Editors' Picks: Best new releases

Find Out

by Liv.e

Oscar Ross, Editor

Moulding crooked, shifting, jazzy sample beats with smooth R&B vocals, Liv.e represents the cutting edge of alt-R&B in this small project. Released ahead of her upcoming album “Girl in The Half Pearl” on February 10th, “Find Out” is only three songs, yet it gives you a great look into Liv.e’s style and range. Both “Find Out’ and “Wild Animals” flaunt intricate production, beautiful melodies and altogether immaculately laid-back, relaxing feels. Liv.e then throws you head first into her telephone-filtered, feverish vocals over manic break-beat drums and hypnotic synths with “Ghost”. Both weird and wonderful, “Find Out” is the perfect foot in before Liv.e drops “Girl in The Half Pearl” so don’t miss out.

Let’s Start Here

by Lil Yachty

Josh Templeman , Co-Deputy Editor

A Lil Yachty musical redemption arc was perhaps the last thing I’d have predicted for 2023 and yet that is somehow exactly what he achieves with Let’s Start Here. Even more unexpected was Yachty dropping a psychedelic-rock-inspired album that sees a marked transition away from his ‘Soundcloud rap’ roots to a new genre-defying sonic domain. Working with the likes of Alex G, Mac DeMarco and Nick Hakim on the project, the soundscapes that Yachty crafts on tracks like ‘the BLACK seminole.’ and ‘IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!!’ are almost otherworldly, making it even more ba ing that he released ‘Poland’ just last year. This artistic maturation from Yachty genuinely needs to be studied.

Late Developers by Belle and

Sebastian

Jake Paterson, Co-Deputy Editor

A surprise release given that the Belle’s last record arrived only last year, Late Developers builds much on the twangy power pop that has been synonymous with the group since ‘I Want the World to Stop’. Though much of the idiosyncrasy of their classic records of the early nineties have somewhat faded, the new bloom of energy from a band so full of humanity is a welcome arrival for anyone traversing the darkness of winter.

what Bollinger brought to the stage, just her, a guitar and her songbook, bare of the dreamy accompaniment you thought was what you liked about her music. It’s like you’re looking Bollinger’s songs in the eye, rather than speaking to them over the phone.

Bollinger’s set was like hearing her songs sung whispered into a dark bedroom, as if not to wake the next room as she wrote them. Bollinger’s voice throws you up in the air with gentle lifts and lands you on the playful strums of nylon strings and the tut of her lyrics on the mic.

Overall, it was an acoustic night of personal, well-written songs from support to finish. Defineitly keep your eyes peeled for when Kate Bollinger is back, as she closed her set saying “Next time I’ll be back with my band and it’ll be awesome, so come back and see us”. I very much intend to, and so should you.

Photography: Oscar Ross

Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers

Sam Cox, Digital Editor

Young Fathers have always de ed easy categorisation. Theirs is a heady mix of polyrhythmic, pulsating beats, hypnotically charged chanting and sobering lyricism that falls somewhere between hip-hop and noise pop. While their last LP - 2018’s Cocoa Sugar - stripped these disparate elements down to their bare essentials, Heavy Heavy answers it by instead embracing excess. The Edinburgh trio’s fourth studio album almost creaks beneath the weight of its own lavish scope, but this is a group who, by this point in their career, are experts at turning divergences into a glorious, uni ed whole. 'Geronimo' typi es this formula as a slow, sparse instrumental and murmured voices make way for grand, frenzied yelps, lush, sweeping pianos and pounding drums, before being once again tempered just before it boils over completely.

SciTech explores the science behind advertising and the ethical concerns around it.

Lila Horne

Second year, Biology

Advertising is an inescapable part of our lives. It is often impossible to leave the house or use the internet without encountering an advert of some sort. It has been around since at least the ancient Greeks, with remains from Pompeii having been found decorated with marketing ads for political campaigns, goods, and ser-

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