Editor’s Note: Anyone who says there isn’t good music coming out these days — and quite literally, every day — simply isn’t paying attention. Vanyaland’s new compilation feature The V List highlights the best in new music over the past month, pulling together the sounds that have soundtracked the website in recent weeks from our wide-ranging series of features. It’s all the stuff we’re bumping here at Vanyaland HQ, one new bop at a time.
Sasami, ‘Honeycrash’
There’s a thunder brewing overhead, and it has nothing to do with summertime storms. The source comes suddenly from SASAMI, the Los Angeles artist who threw down a panoramic contender for Song of the Summer through a masterstroke of seismic emotion called “Honeycrash,” and it feels like our own personal soundtrack over the next few months. “I wanted to write a song with all the drama of a 19th-century classical opera but with the patience and understanding of someone in therapy in 2024,” says SASAMI. “Finding a love so great you’re willing to persist through the elements, even toward certain death to bear its ravishment. It’s about wanting to fight for the pinnacle of passion and desire but knowing that you can’t change or rush someone else’s feelings or where they’re at. But with a guitar as my sword and my steed.”
Diary, ‘Sunday’s Shadow’
A hazy mystery zone called “Sunday” arrives weekly, and during it we’re usually not sure if we’re dead or alive. A rare sign of life comes from a heavenly ‘gaze heard from here to New York City, as Diary has capture this mood of unease with a gentle shimmer of a dream-state single called “Sunday’s Shadow.” The lush, kaleidoscopic guitar-rock track sets an aural tone for forthcoming Kanine Records EP Speedboat. “Sunday’s Shadow” has a transformative effect, blurring the lines of reality as we drift both mentally and physically to someplace else. And that’s by design. “When I first heard (guitarist) Chris’ chord progression, it took me back to getting my aura photographed down on Canal Street years ago,” says Diary’s Kevin Bendis. “There’s a place you can go where they take a Polaroid and when it develops your aura appears. This time instead of a rainbow of color, there was just this splotchy cloud of red. The shop-owner described the aura as looking tired and not really there. It felt like an echo for that entire day. Sundays can be like that — you find yourself in an ephemeral place between the haze of sleep and the waking world. That’s where this song lives.”
Remember Summer, ‘Wrecking Ball’
When Vanyaland celebrated its 11th anniversary, it got us reminiscing about the early days of the site. Looking back, we were fairly smitten with Miley Cyrus, and all the buzz around “Wrecking Ball,” which dropped about three months after we launched. Over time, we all went in our own direction. But Remember Summer took us back to those halcyon days with their rendition of the modern classic, as the duo of Paddy Conn (Swimming Tapes) and Angelina Dove deliver an enigmatic, new wave-leaning cover that breathes new life into Cyrus’ eternal standout through a vintage, wistful lens. “Metaphorically spot on; I think I’m an ‘exploding doormat’ personality type,” Dove admits. “A really long fuse, but once it’s lit… ‘Wrecking Ball’ resonated with me, I feel like I’ve been there. The explosions, the disappointment, indifference even.” Oh, we’ve been there two. Jump aboard the swing and crash the present into the past below
Phantogram, ‘All a Mystery’
We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: All Phantogram do is write Phanto-jams. The New York State alt duo of Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter returned with a hazy new synth swirler called “All A Mystery,” and it feels like the start of a special new era. The atmospheric and hypnotic single also marks a new partnership with always on-point Neon Gold Records (Charli XCX, Tove Lo, MARINA), and that seems like an inspired pairing. “’All A Mystery’ was a line that we used to sing when we first started writing songs for Phantogram,” the duo reveals. “We would sing it and harmonize it together while working in the barn turned recording studio. Back then, it was ‘all a mystery’ to us how we came together to become a band, and 14 years later, we are bewildered that we have been doing this for so long. This song touches on love, life, death and loss. It digs into memories, and the wonder of existence. And it examines the push and pull of time on this planet, and being able to share the experience of everything all at once as a mere grain of sand on an endless beach.”
FEVER 333, ‘New West Order’
There’s a motherfucking heat advisory covering most of the country, and now we know why: FEVER 333 dropped a ferocious new single called “New West Order.” The chaotic hardcore and hip-hop hybrid might even be the first to name-drop Tupac and Morrissey in the same lyric, and that’s reflective of the song overall, as it celebrates the Southern California melting pot of styles, sounds, and cultures. “There is an intersectional hot bed where the hood and hardcore meet,” says FEVER 333’s Jason Aalon Butler. “For pimp’s and punks alike to enjoy and celebrate their taboos. This intersection is beautifully represented in Los Angeles and ‘New West Order’ is an unapologetic exploration of my experience as a social variable growing up in LA that I think the world should also have the privilege of being exposed to. It is also the beginning of west coast gangster rock as a genre and a culture. The beauty in disparity and these nuanced diamonds forged from the pressures we experience in alternative commodities (of all types against the background of our status quo) and, particularly, people of color. I spent about six years talking about how I felt about these governmental/societal systems and imbalances; now I’m going to talk about why I feel this way and the experiences that shaped such ideologies.”