CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON — IF ONLY

'If Only' is deceptively conventional. We have R&B vocals, keys and a groove; structurally, we have verses, pre-choruses, choruses, post-choruses, a bridge. But additions and quirks that elevate this song into a shining beacon of timeless romance, a paragon of bygone pop.

The creation of Toronto-based producer, singer and musician Charlotte Day Wilson, 'If Only' brims with textures that make it a fully-furnished room of a song. Glassy keys glisten, resonating with fireplace warmth, providing a juxtaposition between cold and hot, outer and inner — the yearning heart. Drums tick and bump with subtle kicks and snares, bass bubbles and booms keenly below, while now and then synth vox hop up and down a keyboard following the brassy voicebox fuzz of saxophone melody.

It's a flavourful mix. The approach to thick chorus and almost sparse verses is also a satisfying contrast, as is the cheerful Charlie Brown-esque intro melody against the expressive rising chorus, like the difference between accepting lost love with something like nonchalance, and then the sudden wave of longing reality, a feeling matured.

Day Wilson's lyrics to 'If Only' spell out this ache of loss told in the music. Take the chorus, for example, a play on counterpoint with deep, heart-rending bass, keys and vocals in wondrous syncopation.

And times move slowly without you
Heaven if only you could hold me
and turn it all around

The hopeful prayer-like tone of the chorus then shifts in mood for the final two lines, where clocks have stopped and grief is currency instead of seconds:

Tell me the time comes back
Still stuck in visions of what we had

In this lyrical weaving, her vocal tones add to the song's textural wonderland, alternating between deep silkiness and skipping acrobatics, layers upon layers to give a rich fullness to the sound. It's this overall fullness combined with the classic R&B structure of the song that gives it such timeless mystique.

To this end: Are we listening to this in 2026? Or could we intersperse this with muted crowd appreciation and feel as though we are four fifths of the way through a hazy live concert in 1992, candles lit on the stage, a smoke machine, a collective swoon in the audience as Day Wilson's masterwork sweeps through yet another gorgeously evocative chord change — are we there?

✧

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• 🔔 The gorgeous 'If Only' is taken from Charlotte Day Wilson's new album Patchwork. You can purchase it digitally over on Bandcamp.

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SHADI G — GODDESS PT. 1

⌾ LISTEN TO SHADI G, GODDESS PT. 1 ⌾

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The minimal production of 'Goddess pt. 1' by Swedish artist Shadi G doesn't just serve to create a luxurious atmosphere — it allows the vocals of the musicmaker herself to soar and glimmer unimpeded. A patter of kicks and the abrasive pop of a snare propels the track forward on a blanket backdrop of soft synth chords, a glitter of zithers ornamenting it all; at the forefront, Shadi G's voice itself lilts and meanders with slow, acrobatic ease, vocal reverb like mist casting a dreamlike softness over proceedings.

"I felt I was in a place where the fun and playfulness could take a bigger part," says Shadi G in an email to yes/no.

'Goddess pt. 1' may be at its core a silky R&B number, but it's also a soulful exploration of the singer's Iranian heritage: lines of Farsi curl and spiral into earshot in the finale. "I love the melody of the language, the nature of the language itself is so poetic," she says, explaining that she chose include Farsi into her track because of the importance the language has played in her life.

"I really want Farsi to get a platform to be heard and seen," she adds. "Music isn't just made in English, even though it's the language that's given the most exposure and space by the industry."

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• 🔔 You can stream and/or download 'Goddess pt. 1' by Shadi G via whatever music service on this list is your preferred choice.

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TAY NOEL — LAST TIME

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With its beat echoing in a collage of ticks and booms as if caught in a looping memory, 'Last Time' is a vessel of tender emotion tumbled along by the multifaceted rhythm of time. Sultry chords paint a soundscape with muted synth glow, a picked melody adding a gentle delicacy to the scene.

All the while, percussion rattles, cymbals whisper metallics into the air, a lone, full-bodied snare explodes in the near-distance laden with reverb. Created by Virginia producer Tay NoeL, 'Last Time' is a gleaming marvel of measured, minimal production.

"This song came from a personal experience," the producer tells yes/no via email. "It was inspired from a mutual breakup between me and a girl before I shipped off to the Navy."

