Following up last year’s debut album, Berlin-based J Mahon shares new single ‘Gold States’. Forlorn and bittersweet, the track remarks upon the adolescent folly of desperately wanting something, but not knowing exactly what it is. Mahon reflects on his youth, describing “the idea of wanting something greater than I had and if I had just found this special ‘Gold State’ than everything in my life would make sense and I would be who I was meant to be.” Its release coinciding with the commencement of Mahon’s UK tour this month, the track is leafy and rose-tinted, and brings to mind the great singer-songwriters of the seventies. Vintage feeling instrumentation backs a crisp, tape-saturated vocal and the listener is invited to take stock of what they truly need as Mahon wistfully croons “everything I need is here, but I miss you”. -Adam Brown