🐣 JESSI LEE — NEVER NOT [初演 • PREMIERE]

This song has a very easy way of draping itself around your head and enveloping you in its softness, in its blanket of silken sound that is evident from the very first depth-charge sub-gloop bass, synthetic yet with this deep organic tenderness, a classic feel, that seems as though it could be a plucked double bass. And adding further softness to 'Never Not', Jessi Lee spins aching vocals, whisper-crooning from far-off, taut and quavering with memories, or as the producer-singer herself calls them, "those ghostly things that stay with us."

"And even though they're still there, we can move forward and look back on those things from afar as lessons learned fondly."

The NYC-based musicmaker takes us through the song via email. "'Never Not' is about love that endures even after it has been lost," she explains. "[It's] a dreamy experimental take on deconstructing a '50s style doo-wop ballad."

Self-admittedly more a producer than a singer, Jessi Lee tells us that this song – a minimalist exercise in experimental yet familiar styles – is quite personal to her: "I felt like I really had to be the one to vocalize it," she says, "and honestly use this music as a device to come to terms with my own love lost. It was very cathartic to say the least."

The twirling modern imaginary ballroom of 'Never Not' is realised in a video directed by Frankie Leroux>, which uses Coney Island as the backdrop—"a location personal to the story behind the song," says Jessi Lee; "Everything was very deliberately placed," she continues, "from the setting sun to using Coney Island as a character itself."

The slow steps of the bass underpin the fabric of the song, this intense rumble, these notes each one a cloud of pastel fog slo-mo exploded from thin air. Simple drum machine aesthetics make up the rest of the beat, an electronic tom keeping gloriously slow time. Chords like a mist sweep their way through. Ticking percussion peeps out at the chorus, warm and dreamy, it embraces you, the illustration of closeness.

Equally, it is distance, the miasma of feelings that float in the air after a relationship ends, a sultry sashay of tragic proportions, a slow dance till the lights go out.

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• 🔔 'Never Not' is taken from Jessi Lee's Deep Rest EP.
• 🔔 Jessi Lee plays saxophone in The Love Experiment and also is a sometime writer and performer with future soul duo, Broken Luxury.

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☟ Jessi Lee Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

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🐣 ELMARI X GREG WANDERS X MUDCHUTE — WHATEVER [初演 • PREMIERE]

The feeling of romance sweeps through this track like a, like a bank of clouds making their gradual way across a sun-filled deep blue sky, present and washing over you in swathes of delicious textures and soulful nuances. Clonking chimes summon this glorious naive love, a certain innocence in their gleaming golden chords, each resounding with canyons of space between, the moments drawn out lusciously like the longing between liaisons with a lover, not lust exactly but lovesickness, a deep crush, the beat slow and swaying, the atmosphere sultry yet fresh. Greg Wanders, who is behind the vocals on this collaborative track, was inspired by that feeling.

"I listened to it a couple times and the general vibe was something I could imagine listening to with that special someone," he tells us, "so I decided to direct my energy towards that field." He croons accordingly with a feeling of gentle detachment, floating above the world, heart fluttering, suiting the almost sleepy vibe in the instrumental.

'Whatever' also features fellow Londoner, producer ElMari, as well as Liverpool-based musicmaker Mudchute, and was the product, as ElMari wrote to us in an email, of a meeting between the three artists in London in the summer: "We got in the studio one day in September and we vibed and then we made this." The rhythm, the space, and the textures of this track combine beautifully together, the space hanging between sounds bristling with energy and strewn with muttering vocal samples and fizzy sounds. Lounge-flavoured synth chords paint a sense of utter chillment, the slow nodding motion of them bouncing along with the warm bass bloops, the percussion keeping time with a crunch of snare and gloopy kicks. And let us not forget that guitar, adding an instant heat to the track with its muffled but scorching virtuosity.

Part lullaby, part slow jam, 'Whatever' is a dreamy, brightly glistening send-off into the arms of a fellow human being who wants to spend a large portion of their time with you.

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📠
☟ ElMari Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify

☟ Greg Wanders Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

☟ Mudchute Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify ⚘ itunes

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🐣 GEO — FOR YOU

There it is, that liquid sound, that trickling water, the jagged trajectory of a countryside rill becolumned with rocks and pebbles and clear as glass, all of it glistening atop and refracted below, glinting glinting, overhanging plants, the gnarl of ancient trees, flowers, heather, stone and water, angular and fluid. And it's all created with percussion, plumes of percussive sound that jingles and rat-tat-tats metallic and clinking, all light and lo-fi, a constant trundle, close to haunting with the vintage crackle infused in this textured tapestry. Romantically titled 'For You' this wildly ornamental piece of sound bedecked in silver and gold and iridescent gems was created by LA-based producer GEO, sultry and splendrous, smooth and shivering.

The clanking evolves into more woody sounds, clopping clonking robust hollow tick-tockings lashed together with sharp sheafing hi-hats, blessings of percussion that make the skin quiver, hairs tightening in their follicles on the nape of your neck. As if that wasn't enough, bass with a beautiful thick rounded tone scoops out the underlayers of the track and fills it with slow bubbles of groove for a slow-jam feel, soon joined by warm piano chords that lock in with the bassline, play with organic power the hot sighs of a beating heart. Vocals lifted from somewhere paint in silken soothing brushstrokes crooning romance. Little squelchy bleeps act all playful with soft melodies and synth peals soar into the sky. Streaming and flowing riverine and pastoral, here is that sonnet of sound, that melodious pouring forth of emotions, something beautiful carved for a beloved someone.

