Archives: March 2021

Filipino-American singer Yeek is announcing his new album. Valencia is set to arrive on March 19th, and to coincide with the announcement he’s sharing the album’s title track and an accompanying video. The song is a lush soundscape with R&B sensibilities about community and heritage. The video is a surreal neon lit visual.

Valencia, Yeek’s first proper release following his 2019 EP IDK WHERE, which Highsnobiety said “manages to effortlessly showcase his unique sound,” is his most emotionally lush and polished work to date. It features collaboration from from Jeff Ellis, the engineer who has worked with Frank Ocean, Snoh Aalegra, and Omar Apollo, and focuses on themes of relationship woes and keeping family close. Valencia will be accompanied by a short film Yeek has made for the project and is a reflection of Yeek’s own relationship to life expectations and striking the right balance between independence and collaboration. Valencia, along with its accompanying short film, is a deep, ambitious body of work that invites serious engagement to explore and unpack.

Following on from last year’s hugely successful and highly personal EP “For You”, released to great acclaim (the EP’s title track was voted as Resident Advisor’s #1 Best Track of 2020, Crack Magazine’s #2 and Pitchfork’s #21), India Jordan is back with a blast of uniquely crafted, high energy dance music, showcasing India’s euphoric, affirming sound at its most potent.

“‘And Groove’ was made in peak Lockdown #1 and is reminiscent of a train journey – repetitive and rhythmic movement that goes on and on (and groove!)” buy zoloft online . Their main source of influence shifted from cross-country and international travel to head-clearing bike rides and walks around London: “Watch Out! is a bit of a tongue in cheek reference to cycling in London”, adds India.

Heavily inspired by movement in both its literal and abstract forms, “Watch Out!” sees India reflect on how it has tied into their life over the years. Traditionally inspired most during long journeys (‘Only Said Enough’ from the new EP was created on a train to Hull, and many of India’s previous songs have been started in transit), India describes the record as “a homage to both physical and conceptual movement”, and a result of their own pattern of movement being forcibly changed last year by lockdown.

For the past couple months, Annie Clark has been talking about a new St. Vincent album. Back in December, she teased a big sonic shift, towards warmer ’70s sounds inspired by albums by the likes of Stevie Wonder and Sly & The Family Stone. Things picked up in the past week, with ’70s-styled ads appearing, more details from Clark, and just a few days ago she was gearing up to drop a single called “Pay Your Way In Pain.” Today it’s official: Daddy’s Home, the sixth St. Vincent album, drops May 14h.

As Clark has discussed, the title is inspired by her father’s release from prison after being incarcerated in 2010. Apparently that led her, too, home in some fashion — it inspired her dive back into the ’70s albums she grew up on, which in turn led to the whole sleazy ’70s NYC aesthetic of the album. “Daddy’s Home collects stories of being down and out in downtown NYC,” Clark said in a statement. “Last night’s heels on the morning train. Glamour that’s been up for three days straight.” – Read More Via Stereogum

Multidisciplinary artist and singer-songwriter Yaya Bey has just announced her new EP The Things I Can’t Take With Me will be coming out via Big Dada.The self-produced, six-track EP follows her last album, 2020’s intimate and political Madison Tapes, which received critical praise from Pitchfork (7.7), FADER, Afropunk, Noisey, and more. Following the same spirit of her previous projects, The Things I Can’t Take With Me searches the deeply personal and refreshingly honest truths of Black womanhood and love.

The project’s first single “fxck it then” radiates as an affirmative anthem for rediscovering your shine, reminding everyone that Yaya Bey “ain’t average.” It’s accompanied by new collage work created by Yaya herself, and a music video directed by Morgan B. Powell. “The video was a true labor of love,” Bey said, describing the visuals as “an ode to hood joints.” The nostalgic super 8 film aesthetic features styling by Alexea Brown and glimpses into Bey’s polaroid photography.

