rescuing musical virtue in distress.
Over a series of recent singles, Loud Apartment has proven itself to be the perfect urban fusion band. The term fusion might conjure images of terrible rock bands employing funk grooves or jazz moves as a way of trying to make themselves seem more palatable but in Loud Apartment’s deft hands, fusing genres into new forms becomes an art... Continue Reading →
You could make an argument for the R&B and soul music of today being very different from that of the past. But you could also make that argument of all genres, music, after all, needs to move with the times to keep appealing to the audience of the moment. The art, I guess, for any... Continue Reading →
We know that Moonlight Rhythm Society can do upbeat and sassy but Here Again shows that they are just as great at doing slow and soulful. It's not their first time down such a path, 1000 Miles Away from their most excellent Drawing Down the Moon EP was a gentle and delicate affair but they... Continue Reading →
So you think you know what a Christmas album sounds like? I bet you are already thinking about some sort of twee collection of seasonal ditties, all silly sing-alongs, half-baked lyrics, and forced merriment. Well, thankfully Paul Kelly has come along just in the nick of time to save, not just the day, but the whole holiday... Continue Reading →
I'm surprised that I have got this far into December and this is the first seasonal song to have landed on my desk. But what a way to kick things off! Far from the usual cheesy Christmas sonic fayre, Christmas Kind of Day is a cool, smooth and soulful offering. Not for ConFunkShun the twee... Continue Reading →
Having decided to drip-feed out his latest batch songs in the form of three ep's, all themed towards certain aspects of life and humanity, reflection and hope, following hot on the heels of Love… and Life… Byorn Gold now presents us with People In Hindsight, the last sonic segment in the series. His approach to... Continue Reading →
You could drop names such as the mighty Deep Purple's Jon Lord, bands such as Real Life or even Ray Parker Jr. You could talk about the string of cool bands and sassy session playing that litter his resume. You could talk about the decades of experience and the miles travelled, the journey which has... Continue Reading →
Even if you are already having a good day, new music from Cravism X Maya Diegel is guaranteed to make it a better one. I'm not really sure what neo-soul means as a generic title, surely soul just naturally evolves and whatever it is doing at any given time is simply soul music, but I... Continue Reading →
If the music that Cravism X Maya Diegel makes isn't the perfect representation of the cutting edge of creativity in the world today, then I don't know what is. And I'm not even necessarily talking about the music that they make, although its blends of gentle hip-hop groove and neo-jazz/soul moves are very much music... Continue Reading →
Moonlight Rhythm Society manages to pull off a great trick. Well, probably more than one but I'm talking about one that is immediately obvious and wonderfully prominent, one that is all about hitting sonic sweet spots. Without pandering to fads or fashion, without compromising what they do to fit in, without surfing the latest cultural... Continue Reading →
Making music based on a clear understanding of its healing qualities, Arienne Hearts Charlie write soulful and uplifting songs which come from a personal place but which are also universally relatable. Opening soothing salvo, Voyeur, is a song about total love, an entwining of hearts into the greatest show, hence the album title and a... Continue Reading →
If the recent single, I Can't Breathe, was a response to one specific dark chapter in the history of Tischleder's beloved Minneapolis, the writing of the song seems to raise more questions than it answered for him. Specifically, in light of these recent, tragic events, was the town that acted as the backdrop to his... Continue Reading →
For a long time, the city of Minneapolis was associated in many people's minds with iconic acts such as Bob Dylan, Soul Asylum, and Prince and just as iconic music venues which helped drive many of its creative offspring on to greater things. Sadly, following the death of George Floyd on those same streets, many... Continue Reading →
We are so used to listening to country music that exposes its blues roots or plays out its rock and roll dreams that we forget that it is a genre that can also exhibit a more soulful and seductive side. And that is exactly what Roger Dale does on his latest album, Phases and Stages.... Continue Reading →
People today love gathering labels around themselves. Every musician seems also to be a producer, those selling t-shirts are suddenly also entrepreneurs, and anyone with a blog and an opinion is automatically an influencer. But there are some people, such as Strike Boogie, who actually are multi-disciplinarians, in his case someone who has throughout his... Continue Reading →