A hollow synth melody that calls out every now and then, a hollow, flute-esque R&B-flavoured beacon that stretches out slowly above it all. It's a sound that summons the spiritual aesthetic of old-school lovesongs, but in its descending notes, its hint of a mournful tone, it becomes emotive.

"When I create I need to have an emotion in my mind, either from personal or what I believe the song is trying to show me," he adds.

"In better words, I speak my mind and emotions through my music."

The unpretentious simplicity of 'Last Time' — and indeed many of the instrumental soundtracks to emotion and experience to be found on Tay NoeL's album The Vibez: Chill Instrumentals — calls to mind the vaporwave sensitivity to scenes, times, places, fantasy visions, nostalgia. But there's one presiding difference: this music remains gloriously rooted in and inspired by reality.

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• 🔔 You can stream and/or download The Vibez: Chill Instrumentals, Tay NoeL's collection of instrumentals, over on Bandcamp.

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💿 AIDA SKEE — MACH LEISURE

⌾ LISTEN TO AIDA SKEE - PKMN SNAP ⌾

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Skittering and beset with structured staccato slices of unidentifiable sampling, 'Pkmn Snap' by Aida Skee feels like a cool breeze. What relevance it bears to 1999 N64 title Pokémon Snap isn't immediately obvious, and perhaps there isn't one, but in its simplicity — its lines of airy sampling, sparing and delicate bassline, background ambience — there is something at least in spirit to the game's soundtrack, notably its 'The Young Photographer' theme.

Cheerful without being sunny, sparse without feeling overly lonely, 'Pkmn Snap' similarly conjures an imaginary landscape. Not unsurprising, as the musicmaker themselves revealed to yes/no that Mach Leisure, the beat tape which the track is taken, is inspired at least partly "hiking while listening to Knxwledge, Marvin Gaye, and deep cut '70s R&B." Physical landscapes, and how music enhances or reflects them, play their part.

This musical foundation is noticeable on the rest of the beat tape, which sometimes gloops with vaporwave ooze ('can't see shit'), glitters like the vapor-friendly tracts of nostalgia in title track 'MACH LEISURE', or radiates warmth as in the comforting groove of album closer 'Where to start it'.

Attention to detail comes to the foreground in tracks like 'right' — its beat clicks into something high octane, before samples drop in slowly skewed and bubbling. It's places like this where Aida Skee's process reveals itself, Mach Leisure being a collection of experiments in high BPM tracks that still retain a "relaxing element of R&B sample-based music."

This sense of relaxation is an element throughout that was (probably) sought after and welcomed by the musicmaker themselves. "I made this whole tape while living alone in Montreal, smoking too much legal weed," they say. "The theme is meant to be like attempting to attain relaxation as fast as possible and how that's sort of an oxymoron."

Tricks in tempo aren't the only cocktail that binds Mach Leisure: "The tracks integrate pitched up and pitched down components of the same sampled tracks, use heavily warped or distorted sample components in tandem with non-distorted loops," the producer explains.

That sense of speed, as well as glistening pairings of pitched and non-pitched samples, occurs in 'like relaxing in a car that's going fast' — a title that sums up the whole idea behind the album — and following track, 'Keep me talking', whose sampled flashes and snaps crackle with chaos. In them, the situation of creating the album — not just hiking in the mountains and listening to music, but also weed and panic and paranoia — come into play. It's both a result of, and a cure for, those negative emotions that inspire minds to race and disappear into realms we wished they wouldn't.

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• 🔔 Stream and download Mach Leisure over on Aida Skee's Bandcamp.

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🐣 STEVEN A. CLARK — KARMA

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"Just getting into bad relationships over and over. Then one day you realize that these relationships are just a reflection of what’s going on inside of you," writes Steven A. Clark of 'Karma'. With the skewed bassline cutting a warped groove, the cyclical – yes, karmic – guitar twinkling out of focus, and lyrics that speak of that "internal battle", the spills into your mind, seeping through the cracks.

At its centre swirl the vocals of Steven A. Clark himself. Worn, cradled in woozy effects and cutting an infectious R&B glimmer in lines like "Everyday, everyday, everyday / Telling me lies disguised as truths" and laying himself bare (literally) in the opener, "I'm naked / Over you..." it swings between these flying falsettos and a soothsaying mantra crooned in a plasma gravel: "Cause when the karma comes / The karma comes / karma's coming your way." A feverish warning.

