Sonny and the Sunsets - "Pretend You Love Me". A great one, cool and hot. That's how sand works: gets cold quickly, heats up fast. But "Pretend You Love Me" isn't sand, isn't desert, despite all that lap steel. Instead it's flowering, sprouting, ivy curls. It's buds, spuds, beet greens, gladiolas. There is flute, reverb and bassline groove. Sonny and the Sunsets are planting a garden overtop all that strife and spite, the passive-aggressive drama. Rakes and hoes, bags of seed, microphones and electric guitars. [Longtime Companion is released on 26 June / pre-order / I wrote about another song by Sonny Smith last month]

Lakes of Canada - "Born Again". Love the chorus here, the overearnestness smoothed out into something soft-lit, dreamy, easy as Spanish moss. It's an elusive aesthetic - part sandbank bonfire, part spinning vinyl record, the sleeve propped up against a potted plant. If only the verses had the same warm sound, hi-fi MOR instead of lo-fi strum. [Lakes of Canada launch Toll the Bell at Montreal's Il Motore on Saturday / website]

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