What: 18-year-old singer-songwriter and "guitar prodigy" Lindsey Jordan Where: Baltimore Why: Having just left school, Lindsey Jordan's future prospects are looking quite advanced. Signed to respected indie-rock label Matador Records and about to release her debut album Lush on June 8th, Jordan has been gathering fanatics at every turn with her indie-rock-rooted pop music.
Jordan began playing classical guitar at the age of five and 10 years later wrote her first Snail Mail song. She progressed through Baltimore’s live music scene, picking up bandmates along the way.
Pristine was the song that kickstarted the musician's career and it's a microcosm of her youthful appeal. It addresses a conflicting relationship. Jordan questions herself and her partner. "And if you do find someone better/ I'll still see you in everything/ For always, tomorrow, and all the time," she sings with a resigned kind of love. It's Jordan's confident and assured delivery, both vocally and on guitar, that suggests she's going to be fine.
Lush, taken as a whole then, is a record that captures teenage intimacy and confusion with clean-line bright production that allows for Jordan to let her guitar wail in all the right places.
That prodigious streak for one who has only been writing songs for three years is one reason why the praise is heading her way. The other is the relatable emotional resonance in her music. Jordan has turned her teen experiences and dreams into a reality.
You have to hear this: Lykke Li – Deep End
The two songs that the Swedish singer has debuted from her forthcoming fourth album So Sad So Sexy, her first in four years, have whetted the appetite for an album of modern sad bangers. Li has embraced hip-hop production techniques by working with the likes of Malay (Frank Ocean's Blonde) and T-Minus (Drake's More Life), and Deep End has a similar ambient R&B vibe to the music of The Weeknd, without the overwhelming self-pity. Lykke supports LCD Soundsystem in Malahide Castle in June.
You have to hear this: Talos – Kansas
Corkman Eoin French's 2017 album Wild Alee was a debut of beautifully constructed falsetto-laden ambient electronic music that created big, skyscraping music moments. With the album getting a re-release in the US on BMG, a new EP, Then There Was War, is released in June. Kansas features on the release and finds French's already-anthemic, glacial music adding powerful layers of synth noise and voice samples that place it in a pantheon equal to the scale of Bon Iver's recent album 22, A Million.