"We do some much external shit looking for people, places, things, activities to make us happy, or distract us from the way we feel about ourselves," he explains more about the track. Something like Tame Impala analysing the uglier sides of the brain, 'Karma' is a psychedelic saunter around the block, a me-and-my-thoughts gloopy, gossamer tangle.

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• 🔔 'Karma' is taken from Steven A. Clark's upcoming album Hypervigilant, actual release date TBC. Stream 'Karma' by clicking this text and choosing from one of the various streaming services that you desire.

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🐣 POLES — MOTION FT. SOFT JAW

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The elastic instruments of 'Motion' is something that gives it the dynamic energy that absorbs you and then bounces you away, the rubber sway of the stumbling-down-a-corridor synths, an intoxicated sound that feels like a twirling mind. Not just the flapping synth, but the zooming acceleration and then dead stops of the bass give it this kineticism. It's a minimalist, leftfield approach to R&B, as producer Poles explains over email.

"I knew I wanted my music to continue in that direction as opposed to the more poppy, future bass music I was writing," he writes. "'Motion' draws from my history in hip-hop, but incorporates my love of odd, bass-hitting electronic music. The fusion gave us something really unique."

Not just the plasma synths, nor the taffy heft of the bass, or the punchball training thuds of bass drum that pummel throughout, but the twisted musicbox clinks, the phantomatic chords that squeak across the glossy surface of 'Motion' like a disjointed dancer, add to that definitively unconventional approach to musicmaking.

A slice of normality comes at the end, the piano, damaged and dusty, like the sun rising after club sojourns, the haze of alcohol exorcising itself from the spirit; Poles' hazy full stop to vocalist Soft Jaw's pitch shifted croons that gave this track its sultry, nocturnal character.

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• 🔔 Download and stream the Poles and Soft Jaw collaboration 'Motion' via your fav platform.

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🐣 CAM OUTLAW — IT'S TRUE

⌾ LISTEN TO CAM OUTLAW, IT'S TRUE ⌾

The bass booms, the bang and bounce of nascent notions in mind, orbiting themselves in the swell and bulge of the sub rumble. But Cam Outlaw's track 'It's True' isn't just about looking inwards—it's all about these thoughts exactly projected onto external stimulus, namely the "you" sung in the slow sultry hook: "I've been thinking about what I'll do with you..."

Alongside the vocals, sumptuously drawn out and sometimes cut-up, skipping glitch-style like a nervous stutter, the beat zips and fidgets, rattling and cracking the air with razor hi-hats and slapping snares—the anxious, excited physiology that matches those cyclical thoughts.

The R&B feel of those vocals, spinning their lovesong amidst gossamer lo-fi melodies and in the depths of that blinkering bass, pays homage to Cassie's 'Me & U' halfway through, injecting the familiar, quoting lines like romantic poetry – "tell me if you like it" – to further position this as a pre-tryst croon, a kinetic vehicle of infatuation.

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• 🔔 Stream Cam Outlaw's 'It's True' variously via your fav service.
• 🔔 We'd also like to take a moment to appreciate the Twin Peaks style artwork for this track; the otherworldly yet recognisable tone of the track very much suiting the half-soap opera, half-interdimensional timeless crypticism of the infamous series.

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🐣 OKAY(K) — SEVEN, TI SEVEN [初演 • PREMIERE]

⌾ LISTEN TO OKAY(K) SEVEN TI SEVEN ⌾

Fresh from the faded sunset beach guitar sounds of ‘bacardi with a soda’ – his latest track – SoundCloud musicmaker, vocalist and all-round wordist okay(K) crash lands back to earth in his interdimensional pod; the control panel has gone haywire and is playing out some wonky chords from a far-off radio station, colourful blips and bleeps crackling in the hook (notification system failing), the fizzing circuitry of the beat skipping and lurching with a galaxy of glitch.

It’s friendly though. In fact, 'seven, ti seven' sort of reminds me of the 'Battle Against a Weird Opponent' theme from Earthbound. The sound is warm, though jaunty and angular in structure. Like Mr Burns from that Simpsons episode, he brings you love. And here okay(K) is in the middle of it all, with a message from the future. Or was it the past?

