Sound Board: The Week’s Best Tracks

Our picks for the best tracks out there for the week of July 27–31, 2015. Headphone-tested, FLOOD-approved.
Staff Picks
Sound Board: The Week’s Best Tracks

Our picks for the best tracks out there for the week of July 27–31, 2015. Headphone-tested, FLOOD-approved.

Words: FLOOD Staff

July 31, 2015

2015. Sound Board july

As July comes to a close, we’ve collected another batch of solid new tunes from the week, with tracks from some of our most-anticipated upcoming albums (Lianne La Havas, OughtSiliconBitchin Bajas and Natural Information Society, and Small Black).

Check them all out below.


Lianne La Havas, “Tokyo”

Lianne La Havas‘s newest single “Tokyo” masterfully showcases the R&B artist’s fluid genre-bending talents. The track features a stellar bass groove, the singer’s warm and full vocals, and a catchy chorus about anonymity in a new place (“I’m out of sight / I’m out of mind / Alone in Tokyo”).

Silicon, “Burning Sugar”

Kody Nielson—brother of Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban—has shared the first taste of his debut as Silicon, Personal Computer. The sound should be familiar to fans of UMO. Nielson’s smoothed-out vocals coat a sticky-wah guitar and a deeply funky bassline while toys, candles, spoons, and Nielson himself flash across monochromatic backgrounds.

Ought, “Men for Miles”

We’ve already gotten one taste of Ought’s Sun Coming Down with “Beautiful Blue Sky.” Now, the jittery post-punk band have shared the album’s second single, “Men for Miles.” The track tempers Ought’s spritely melodies with a slightly muddy, downcast sound reminiscent of fellow angst-punks Protomartyr before shifting into a rubbery guitar workout.

Small Black, “Boys Life”

Following in the footsteps of last year’s Real People EP,  the newest track from Brooklyn electro-pop four piece Small Black is a lush dance groove. In “Boys life,” the first single ahead of their upcoming third album, piano chords ring out atop a dancey four-on-the-floor beat, while melodic samples pan to-and-fro à la Caribou.

Bitchin Bajas and Natural Information Society, “Anemometer”

Though their group name makes it sound like they could be a cruise ship house band, Bitchin Bajas are experimentalists within the realm of instrumental dreamscape music, and are not concerned with structures so much as they are with textures. Their latest LP Automaginary is a collaboration with the ensemble Natural Information Society, from which they’ve now shared the track “Anemometer”—a tripped-out, gentle piece of psychedelia that would fit in on a cruise ship, but only if it happened to be heading into outer space.