The Underground Forest - Volume 25
This month's edition of The Underground Forest features; a song that will make you want to put on your most Romy and Michelle-inspired outfit and have an evening of adventure; a song that has the sugary, cloud-like textures of mid-2000s RnB/electronic; a synthpop/electropop song that shimmers with raw emotion; a house song with lush pads that will send you back to a blue skied memory; and a song that feels like it plays in an abandoned building that everyone has forgotten about.
Featuring Semma, Girl Unit, Aran Sheehy, Jay Wires, DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ, honey, Olive Louise, blondestandard and Clean Cut.
Follow The Underground Forest playlist on Spotify
DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ - Come Find Out
DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s music simultaneously induces the joy of crafting while watching your favorite movie from the 90s/early 00s, wrapped in a crochet blanket; while also inducing the feeling of being dressed from head to toe in a 1990s style hot pink outfit, getting ready for a evening of Romy and Michelle adjacent adventures.
The style of sampling/chopping the artist uses in her production is my favorite in electronic music at the moment, both in how expertly it is done, and the raw creativity and imagination behind it. The glossy dance glory of this song hits you immediately, with sparkling vocals and chopped samples making this what could very well be the song of the summer.
This was also released alongside another track called In My Eyes, which features the artist’s signature warmth running throughout, with sparkling textures and 90s synths.
Connect with DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ
Spotify / Instagram / Website / Twitter
Semma, Girl Unit - Salty
Crystalline vocals descend from the icy slopes over a bed of shimmering synths; a funky bassline throbbing underneath. You are then hit with a blend of smooth Rnb and electronic, with an all consuming and addictive hook that you had not heard the likes of since the mid-2000s (if you know, you know).
Semma’s vocals are heavenly, the flow of her lyrics and vocals over the beat are done to perfection; in the way only the most skilled vocalist and songwriter can; with Girl Unit’s production featuring glimmering, sugary cloud-like of synths, melting over the smoothest beat you have heard in a long time.
Connect with Semma
Spotify / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Connect with Girl Unit
Spotify / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
Aran Sheehy, Kipunji - The Waiting Room
A lot of the best electronic music induces the sensation of a memory; this lush house song from producers Aran Sheehy and Kipunji has this quality, with a sense of yearning and nostalgia at its core.
The huge, reverb-drenched vocals mournfully float at the edges; the rising dense undergrowth of pads will consume you into its sun-soaked, blue-skied world from the past.
Connect with Aran Sheehy
Spotify / Instagram / Facebook / Website
Connect with Kipunji
Spotify / Instagram / Bandcamp
Jay Wires - Meaningless
Meaningless is the newest release from NY-based artist Jay Wires, which features a bed of electronic synth textures that glisten with emotion and sentience; (the artist has been described as “synth pop art with a human heart”).
This grabs your attention in the way only the best pop songwriting does; doing so over an impeccably crafted tapestry of electronics.
Connect with Jay Wires
Spotify / Instagram / Facebook / Bandcamp
honey - Crush
I have been a fan of honey since I heard 2023’s Prada Princess (which brought me right into the era of pink inflatable chairs, Paris Hilton, The Simple Life).
Crush is similarly as addictive; the bassline hypnotic, the house/disco adjacent beat arranged perfectly with the vocals; all fusing together to form something that sounds both glossy and polished, while still having a slight underground DIY feel to it (think Slayyyter).
Connect with honey
Spotify / Instagram / YouΤube
FREAKIN OUT - blondestandard
This song is the LA-born artist’s comeback, after a two-year-long battle with cancer. FREAKIN OUT features distorted vocals and textures; with a truly awe-inspiring, lush chorus, goosebump-inducing electric guitars, and raw vocals.
The lyrics detail the human condition, the experience of falling for a musician, despair, picking yourself back up and more.
Connect with blondestandard
Spotify / Instagram / TikTok
No Medicine - Olive Louise
Haunting vocals descend, against distant chords played on an old piano. This song laments “Cause there's no medicine/This is what life is”, although the subject matter is serious, it is delivered in a tongue-in-cheek way, one of the lyrics being “How many people died just now?”
On the song, the artist says "There’s no fix that can rid the world of pain or suffering. Nothing changes the fact that we are all here for a short time and are all doing what we can to feel like our time here means something. I often wish things in my own life had played out differently, and I often find myself afraid of what the future will bring."
Connect with Olive Louise
Spotify / Instagram / Twitter
Clean Cut- friolenta
The description of this on Bandcamp is “looking for a place to live? contact clean cut property management and we can set you up with a slumlord to fill all of your housing needs!”.
Friolenta begins with the dial tone of a phone ringing, a voice message in Spanish advising you to press 2. The beat and sampling are done flawlessly; the whole thing feels kind of surreal like you are listening to it in an abandoned building, or in a deserted and forgotten space that exists in between everything else.
I recommend the whole album, which you can listen to here.
Connect with Clean Cut
Spotify / Instagram / Bandcamp
About Eimear O Sullivan
Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)
Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com
In this blog section we host new music releases, artist features and handpicked playlists by the Musicngear staff.
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