Eugene Cole, that's Gene-O to you and me, has made a name for himself through a string of smooth and seductive R&B releases, as well as from collaborating with the great and good of the scene, everyone from Tank and Monty Seward to Cal Harris Jr. and Darryl Williams. So to find him and Con... Continue Reading →
There's a great attitude driving the heart of, not only this song but Likeness' attitude towards music in general. By understanding that music comes from within, that it is an extension of our very souls and that the sounds and styles that we work with are merely sonic building blocks, tools to get a job... Continue Reading →
Although Marriott bases his sound on some classic and timeless urban styles, Reset proves that he is also an artist very much working in the here-and-now. The beats are drawn from skittering trap sonics, tracks such as Friend Zone cocoon themselves in R&B vibes and Cityscape owes as much to a soul groove as it... Continue Reading →
If The Violet Nines wander a sonic world bordered by infectious alt-pop melodies, funky rhythms, bluesy licks and sultry soul grooves, it is to the latter sound that they lean on this latest release. It also oozes with a slightly retro sound, echoing some of the soul revivals of the '80s and '90s that found... Continue Reading →
Cupidkarma is an album that could only exist today. Not just for the fact that it sounds so utterly modern and refreshing but also because at 70 tracks long, a physical version of such an album would probably not get past the planning and costing stage. Thankfully times have changed and technology allows artists to... Continue Reading →
The back story behind the artist known as LUNA clipse is one of manic delusions, visions of the apocalypse and even false arrest. And whether the tale is wholly true or just makes for intriguing PR doesn't really matter. What matters is that track highlights issues of mental health, amongst other things, and its release... Continue Reading →
Dope Sagittarius is proof that opposites do attract, at least in the musical world, and Black Empress is a great example of the art of genre-bending, and in doing so it creates music that is hard to place but easy to love. It is both full of off-kilter jazz intricacies and rock and roll groove.... Continue Reading →
Spear-headed by three rich, standout vocalists, The DK Effect is a soul and blues outfit that explores the legacy of those genres from their earliest days to the present. They construct songs from all the elements that made such sounds and styles the sonic sensations that they become - lush harmonies, easy grooves, intricately interwoven... Continue Reading →
Genres, as I have said many times before, are tricky beasts, often tacked onto a track or an album more because of what an artist aspires to be rather than what they actually sound like. And even when the appropriate label is found it is often so vague or perhaps means so many different things... Continue Reading →
The term R&B has come to mean something new in the last few decades, the term perhaps conjuring images of girl groups, lip-synching to rootsy pop songs, more concerned with dance routines than music. But it used to mean something else. The clue is in the name. Rhythm. And. Blues. And it is that more... Continue Reading →
Move over Southside Johnny, here comes West Side Joe! And like his peer, WSJ and his Men of Soul, also trade in an upbeat and euphoric blend of Soul, R&B and Rock 'n' Roll. And why not? It's a style that never goes out of fashion, not with the true music aficionados and discerning sonic... Continue Reading →
Why limit yourself to working in just one genre when you can let the songs that you write do that for you? Why continue to push at one set of musical boundaries when you can wander freely across the sonic world? Why keep using the same musical template when the whole point of being creative... Continue Reading →
New music can only be created by taking what has gone before and doing something different with it. That might be pushing its boundaries to breaking point, creating whole new genres in the gaps between or fusing the ones that already exist in new and unusual ways. It is from this last approach that Electric... Continue Reading →
Inspired by the romantic drama of the same name and based around a sample of Kanye West's Bound 2, which is why it might sound familiar to you, this latest single from Hi Love is a gorgeous R&B affair. A totally modern sound, smooth, sensitive… sensual even… it also echoes with sonic signatures from the... Continue Reading →
2020 is what you call a real slow-burner, working its way up from a timeless, soulful torch song, it slowly wraps more sonic swathes and musical washes around it, building in stature as it goes. A beat here, a delicate guitar riff there but all the time your focus is on Jeanetta Salyer's majestic vocals.... Continue Reading →
