Let’s start this off with a big thank you to Thomas Resurrection for keeping the gravel and grit of soulful blues-rock alive. DIRTY is one of a few recent releases that present his sound in a memorable yet partly nostalgic manner.
Singles
You feel the whole thing being a performance, industrially creative, refusing to adhere to any implied industry rules or the usual sound of the majority of contemporary hip hop releases.
The summer vibes are well and truly reignited with this single from RIIV. Beautiful celebrates love in a passionate and vibrant way, offering blissful synths and a smooth dance beat – alongside of a soulfully meandering vocal and an accessibly pop-like melody.
KORI pours so much heart into the process & when the passion reaches its peak his voice more than meets the needs of the moment. He screams out on behalf of everyone who’s ever felt the love & conflict expressed in this song.
Justin Salter keeps the summer vibes alive with this latest single You and Me. What first emerges as a delicately jazz-infused pop song – a dreamlike ambiance, a sense of joy – later evolves to become something of a classically mellow hip hop release.
Crimson Calamity paint a crystal clear series of scenes and offer unexpected poetic depth on this original seasonal song First Snow.
With the support of the band Stevie and the Snowflakes, who helped bring the idea to life, I Believe In Christmas is a pop-rock offering that introduces a refreshing and upbeat new sound this Christmas – whilst still reminding us of all the things we generally love about this time of year.
Their sound brings about a brilliantly nostalgic aura – offering hints of Placebo and the like in everything from the lyricism, the set-up, the use of melody to the leading voice.
Track Junkee fuses the familiar vocal rhythms of modern hip hop with a lightly colourful beat and a melodic hook that smoothly leaves its mark for this single Infatuated.
The unpredictability starts to line up with your own emotional reactions to it. Rather than just listening, you’re involved – your emotions tumble down the very same rabbit hole as the music.
The track is a multi-layered, vibrant & warm piece of mellow EDM that surrounds & calms, taking the listener through a series of moments & really letting the mind wander off wherever it deems worthy in the process.
This is fantastic songwriting, impossible to predict and clearly made of its own building blocks and ideas – a desire to express and paint something brand new in the mind of the listener; as opposed to merely ‘borrowing’ fragments of melody from other songs.