For Duah Saleh, shapeshifting is second nature
If anyone knows about the transformative power of music, it’s Dua Saleh. The Sudan-born, Los Angeles-based R&B shapeshifter made their name with a pair of artsy EPs (2019’s Nür and 2020’s Rosetta), but their 2021 dance mixtape CROSSOVER marked a pivot. Written about sudden exposure and upward mobility, and armed with a bevy of collaborators like Amaarae and Chester Watson, Saleh concealed their feelings behind hard dance beats and mysterious, veiled poetry. For their debut album, however, they knew it was time to get real.
I SHOULD CALL THEM, though about an ex on the surface, is sneakily deep. Wrapped up in the record are tracks addressing everything from our disorienting march towards dystopia to gender dysphoria to futurism.
With each track, Saleh plays outside of their box for the hell of it, leading to an eclectic but focused product. On no two songs do they sound the same, from the gentle coaxing of “unruly” and the Sid Sriram-starring “time and time again” to the high-grade confidence “coast”, co-signed by fellow LA-based artist Gallant. They flip from English to Arabic to Tigrinya, the Eritrean language, with ease, which they say broadens their brain but also allows for more inflection in their voice. “It was interesting to see what I could challenge myself with,” they say.
“In the end, right now, I’m grasping for straws as the Earth is decaying, as the water levels are rising, as fires are everywhere, and I’m trying to hold onto her as best as I can. I’m witnessing the end of the world,” they say. “It’s a bit apocalyptic, but it’s also just an R&B album. It doesn’t have to be that profound.”
Sophie Thatcher is on the rise
After finding breakout success as an actress on shows like Yellowjackets, the multi-talented Sophie Thatcher is now turning her creative gaze to music. With her debut EP Pivot & Scrape, Thatcher has created a world that is both nightmarish and nostalgic, haunting and comforting, and, ultimately, groundbreaking.
Having grown up in the Chicago area and moved to New York at 18, Thatcher was quickly indoctrinated into the coolest echelons of the underground indie scene. In New York on her own, the scale of opportunity around her was heightened — she studied Meisner at the Maggie Flanigan Studio and booked her first big movie mere months after arriving — as were the cultural experiences she was able to rub shoulders with. Courtesy of a now-ex boyfriend, she was indoctrinated into the city’s live music scene. “Pretty early on I found some really cool people. Everyone was just obsessed with music, and it was all I would talk about people. I had that back in Chicago, but people were moving to New York to make music,” she says. “I was just really inspired. It was a really cool point in my life.”
Eventually, through a chain of mutual friends, she was introduced to Asheville-based producer Adam McDaniel. With him, her creativity “clicked.” She’d been making demos on Ableton since she was 14 and still living in her parents’ basement, but had never previously had anywhere to use them. McDaniel helped her bring her extensive catalog to life.
“With this record, I felt like the conductor in this insane little experiment,” she explains. “It felt really exhilarating and like I finally had control.” Pulling from inspirations as disparate as the Victorian era to her nightmares about her tooth, Pivot & Scrape is Thatcher’s own dark fantasy world come to life.
The introduction
Each week, Best Fit will be bringing you mini-interviews with artists on the come-up - and it’s happening exclusively on Substack. Today, we present Manchester-based Freak Slug.
Name: FREAK SLUG
Age: fresh from the womb
Hometown: Manchester, UK
Describe your sound in 5-10 words: nostalgic, romantic, gritty, textured, satirical
How you started playing music
I was playing music by a swimming pool at night alone and started recording it and was in a trance from the reverberations and echos.
Favourite guitar pedal / effect and why
Big muff pedal distortion. Just a crunchy sound. I like to freak myself out
Advice for developing one’s own musical sense of style
Stop thinking about other music. Stop thinking about music theory. Start thinking about you, start feeling what you have already inside of you. Then you have something authentic and pure — your True Tone.
Best thing about slugs
Slimey pathways under the moonlight. You can see their past. They can’t hide anything from you but somehow they’re mysterious af
Freak Slug’s latest single, Sexy Lemon, is out now.
Up next this week….
On the new music front, we’ve been particularly excited about the self-titled release from Americana supergroup (fronted by Stephen Malkmus) The Hard Quartet. Also new this week is cumgirl8’s surprising and stimulating the 8th cumming; Cardinals At The Window, a 135-track benefit album supporting communities in North Carolina hit by Hurricane Helene; Dua Saleh’s provocative debut I SHOULD CALL THEM; the infectious debut from French duo Faux Real, Faux Ever; and, of course, the long-awaited Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat remix album from Charli xc.
From the archive
Today, Charli xcx releases the remix version of BRAT, also known as Brat and it's completely different but also still brat. For today’s trip back in time, we present to you one of Charli’s earliest interviews, all the way back from her True Romance days. In it, she discusses hating art school, her obsession with pop music, French electro, playing at raves, and more.
Something Old, Something New
Every week, we share recommendations from the Best Fit community on two iconic records — one from the past, one from the present. This week, Icelandic artist Kaktus Einarsson offers his thoughts on Andstaða by Rass (2004) and How To Start A Garden by Nanna (2023).
Andstaða, by the Icelandic band Rass, is a cornerstone in my musical journey. Released in 2004, when I was just 12, it became an important soundtrack to my early teenage years. That same year, I formed my first real band with two classmates, where we rehearsed songs from this album, blending them with our own original material. Rass, which fittingly translates to "Ass" in English, is an energy-fueled punk outfit with members from legendary Icelandic bands like Apparat Organ Quartet and HAM.
The band's lyrics are rich with political statements, yet that didn’t hold us away from performing Rass songs at school events, despite the themes maybe being a little to grownup for us. It's one of those rare albums that, even after years of not listening, still manages to surprise me musically, though at the same time I know every detail.
How To Start A Garden by Nanna, released in 2023, is an album worth your attention. I remember feeling both curious and excited when I first heard that Nanna was working on a solo project, before that her reputation was being a lead singer and a songwriter for Of Monsters and Men. While the entire album is fantastic, it's the track “The Vine” that has stayed with me ever since I first heard it. Those voices are haunting. Later, I had the chance to see her perform the album live in concert, and that's when it hit me: I had to get her to sing on my album. And we made it happen!
Kaktus Einarsson’s Lobster Coda is released on 25 October
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Chloe Qisha, Chalk, Scowl, Dua Saleh, and coverstar Renny Conti.