Now Hear This: New music from Hayley Williams, VC Pines, emir taha and spotlight artist Priya Ragu

Welcome back to the Now Hear This playlist. I can’t promise it’ll be as entertaining as The Weeknd’s Super Bowl halftime show, but I’ll do my best.

Let’s dive in. Hayley Williams has dropped a surprise 14-track album (thanks Hayley), Vases for Flowers, which follows on from 2020’s excellent Petals for Armor. At first listen it’s a great record, considerably stripped-back in comparison to its predecessor. Most tracks are built on soft piano melodies and acoustic guitar – I love the rocking rhythms of “Over Those Hills”, and the delicate textures of “Asystole”. We all know Williams has an extraordinary voice, but on Vases for Flowers she pares things back. The effect is just as moving.

London-based artist VC Pines (Jack Mercer) has just released “Smoke Without Fire”, a soulful blast of sax, squidgy synths and an especially groovy guitar line redolent of the one on “Use Me” by Bill Withers. The track comes from his forthcoming EP, Concrete, which you should definitely keep an eye out for. Singer Tulliah, from Victoria, Australia, is back with mesmerising new single “Distant Dreams”, and Brixton-based Turkish artist emir taha has dropped “Kendi Yoluna” (translating to “everyone goes their way”), full of traditional instrumentation and taha’s alluring voice, which definitely has a Justin Timberlake vibe to it.

Picking up where her sultry, hypersexual project Jaguar left off, Victoria Monet has released the smoking slow-jam “F.U.C.K” (“Friend U Can Keep”). Of course, there’s Cardi B’s track “Up”, the sister to 2020’s song of the year, “WAP”. “Up” shares the no-nonsense tone of “WAP” – super assertive, with a few playful moments. I absolutely love the new music Ghetts has been sharing over the past few weeks from his forthcoming album Conflict of Interest, out 19 February. This time he’s teamed up with BBC Sound Of 2021 winner Pa Salieu – it’s a match made in heaven. A new find (for me at least) is Sean Focus, a Zimbabwe-born, Edinburgh-based artist and producer, whose track “Mullholland Drive” tells the story of his dreaming of a better life.

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The Staves have released their new album, Good Woman – you can read my colleague Rachel Brodsky’s review of that here, and also Annabel Nugent’s fantastic interview with them here. Also in album reviews this week, I wasn’t as enamoured by Black Country, New Road as other critics. I’m a big fan of the new one from Ben Howard, “Crowhurst’s Meme”, even if I don’t quite understand the title. Lots of crunchy guitars and a stark piano motif; Howard is releasing his new album, Collections from the Whiteout, in March. British-Iranian producer Hiatus has shared his single “Your Place is Empty”, which brings in the sublime voice of Iranian singer Malahat.

Top marks for newcomer Sophie Morgan and her music video for “Always”, also for Ayron Jones and his rock-heavy “Mercy”, and for Flyte with their new single “Under the Skin”.

My spotlight artist this week is Priya Ragu, a Tamil-Swiss rapper and singer fusing R&B with traditional South Indian instrumentation.

“I wanted to challenge the stereotypes of Sri Lankan people essentially being limited to cooks, cleaners or shop workers,” she says of the themes in her music. “People who are looked down upon. People who are rarely envied or desired. I’m proud of who I am and my music celebrates that.”

Check out my Q&A with her below, and definitely watch her incredible video for new single “Chicken Lemon Rice”.

– Hey Priya, how's your 2021 so far?

The year started off with a lot of snow here in Switzerland and soon after there was another Lockdown and it’s still ongoing until end of Feburary 2021. Throughout the whole month of January, I was eagerly looking forward to release my next single 'Chicken Lemon Rice'. It’s finally time!

– Tell me about your epic track Chicken Lemon Rice

Some cooks follow the recipes very precisely and then there are others that like to cook by heart and put their own spin to it and come up with a new creation.

That’s we did with this song - by fusing African rhythms together with Indian talas and sprinkling that tamil twang on it. The song is about celebrating unity and diversity. It’s here to commemorate all the beautiful cultures of the world. The world is not black and white, it’s colourful. We can come together and still be ourselves whilst celebrating different heritages and learning from each other.

– The video is great and so colourful – it feels like a celebration. How did it come about and what kind of themes did you want to include?

The video was shot in an abandoned hotel in London and was directed by the incredible Dumas Haddad and his wonderful team. It only took us a few Zoom calls to get aligned with the vision we had for this Video. Representation and certain elements from my culture was important to me and Dumas has capture it in a really unique way.

– What else do you have lined up for this year?

Some really dope singles that are dear to my heart, amazing visuals and a lot of positive ragu wavy frequencies!