Running Touch – This Is Just To Say
Here’s another Australian young gun: Melbourne’s Running Touch has garnered his best reception yet with This Is Just To Say. Soulful, smooth, but bristling with attitude, it’s a minimal arrangement of mostly voice, driven electric keys, and fm bass that nevertheless packs a powerful punch. With support from Lavish, a promotional outlet of edm.com, I’m expecting to see a lot more of his work catch fire soon.
Check out Running Touch here.
The Weeknd – Can’t Feel My Face (Ember Island Cover)
A well done cover released at the right time can do wonders for an artist. Young Swedish trio Ember Island has been hard at work developing their own delicate, almost ethereal take on the indie-electronic aesthetic. Eager to establish a fanbase and reach new ears, they’ve leveraged The Weeknd’s skyrocketing popularity with this cover of Can’t Feel My Face, and it’s working. The result is a melancholic but calm rendition that still provides that same infectious vocal melody, albeit in a form that feels fresh and inviting. If you’re like me, you’re a huge fan of the original but have been afraid to play it to death yourself and get sick of it, especially with everyone and their mother seems to be blasting the song at every waking moment. Well, here’s a refreshing interpretation to sate your appetite.
Check out Ember Island here.
JNTHN STEIN – Dreaming At The Function ft. Brasstracks
You may remember way back when we gave a shoutout to Ivan Jackson for his trumpet work on Distant Memories. Brooklyn’s one half of Brasstracks reemerges again here with this funky new stiff-upper-lip JNTHN STEIN collaboration, Dreaming At The Function. Ivan and Jonathan are the two founders of Candid Music Group, a music complex in NYC offering a slew of music production and design services. I strongly suggest you give a listen to the artists they’ve worked with. They’re some very unique and talented individuals, and we’re keeping a very close eye (ear?) on the music they’re pushing out.
Check out JNTHN STEIN here, Brasstracks here, and Candid Music Group here.
Kentaro & One T – Thank You
We’ve got the perfect Friday afternoon jam for you this week. Recently, LA’s Kentaro had his SoundCloud account removed due to some remix licensing issues. It’s now back up and running with a re-release of Thank You, his smoky R&B collaboration with vocalist and producer One T that was originally released earlier this year on, you guessed it, April 20th. So kick back and give this one a spin–happy weekend everyone.
Raye – Bet U Wish (Lucian Remix)
Sensual, smooth, scathing and unapologetic. When Bet U Wish first surfaced, its captivating vocal delivery and lyrical maturity suggested a time-tested artist working behind the scenes, practicing that kind of finesse that only comes with years of experience. So when we found that this mastermind was actually 17 year old Raye from South London, we were absolutely astounded. Raye has been carving out a name for herself in a saturated market of alternative R&B female vocalists since the release of her debut EP earlier this year, Welcome To The Winter. Since then, she’s shared a steady stream of content to solidify her fledgling fan base, including this breathtakingly dramatic and unique reimagination of the original Bet U Wish by Lucian, who had this to say of the final product: Read More…
Obsession – DrewsThatDude
Leveraging an education from Berklee College of Music in Boston, the now NY-based producer DrewsThatDude has helped produce for a handful of big hip hop names, including Tech N9ne and Lil Wayne on the last Carter album. While he’s a very talented arranger and session musician, his own personal productions are impressively detailed and memorable, and his newest Obsession is no exception. There’s a lot going on in this mix that you won’t catch until the second or third time around–one of those walk around the sound-garden kind of beats.
Check out DrewsThatDude here.
GRMM – Travolta Cool
More new ear candy from down under. This time we’ve got GRMM with Travolta Cool, aptly named and featuring a slack but smooth vocal hook and rebounding, slingshot synths. Benn Markos, the 24 year old Sydney producer behind GRMM, has seen a surge in popularity after recently hitting #1 on the Australian iTunes electronic chart with Electrify. Now a part of the Neon Records roster, (joining the likes of Gorgon City, Felix Jaehn, and Klingande) and busy finalizing his debut EP for release this week on October 2nd, GRMM is one we’ll be keeping tabs on.
Check out GRMM here.
