Now Hear This: New music from Skepta, Grace Carter, Collard and Flying Lotus, plus spotlight artist Emotional Oranges

The Great Escape festival is currently taking place in Brighton, and while I'm obviously gutted not to be there this year (trying to hobble through hordes of drunken music fans on crutches didn't seem like a good idea), it essentially signals the start of festival season. Woohoo! I've made two lists, one for our favourite European festivals, and another for the best on offer in the UK.

Included on the UK list (published in full on 11 May) is Field Day, which is being headlined by Skepta – he dropped not one, but two tracks this week: “Bullet From a Gun” and “Greaze Mode”. I’m really only a fan of the former, which alternates between woozy and sharp synth tones and shows the grime legend at his best – rapping in crisp, eloquent bars about facing demons and learning lessons. “Greaze Mode” sounds more like he's guesting on someone else's track; somehow the Nafe Smalls feature just doesn't fit.

Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran have released their first collaboration since 2015’s “Love Yourself”, a track called “I Don’t Care”. And yes, both Sheeran and Bieber sound astonishingly unbothered about the song, let alone what other people think of it. I did a double-take at seeing the names on production. It’s hard to believe that Max Martin and Shellback – two of the best producers in pop – really had a hand in this twee, one-cheap-beat-on-a-loop piece of dross. It’s almost like they’re wilfully inviting the obvious response: “Yeah, we can tell.”

Soulful singer Grace Carter has released a moving down-tempo ballad called “Don’t Hurt Like It Used To”, where the stoic beat mirrors lyrics about moving on. I like the new Charlie Cunningham track “Bite”, and the “You’re So Vain” vibes on “Damage Done” by Sea Girls (congrats on signing to Polydor, lads).

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Carly Rae Jepsen’s new bop “Too Much” is great, as is The Amazons’ storming new track “End of Wonder”, which is taken from their forthcoming second album Future Dust. Flying Lotus and Anderson .Paak have teamed up for a dreamy, psychedelic trip on “More”, which meanders and skips across different rhythms on the intro until landing on a skittery groove for .Paak to rap over.

London-based singer/rapper Collard (my spotlight artist last week) claims my favourite album release this week, and will likely be one for the end of year list, too. His maximalist approach is refreshing amongst the many rap productions that favour stark, icy beats (as much as I love that kind of thing), and there are full-on Prince and D’Angelo vibes which was always going to win me over. Check out the falsetto on songs like “Greyhound” and “Hell Song” and you’ll see why I’m swooning over the album. You can read the full review I wrote of it here.

My spotlight artist this week is the mysterious LA duo Emotional Oranges. They’ve released a new project, The Juice: Vol 1, which is somewhere between an album and an EP. While there’s plenty of variety on here, it’s all underpinned by their alternating (gorgeous) male and female vocals and classic R&B and soul influences.

I had a brief chat with them about the new project and what they have lined up for the rest of this year, check it out below:

Hey guys, how's your 2019 so far?

Dreamy. No but seriously, it’s been a really good time!

Tell me a bit about this new project, which isn't really an album or an EP?

We view this collection/mini-album as the first half of a two part series. The goal was to properly introduce the fans to our world, both sonically and aesthetically, before going into a full on album statement.

Why did you decide to maintain an element of anonymity around this project? Are you going to do a big reveal anytime soon?

Don’t you miss when music was just about the music? If people want to see what we look like, all they have to do is come to the show! Sounds simple enough, right?!

Did you find any recurring themes popping up in the music on The Juice: Vol 1?

Haven't really thought about this lyrically until now, but the feeling of wanting to love and be loved. The ability to write from both perspectives on one song is quite liberating.

Asides from Lauryn Hill's Miseducation and Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun, were there any other influences, musical or otherwise, that appear on the project?

We tried to pull inspiration from a different area on every track. For example, the “Good To Me” concept was heavily inspired by S.O.S Band, while “Motion” was much more Thundercat meets Disclosure.

What are your plans for the rest of this year?

We've been working on some cool visuals and self produced remixes for our tracks. That along with tour prep has taken up most of our time these past couple of months. Hopefully we get to release a couple of these Volume 2 singles as well...