“The concept is "seven ti seven ti seven ti seventy" meaning "seven you seven you seven you seventy",” he tells us via email.

“everyone is as much alike in a way as they are different. we’re all human with our own unique characteristics that make us distinct.”

Halfway between a lounge croon and a beat poet recital, okay(K)’s vocal in ‘seven, ti seven’ rolls around picking up references from everywhere, like a virtual snowball through Wikipedia, from foreign languages to the next US election. And all in a style that drips in stream-of-consciousness fever dream freedom; even the way the lyrics can be set out looks like a poem:

never, never, never been where i is
is i isn't
isn't i isn't
isn't i finished
i said now isnt thy wishlist not made in 79 minutes
79 minutes till he be sending my giftish
its like my 79th christmas
he said Pitkästä aikaa
* i said now isn't i Finnish
i said now isn't i finished
...

The skipping but low-slung virtuosity of this first verse (above is a fragment) contrasts with the wobbly, positive spoken word-esque vocal of the second; there’s simple but inspiration thinking in there, with lines like “I think we can go far / If we hold on real tightly” delivered with rounded earnest. Politics comes into play, when okay(K) talks about waiting “patiently” for 2020: "If we are impeaching then it may be imperfection / Coulda happened sooner then there would be no objection now."

It’s an exercise in patient positivity, set to a scuttled hodge-podge glitch-flavoured beat that could seem chaotic, but feels as chill and accessible as those jazzed-out chords—a joyful juncture where rap, poetry and sheer artistic communication meet and mingle.

* This means 'long time no see' in Finnish.

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• 🔔 Listen to more okay(K) on SoundCloud.

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🐣 SANTINO LE SAINT — MAGIC

Somewhere in a desolate wasteland between completely despairing of your situation and carnal pleasures, the trade-off between sex and happiness, feelings and sparing feelings, is the incredibly feel-tastic lamenting lovesong that is 'Magic'. Created by London model, producer, singer and musician Santino Le Saint, it's a tract of scalding synth sounds winding between just a few notes making it feel cyclical – the going-round-in-circles of a restless mind in love – set against a trap beat that rumbles like gurgling lava, sharp industrial snares and ticking hi-hats like a sense of stomach-churning immediacy.

Obviously there is this trap heaviness to it. And to add to the lamenting vibe of this literally magical track there's some serious shredding going on, a Latin-infused '80s-metal guitar solo cavorts in aching interludes in the midst of 'Magic', before becoming the coda of the track, crying out, rapid-fire and raucous. But vocally it feels like an R&B-flavoured slow-jam—Santino Le Saint's satin voice skillfully lilts from the sensually stark and beautifully confused first few lines:

"You should fuck me in the back of this Uber, baby
I know this isn't something you're used to baby
Life's changed and I'm still getting used to it lately
Nothings what it used to be baby..."

Yet it's coated in this metallic decay, as if those words are already ruined, already not worth communicating to whomever they're directed. It's continues thoughtful and reflective: "I was sitting in the passenger, flicking through the calender, thinking about the shit we've done" — "If we were in a different situation we'd be better off." And doubtful: "Now you're saying that I love you but you never know..." And at times it's like a storytelling Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque stream-of-consciousness, e.g. "but if we're gonna die young then / you'd better promise me if you can shoot then drive" — "...and if they try and pull us over put the metal to the floor."

"I actually wrote the first line of 'Magic' whilst I was drunk in the back of an Uber on my way home from a party," said Santino Le Saint, talking about the track. "I like to arrive on a track with impact and this was so direct and to the point... I sort of forgot about the lyrics, and a few months down the line the concept came back into my mind and the rest of the track fell into place. You know when you're drunk or high, feeling yourself and just fantasise about shit, that's 'Magic'."

In all, the track brings an everyday, an everynight, Uber ride to a startlingly evocative and cinematic height, from where it drips greatness and sharpness onto you like tears and static—and in a unique vessel that crosses the epic poetry of guitar solo with R&B's sensuality and emotion.

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• 🔔 This lovely piece of music is taken from Santino Le Saint's recent XENO EP, three-track offering that acts as a composite of these guitar, vocals and beat in a modern-day slice of Prince-esque compounding. You can – and most definitely should – listen to it over on his SoundCloud.

