Listener’s songs of the week: New tracks by Billie Eilish, Vera Ellen and Luna Shadows

By Billie Eilish

Whenever Billie Eilish releases an album, it feels like she’s looked into the future and set the tone for pop music to come. Chihiro relies on a techno undercurrent with a groovy bassline which consistently builds into something huge and cinematic toward the end – which herself and producer-brother Finneas evidently have a knack for, given they already have two Academy awards. Chihiro means “a thousand questions” in Japanese, and in the lyrics Eilish asks more than 10 of them. It’s also the lead character’s name in Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 animation Spirited Away, with the song showing similar themes of coping with loss – Eilish has professed a love for the film in the past. There’s confidence, sincerity, and originality to this whole album release, but Chihiro is one of the frontrunners. – Alana Rae

By Vera Ellen (featuring Oli Devlin)

Ahead of her tour with Reb Fountain and Voom, Taite Prize winner Vera Ellen has released Heartbreak for Jetlag, a six-track EP of bedroom recordings, all sweetly mopey numbers of various levels of emotional devastation (at its strongest on enough). But the standout is Danger I, a tag-team duet between Ellen and Hans Pucket frontman Oliver Devlin. The pair’s interwoven vocals, possibly essaying two sides of a broken relationship, is a heartbreakingly lovely thing. Deserves to be a hit – and a Silver Scroll contender, too. – Russell Baillie

By Luna Shadows

There’s an Imogen Heap essence in the vocoder-ness of nudes. It’s the opening and titular track from LA-based New Zealander Luna Shadows’ new EP. Certainly mellow, and fully banking on the vulnerable vocals and lyrics to carry it, she tells the story of being led on and the complications that come with being in a new relationship with your own baggage: “Skeletons in closets / Swept under the carpet / Runnin’ through thе halls with you / Hold me like I’m haunted”. – Alana Rae

By Cassandra Jenkins