A quarter of the year down and it feels like the music hype machine is only just warming up. We’ve picked out some tasty morcels that it has thrown out this month, promising many more feasts in the coming months.
We’ve picked out a few of the ones that have most excited us during this dark and dreary month. Enjoy our BPM Curates playlist for March below.
Below is the track list and some notes from our team about why they’ve selected them for this month’s playlist.
Beth Orton – “Ground Above”
Four years on from Weather Alive, Beth Orton’s spell might have been receding – but it has us fully in her grasp again with the sudden release of eight-minute single “Ground Above”. A slow-builder, both musically and emotionally, it grasps you in its warm embrace as Orton’s weatherbeaten voice drifts through memories, then ever so subtly tightens as the urgency picks up, with the songwriter piling on the poetry and memories until we’re left with a mountain of feelings. – Rob Hakimian
Cameron Winter – “Warning”
Cameron Winter is on such a heater – both as a solo artist and fronting Geese – that even the ‘throwaway’ track he’s donated to the recent War Child HELP(2) compilation is an absolute stunner. “Warning” is a tense, fraught traipse through pizzicatto strings; a frostbitten atmosphere where Winter considers his life’s achievements and the shadow cast over them by doubt, nihilism and certain death. Filled with stark images and genuinely arresting emotion – bordering on desperation – “Warning” will stay with you. – Rob Hakimian
Charlie Puth – “Home” (feat. Hikaru Utada)
“Home” is built on a quiet idea, that a place doesn’t mean much without the person who gives it weight. Charlie Puth keeps things deliberately restrained: soft percussion, warm synths, and a melody that never quite stretches beyond its comfort zone. It’s steady, almost too steady.
Hikaru Utada’s verse shifts the ambience. Sung in Japanese, it adds distance and softness, turning the track into something less literal, more shared. It stops being just Puth’s sentiment and becomes something wider. The song doesn’t build or resolve in any big way. It loops, sits, lingers. That repetition feels slight, but it works in its favour, the emotion isn’t changing, so the music doesn’t either. – Mary Chiney
Dry Cleaning – “Sliced by a Fingernail”
On Dry Cleaning’s freshly released single, “Sliced by a Fingernail”, Florence Shaw offers surreal imagery (“A disco night full of big heads”, “Every dog with its mouth open”, “Boulder exercise / Fragile person inside”) via her signature deadpan vocal. Tom Dowse on guitar, meanwhile, pivots between wiry single-note progressions, space-y backgrounds, and noisy, punk-inspired chordal arrangements. Shaw’s introversion/withdrawnness contrasts compellingly with the band’s cathartic volatility, recalling some of the high points of 2021’s New Long Leg and 2022’s Stumpwork. – John Amen
foamboy – “Self Improvement”
Portland duo foamboy are back with another new single to add to a recent string of increasingly likeable tracks. “Self Improvement” has producer Wil Bakula laying out a rubbery and infectious bass line while vocalist Katy Ohsiek muses over the idea of the best version of themselves. It’s bright and pastel-coloured, which makes for a welcome soundtrack to the springtime sun cautiously peeking its head through the clouds. – Ray Finlayson
Kelsey Lu – “Running to Pain”
It’s funny how, when an artist is gone too damn long, they seem to reappear just as you’ve given up wondering what the hell gives.
I’d still love to know what’s kept her since 2019’s Blood, but, hell, Kelsey Lu has finally come back to us all. If tracks such as “Due West” dipped a toe into pop of both universal feeling and boundless ambition, “Running to Pain” dives head first into the mechanical offset by bare emotion and vocals. Bring on the album, already! – Chase McMullen
Mammo – “Vikare”
You enter the cave. Water ripples, it all seems still, but that bass gradually throbs. Dive in.
I dunno, I always feel corny writing about this stuff: it’s Ambient house. Just vibe away, you’ll be glad ya did. There’s enough going on in this track to wake the crew of the Nostromo. – Chase McMullen
Melanie Baker – “Real Life”
Ahead of the release of her upcoming debut album Somebody Help Me, I’m Being Spontaneous! (arriving April 10th), Newcastle-based Melanie Baker has unleashed new single “Real Life”. Existential as it scrappy and fun, Baker weaves about needling guitar riffs and molasses-thick bass. When she pauses to look into the camera and utter “Oh God” it’s a moment that grabs your attention as much as when she declares “It’s my fucking birthday party.” As boisterous and fun three minutes as you could ever hope for. – Ray Finlayson
Mike Will Made-It – “D33P3R” (feat. Teezo Touchdown & Ludacris)
Being hype for a Mike WiLL Made-It album in 2026 was an exercise in cautious optimism. I’ll never deny the man his chops: I saw greatness in his gradual perfection of sonic dissonance as pop, but we’ll always be left to wonder what might have been had Miley Cyrus (cleverly, to her credit) scooped him out from the Atlanta trenches. One can’t help but wish he’d stick alongside the likes of Future, 2 Chainz, Gucci, and so on, just as they arose to new heights themselves. His never released Ape Shit alongside Pluto himself will forever linger as a “should have been”.
He’s continued to deliver since, of course, such as with the underrated, understated Edgewood alongside Trouble or the gleeful throwback of Dirty Nachos with Chief Keef just two years ago. It’s just that you never know which Mike Will you’re going to get.
The sprawling R3SET doesn’t entirely succeed as a veteran legacy statement, but in its most sincere love letters to his city it can soar.
“D33P3R” finds Mike vividly sliding through something Organized Noize might have delivered in its singular lurch, yet also entirely futuristic, oozing through Atlanta avenues with scattered, urgent tones, inspiring guest Teezo Touchdown to sincerely put on his best (entirely sincere) Usher impression, only for Ludacris to careen through, fully delivering the song’s intoxicating blend of past, present, and some alien future. – Chase McMullen
Portrayal of Guilt – “Object of Pain”
Atmospheric, creeping guitars that instantly make the skin crawl – this is Portrayal of Guilt blossoming into a new era of their sludgy hardcore. The chrysalis has cracked open and what we have is… a hook? “I wanna feel it on the inside / I wanna feel it on the outside” Matt King murmurs and shrieks in double tracked harmonies. “Object of Pain” is PoG going anthemic without losing any of their scabrous appeal – Rob Hakimian
Rett Madison – “Eleven Wednesdays”
With a rockabilly reverb that makes her voice flutter with nerves, Rett Madison fends off loneliness to be back in a toxic relationship. “I can take it! I can take anything if you let me”, she begs; the string section arrives either to mourn or celebrate. The end is particularly chilling: it doesn’t fade out or climax, she has simply said her piece and awaits the reply. – Steve Forstneger
The Scythe (Denzel Curry and co.) – “UP” (feat. Rich The Kid, A$AP Ferg & SadBoi)
Denzel Curry, Rich the Kid, and SadBoi line ’em up so Ferg can knock em down. Spin that shit. – Chase McMullen
Young Fathers – “Don’t Fight The Young”
Buried deep on the incredibly packed HELP(2) compilation dedicated to helping children in war-torn areas, “Don’t Fight The Young” benefits from its simplicity. In many ways, it feels like an amalgamation of their last album, 2023’s Heavy, Heavy, from its TV On The Radio influences to its spiritual outro. Other artists on the compilation include Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn & Graham Coxon, Black Country, New Road, Beth Gibbons, Arlo Parks… you get the drift. – Steve Forstneger
Listen to our BPM Curates: March 2026 playlist here.