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🐣 OSO LEONE — VIRTUAL U

Both sexual and sexless at the same time, 'Virtual U' by Spanish band Oso Leone pushes robust breathy basslines and cold drum machine beats – the continuous white noise of an icy analogue cymbal giving it a sense of pace as it slowly unfolds – alongside slinky licks of liquid guitar, chords clanging and chorused, warm timeless synths. Naked groove crawls beneath reverse guitars before it falls away and luscious synth chords play ahead of the song's languorous coda sprinkled with a palm-muted guitar riff that drips with retro tropicalia, the vocals – aching throughout, telling secrets the whole time – soothe themselves in a falsetto mantra till the end.

This whole track is a slow and blissful freefall into a kind of contented nocturnal oblivion, a passage of music constantly in flux, each new change in course or sound presenting yet another face of beautifully soft experimental R&B pop. This realm of organic and synthetic merging, each sound caressing the other like dyed oil and water nebulously embracing in a psychedelic light show. And in relation to the track's title, it is touching from afar, this hazy atmosphere of longing yet remaining inactive, waiting and procrastinating, the song's changing nature a reflection of conflict and deep human desire lost online oozing through fibre-optic cables.

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• 🔔 Oso Leone's 'Virtual U' arrives as a single on 16th February via Barcelona label Foehn Records and El Segell del Primavera (the record label associated with Primavera, the festival). It will be available digitally and as a limited edition 7".

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🐣 ELMARI — YOU KNOW ME

Taken on some sort of spacewalk now, the long weightless sway into starry void, the cosmic vacuum just existing there and a figure slowly spinning into some oblivion, it's not loneliness they feel as they drift but more a sense of solitary contentment, the secret mystery of oneness unfolding itself in the expanse. That is what it feels like anyway, 'You Know Me' by East London producer ElMari, it feels very space-destined, future-aligned, and that is first and foremost down to the nature of those synth chords: stripes of the heavens swipe in thin fizzing neon swathes of sound. But of course it's not just the actual quality of the sound itself, it's how that sound progresses that gives it this windingly slow velocity.

It's also the decreased attack and relatively low sustain of the synth which gives it that slow-motion feeling, along with the sparse beat, well placed clusters of hi-hat ticks and clacking snares as well as the syncopated solidity of the robust kicks, this lack of accentuation minimal nature summon that galactic feel, the simple melodic twinkling of synth mirrors the sparkle of distant celestial bodies, and the rumble of modulated bass in the middle gives intensity and power. But within there is something human, the vocal sample, stammering and effusing a sultry R&B flavour, and suddenly it wasn't a solitary spacewalk but an low-gravity airlock sex scene that this track conjures. Or maybe it's both.

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• 🔔 More of ElMari's releases can be found over on his Bandcamp for download and listening purposes.

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🐣 GIRAFFAGE — SLOWLY FEAT. MATOSIC

The freefall bounce of this track, the fun of it, the joy of it, the muted sparkle of its soft pastel ping pong arpeggios, the thick modulating synths, the glooping subtle heartbeat boom of the kicks, the unexpected switches that it goes through, the undeniable romance effusing from it. The first dynamic twist, the staccato chords alongside acrobatic synth bassline, the vocals panning left to right with each word, the fizzling catapulting energy of this part, and the chorus launching like a jet ski on sapphire teal seas, the simple French touch feel of the beat allowing those rich synths and the croon of the vocals to truly sparkle, tropical summer atmosphere bubbling up like heat distortion.

And! Another dramatic turn, the energy toning down from this azure beachtime clarity to something tinged with much more slow, much more ache, Giraffage and co-producing feature-spot Matosic opening up a glittering dreamworld halfway through 'Slowly', the glisten of digital synth keys and the gorgeous major-minor jazz-lounge chords in their complexity glassy wonderful in this new quiet space of the track, exuding a very vintage R&B atmosphere, with its snapping fingerclicks and pitch-shifted vocal and tinkling chimes, the texture made even more nuanced with the sound of birdsong trickling in, a sprinkle of nature in the midst of this cradle of loving electronics, the whole thing a physiological heart-pumping reaction to a crush and the idealist hopeful infatuated thoughts that go with it.

