Praise Kink
A warning disguised as compliment. Hidden behind glitter and gloss, something rotten grows like mold. Do not be fooled by the dollfaces and angelic voices of their feminine theatrics. These albums are plotting. They flaunt a sex appeal, a charm, a soft sweetness, a seeming-innocence. Then trap you. The dolly who didn’t get played with is back for vengange, making music for contemplating makeouts. And murder. This is eery pop electronica for scheming sirens. This is Praise Kink.
I Just Remembered Everything Always Works Out For Me, Touching Ice (2025)
As of writing this, Touching Ice flexes a cool 10.000 monthly listener base on Spotify. This is sure to change. The record is the Los Angeles-based electronica industrial-pop trio’s debut, and I must say they absolutely nailed it. I Just Remembered Everything Always Works Out For Me is one of the best debut albums I have heard in a very, very long time.
Between current cultural obsessions with y2k, revival pop, BRAT-core, and 2010’s renewal, Touching Ice is bound to be a hit. They are just too cool. Detached, laidback, but flexing a fresh sound. Youthful music for the youth. For the chronically online. And yet? The most badass part? The band can barely be found online themselves. The “ghost band” maintains a lowkey presence across platforms, and even this new drop was relatively quiet (especially in proportion to how good it is). IJREAWOFM is “brutally introspective and often self-deprecating, so how come it's so fun to dance to?” They oscillate like a fan in a liminal office (you know, like the one that FKA Twigs and James Blake share) between R&B, techno, drain, bubbly cyber-core, ambient, and good old grimey industrial pop. Like a Charli xcx, Yameii Online, Ninajirachi, Ether Cain crossover. It serves mainstream pop-palateable (i.e. some “normies” can dig it) but steers clear from being basic or boring (i.e. alt kids will feel seen). Bleeding the genres into one another, Touching Ice managed to create a near-perfect debut. It is thoroughly coherent, balanced, and full of surprises. Not one track resembles another too closely. Even in moments of stillness, something breathes. This record is alive because Touching Ice has a soul. They are chaotic and calculated and cunt. And I can’t wait for more.
dance arts center presents, dance arts center (2025)
If you like maximalist pop, underground synth dance, or maybe just need to dance out your ballet trauma like you’re possessed, dance arts center presents may be just the thing for you. Los Angeles diva Nicolette Norgaard has assembled a moody, 8-track list coming in at just 20 minutes for your goth getting ready sessions and hyping up your late-night train ride home.
The record is Norgaard’s first, and, as a debut, it's relatively solid - in the lighthearted kind of way. While not remarkably substantial or original, I wouldn’t argue that the artist is trying to reinvent the wheel here. overture is a surprisingly strong instrumental start to the record. Norgaard builds on the dizziness, danceable fun with joey knows before taking a more serious turn with everyone was talking about you last night, a political satire masked with humor in a moany-whisper Addison Rae production style. The song keeps the record tied to a fierce fem-pop spirit. The Addison style returns on phone games (I can’t help but think of Headphones On), on which we are stuck to the beat of a ringtone, tying the album to its cyber core influences. Glitch meets dance on entr’acte, which sounds like something Charli xcx would mix at a Boiler Room set. you want to has a classic fem pop-rock spirit to it, as Norgaard curses out her crush. good listener taps into a distilled drain sound, though neither the production or writing are particularly remarkable. Call me crazy, but, “sweet like sugar, hot like tea” - really, girl? I won’t try to argue that the lyrical depth of the album is by any means its strength, and I’ll even admit the album closes out on a rather weak note. Perhaps we are reminded that dance arts center isn’t trying to create new worlds, just inviting us into her own little one. Still, its a fun place to be.
Scarlet Lamb, yuné pinku (2024)
Half-Malaysian half-Irish London-based yuné pinku (born Asha Catherine Nandy) has been honing her harmony for just over five years now. Without an LP in-sight, Nandy has amassed an impressive listener base. Her recent collaboration with Sassy 009 has earned her a new wave of attention, and deservingly so. The young Londoner is wickedly talented, and this Scarlet Lamb EP is the most fleshed-out project we have at the moment.
Nandy has a dark energy (in a good way). Like a siren in murky waters. Like a witch in a dark forest. She can often be found posing with animals (sometimes dead). Her talent is stitching this shadow and texture into her production. Bringing these scenes to life. Don’t get what I mean? Just press play on the EP and give Midnight Oil a listen. Refreshing. Mysterious. Like an ocean breeze at night. This is tangible across Don’t Stop and Half Alive. Her music is thoroughly soothing (yes, even when its about lambs being sacrificed), but never boring. As the lovechild of james K, Kelly Lee Owens, and The Neighbourhood, Nandy as yuné pinku proceeds to show us all the shapes her shadow can take across the EP, as we float between dim-lit dancefloors and nighttime London lights. Scarlet Lamb is subtle, charming, and just a little creepy - the perfect recipe for Praise Kink.
Lovelocket, Pearling (2024)
Pearling is the Scottish producer-performer starling flaunting just 5000 monthly listeners on Spotify and limitless creativity. Lovelocket, just 7 songs and 15 minutes long, is the artist’s first mixtape, released earlier this year. Her Melanie Martinez-meets-Grimes mix lands somewhere in the realm of slightly disturbed cottage-core fairy pop PC music. Acutely girly with gritty drum layers, Lovelocket is bittersweet.
