In recent weeks on Dazed, we’ve interviewed Little Simz, talked to Spice about her wild ride to the top, and explored midwxst’s internet obsessions. We’ve also published a guide to the generation-defining sound of Lil Peep through five key albums, and hosted a Dazed Mix from Brazil’s DJ K.

We’re three-quarters of the way through the year, and it’s sadly safe to say these are still very challenging times. Despite the sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken uncertainties that colour the day-to-day realities of many, music continues to function as a shared communal space and a source of collective solace. In the wake of the pandemic’s lockdown years, the global music community faces ongoing economic challenges around touring, releasing, and promoting music. Regardless of the difficult setting of the moment, new and under-discussed talents from the worlds of underground music continue to use community and craft to find a way. 

For the third edition of our quarterly roundup for 2023, we’re continuing to reflect and acknowledge musicians, artists, producers, and DJs from across the globe, all with strong communities, real visions and important statements to make. Here are ten essential Q2 releases, all available on Bandcamp. 

KYOKO TAKENAKA + TOMOKI SANDERS, PLANET Q

WHO: Two open-hearted music makers who see jazz, ambient music, beats, Japanese folk music, and Butoh dance as one and the same. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Short but perfectly formed, Planet Q unfolds with the logic of a dream. As the story goes, Kyoko Takenaka and Tomoki Sanders (a child of the late jazz legend Pharoah Sanders) met in Tokyo in 2021 at a mutual friend’s cafe. Quickly, they connected over music, their queer and non-binary identities, and having grown up with roots in America and Japan. 

A year later, Takenaka and Sanders spent seven intensive days recording together in New York. In the process, they summoned up a singular soundworld where airy soundscapes, jazz improvisation, meditative mantras, and heavily percussive drum workouts drift in and out of each other. Beautifully packaged and presented, Planet Q is easy to pick up and hard to put down. 

FOR FANS OF: Flying Lotus, Alice Coltrane, ね.

TEDDY BRYANT, DINNER FOR TWO

WHO: The longstanding South Carolina soul artist who makes music that explores the transatlantic dialogue between the UK and the US. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: After toiling away since the late 90s in the R&B/modern jazz band urbyne, Teddy Bryant came to broader awareness in 2022 when Peoples Potential Unlimited released Heaven Sent, a lush street soul-slanted EP he created with Oakland producer/DJ Space Ghost.

Throughout Dinner For Two, Bryant’s second solo album in two years, the longstanding singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer continues to explore his love of soul-oriented US and UK sounds, while also turning his hand to house and garage. One of the standout tracks here is “Get Back”, where his expressive voice, earworm melodies, and romantic lyricism come together as a note-perfect homage to Sade.      

FOR FANS OF: Cleo Sol, G.C Cameron, Private Joy.

AND IS PHI, DOUBLE PINK

WHO: A southeast London-based multidisciplinary artist with roots in Norway and the Philippines.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Across Double Pink, And Is Phi collapses time and space by intermingling the Laurel Canyon folk, 70s jazz-rock, neo-soul, and experimental hip-hop into her own palette. After DJing in Oslo, Phi made her way to London, where she became immersed in the modern UK jazz scene, performing with Steamdown, Emma Jean Thackray, Hector Plimmer, Scrimshire, and William Florelle along the way. 

Set against shades of Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, and Madlib, the album is the product of her spending nine months exploring “metamorphosis, liminal spaces, and the multiple faces of love” with her co-producers Fiona Roberts and Lorenz Okello. Paired with artwork and music videos she created herself, Double Pink is a surefooted and heartfelt debut. 

FOR FANS OF: Georgia Anne Muldrow, Emma Jean Thackray, Shy One.

JLIN, PERSPECTIVE

WHO: A composer, producer, and DJ with a singular musical voice.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Over the last 12 years, Gary, Indiana’s Jlin, has charted her own unique pathway through music. Release by release, she’s touched on elements of footwork, IDM, techno, minimalism, and choreographic composition while retaining her unique voice as an instrumental storyteller.

Earlier in the year, Jlin was named a Pulitzer Prize nominee for her composition “Perspective”. Her new EP of the same name gives us a window into how working with dance companies triggered a substantial evolution in Jlin’s practice. Hypnotic, physical, and organic, but still electronic in all the right ways, pieces like “Paradigm” and “Fourth Perspective” practically leap out of the speakers in 3D. Perspective is an experience unto itself. 

FOR FANS OF: Midori Takada, Jana Rush, Steve Reich. 

CLEMENTINE VALENTINE, THE COIN THAT BROKE THE FOUNTAIN FLOOR

WHO: The world-wandering art-pop sister duo who grew up between New Zealand and Hong Kong.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: A decade ago, Clementine Valentine (formerly Purple Pilgrims) made lo-fi noise-folk for cult labels like PseudoArcana and Upset! The Rhythm, and touring through the North American D.I.Y music underground. Circa 2023, their new album, The Coin That Broke The Fountain Floor, finds them recording glossy art-pop for the legendary Flying Nun Records. 