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• 🔔 'Slowly', featuring New York-based producer Michael Matosic aka Matosic, is taken from Giraffage's upcoming debut album, Too Real, scheduled for release on 20th October via Counter Records.

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🐣 LEXI THE LEXICONIST — I MADE THIS FOR YOU

The first loving touch of this track is that guitar, those sun-tinted chords that sweep deliciously, an all-seeing eye of jelly-bodied chillment and curling slumber with its lounge jazz flavour, the fingers slowly sliding on the strings mellow and breezy yet sultry and moody, light and sophisticated, two interrupted whiskies waiting on the veranda with ice sweating and the full length gossamer drapes fluttering like slow-motion ghosts and the long shadows cutting up the glow of light on the marble floor. 'i made this for you' is already artfully atmospheric with its jazzy sixths and sevenths reverbing into the neardistance a slight decay gently warping its clean sheen, dripping with warmth and sun and skin-sapping humidity.

The vocals of New York-based Lexi the Lexiconist enter the equation, the tone of her voice like rich silk rippling, the way her words tail off, the echo of it, the soft whispering velvet washing into the silent voids of the song. A trap flavoured beat adds slo-down percussive kinetic energy to the languorous veils of mist that the vocals effuse—created by producer kloudbeats these soft solid bumps are soaked in muffled vintage lo-fi, this contemporary sound poached in a gorgeous cocktail of yesteryear, the kicks dusty thudding, the hi-hats distorted tip-tapping rattling, the snare clack emptily resonating across this simple scene of love and lassitude. And at 2:33 the bpm decreases and low pitch-shifts accompany Lexi's vocal, sub-bass quakes rumbling beneath this new sense of slowness and silence, hearing your own heartbeat in the push and pull of passion, plumes of pastel smoke erupting in a someplace of pleasure.

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• 🔔 Collect some of Lexi's music on Bandcamp.

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🐣 TD_NASTY — WHERE U WANNA BE FEAT. CLARA LA SAN

There is a majestic languor in this track that suggests a lack of full wakefulness and somnolence equally, a crepuscular pre-morning wash of hazy colours before the sun climbs up over the horizon and yawns at the wide open open sky, a twilit post-day swirl of burning flavours, the mystical feeling of this neither-day-nor-night mirage evident in the glittering shoals of sound that gently glint and glimmer glorious as the glamour of Clara La San's vocals gleams with graceful detached R&B sultry vigour, its layers and harmonies tantalising in the totality of room-to-breathe that this song exudes, everything seeming to have its moment to carve out its own shape on the nothing noir of the song's quiet spaces.

The creator of this vessel of lounging emotion is the Manchester-based TD_Nasty fka Trap Door, who like a modern day electronic underground Janus two-headed watching yesterday and tomorrow simultaneously in a crystal ball of formless shapes materialises the preened parchment of the past with the retro-facing chords and their marginal complexity – these classic progressions of familiar slow-jam songwriting, the clunking percussive keys – and distills the amorphous future into drinkable clatterings of percussion and pummelling spacey beat blent experimentally alongside various qualities of digitised sound rounded and glassy glistening, far-flung futuristic hollow synths, all the while this synthetic backdrop frames the humanistic aching vocals, so at once this is assuredly recognisable at the same time as being so wonderfully alien exotic.

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• 🔔 Fiona Jane Burgess (of London band Woman's Hour) directed the video for the song, which stars Dutch dancer Naomi Weijand in an improvised performance shot in one take on 35mm.
• 🔔 The Clara La San-featuring 'Where U Wanna Be' is taken from the recent TD_Nasty EP, released via collective Gang Fatale. For just a fiver you can be a digital owner of this 6-track project, or you can listen to it for free, on their Bandcamp.

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🐣 IMONI — MONEY

In a world of swirling neo-noir, a place of hazy soft synth chords modulating subtly, London singer IMONI weaves her vocal amidst the offbeat stutters of a drumtrack that swings with nocturnal cool, thudding kicks and sumptuous clacking snares and the sharp popping hi-hats that skip and skitter alternately. 'Money' verges on melancholic, a moody whirl of music that utilises the chilled and stifled nature of the muffled synths to conjure a breezy sort of seriousness, whilst bass with electric bounce exercises its future-leaning sound on the atmosphere for stark colour against the gloom, spots on neon-pastel on a near-black charred grey void, a stark sense of being by yourself in vast space.