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• 🔔 You can find GEO's stunning 'For You' on Hype Machine and give it some love if you like.

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☟ GEO Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud

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🐣 LUNAR — GLAD YOU STAYED

Swirling with emotive intensity this track exists in a mist of sound, an all-encompassing atmosphere that seems to veil everything around as you listen. A dreamy slow-jam drenched with feeling. Piano chords reverse-resonate from distal zones between the percussive punctuation of the swaying beat, fading-in to the warm dusty clonk of the chord, plaintive and balladic. These layer up, forming cushions of sound upon which the voice of Lunar herself floats lilting and mumbling, the colloquial endeavour of the singing style effusing honesty into the nebulous haze of the track, her words sometimes nuanced with quavering ornamentation.

The lovesong quality of 'Glad You Stayed' shows itself through those cradling vocals, the to-and-fro embrace of the beat with its swishing hi-hats and powerful drum fills and its skittering percussive thickets, where sometimes Lunar's voice quivers without instrumental interruption, whirling and caressing the air with its creaking silken tone. High string sounds twinkle achingly in the chorus, the acute pinch of longing, gut-twisting desire, glimmers sharply, contrasting with the syncopated thump of the kick throughout. The track ascends at the end, whooshes of sweet textured sound rising with sparkles of vocal sample ringing out in the crystalline white noise of it all, the rush of love in a crescendo of memory.

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• 🔔 This is Lunar's first upload on SoundCloud—keep an eye on it for more from this London musicmaker.

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☟ LUNAR Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter

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YOUNGS TEFLON – WHEN THUGS CRY

First heard a couple of days ago on BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth's 'Fire In The Booth' slot, in which he enlists rappers to basically come and do their thing live, I think I just had to write about this guy. You know that feeling. You hear it, you like it. What more can I say?

So this is Youngs Teflon, a London rapper who "began writing bars in the playground", showing clear signs of creativity from a young age. I love his name – it's Teflon, I'm making an educated guess, bc nothing sticks to him. Rolls off like dewdrop spheres of oil after a fry-up. Water off a duck's back as they say. But whatever. Idiomatic references aside, his sense of humour, soft side and penchant for weed shine through in 'When Thugs Cry'.

Obviously a tongue-in-cheek nod to Prince's 'When Doves Cry', Tef (as he's also known) sets his bars against a backdrop of slow-jam style beats, delicious clicks reverbing in its low-key sway, dripping with a waterfall of muffled samples that glisten with sparkles of longing piano melody. It's a gleaming of emotion that burns hot and measured, perfectly reflecting the pining for lost romance in his lyrics. Which, by the way, are full of imagery: "After hours I fall back and I break buds / Thinking about you in French plaits without makeup" – "Cold days when I'm grafting / Flashbacks of you laughing" and with part of the refrain "I've been drinking / With the music low but Mary Jane singing," all amassing to paint pictures of a guy, Tef himself, "reminiscing" about a relationship.

It's pretty, it's personal, it's not grime as you know it but it's forward-thinking grime that takes the inherent beauty of songs about lost love and injects London attitude; an achievement for sure and something that deserves airtime and more listeners.

• Watch Tef's Fire In The Booth performance here (click dat)
• If you like his calculated, picturesque style, you may wanna pick up his recent album Renaissance.

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INC. ANGEL [VIDEO]

It was really weird when I stumbled across this song because I was sure, in fact I was rather certain, that I had heard of someone called Inc. before. And sure enough, I had. I scrolled back through the posts I've done over the two years this blog has been active (albeit with some blips in activity - but how art reflects life!) and found a draft post I'd saved for a live performance by Inc.. I really dug it at the time and I suppose I do still dig it now.

[actual words from the draft] It's called 'A Usual Thang', but is actually a live rehearsal of two of their songs, 'Special Tensions' and 'Fountains'. I'm sure you'll agree it's pretty interesting. Nothing but a few guys playing their lovely music in what seems like a warehouse. Formerly Teen Inc., the band is fronted by twin brothers, Andrew and Daniel Aged. As for their music, it's a sometimes speedy, sometimes soul-filled melting pot of 80s jazz fusion and early Prince. Even the guitar effect used during a solo about three quarters of the way through makes the guitar sound like a soft synth.[end]

How funny. If you're interested in that, you can watch it here.

Anyway, now they have some new music. This particular one is called 'Angel' and it's really to celebrate the video release because the album it's from, No World - their debut - was out 19th February this year.

What we have now is a majorly R&B-influenced song. It's undeniably sexy. The beat that's slow and every now and again marks the ends of bars with agitated fills and extra heart-pounding kicks. Speaking of the beat actually, it's lovely. Those snare rimshots (lol I know but that's what they're CALLED) are something else. Wholly ambient synth gives this bubblesome, quilted or maybe isolated vibe to the song - like it's cut off from the rest of the world. Intergalactic whistles chime in and out in slow patterns.

The vocals are really nice, too, striking a pretty balance between whispering and pleading. The lyrics are touching too. Why not listen to them and space out for a bit? You know what I mean? Cause you can. Cause it's that kind of song. That kind of sound. It's just like a futuristic slow jam wearing the filigree of new-school R&B sex music, complete even with cheeseball electric guitar whines that creep in - it's all rather good. I like it a lot. Do you?

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