up around your family and makin’ it / Then being forced to leave the place you love because there’s hate in it.” On being divided and ruled: “Her hair’s straight and thick but mine’s got waves in it / Black is not divisive, they been lyin’ and I hate the shit / Black has never been a competition, we don’t make this shit.” And so on.
Psychodrama deserves a full listen, but if you’re going to hear just one song, make it “Black”.
2. “Choose Go!” – Chai
On first listen, the thick bassline and staccato drums of “Choose Go!” sounds like a hidden gem from the heyday of the indie rock revolution on both sides of the pond in the early 2000s. However, the reality could not be further from the truth. You may be shocked to learn (as were we) that the creators of “Choose Go!” are Chai, a four-piece all-girl band from Nagoya, Japan.
This isn’t Chai’s first rodeo, surprisingly enough. Their first album, Pink (2017), was very well-received, but the band has really found its footing with this months’ well-named follow-up, Punk. Sung half in Japanese and half in English, “Choose Go!” combines the relentlessly poppy vibes of, say, the band OK Go, with the lovable weirdness of Japanese culture.
1. “Exits” – Foals
Foals have been around for a while. Their 2008 debut, Antidotes, arrived during an early-2000s crest of the math rock genre, but stood out nevertheless. Songs like “Balloons” and “Cassius”, filled to the brim with frenetic chords and semi-shouted lyrics, shot Foals to fame very quickly. However, on their more recent two albums (2013’s Holy Fire and 2015’s What Went Down), the band took an unexpected turn. The frantic urgency of Antidotes was replaced by a mellow restraint; it felt like they were reveling in their ability to turn a musical phrase or two whenever they wanted (but not, as with Antidotes, all the time).
On their latest album (2019’s Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1), the band has really put two and two together. There’s restraint, yes, but Foals is largely back to their gloriously feverish roots. The star track is “Exits”: a serpent that twists and turns through more moods than you can count on first listen.
The first section, with its deliberate beats and dramatic lyrics (“Now the sea eats the sky / But they say it’s a lie / And there’s no birds left to fly / We’ll hide out”), makes way to a reverberating one-line chorus (“In a world upside down…”). And that isn’t the end of it. At about the four-minute mark, Foals break out into a heady, psychedelic synth solo that truly elevates the song to greater than the sum of its parts.
“Exits” is six minutes long but Foals entertain you every second of the way.
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