EMMA JOHNSON'S GRAVY BOAT — SUN STONES

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⌾ LISTEN TO SUN STONES BY EMMA JOHNSON'S GRAVY BOAT ⌾

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If there was ever a fitting title for an album, Worry Not is one. You can thank jazz outfit Emma Johnson’s Gravy Boat for that. It’s on this collection of tracks is where you’ll find ‘Sun Stones’, a joyful piece that flits between boundless energy amid ozone skies, and the drugged, tender haze of an afternoon alcoholic beverage.

Angular, minimalist riffs persist in a storm of skittering drums, while Emma Johnson, the Leeds-based bandleader and saxophonist, brings a wakeful dreaminess to proceedings, swaddled in waves of piano like scudding clouds. Bubblingly bookended by clusters of kinetic ostinato, and with this floating core of calm, ‘Sun Stones’ feels like a reflective yet escapist soundtrack for these times.

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• 🔔 'Sun Stones' is taken from Worry Not, the debut album from jazz quintent Emma Johnson's Gravy Boat. You may purchase it or just steam it over on Bandcamp.

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📠
☟ Emma Johnson's Gravy Boat Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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XANDER X XXYYXX — SETTLE

⌾ LISTEN TO XANDER X XXYYXX, SETTLE ⌾

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Ever since xxyyxx's 'About You' infused itself into YouTube in 2012, the whole aesthetic movement that is "chill hop" seemed to grow, coinciding with the birth of channels like Majestic Casual. But it wasn't a landscape that the producer (real name Marcel Everett) trod alone; there were and are others — many, many others.

One such is a veritable proponent of the genre, xander. Both he and Everett recently teamed up for a gloopy, glossy collaboration in the form of 'Settle'. Jointly classifying it as "great brain food", the pair lend their respective styles to the track: an uptempo shuffle into a landscape of woozy chords and urgent synth arpeggios, percussion driving it forward in a virtuosic collage together with acrobatic, elastic bass.

The vital aspect of 'Settle' — created remotely via facetime — is that it eschews the "chill" element for which both artists are known, instead casting a certain restlessness, a sense of struggle, no matter how outwardly sparkling or glossy its aesthetics may be. Given the context of pandemic and political upheaval the world over, it's no wonder.

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• 🔔 You may not stream the whole thing on SoundCloud, but you can stream and download 'Settle' via whichever streaming service on this list is your favourite.

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📠
☟ xander Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ songkick ⚘ spotify

☟ xxyyxx Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ wikipedia ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter

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ODOX — IN MY ROOM

⌾ LISTEN TO ODOX, IN MY ROOM ⌾

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The far-off, splashy reverb in the soft synths that swirl in instrumental of 'In My Room' by Wolverhampton artist Odox transforms an ordinary bedroom into an angular icy cavern. Notes clamber over each other, merge into each other like interweaving thoughts and worries; emotions bounce off the dark, glossy walls, reflecting, refracting in a mystical prismatic space.

It's no surprise, really, as Odox himself tells yes/no how this track was created during the UK's lockdown.

"My thoughts when making this track was about me getting used to being inside learning to be happy being in my room, instead of my happiness depending on if there is any events or friends to see," he says.

"Lockdown has been a time where I have really looked inside myself and thought about what I want to create. It's been positive for my creativity: the amount of ideas I've been able to pursue and time I've had to do that is crazy."

He adds: "Time's always what you make of it."

As the minimal beat rattles, clacks and thumps with sparse surety, producer Hughie preserving space in the track, lines like "stress makes it hard just to breathe" adding a tender counterpoint to the cool ambition of "count them bands..." And in adding his own voice to the cosmic frost of the instrumental, Odox completes its sense of understated majesty.

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• 🔔 For more music from Odox, check out his SoundCloud.

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📠
☟ Odox Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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