Glass Animals – Gooey (Imagined Herbal Flows Remix)
Zaba was easily one of my favorite albums from last year. I fell in love with Glass Animals after listening through the LP front to back, again and again, and it’s with that peculiar but extremely common sense of fanboy ownership that I’ve watched them now step into the limelight like some kind of proud mother. It happens when you really identify with a piece of music, with an artist, with an aesthetic. And the same phenomenon occurred when I came across Imagined Herbal Flows last year, so when this blend of the two surfaced, I was trapped. IHF had a limited amount of material to work with, extracting only the vocals that were unburdened by the rest of the mix from the original. But there’s something beautiful that happens when your tools are limited, when you are forced to draw with only certain colors. Boundaries spawn innovation, and Dave Bayley’s voice sits atop IMF’s accompaniment as comfortably as if it was the master recording. While finding them can be challenging, this is an example of a remix done well: original, creative, but derivative in the best way.
Check out Imagined Herbal Flows here, and Glass Animals here.
Froogle – Repose
Last month we gave a shout out to Texan electronic producer Froogle and his collaboration on Falling Down with Alexa Harley. I thought I’d bring a different side of his work to light, so here’s Repose, a bouncing instrumental centered around a simple but catchy lo-passed synth line. Another great piece for some R&R, though a little more representative of the diversity in his production talent.
Check out Froogle here.
Roses – Luke Christopher
Now I’ll be honest, we don’t post enough hip hop, so here’s a track that hasn’t let us go lately. Off 19 year old LA rapper-singer-producer-allaroundmusicman Luke Christopher’s mixtape, TMRW TMRW, Roses is an undeniably catchy track sporting a well-chosen sample of famous jazz pianist Erroll Garner. Luke is extremely talented as both a lyricist and a producer, and last week he released a two-part EP, TMRW YSTRDY, that I strongly suggest you throw on sometime this week. If you think Roses is as much of a jam as I do, you won’t be disappointed.
Check out Luke Christopher here.
Millesim – Fall In (feat. Sophie Galpin)
Millesim is a group of french DJs and producers with a budding reputation for nudisco-inspired remixes. But recently we came across their first original, Fall In, featuring Sophie Galpin on vocals (drummer for all-female rock band PINS and freelance musician). It’s a relaxed but melancholy, almost bittersweet tune perfect for end-of-summer introspection and sunset vibes.
Check out Millesim here.
Danrell x Småland – Hostage
Danrell recently gave Småland’s debut Hostage a rework, pushing the tempo and shaping the original into an extremely well-polished daydream. He’s been steadily building a catalog of remixes for the past two years, and they keep getting better and better. I think it’s safe to say that this is his best yet, but definitely don’t let that stop you from giving the earlier work a listen. It also goes without saying that the caliber of songwriting here is impressive–looking forward to more Småland in the future as well.
PYRMDPLAZA x Abraham Blue – Whatever You Want
While there’s a chance PYRMDPLAZA has come across your radar before, this was our first introduction to Abraham Blue, a 20 year old vocalist and producer from Belgium. The two happened upon the seed for Whatever You Want during a session at Red Bull Studios London, and this is what came of it–an amazing vocal hook that has been stuck in my head for a week now. The stereo Rhodes tremolo makes this one more than worth a headphone listen.
Beauville – Letting In (Prod. by NoMBe)
An acoustic guitar hook that refuses to let go, coupled with a soulful sundrunk vocal melody. Letting In is the debut release from Beauville, singer/songwriter Josh Bovill and guitarist Robert Coronado from LA. NoMBe, the mind behind California Girls, handles the production perfectly with dry acoustic percussion and the softest saw-synth support. Really stoked to see where this project goes.
Check out Beauville here.
Cura – Theory of Dreams
It seems like the mystery-producer aesthetic has become somewhat of a phenomenon over the past few years. The masked artist looming behind some artistic facade, whether it be a robot suit, mouse head, or (in this case) a gray hoodie, really gets listeners interested and elevates a brand–but it makes it hard as holy hell to write a post about them because there’s no damn information to be found, even from the artist him/herself. Anyways, meet Cura. He’s from Norway. That’s all we know. Oh, and also that his first release Theory of Dreams kicks ass. Listen to this if you’re an Odesza fan. And if you’re not, listen to it anyways.
Check out Cura here.
Black Sheep Music Blog 