Hazel English - Just Give In / Never Going Home (2017)

Hazel English is a 25-year-old Oakland-based artist who makes beautifully blurry indie-pop music powered by transcendent melodies and caked in layers of Californian sunshine and redolent reverb.

She finds herself something of a scene queen amidst the burgeoning jangling happenings of the Bay Area, which count the likes of her producer Jackson Philips aka Day Wave amongst it ranks, as well as kindred spirits like Craft Spells and Hot Flash Heat Wave, to name but a few. Despite the fun being had locally, Hazel describes her music as, "Transportive. It makes you feel like you're in a different place".

A very literal example is the title track, which charters the bittersweet abandon of her runaway journey from her native Australia to her new adopted home in an near-cinematic narrative. She's drawn comparisons to everyone from Alvvays and Pains Of Being Pure At Heart to touring partners Ride, while her soaring, hypnotic, vocal arrangements have been likened to everyone from Grimes to Diiv.

TRACKLIST
01. Other Lives 03:01
02. Fix 03:42
03. Birthday 03:02
04. Love Is Dead 03:30
05. More Like You 04:15
06. Never Going Home 03:56
07. Make It Better 03:01
08. Control 03:25
09. It's Not Real 03:14
10. I'm Fine 03:18
11. That Thing 03:08