The South African singer has been a memorable guest artist, but the unhurried, emotional tracks on new album Some Strings Attached show she\u2019s ready for the spotlight<\/p>\n
From Cape Town, South AfricaRecommended if you like Summer Walker, SZA, ShekhinahUp next Some Strings Attached out now<\/p>\n
Rowlene Bosman learned to sing in a Cape Town school choir, and the discipline never left her: she is a precision vocalist in a scene that rewards volume. Most South Africans first heard her in 2018, delivering the hook on Nasty C\u2019s SMA \u2013 she was the first signing to his Tall Racks label \u2013 and the featured artist circuit kept her busy for years. But while South African pop stampeded towards amapiano, Rowlene held her ground as a balladeer, writing slow, confessional R&B in which heartbreak is examined instead of danced away. Her 2020 debut album 11:11, a set of aching, close-quarters soul songs, brought a South African music award nomination for best pop album, and three of her originals \u2013 Cupid, Stay and the Nasty C collaboration I Need You \u2013 landed on the soundtrack of Netflix\u2019s SA teen crime drama Blood & Water, carrying her voice far beyond home.<\/p>\n
Hurts 2b Reminded, from her new album Some Strings Attached, is the best argument yet for that patience. Over spare, unhurried production with a faint Afropop pulse ticking underneath, she sings about the ambush of memory: the places and small details that resurrect someone you thought you had let go. The twist is who she is mourning: not the dead, nor an ex, but friends who are alive and well yet simply elsewhere, people whose lives moved on without her. Losing them, she has said, was the price of finding herself. After 10 years of stealing the show from other artists, she sounds ready to headline her own. Mary Chiney<\/p>\n
Power Snatch \u2013 Born DeadParamore\u2019s Hayley Williams continues her fruitful artistic evolution with her new band\u2019s surprise second EP. Balancing murky alt-rock grandeur and serpentine intimacy, this highlight winds its vines around you.<\/p>\n
Heavensouls \u2013 Dawn of the CityChidi Obialo, 20, has already released an album of the year in Westside Trapped. Now comes a 10-minute odyssey evoking a malfunctioning Dance Dance Revolution machine, dreamy chiptune and frenetically lapping IDM.<\/p>\n
Sophia Stel \u2013 Now I\u2019ve Got a Lot You Know
\n The breakout Vancouver star\u2019s latest song threatens to spill from robot ballad to confetti-canon rager, although the EDM risers that peak two minutes in bring surprising clarity and warmth to her devotional.<\/p>\n
Axel Boman and Superpitcher \u2013 True CrimeNew Boman is always cause for celebration, not least when it\u2019s seven delicious minutes of ribboning, swirling synth trills undercut by a beat as fine and spangly as tinsel fronds.<\/p>\n
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard \u2013 Kill for the Steel\u201cWe don\u2019t wish death upon you,\u201d a alien voice incants reassuringly on the latest from Gizz\u2019s Cyberdog techno turn; instead, their apparent wish is a state of dripping, warehouse-induced transcendence.<\/p>\n
Shabazz Palaces \u2013 Ahh World (I Won the Alpha Bet)
\n It\u2019s a family affair where Ishmael Butler spars with his son, Lil Tracy, swapping verses on a shadowy, bassy track so cool and imperious you could imagine it emanating from an ancient court.<\/p>\n
Garefowl \u2013 Buthaigir\/PuffinFrom the Scottish archipelago of St Kilda come this avian-inspired group, whose new album for AD93 contemplates the island\u2019s birds. The lead single is a gorgeous, violin-led lament.<\/p>\n