Ya Ya
By Beyoncé
Despite her rodeo trick-riding on the cover, Beyoncé's supposed new country album Cowboy Carter doesn’t really stay down on the farm, even with Willie Nelson and “Dolly P” offering between-track comments, a cover of Joelene and songs named for cowboy pants (Levii’s Jeans) and handguns (Desert Eagle). Oh, and it’s got songs referencing and sampling Linda Martell one of the first African-American country stars. But towards the end, it’s out of the roadhouse and back to the nightclub, at its best on Ya Ya, which lifts bits of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walking and the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations on an infectious soul stomper that possibly has a certain Outkast song in its DNA too. – Russell Baillie
Always on My Mind
By Tami Neilson
After Sister’s Coming Home in mid-February, here’s the second release in the “Neilson sings Nelson” series recorded at the country godfather’s studio last year, originally as a 90th birthday gift to the old fella. Anyone who knows the original tune – which Elvis Presley did in 1972, then Nelson did 10 years later, or Neilson’s voice – might think there’s a high potential for something lovely. It certainly is. The video for the track features footage inside the vault at Nelson’s Pedernales Studio. – Russell Baillie
Take Me to the River
By Lorde
According to the neighbours, fans are “losing their minds” that Lorde has released a cover – actually, it’s a cover of a cover – for a 40th anniversary tribute album to the Talking Heads concert film and LP Stop Making Sense. Those who know the Heads’ slinky version, or the Al Green original, might well be not losing quite as much, cranially speaking. It’s a likeable, if unremarkable, and rather breathy take on the wobbly-bottomed baptismal soul number, which was once successfully covered by an animatronic fish.
Oh well, Lorde says she’s long liked the band that her mum introduced her to, so it’s a genuine fan gesture. Hopefully, the tracks by the sixteen acts aren’t going to drag out until the 40th anniversary of the release date in October. And you have to feel for Kimbra, who’s actually performed with David Byrne, that she wasn’t on the guest list. – Russell Baillie
Easter at the RSC
By Jim Nothing
A charming seasonal wee number from Jim Nothing (James Sullivan) apparently inspired by life inside the Grey Lynn veterans’ club (“It’s Easter at the RSC/ Old timers try their luck at the TAB”) and given a Voom/JPSE sweet-and-sour mix of chiming guitar and wobbly drone. – Russell Baillie
Imouhar
By Mdou Moctar
They impressed at last year’s Womad and now the four-piece Niger desert rock outfit, which takes the name of its Tuareg guitarist-singer, is headed to new album Funeral for Justice. This single is reportedly a call to the Tuareg people to preserve the Berber dialect of Tamasheq delivered in a whirling sandstorm of a song which seems to have sucked a fair few Hendrix riffs into its vortex. – Russell Baillie
Big Swimmer
By King Hannah & Sharon Van Etten
The Liverpool duo of Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle have been making international indie inroads with their dreamy Mazzy Star approach since 2022 debut album I’m Not Sorry, I Was Just Being Me and on some singles since which has had them covering Madonna’s Like a Prayer and Bruce Springsteen’s State Trooper. Big Swimmer is the title track to a sophomore album out at the end of next month and as it says, it features Sharon Van Etten. She’s there as a speak-sing counterpoint to Merrick’s slow-crawl of a vocal on a song that just prettily floats on its back, drifting out to sea. – Russell Baillie
When I Was Younger
By Bonny Light Horseman
The American folk-rock supergroup head to their third album with this slow-burning firework of a song about the things that turning into an adult can do to one. It’s made immediate and memorable by vocalists Anaïs Mitchell and Eric D. Johnson delivering a couple’s therapy duet interrupted by some Neil Young-esque scorched guitar. – Russell Baillie
Canopy
by Charlotte Day Wilson
Canadian songwriter/producer Wilson brings slinky and soulful R’n’B beats and bass to this increasingly clever single of multi-layered vocals and understated production before the song slides into a slo-mo piano ballad. Might not appeal on radio but raises expectation for Wilson’s sophomore album Cyan Blue, due on May 3. – Graham Reid
Don’t Talk to Me
by Bad with Phones
With the sound of diluted techno/new wave, a hook of “blah blah blah” and some droll and bored lines (“I’m the richest in the room so don’t talk to me, baby”), Britain’s BWP lands somewhere between lazy rap, stoner moods and humid pop. Check out his previous single Dennis Rodman also. You’ll be hearing a lot of this clever guy soon. – Graham Reid
The Big Reveal; Ou L’Hypocrite
by Lime Cordiale
Australian brothers Oli and Louis Leimbach barely put a foot wrong when it comes to catchy pop designed for radio and summer festivals: breezy grooves, singalong choruses and handclap beats. It’s seen them picking up numerous awards and pleasing crowds, and this slightly wordy single with a funfair-like organ part is very hard to dislike or shake off. Classy and fun. - Graham Reid
Oh, Gemini
by ROLE MODEL
ROLE MODEL has effortlessly soft and assured vocals that slot perfectly into the chill pop-folky track Oh, Gemini. It builds nicely, exactly to where you think it will go in an intricate but catchy bridge, a tad repetitive but intentional in the sense of his imploring for the subject to “remember my name”. A quick google confirms suspicions that it is about the end of his relationship with social media star Emma Chamberlain who, naturally, has that zodiac sign. – Alana Rae
Is This What Love Is?
by Wasia Project
It’s exciting that the British sibling duo is venturing back into a more modern and epic space like that of their 2022 track impossible, as lovely as their stripped-back songs are. The vocal performance from Olivia Hardy is sweetly eerie and matches closely that of Billie Eilish’s in its beautifully controlled “whisperpop” delivery, similar to Eilish’s track Lovely with Khalid. Very metaphorical lyrics that nod to destructive moments in nature, as uncontrollable as the writers’ emotions in the piece. – Alana Rae
The Fall of the Leaf. III. Poco Adagio.
By Steven Isserlis, cello.
Every classical music lover knows Gustav Holst, composer of The Planets. Fewer people know his daughter, Imogen, but she was an important figure in her own right. She studied composition at the Royal College of Music, acted as a key assistant to Benjamin Britten and became an artistic director of Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival. She was also a prolific – though intermittent – and gifted composer. The solo cello work, The Fall of the Leaf, beautifully captures autumn’s melancholy. Sigh. – Richard Betts
