Annie Galvin: Jordy Asher, the erstwhile Blonds frontman currently known as Boots, emerged from a relatively shadowy corner of the music industry into a massive spotlight in 2013, thanks to his substantial writing and producing work on Beyoncé’s self-titled album. The imprimatur he left on the Fifty Shades of Grey trailer, a slowed-down remix of Queen Bey’s “Crazy in Love”, further clarified Boots’s sonic hallmarks: minor-key melodies, R&B vocals contributed by the likes of Kelela and Sia, sludgy mixes punctuated by periodic face-slapping synths. “Acquaria”, the lead single for Boots’s upcoming début LP, gets a little spacey, building around a clapping trap beat, swirling vocals by Dirty Projectors singer Deradoorian, and some X-Files-esque high-pitched whirrs. The notable injunction “shake like a gamma ray” encapsulates the song’s intertwined thematic strands: a doomed booty call and some seriously apocalyptic concerns about planetary decay, sinking cities, and “lay[ing] pipe on Mars”. Time signatures tangle on the chorus and then fall back into place — a move that epitomizes Boots’s trademark balance between chaos and order that never borders on boring. [8/10]