Day\u2019s latest album Halo is all high-energy exhaustion, injected with a crushing electroclash chaos that illuminates her insecurities in bright neon<\/p>\n
From Los AngelesRecommended if you like Slayyyter, Charli xcx, UnderscoresUp next Halo out now. UK and Ireland tour starts in December<\/p>\n
Right now popstar breakthrough and burnout are a hair\u2019s breadth from one another. Enter Tiffany Day, a Wichita-raised artist who first went viral in 2017 when a video of her singing Hallelujah on a school trip blew up online. She spent the subsequent years unsuccessfully chipping away at building on that virality, cycling through acoustic guitar covers and bedroom R&B. Only by channeling her frustrations into this year\u2019s anxiety-ridden sugar rush Halo did Day finally regain her early momentum.<\/p>\n
Day\u2019s music stands out for its robust balance of giddy hyperpop and frank vulnerability: think of it as the tears-on-the-dancefloor dynamic for the infinite scroll era. Halo opens with Everything I\u2019ve Ever Wanted, a plainspoken ode to the coveted come-up and the dreaded fall-off, in which Day panics about success. \u201cWhen something good comes crashing into me, it\u2019s like I can\u2019t breathe,\u201d she frets through a smear of Auto-Tune.<\/p>\n
Halo is high energy but came from a place of exhaustion, with Day concluding that this album would be her last. Past caring about others\u2019 opinions, she injected it with a crushing electroclash chaos that illuminates her insecurities in a bright neon hue. On songs like DoIt4me and Pretty4u she alternates between freaking out in front of the mirror and hiding in the corner at parties, exposing herself further from behind walls of yo-yo synths and hacksaw bass lines. It\u2019s enough to make youthful insecurity feel manageable, or to make you thank god those days are a thing of the past. David Renshaw<\/p>\n
Coco and Clair Clair \u2013 One OneIf you loved squirming under Smerz\u2019s withering gaze last year, let your skin prickle to this Atlanta, Georgia duo\u2019s addictive, pitying dismissal of an ungrateful ex, as menace encroaches on their minimalist, stumbling percussion. LS<\/p>\n
Helen \u2013 Dead Shark IIEleven years after Helen\u2019s debut, Liz Harris (AKA Grouper) unexpectedly reforms her dream-pop band. Full of silt, stardust and rumble, Dead Shark II is as good as the genre gets. LS<\/p>\n
Lancer \u2013 2Late
\n After his ultra-emotional, 80s-sampling rap tracks Cry and Southpaw this year, the UK vocalist switches up to singing for his synthwave-ballad debut for XL, restless and upset in the choppy wake of a breakup. BBT<\/p>\n
Black Bananas \u2013 Eddie\u2019s Album
\n The side project from Royal Trux\u2019s raw-voiced vocalist, Jennifer Herrema, is back and on supremely fun form, flexing taut disco-funk behind a beaded curtain of murky lo-fi chillwave production. BBT<\/p>\n
Eden Aurelius \u2013 Entre Nous
\n The NYC producer\u2019s beautiful new album of ambient compositions and featherlight dub techno has a milky-sun blend of warm and cool, though its title track adds a touch more heat with a very subtle dancehall pulse. BBT<\/p>\n
Hana Stretton \u2013 FromThe lo-fi, blanketed intimacy and the British-Australian songwriter\u2019s heavy, layered vocals suggest peeping under the bed and finding a tiny choir laying in wait, from a new release on Phil Elverum\u2019s label. LS<\/p>\n
New Radicals \u2013 One Night Only (Break Loose Break Free!)The film it soundtracks, of the same name, looks weird (The Purge \u2026 for pre-marital sex?) but the first NR song since 1999 is cause for celebration, with Gregg Alexander\u2019s knack for secular affirmations designed to lure hangdogs out of their holes. LS<\/p>\n