The most sophisticated work they’ve created yet, the album sees the sisters blending their love of folk music with an expansive array of vintage synthesisers, strings, and pedal steel guitar, crafted with assistance from Oneohtrix Point Never collaborator Randall Dunn and former David Bowie drummer Matt Chamberlain. The Coin That Broke The Fountain Floor is a haunting listen underpinned by genuine emotional heft.  

FOR FANS OF: Weyes Blood, Kate Bush, Cocteau Twins.

BUBBA JANKO, CHEAP GLAMOROUS

WHO: An Essex-born, London-based singer-songwriter and producer bringing bright colours and flamboyant melodrama to the UK soul/RnB scene. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: I was first exposed to Bubba Janko in 2022, when he appeared singing about the superficial sides of nightlife culture on London label Scenic Route’s The Road Less Travelled Vol​.​1 compilation. A year later, Janko continues to tell his cheeky stories over hazy boogie, drum machine soul, and post-Frank Ocean alt-RnB beats on his new EP, Cheap Glamorous. 

Through the home video machine-funk of “Turn Off Your Cameras” and the Conan Mockasin-esque bounce of “I Can Be You Housewife”, Janko reveals himself as an easygoing humorist with a refined dancefloor sensibility. Elsewhere on the EP, he pays homage to the 80s, renders clout-chasing in slow motion, and indulges in some neon-lit, nocturnal synthscapes.

FOR FANS OF: Loose Ends, Dev Hynes, Space Ghost.

위댄스 (WEDANCE), SUM

WHO: The Seoul-based indie pop duo who move to a different beat.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Since 2011, Wedance have captivated South Korean audiences with their oddball dance moves, eccentric outfits, and man-meets-machine synthesis of melancholy and euphoria. Along the way, they’ve built a cult following by releasing a bevy of limited-edition CDs, records and cassettes, often only available for purchase at their live shows. 

With their latest album, SUM, Wedance blends airy dream-pop vocals, angular indie rock guitars, uptempo drum machines, and futuristic synths. Song by song, they offer up simple but astute observations about the realities of modern life. In the process, Wedance acknowledges the difficulties and challenges we all face while never losing sight of the transformative power of live music, dance and being in the moment.    

FOR FANS OF: MGMT, Deerhoof, LCD Soundsystem.

NATURAL WONDER BEAUTY CONCEPT, SELF-TITLED

WHO: A nocturnal meeting of minds between two genius figures in the North American musical underground. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING:  With Natural Wonder Beauty Concept, Ana Roxanne and DJ Python evoke the feeling of a late-night drive through a landscape that feels familiar and unknown in equal measure. 

After meeting in New York in 2020, the duo began exploring the overlaps between IDM, trip-hop, synth-pop and classical music. Two years and several studio stints on the East and West Coast later, they unlocked an interzone between the serenity of ambient and the rhythmic possibilities of brain dance, jungle, and dem bow. 

Although Python is arguably best known for abstract house and reggaeton, he sings for the first time on Natural Wonder Beauty Concept. Paired with Roxanne’s ethereal voice, his mumbly post-Drake explorations of emotional numbness and miscommunication make for something magical. 

FOR FANS OF: Tirzah, Laurel Halo, Tim Reaper.

LUZMILA CARPIO, INTI WATANA: EL RETORNO DEL SOL

WHO: One of the most important indigenous singers to emerge out of South America over the last 50 years. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: 12 years ago, the English guitar experimentalist Andy Moor described Luzmila Carpio as making Kate Bush sound like Darth Vader. It’s a fitting way to describe the radiance and light she expresses while singing her Bolivian Andean folk songs in Aymaran, Quechuan, and Spanish. 

In the 80s, she rallied against colonialism, advocated for indigenous knowledge, and sang about ecology and women’s rights. On her first album in a decade, Carpio and Argentinian producer Leonardo Martinelli locate her birdsong-inspired singing and folkloric instrumentation inside ambient textures and programmed man/machine rhythms. Accompanied by a full-length documentary, Inti Watana: El Retorno del Sol expresses a timely sense of optimism and wonder.    

FOR FANS OF: Björk, Tanya Tagaq, Gang Gang Dance.

AUNTY RAYZOR, VIRAL WRECKAGE

WHO: A future-forward Nigerian hip-hop, Afrobeat and R&B innovator and experimentalist.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: On Viral Wreckage, Lagos’s Aunty Rayzor raps with the charisma and technical prowess of a top-tier hip-hop talent. However, as opposed to just conventional rap beats, her debut album finds her flexing her considerable skills over a mélange of bass-slanted instrumentals created by producers from around the world.

Having first started honing her skills as a vocalist and songwriter when she was nine years old, with Viral Wreckage, Aunty Rayzor comfortably draws from a lifetime of experiences and feelings. Since breaking out in 2020 with her early pandemic anthem “Kuku Corona”, she’s been on a steady boil. Whether she’s rapping solo or trading lines with collaborators like Slimcase and Titi Bakorta, her star power is undeniable. 

FOR FANS OF: Cardi B, Warrior Queen, MC Yallah.

Join Dazed Club and be part of our world! You get exclusive access to events, parties, festivals and our editors, as well as a free subscription to Dazed for a year. Join for £5/month today.