We may have missed Ali Horn at his recent appearance at the BBC 6 Music Festival, the review for which you can check out here, but we like to think we’re making reparations by sharing brand new single ‘Modern Voodoo’ with you lovely people. It’s a nostalgic surf-meets-psych rock number with Matt Berninger-esque vocals delivering wistful lines of foreboding: “nothing really matters.” What is this vaguely romantic song all about then? Well, the Liverpool songwriter tells us: “Nowadays I think people (including myself) have forgotten what life is really about. We’re force-fed consumer fetichism and the full brightness glare of a phone screen has replaced real eye contact. We’re distracted by transient pleasures and it seems that climbing a social ladder where nobody has even met has become more important than family. I’m disgusted by it and I’m part of it. That’s Modern Voodoo. BUT... There’s a way out.” This idea of having good intentions to “talk about the past” and find real-life connection is skilfully woven through guitar strings and hazy-pop melodies, but in the end we succumb to this modern voodoo and “hang my head in a noose I made.” Ali Horn makes this tale of inevitable doom appear like an easy-breezy groove; a little bit of sugar to make that medicine go down. - Hannah Thacker