Innov Gnawa, a Grammy-nominated musical group of Moroccan expats, announce their debut album with Daptone Records, LILA, to be released on April 30th. The NYC-based group makes Gnawa music, a spiritual tradition rooted in Morocco’s ancient history. Not unlike the blues in the American south, Gnawa music is revered throughout Morocco as treasured indigenous soul music. Lila, which also means “night”, is a traditional ceremony in which the group dedicates an evening of healing through music. This all-night rhythm fest is a spiritual ritual that cleanses the body, mind, and spirit. We invite you to immerse yourself in Lila. Experience the freedom, liberation, and the power of healing through music. You’re are not alive if this music doesn’t move you. 

The album was produced by Daptone co-founder and Gnawa enthusiast Gabriel Roth, who first heard about the ensemble after seeing them perform at a mutual friend’s event. Roth invited the group to record at the Daptone House of Soul, which resulted in a five-hour plus session and an album’s worth of material all in one take. Listen to the first single “Chorfa” below.

Roosevelt has just related ‘Polydans’ (CITY SLANG and GRECO-ROMAN), an album engineered with the precision and expertise of a production master yet born from the creative passion of the genre’s biggest fan. Playing almost every instrument on the record, Roosevelt created ‘Polydans’ by swirling together the spirits of 80s synth, disco, analogue, Yacht rock and delirious dancefloor euphoria with amazing results. It is, quite simply, a feast for fans of the electronic genre, and a feat of expertly crafted pop that feels current yet nostalgic, club-ready yet heartachingly warm.

The album has already earned praise for its early released tracks like “Sign” which Billboard said “balances 80s-inspired synth, disco, driving beats and cinematic textures into a musical amalgamation that simultaneously manages effervescence and heft,” and the follow-up “Echoes” which Stereogum described as a “strobe-lit and expansive cut that locks into an insistent groove and periodically explodes into bright colors.” Unafraid to show his self-aware creative vision, the track “Feels Right” was paired with a hilarious video poking fun at the machine behind music promotion that was debuted by Brooklyn Vegan who praised the song as “bouncy, blissful pop”, and “Strangers” which he released followed by an ingenious performance via SPIN (below) where he tripled himself to perform the track as a literal one-man band. Most recently he dropped the sugar rush Valentine’s Day anthem “Lovers” which Earmilk said “captures that fleeting, effervescent feeling of falling blissfully in love.”

Watch Roosevelt perform three of his most loved tracks exclusively on SPIN Sessions. Tracklist:

1. “Strangers”
2. “Feels Right”
3. “Sign”

“Freedom is what we feel when we perform. And freedom is what the world is in need of right now. In this pandemic it feels like we all need a sense of freedom.” Sampa Tembo is in Lusaka, Zambia, her landlocked African home country. She’s better known as Sampa The Great, an understated title. In her Tiny Desk (home) concert, the poet, rapper and singer-songwriter delivers evidence that it’s more like Sampa the Greatest.

Her set is rich with earth’s abundances. She performs “Rhymes To The East,” “Mwana,” “Freedom” and “Final Form” — the latter three off 2019’s The Return — surrounded by life. Warmth pours in from exuberant trilling, zealous drums and her seven-piece band’s loose movements. Dressed in warm oranges and muted browns and wearing a crown resembling red clay, Sampa is Mother Earth herself.

Initially raised in Botswana, Sampa moved to Australia as a young adult and established herself in Sydney’s hip-hop scene. There, she released two mixtapes, 2015’s The Great Mixtape and 2017’s award-winning Birds and the BEE9, all the while generating buzz. She had been based in Melbourne for the last four years, but the next chapter of her musical journey will find her at home in Zambia.

As displayed in her Tiny Desk, Sampa’s artistic strength comes from the ease with which she cultivates connectivity. Music becomes a mode of generative healing that she shares with her bandmates, some of Lusaka’s best musicians, collaborators and audience. It’s the type of energy people need in this moment: precious and infinite.– read more via NPR HERE