This Sunday morning we welcome Aleesha Dibbs for MailTape’s Episode 538. Based in Sydney, Aleesha Dibbs joins us after the release of her debut solo EP, Paradise Lost - produced and co-written by Tom Crandles. Marked by eccentric synthwork and rich vocals, the release often treads into darker, haunting tones with exceptional inventiveness.

Aleesha Dibbs’s selection

Sol Seppy - Slo Fuzz

Aleesha Dibbs: ” Sol Seppy is a recent discovery for me - I was completely captured on first listen. On her track ‘Slo Fuzz’ in particular her production and ethereal vocals literally melted me. I initially heard it while walking down a really beautiful, deserted beach on the Central Coast in Australia on sunset. There’s always a mystical pocket on dusk when the clouds reflect on a silky shoreline so you’re kind of walking on air… the euphoric lift in the chorus was poignant at this moment. “

David Bowie - Black Star

Aleesha Dibbs: ” This is the most incredible track from Bowie’s final and very potent album. I ended up in a music video watching Youtube portal the other night and was in tears re-watching the ‘Black Star’ clip - to think his health was suffering so severely whilst in the process of making the record, and that he left the world just two days after it’s release is overwhelming. His artistic integrity and genius was so powerful literally up until his final body of work. “

Laura Jean - A Funny Thing Happened

Aleesha Dibbs: ” I’ve listened to Laura Jean’s most recent album ‘Amateurs’ a lot since its release. The track ‘A Funny Thing Happened’ resonated with me the most - really beautiful arrangements and harmonies. There’s a really powerful sense of nostalgia to this track. “

MailTape’s selection

Aleesha Dibbs - Comin For Me Now

Sarah: ” Across Paradise Lost, the intricacy within the EP’s synthwork carries such brooding richness, weaving the four songs into their own epic and drawing listeners deeper with each track. Comin For Me Now is the last of these tracks. As Dibbs describes, the creation of the EP embodied a “monstrous two years” and it symbolized “a big, happy, metaphorical closing of a door.” The description is especially interesting when experiencing Comin For Me Now as the EP’s final number, the last word before the metaphorical door’s closing. Although the last word, this track strikes at once haunting and then accelerating tones, a chasing of sorts. With each listen through the EP, I felt drawn to begin again, to go back to Battalion, through to Distance, on to Conjured You Up, and found myself embedded in the spiral of these tracks, their connective tissue and the emotional weight they came to represent. “

Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys - Only Dreaming

Sarah: ” From the Sydney-based band’s new album release, All Night Long. Drawn to the nostalgia laced over this soulful Americana style, love this track’s pickup and solo toward its end. Adding more mist to this Sunday morning haze :) “

Anastasia Rydlevskaya - Don’t tell her your name

Sarah: ” Highly recommend listening through Polish artist Anastasia Rydlevskaya’s discography while viewing her visual art, as she writes that she makes her music with deliberate connection to its visual counterpart. Just as her art engages with surrealism, gender nonbinary themes, and mental health, her music holds complex and intertwined harmonies, unpredictable melodies, and celestial overtones. “

Vanishing Twin - Afternoon X

Sarah: ” Fascinated by this new release from Vanishing Twin, the namesake of their album released earlier this month. The cyclical rhythm section is disrupted and then enhanced, hypnotic in its creativity and subtle transformations. “

That’s all for this morning! Thank you for joining us. Our love to Aleesha Dibbs for her eclectic selection, and to Camille Célestin for this episode’s beautiful illustration. Until next Sunday :)