Add to playlist: the year's best electronic debut from Sheffield's NZO, plus the week's best tracks

The Guardian

3 hours ago

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It's thrilling and satisfying when an artist's debut album is so fully realised: as if they have their own hyperlocal dialect, and are saying something genuinely new with it. So it is with NZO, a mysterious Sheffield-based electronic artist whose album Come Alive is a defibrillating jolt of vitality. You can find affinities with other artists and styles here, for sure: the bookish but playful minimalism of another Sheffield musician, Mark Fell; Objekt's trickster vision for bass music and techno; the white-tiled cleanliness of some of Sophie's work; Jlin's paradoxically static funk. But the way it's all pulled together is totally NZO's, making for music that's so light on its feet despite its incredible complexity.
After a brief intro piece, main opener Rolling Around has all the hallmarks of dubstep but it's as if a slight glitch is holding it back from a deep skanking rhythm. The little ripples of conga on AXMM, or the synthetic brass fanfares of Something's Changed, are sounds you often hear in Chicago footwork music – probably deliberate homages, yet the actual productions are totally different, the former fidgeting, the latter bumping.
Her use of vocals is excellent, too, from the very quotable house-style command 'won't stop dancing til the DJ drops' on CFML, to faraway dream-pop singing on Something's Changed. There's more on half-stepping closer Looking For ': the kind of poignant snatch of pop that Burial reaches for, but rather than being cloaked in static, this lost transmission comes through with devastating clarity. This album is cute yet serious, danceable yet cerebral – very few people are operating at this level in British electronic music anywhere, much less with their debut.
Blood Orange – The FieldA fever dream of collaborators join Dev Hynes' romantic return: the Durutti Column's guitar blur meets Eva Tolkin's racing production, Tariq Al-Sabir's composition and vocals from Caroline Polachek and Daniel Caesar. LS
The Beths – No Joy'I don't feel sad, I feel nothing,' Liz Stokes rues on a classic Beths track: kinetic powerpop that blasts her melancholy – about the new numbness of life on antidepressants – with sunshine. LS
Jonathan Richman – I Was Just a Piece of Frozen Sky Anyway
'Will I make my change?' the Modern Lover asks his mother on what might be a gnomic nod to mortality, as Spanish guitar does a brisk dance with a lovely, fluted whistle. [Not on Spotify: listen at Bandcamp.] LS
Black Sites – C4Producers Helena Hauff and F#X unite as Black Sites, their debut LP led by this impressively insidious techno slither – one that feels as though it's hypnotising you into a particularly dark place. LS
Case Oats – In a BungalowSomewhere between Kathleen Edwards' open-hearted country and Kimya Dawson's lovely naivete, Chicago's Casey Walker – and nimble, fiddle-accented band – belies the pressing nature of a crush with an enticing lightness of touch. LS
Orcutt Shelley Miller – A Star Is BornGuitarists Bill Orcutt and Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire) blaze up the joint while former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley plays it cool, steering them towards a surprisingly chill landing. LS
Silvana Estrada – Lila AlelíThe Mexican songwriter essays the pain of longing in capital-R romantic terms, although her radiant delivery and some jaunty horns suggest that there's no small amount of pleasure in this purgatory. LS
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