Charlie Ashcroft’s Musosoup Round-Up December 2023
Charlie Ashcroft: Presenter @amazingradio, DJ @SomebodyTM_Club. Also a @QPR fan, a @RecCollMag columnist + #Spotify Playlist curator with @music_gateway
As ever with December releases, it’s a pleasure to encounter so many excellent ‘non-Christmas’ tracks amongst the pile of festive offerings. Here are ten of my favourites from the tail-end of 2023.
Let’s get started in Australia with Magdalia. Having released two great singles in the shape of ‘Noreen’ and ‘Tunnel Vision’ last year, the Melbourne singer-songwriter re-emerged in December with ‘Fault Lines’, characterised by its heart-on-sleeve honesty, massive chorus and her brilliant vocals throughout.
Travelling over to Los Angeles, we come across a slow-burning, synthpop ballad by Shana Sarett called ‘Minnesota’. This will appeal to fans of Caroline Polachek and Weyes Blood, with its gorgeous electronic flourishes and nods to Sarett’s operatic background.
Early December also saw the release of Mia Van De Loo’s amazing ‘Open Book’ EP. Genuinely hard to pick a favourite song from this, but I’ve gone for the collection’s opening track, ‘fairytale’, thanks to its wondrous combination of finger-picked guitar and Mia’s distinctive vocal couplets.
Another songwriter rounding off a brilliant year in fine style was Cordelia Gartside. The somewhat ghostly, aptly-named ‘December’ gradually reveals itself like a long-lost field recording, acting as a hauntingly beautiful sliver of light amid the darkness of the wider world.
Electronica-leaning producer and composer Elisha provided us with a glorious slab of musical innovation last month too. The New York resident’s latest single ‘Good Friction’ combines various shades of dance and nu-jazz to tremendous effect.
La Palma are a genre-defying duo, working collaboratively and remotely from their respective bases in San Francisco and Washington DC. Chris and Tim have been making music together since 2019 but their latest new work is arguably my favourite song of theirs to date. ‘After All This Time’ is a rich tapestry of diverse electropop influences, woozy vocals and lovely changes of pace.
Taking things in a ‘dancier’ direction, I want to shine a spotlight on ‘Ride The Dragon’ by Nick Marks. The Horatio Luna remix of the track landed in my inbox just before Christmas and had me itching to get to a DJ booth on a sunny rooftop somewhere. Fantastic work all round.
WATERBODY are a new name to me, but they won’t stay under the radar for long, if songs like ‘Sinking Road’ are anything to go by. With its pulsating guitars and a huge sense of momentum at its core, this instrumental epic also feels suitably cinematic for this dimly-lit season.
Back in LA, Edie Yvonne rounded off a hugely prolific year with a stirring cover of ‘No Rain’ by Blind Melon, originally released over 30 years ago. The track choice suits her vocal style really well, and cements her impressive reputation as a genuinely exciting performer. Definitely one to watch for 2024!
Coming full circle in the column this time around, we end up where we started, in Australia, with Broxton and Project Sonic joining forces for an absolute corker named ‘Depth of my Colour’. The song’s polished pop production and stadium-ready guitar riffs make for a compelling listen from start to finish - absolutely timeless stuff.