Brighton’s Salt Ashes returns today with tantalizing new single ‘counting crosses’. As ever, this artist’s music is steeped in pop elements, although warped and bent into unique formations that take the listener into a space beyond the usual radio-ready sounds. We recommend this one for fans of experimental names like SEVDALIZA and Rina Sawayama, who each transform expected genres into their own image. Throughout this new track, Salt Ashes challenges the status quo through their murky beats and dark production, which siddles up alongside more recognisable pop melodies and EDM crescendos. Speaking about ‘counting crosses’, Salt Ashes recalls that “Another artist and friend of mine, Roseanne Lewis and I, got home at 3am after a night out, and we messed around on one of my synths in my bedroom and this fell out of us. We demo’d it there and then; I whispered the vocals out so we didn’t wake up our housemates and we stayed up until 7am finishing it because we were so hyped. Louis Souyave produced it and brought it to life. I’ve never had someone so in my head and understanding exactly what I want more than him. It was very collaborative too which makes me even more in love with the record as a whole.” Essentially, ‘counting crosses’ is a club track for the outsiders, for the lesser heard, for the hopeless romantics. - Hannah Thacker