BEST CHILL SONGS - WEEK 19

For a whole lot of people in this world, the end of the working week represents the start of party season. For those of us here at We Are: The Guard, however, Friday nights are all about relaxing and unwinding after a long week of hard grinding at the office. No, really – give us cheap boxed wine and a playlist of soothing tunes over raging it up in some random nightclub any day. If you're also the kind of person who prefers to end the working week on a quieter note (which we figure that you are, since you're here, reading this!), feel free to join us in easing into Friday evening in style with the latest edition of We Are: The Guard's Best Chill Songs, featuring the following chill vibes from TOKiMONSTA, Girl Ultra, SonReal, Calexico & Iron & Wine, Dritic, and more.

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TOKIMONSTA – DREAM CHORUS

I didn't think that a song could be chill and slap at the same time, but it seems that TOKiMONSTA has just proved me wrong. The Los Angeles producer is checking both boxes on “Dream Chorus” – a beat-heavy bop that manages to live up to its title thanks in part to its mellow guitar slides, all the while keeping things interesting on the percussive front.

GIRL ULTRA (FEAT. CUCO) – DAMELOVE

It doesn't get much more chill than this, let me tell you. Mexico City's Girl Ultra is teaming up with Latin superstar Cuco on “DameLove” – a lazy summer drive of a song that'll have you dreaming of endless asphalt and the ocean breeze in your hair as Girl Ultra and Cuco trade bilingual sweet nothings over a blend of hazy guitar strums and jazzy drums.

SLENDERBODIES – DEWDROPS

Calling all fans of the sinuous, sultry sounds of Glass Animals: Meet slenderbodies. The California duo comprising of Max Vehuni and Benji Cormack are going to leave goosebumps all over your body with their latest single and ode to creative spaces “dewdrops” – a serpentine dream-pop groove that's channeling some serious ZABA vibes.

VORSA – WRECK

Vorsa stands amid the ruins of a relationship on his latest single. “Where did you go?/Everything I touch turns to stone/Where did you go?/Everyone around me, I don't know,” sings Vorsa over waves of dissonant guitar on the gut-wrenchingly painful “Wreck,” which really manages to hit home with that sense of being lost after losing a love.

SONREAL (FEAT. JESSIE REYEZ) – HEALING

Damn. SonReal is serving up a whole lot of soul on his latest single “Healing.” The collaboration with Jessie Reyez is an impassioned slow jam that hears SonReal and Jessie giving it their all over a John Mayer-esque blues guitar, with both artists capturing in detail the raw pain of heartbreak, while also offering their listeners a safe space to heal their wounds.

CAT POWER – HORIZON

Coinciding with the announcement of her North American tour, Cat Power returns today with the video for Wanderer highlight “Horizon.” Directed by Greg Hunt, the clip is a stunningly moving accompaniment to the Auto-Tuned hymn, with the visual switching between black-and-white and color as it depicts a number of intimate moments between Cat's loved ones.

BIG THIEF – CENTURY

Big Thief continue to weave a tapestry of earthily textured folk music on “Century.” The latest single to be unveiled from U.F.O.F. –  out now – sees a groovy, involved bassline locking in with jazzy, frenetic drums, with frontwoman Adrianne Lenker topping the whole thing off with a near-ritualistic chorus that finds her repeating the line “We have the same power.”

CALEXICO & IRON & WINE – MIDNIGHT SUN

Ahead of the release of their collaborative album Years to Burn in June, Calexico and Iron & Wine have shared “Midnight Sun.” The song hears Calexico's Joey Burns and Iron & Wine's Sam Beam trading call-and-response vocals over a lap-steel horizon, before an electric guitar pierces through the cracks, taking “Midnight Sun” to almost cosmic heights.

LOVE SUPREME – LONELY FEELINGS

While I can't tell you much about Love Supreme, it doesn't matter as the Paris duo are letting the music do the talking on their brooding debut single “Lonely Feelings.” Bringing together a Tom Waits-esque vocal and a slow surge of electronics, “Lonely Feelings” is a haunting experimental-pop opus that comes paired with an equally avant-garde video.

DRITIC – FOR YOU

There's no feeling in the world quite like falling in love. Just ask Dritic, who's encapsulating the act of surrendering yourself over to someone else entirely on his latest single “For You” – a euphoric adrenaline rush of sound that hears the Brisbane producer making use of both electronic and organic textures in order to bring to life said emotional roller coaster.

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Photo by Roberto Nickson 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.