"I was always in the habit of writing sad songs, but recently I’ve started writing about what makes me feel good and it’s been empowering for me," explains the musicmaker in a press release. "‘Money’ is about me not letting other people’s negativity affect me, being care-free and focusing on myself as I begin my music career." There is certainly an aloof feel to IMONI's vocal, the lilting soul acrobatics switching between a crooning voice in the dark and spoken word calm in full control: "think i'm gonna settle down / boy don't mess around / it's about time that i let you down a little bit / but can you handle it." Reverb drips from the words, whether creaking and colloquial or singing out emotive and fluttering, giving the track a sense of expanse, of endless possibilities, the apprehensive but hopeful feeling of the first step on a journey, the brink of a waterfall.

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• 🔔 IMONI is currently working on her debut Serendipity EP.

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🐣 EXMAG — TEN THOUSAND CHAINS

Melting into the past and evaporating into the future. 'Ten Thousand Chains' is a track that teeters on a precipice between two worlds. Expansive futuristic synth chords sweep throughout, neon-flavoured and plasma-textured, ladling contemporary retrofuturistic visions into the track as the soulful modulations play out. On the other hand, these early '90s R&B herbs and spices in the sumptuous swing of the beat, the indefatigable groove of it all, the clifftop guitar solos saddling the slow-jam sway with sustained sultry wailing, a seasoned croon of virtuosity.

Created by musicmaking entity Exmag, the track begins with mellow horizontally inclined hip-hop shuffle, sheafing metallic hi-hats deliciously clacking snares thudthumping kicks. Lounge-leaning guitar chords lilting liquidly and the chill wobbly tones of an organ dim the lights and set the mood; uzi hi-hats and that screaming guitar power-up later on; staccato bass lays down immense groove. The track ends with shivering shaker shuffle, synth chords in syncopation, a jostling procession of energy. 'Ten Thousand Chains' is smooth and sleek with epic accoutrements, its twoness is effortlessly maintained, a combo track that anticipates the brimming potential of nightfall, prophecies and memories weaving together amidst a purple post-sunset dusk.

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• 🔔 'Ten Thousand Chains' is out now courtesy of Majestic Casual Records.

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📠
☟ Exmag Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 JAMES P — ROCK THA BOAT

The original 'Rock The Boat' by Aaliyah is a sultry slow-jam, an atmospheric journey of swaying rhythm, hypnotic and hazy, a bastion of early '00s R&B, swaying and seductive; it's all about the sparse groove and the compelling vocals. A track like this doesn't need reworking, of course, but it does inspire reworking. And in that indefatigable groove is clearly where musicmaker james p found the influence for his tribute track, a reworking heavy on rhythm and atmosphere.

In this version we find ourselves maybe almost a decade before 'Rock The Boat'—a spirit of early '90s R&B imbues the track with its clean organic instrumentation carving deep channels with slapped bass that slides and rolls throughout, slow yet acrobatically considered, skipping and weaving through the clacking of the beat. Chimes sparkle. Glassy vibraphone sounds cushion and spread softness in this intimate expanse. The magic, still now as it was, is in Aaliyah's vocals, the cresting cadences, the silken tone, the voice now in this new vessel still shines, a simple but marvellously potent reworking.

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• 🔔 A few hours after filming the video for 'Rock The Boat' in the Bahamas, Aaliyah was killed in a plane crash on 25th August 2001.
• 🔔 james p also creates instrumentals for those who want them.

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📠
☟ james p Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 RENÉ — I.N.T.O.

The voice of London singer RENÉ in her latest track is a revelation. Silken smooth it effortlessly navigates low notes almost purring as it resonates delving deep and then rising high lilting with accents and ornaments, trilling and sliding with satin sheen from one line to the next. Alone, her voice reverbs lonesomely into the distance, stark and beautiful, but layered as in the second verse (from 01:05) it's a slice of Destiny's Child-leaning R&B jam, rich and elastic and winding rhythmically to the clattering beat, a dark and futuristic instrumental leading us forwards with angular twists and turns.

