BEST CHILL MUSIC - WEEK 21

Summer is a time for lying in grass and staring up at clouds. A time for walking on white sand beaches and dipping toes in oceans. A time for hanging out with friends on rooftops and watching suns set over cities. In other words, summer is a time for slowing down and really appreciating life. Even the songs that we listen to tend to slow down with us, which is where We Are: The Guard comes in. With Memorial Day Weekend and the arrival of June signaling the unofficial start of summer across the Northern Hemisphere, get your playlists up to scratch this season with another serving of Best Chill Music, featuring SALES, Kllo, Moses Sumney, and plenty of others.

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SALES – WHITE JEANS

Orlando bedroom pop duo SALES return with the gauzy follow-up to “Off and On.” “You come on to me/At a cool party/This is not a test/This is not a dream,” coos lead singer Lauren Morgan atop tightly locked percussion and wispy guitar lines on “White Jeans,” a song that's every bit as sweet as the summer romance that it describes.

ELUJAY – STARCHILD

Damn. Elujay has always brought the soul, although never like this! The Oakland artist proves that his talents stretch far beyond his rapping skills on his latest single “Starchild,” an ear-meltingly smooth ode to a lucky lady that hears Elujay showcasing his velvet vocal chops over a sultry R&B production courtesy of Aabo, coldwaterchris, and HXNS.

KLLO – POTENTIAL

Kllo, the Australian garage duo comprising of cousins Chloe Kaul and Simon Lam, investigate the sadness of unfulfilled love on their first single since 2017's Blackwater. “We missed our anniversary/We missed our potential/I'm emotional,” sings Chloe on “Potential,” an effortlessly, devastatingly beautiful ode to a failed relationship that comes paired with a VHS-style official video directed by Freya Esders.

ALAYNA – SWEET SOUL

Having made her breakthrough with “Bliss,” New Zealand's alayna returns with another angelic confection. “Sweet Soul” is an ode to the kind of pure, intimate, and wholesome love that we only experience once in a lifetime, with alayna's Mariah Carey-esque vocals chops (she really is that good!) coming set against a trap-lite production courtesy of Beeswirk.

MOSES SUMNEY – MAKE OUT IN MY CAR (EXTENDED VERSION)

My body is ready, Moses.

SWIM GOOD NOW (FEAT. MERIVAL & TORQUIL CAMPBELL) – TELL ME LOVE

Ahead of the release of his album Daylight on Ryan Hemsworth's Secret Songs next month, Canadian producer swim good now has shared “Tell Me Love.” It's a stunningly ethereal composition in line with the rest of the material issued through Secret Songs, with guest vocalists Merival and Torquil Campbell leading the way with their otherworldly toplines, before forming part of the overall beatscape in the final third of the song.

DYAN – CYCLING TRIVIALITIES (JOSE GONZALÉZ COVER)

As Calvin pointed out in his recent must-read blog post, José González's “Cycling Trivialities,” from his 2007 album In Our Nature, is, at its core, a song about trying to not sink under the weight of everyday futilities. Los Angeles-via-Cincinnati trio DYAN are freeing us from the fiery, burning pits of existential hell, however, with this lighter-than-air cover, which aired during an episode of ABC's Deception in April.

YUNO – FALL IN LOVE

Sub Pop's Yuno can do no wrong. We Are: The Guard has loved quite literally every song that the Jacksonville native has released to date, and his latest single “Fall in Love” is no exception. Coming ahead of the unveiling of his debut EP Moodie next month, it's a sublimely laconic bedroom pop bop, one that finds Yuno channeling some serious Toro y Moi vibes as he addresses a potential love interest: “I can't make you fall in love with me/If you feel it, it is meant to be.”

LYVES – STILL

We live in a world full of noise, chaos, and despair, but England's Lyves is providing us with a much-needed musical sanctuary in the form of her latest single “Still.” Listen as Francesca Bergami positions her powerhouse vocals front and center on this quietly healing piece of electronic soul, which also happens to be the first release from Eight Rooms, a brand new project that's going to see Lyves unveiling one song and video every month for the next eight months.

KATUCHAT – FLATLINE

Katuchat finds freedom in pain on “Flatline.” Featured on his recent EP Anaesthesia – which the French producer reveals was inspired by his daily struggles with an incurable disease, the scars of which he wears “indelible and illuminable” on the EP cover – “Flatline” is a deeply liberating listen, with weightless beats that instil in you a sense of hope, rather than fear.

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Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash

Jess Grant is a frustrated writer hailing from London, England. When she isn't tasked with disentangling her thoughts from her brain and putting them on paper, Jess can generally be found listening to The Beatles, or cooking vegetarian food.