Like the Glasgow native’s stage name suggests, Pearling’s work is shiny and sparkly. Produced by the Glasgow native herself, Lovelocket lures us in with its “cutesy, nursery rhyme-like intro, [but] it’s not long before a fierce bassline and acidic synths punch through, and you realise the sort of experience you’re in for. From the more upbeat Wildfire and Swirly Circus Girl to the shimmering Another ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Life and Dollface, Lovelocket is all at once gentle, ethereal, bold and extravagant, letting you see the many sides of Pearling.” With a calculated intensity, we are swooned, swaddled, then rocked to sleep like a baby whose parent(s) love dnb/drain/cybercore.
Ballads for Da Bizness, Ms*Gloom (2024)
I admittedly know very little about Ms*Gloom - as do most people. The Persian Gossip Girl-coded diva is dark and mysterious (but like, in an authentic, not performative way). Outside of making atmospheric, moody electropop crying-in-the-club music, her hobbies include being a full-time dollface baddie and making sick-ass art. It would be a sin to call this queen a singer.
In every way, Ms*Gloom is an artist. She blends visual, audio, and performance art to create a thoroughly coherent and creative aura. Her sweet, slightly-haunting voice is just the cherry on top. Her tracks bleed into one another - but rather than being a weakness, its this sticky quality that makes them so addictive. Ballads for Da Bizness (a title I admittedly don’t understand) feels like a crossover between Alice in Wonderland, Bratz, and Coraline. Blending y2k hyper-pop, eery alt, and dreamy electropop, Ms*Gloom creates a hazy, mesmerizing world that feels like falling deep into a well. It's spell-binding. But sexy. Maybe a little scary, too. If nothing else, it is clear that Ms*Gloom is a master using her coquette facade to cover for her scheming, which seeps into you more with every song. It is precisely this mastery that makes her queen of Praise Kink.
Chances, Acopia (2022)
Anyone that says Chances is anything short of excellent is lying. In the years since quietly releasing their debut, Acopia has been making louder music in recent years - but somehow, Chances remains their boldest work. The Australian trio is sure to be a favorite for fans of NewDad, Night Tapes, Pearly Drops, Oklou, and the like. It should be illegal how crushing their music can be while being so damn delicate.
Known for their downbeat, melancholic, achy atmospheric sounds. Acopia has a hypnotising way of going about creating music. They take their time to draw you in. Stalking you, observing, spotting your weaknesses. Then attacking. They start with swirling synths or keys before building in those seductive soft-spoken mantras of resentment, regret, love, and longing. We feel lead vocalist Kate Durman is looking dead into our eyes when she sings,“I know you better than the rest of them do”, as if our heart is being pulled on imaginary strings being plucked with every chord. At some point, the drums enter, solidifying the given song as a true work of art. They often catch us off guard, soiling the band’s otherwise girly, glossy sound. Walking the line of pleasure and pain, we are at Acopia’s mercy in Chances. Caught in it’s trap, we are weakened by its dizzing dazzle - and subtle sting. It is this duality that makes this record truly at-home in this playlist.
No More Like This, PVA (2026)
London trio PVA’s second LP is gritty yet somehow ultra-refined. On it, their alt electronica sounds tight, confined, yet simultaneously emotionally open and imaginative. The secret? Tension. PVA is whispering secrets into our ear but has their hand around our neck. No More Like This feels like being wrapped by a boa constrictor. It is a slow death.
A submission you recognize only once its too late. Between restless and pulsing percussion, warped synths and samples, digital disturbances, and vocalist Ella Harris's alluring spoken word, No More Like This is magnetic. We are drawn in by their slow, paced restraint, though soon find ourselves lost in heavy, raw, cub sounds. It is thoroughly dark, but danceable at times. Physicality courses through the album - embodied (no pun intended) by its cover. No More Like This thoroughly succeeds in suffocating us. It is a claustrophobic euphoria. It is perfect for Praise Kink.
It Was Only Perfect Because It Was Never Real, Teather (2025)
It Was Only Perfect Because It Was Never Real might be the“hear me out” of this playlist. Teather is among the greenest artists featured here, and I sense this siren is still getting her sea legs. After all, the record her first real debut, and it was largely self-produced. Its not perfect. But I don’t expect it to be.
Indeed, the record flaunts a considerable amout of promise for such an early work. Tying together 90’s club, R&B, and her self-proclaimed “sexy electronica”, Teather lands at her own kind of charm. Lambs lures us in with soft indie pop sweetness before we are jolted to life by the serious bass, punchy drums, and heartbroken lyrics of With You. Admittedly, So Sweet caused my faith to falter - for obvious production and lyrical reasons (clearly inspired by Addison Rae). Teather wins our trust back with the (still very Addison-coded) cutesy Kissing Spree before diving into the second half of the record, thicker with R&B influences. You can’t convince me that Just Say You Need Me, East to West, and Know It Best could easily be FKA Twigs vault demos. From the off-kilter candy-coated production, to the “I don’t know where you love to hide”-like lyrics, to Teather’s impressive high notes, the second half of this album has a distinct sound. The bad news? Its like night and day from the first half of the album. Teather might be still working out the kinks of her sound, and what exactly she wants to curate. But in the meantime, she is welcome in Praise Kink.