Weaving with the vocals is a sultry synth that melts between fizzing trebles and muted lows in a pulsing flutter that veils RENÉ's voice and the track in an atmosphere of cyclical longing. This cuts out in the chorus, when the vocals sing out "Cause I'm not the one..." shining and sirenlike, room to breathe with this lull in the synth. And that starkness is played out with the collage of percussion in the beats, booming bass kick, clacking snares, ticking hi-hats, glassy metallic sounds, all of it rattling and stuttering in arhythmic glitch, a hint of grime in the darkness of it, in this sharp beat and in the lone overdriven kicks of the bridge. This keen sense of hazy minimalism allows for a distinct focus on RENÉ herself, and her voice, the lavish tone of it, rhythm, melody, all of it a gratifying intoxicating blend of heart, soul and vocal chords.

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• 🔔 There's a video for 'I.N.T.O.' as well if you'd like to have a watch of that.

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☟ RENÉ Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram

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🐣 SEDRIC PERRY — WILD [初演 • PREMIERE]

It's an intoxicating sound in this one by Philadelphia-raised Sedric Perry and it's all down to the song's centrepiece, where the vocals lilt in luscious languor—layers upon layers of vocals in a millefeuille of warm harmonies. In 'Wild', where glossy kicks boom with sub-bass gloop and ticking clanking percussion skitters indistinctly creeping across the soundscape, the vocals are undoubtedly the star, the bedrock of the track as much as its ornamentation; over the soft satiny choral waves, Perry sends his own voice fluttering, rising, swooping through the increasingly heated clamour, where a crescendo of shredded peals of guitar crests, courtesy of Marcus Machado, whilst the kicks' pulse quickens and quivers.

Inspired by "Gregorian Chant music," and recorded in a Columbia dorm room, 'Wild' is "the story of the aftermath of a drug raid gone wrong, leaving two insatiable lovers pained from two years apart in separate prisons," Perry told us. You can imagine that raid taking place slow-motion as the song begins, and as it intensifies the aching vocals reflect this longing, a languishing atmosphere broils the sound in an anxious haze, those kicks boom-booming restlessly, the separated lovers together only in their distress and disquiet. In this slice of music, the swirling colours evoked by those layered vocals, that kaleidoscope of images easily flashes through your mind—it's a vessel of imagination and progressive songmaking based very wonderfully on the original instrument: voice.

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• 🔔 Go to Sedric Perry's SoundCloud to peep previous releases, like 'Nubian Dream' for instance.

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☟ Sedric Perry Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 MICHL — WASTE?

Dynamic plays a big part in this new one from LA singer Michl. It swings like a galactic pendulum between the soft synths of the verse, its sparse beat with miniature percussion clicks, and the chorus, a swaying segment of the song that's sultry with wide rich synths and the harplike glittering sweeps of sound that give it a heavenly feeling. 'Waste?' questions ourselves, exhibits doubt; in the verse the synths grow and bulge and play in different patterns when Michl croons, "So what's next?"—in the second verse a pulse of synth bass begins to rumble at this juncture. Questions arise, unanswered, and send us into the exquisite disquiet of the chorus, where the snares clack and the hi-hats shuffle-swing, each one a sonic shrug, unable to answer the question of whether or not everything will go to waste, the synth shivering around it anxiously in the wake of this big question mark.

Michl's singing in the verse, lilting and beautifully treated by the space in between the sounds that cradles his voice, his vocals are also rhythmic, which is part of which makes this song so instantly likeable. The metre is verging on that in which Shakespeare wrote his plays, iambic pentameter, a rhythmic way of speaking where there are 10 syllables written in pairs, unstressed-stressed. However, in 'Waste?' this is shaken up. For instance: "i can't push this barrel any farther" is the other way round. We have then "cause every single step is getting harder" which is iambic, but there are 11 and not 10 syllables. And in the pre-chorus, "can anyone repair the mess we've made?"—this line is iambic, and follows the chords that play behind it.

This rhythm, like a heartbeat – de-DUM de-DUM – is naturally easy to follow, but by adding and subtracting syllables, stressing it backwards, the followable is subtly changed and sticks out, catching the listeners' attention. The point of this? Michl writes them well, that's what.

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• 🔔 Just one new track earlier this year, 'Everything'll Change', followed Michl's debut self-titled EP that appeared last year. So is that one, alongside 'Waste?', part of a new release? We dunno.

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☟ Michl Internet Presence ☟
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