TOP INDIE SONGS - WEEK 10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of We Are: The Guard's Top Indie Songs. If you'd have told me this time last Monday that, within a week, we'd have 19 new Solange tracks (three of which feature backing vocals from Panda freaking Bear), I'd have probably laughed in your face (sorry). But, here we are! Anyways, while you were digesting When I Get Home over the weekend, the team and I were busy as ever filtering through the blogosphere for all of the best indie music of the last seven days. Headphones at the ready, then, as it's time to check out the following songs from Foals, Kero Kero Bonito, FRENSHIP, and more.

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BEN HON & DANIEL LOUMPOURIDIS – SALT (NLMG)

Warning: You won't be able to wipe the smile off your face after hitting play on this tune from Ben Hon and Daniel Loumpouridis. The university buddies examine the highs and lows of love on “Salt (NLMG),” an exhilarating roller coaster ride of a listen that takes us through joyous acoustic sections, crunchy rock moments, and more in the space of just three-and-a-half minutes. In-fec-tious.

FOALS – SUNDAY

Fourteen years into their career and Foals are reaching a level of creative maturity like never before on the latest number to be unveiled from their incoming two-part album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost. Starting out as a grandly sweeping waltz before transitioning into an Underworld-esque club banger, “Sunday” feels like a defining moment for Yannis Philippakis and company, when their sense of ambition is at last matching up to their artistic output.

KERO KERO BONITO – THE OPEN ROAD

There's no shortage of tunes tackling the woes of being a touring musician, but nobody has done it quite like Kero Kero Bonito. Listen as the London outfit inject tales of van robberies and near-fatal crashes with wistful, whimsical wonder on “The Open Road,” a shoegazey ode to endless asphalt that follows on from 2018's Time 'n' Place.

LÉON – LOST TIME

Have you ever listened to a song that completely swept you off your feet?! As that's exactly how I felt listening to “Lost Time” by LÉON. The Stockholm indie-pop chanteuse has truly knocked me back with this majestically grand opening cut from her recent self-titled album, with LÉON's voice drip, drip, dripping like liquid gold as she sings of making up for lost time with her lover.

FRENSHIP – REMIND YOU

Falling in love can sometimes feel too good to be true, like you could lose it all at any given moment, but FRENSHIP are here to reassure their partners that they're not going anywhere anytime soon on their latest single. “Let me remind you if you don't know what I'm feeling/And I'm right beside you 'cause I could do this every day,” sing the Los Angeles outfit on “Remind You,” a festival season-ready piece of synth-pop escapism that features on FRENSHIP's impending album Vacation.

PINK SWEAT$ – I KNOW

Pink Sweat$ could serenade me for the rest of my life and I'd never get bored. Following on from the release of his Volume 1 EP, the New York act is back and putting his own spin on the Delta blues genre on his latest single “I Know,” which hears his beautiful croon meeting storied lyrics about a woman to whom he's all but sold his soul: “Since we crossed that bridge, ain't no turning back/I gave you my heart, I ain't seen it since.”

DIJON – BAD LUCK

It's no secret that everything that Dijon touches turns to gleaming gold, but this is something else entirely. Listen as the Maryland act succeeds in creating a magical, fantastical fairy tale of his own making on “Bad Luck,” which comes accompanied by an achingly beautiful video that sees Dijon continuing to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

SUZI WU – ERROR 404

If you're still feeling hungover from the weekend, then this one goes out to you. “Where is my mind?!” asks Suzi Wu after a heavy night of drinking on “Error 404,” a deranged, delirious fever dream of a listen that the young punk says was written following an intense bender in London: “I had a big hangover that day and the song is really just about that. Error 404: File not found.”

LYDIA – SAVAGE

There's very little that I can tell you about Lydia, but it really doesn't matter, as the girl is letting the music do the talking and then some on her debut single. “I didn't know Cupid could be such a savage/That loving could even do damage/That you could give everything away/And still end up with baggage,” sings Lydia on “Savage,” an all-killer, no-filler piece of indie-pop attitude that I definitely needed to hear post-Valentine's Day.

ASHE – MORAL OF THE STORY

Concluding this week with a deeply personal piece of music from Ashe, who's hitting incredibly close to home with “Moral of the Story.” Written following the Los Angeles artist's divorce from her husband, it's a cinematic offering that doesn't hold back in any way, shape, or form, with Ashe reflecting on the lessons learned from her failed marriage with complete honesty over a production that sends the We Are: The Guard favorite soaring among the stars.

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Until next Monday, why not follow We Are: The Guard's Best Indie Daily! and Weekly Chart on Spotify for more music?! x

Photo by Tom Cochereau 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.