Ultralife

Editors’ Notes This London duo’s self-titled debut made unlikely, but successful, bedfellows of soul-jazz sophistication and glitchy alt-pop. Here, they take the formula to new extremes, fusing earth-clearing wub-wub synths with cocktail-lounge piano on “Heavy.” Ultralife’s melodic sharpness, however, is its most striking quality. It will take only one listen for the love-struck title track to tattoo itself onto your brain, before the whack-a-mole rhythms and grinding synths of “High on Humans” are wrangled into a euphoric head-rush of a chorus.