Add to playlist: Femcels’ sharply observed electro track and the best new tracks of the week | music

from London
Recommended if you like Celestial, CSS, Teens
the next I must be getting hotter now

Femcels’ music is cheerful and melancholic, sometimes sarcastic but often sincere, often up-tempo, all delivered with wiry, unadorned vocals. In this sense, he is a reincarnation of the 1980s and 1990s; Go beyond their band name, and you’ll find that Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton have a lot to offer when it comes to exploring the chills and thrills of young womanhood in 2020s London.

Following in the footsteps of Heavenly and Tiger Trap, their sometimes-sung, sometimes-spoken lyrics are particularly feminine and unapologetic, given an update for the modern age: The Femcels’ debut album I Have to Get Hotter, released earlier this year, touches on disastrous body image, programming, influence and boys who care more about their phones than other human beings, among other things. It’s all full of sarcasm, but there are plenty of sleazy, funny truths in Femcels’ music, like when Miles talks about DMing a rock star who “really wants to see me when his kids’ spring break is over.”

Aesthetically, the Femcels draw heavily from 2000s and early 2000s pop and indie music. The sound of I Have to Get Hotter, run by Ike Clateman and Leo Fincham of Bassvictim, AKA Worldpeace DMT, is a mixture of the obscure and ahistorical genre that draws freely from CSS, Edward Sharpe, Magnetic Zeroes, Vampire Weekend, Grouplove and a whole host of other bands from that era that were largely irrelevant at the time. (It also contains a cover of Shelley Duval’s He Needs Me in the style of the one-album wonder Teenagers.) The sheer excitement that radiates from the Femcels’ music makes it easy to leave their exploration of bad taste without a doubt; “I Gotta Get Hotter” is both outrageous and sharply observed, a completely unholy combination for a time like this. Shad D’Souza

The best new songs of the week

Kelsey Law – Running Towards Pain
Songwriting where massive ambition matches quality and intent: Lou returns with a giant synthpop song about masochistically finding the life force in a cruel lover. BPT

My new band Sadaq – A Love Story
Following his brilliant recent single Numerology, former Black Midi frontman Cameron Picton cuts the beat for this deeply moving song: a declaration of love while cooking the evening dinner. BPT

Flo – leak that
With a beat reminiscent of Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscious,” the British girl group doubles down on this track’s sexual confidence when they choose to make their thirst traps public. The chorus is pure girls’ night out trance. BPT

Lily Seabird – Devil In Me
A Vermont songwriter is on the verge of a breakthrough. This vocal waltz about the desire for self-actualization attempts elegant harmonies before devolving into wonderfully wild feedback. A lesson in casting out the devil. L.S

Coke – Fire Mentality
Tim Darcy, the sad and poetic singer of the excellent American indie rock band, lost his home in the Los Angeles wildfires, and this prompts a broader existential meditation here: “Make way for sadness / It will make way for you.” BPT

Priory – nesting chamber (with Gavsburg)
Like a cold front pushing into a bank of warm weather, this is an outrageously sensual coupling of techno and funky house, with a catchy toast from Gavsburg locked into the groove. BPT

Slippers – everyone wants them
The new song from the Los Angeles band is classic pop with an indie bent, but there’s a trace of ’60s girl groups in the mellow yet sad chorus. BPT

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