New York singer-songwriter/ The Knocks road dawg Samuel has long been touted as a future pop sensation in the making amongst the music blog scene (we hyped him here two years ago), and later this year we’ll finally get to see if those predictions prove correct once his Columbia/ Startime-backed debut Trains To Wanderland arrives.
Current single “I Heart NY” (from Samuel’s new EP, available here and here) hints that mainstream success shouldn’t be that tough of a hurdle, its sugary ice cream truck plinks, infectious “da-da-da”‘s and charming lyrical snapshots of growing up amongst the “street lights” and “golden summers” of the Big Apple all adding up to one hard-to-resist summertime soundtracker; but if that’s somehow not reason enough to keep your ears tuned to what Samuel’s cooking, you might at least get a kick out of hearing him tweak Drake’s Top Ten ballad “Find Your Love” into a fuzzy, lite funk-pop groove.
Aside from it being a well-crafted fusion of pop, soul and funk, most of the appeal in “For Days”, a new cut by NYC indie act Francis and the Lights, undoubtedly lies in the “Spot the 80′s Influence” game you’ll no doubt be absorbed with when listening to the hypnotic tune.
First off there’s frontman Francis Farewell Starlite’s voice, a soothing hybrid of Peter Gabriel’s, Phil Collins’ and Steve Winwood’s respective blue-eyed soul tones; then you have the funky guitar licks in the fade-out bringing to mind Prince’s “Kiss” and a striking bass and keyboard groove that recalls early Madonna (or, to be more obscure, Bernard Wright’s 1985 R&B Top 10 “Who Do You Love?”). Even the lyrics feel rooted in decades-old scripts, as Francis’ spooky stalker antics (in which he admits to following a woman around for days, in the hopes that an “airstrike” or “natural disaster” could occur and somehow force them together) seem ripped from The Police’s similarly creepy “Every Breath You Take”.
After hearing this much-appreciated retro trip (found on their latest album, It’ll Be Better), we’re now super-intrigued by what these cats plan to bring to the table on their so-far not-yet-leaked Drake/ Thank Me Later collaboration, “Karoake”.
The dreamy disco-land euphoria that marks the opening sixty seconds of “All Around and Away We Go”, the first single from NY five-piece Twin Sister‘s forthcoming EP Color Your Life, brews with such wonder, that half of the excitement of one’s initial hearing of the track is centered on trying to figure out what direction it will ultimately go once the vocals come into the play.
Are we being set up for the arrival of some baritone-voiced lover-man sharing his inner-most erotic desires? Or about to be introduced to some wallflower-ish indie dude crooner tapping into the hazy groove’s slightly doleful bent to sorrowfully re-live the decades-old heartache of seeing his secret crush dance the night away with a much more handsome fellow on the Studio 54 dancefloor?
Neither one of those enticing scenarios come to fruition sadly, but where Twin Sister do go once “All Around” has concluded it’s introduction, including breathy singer Andrea Estrella giddily sighing “I’m smiling for two” while providing yet another ravishingly wistful layer to the track’s already gorgeous weightless swirl, ends up just as satisfying.
Color Your Life arrives soon on 12″ vinyl via Infinite Best, but will also be available for FREE through the band’s website (where you can also stream/ download the band’s previous work and catch upcoming live dates).
Last May, we took notice of New York duo Telephoned and their awesome “postmodern takes” on rap hits from Soulja Boy and T-Pain, and drooled over their promise that more of these reinterpretations were to come.
Well, quite some time later, Maggie Horn and Sammy Bananas have finally fulfilled on that promise with this newest entry, a semi-cover of The-Dream’s woozy club jam “Rockin’ That Thang” that finds Horn cooing bite-sized lyrical snippets of the original atop a blissed out disco-house club soundbed.
Good stuff, even if we’re a lil’ bit disappointed Maggie couldn’t have blessed us with at least one go at the track’s “We beat it up like gorillas” line.
“Whatever U Want”, the first single off of Queens rapper/ Q-Tip cousin/ G.O.O.D. Music signee Consequence‘s upcoming sophomore album Cons TV, leaked waaay back in the Summer, but somehow we had never come across it until we were flipping through cable channels and happened to catch it’s on-the-cheap-looking Hype-directed video (featuring a striking duo of ponytail-whipping Sasha Fierce-wannabes)…and now, we’re more than a little bummed that we have arrived so late to the party to gush over such a fantastic track.
Honestly, we could listen to Con and Kanye trade the mic back and forth over “Whatever”‘s bubbling electronic drum beat and those seducing synth sounds that mark the end of every four lines over and over without complaint. And the addition of John Legend’s romancing croon and the way the different elements to the production beautifully crash together from the mid-way point on only make the song that much more endlessly addicting.
Can this trio form a supergroup of some sort and release a mixtape, EP or album filled with more tracks like this, please?
Catch the video below, then grab a cool remix from Philly’s DJ Gregg Nyce that slaps the “Whatever U Want” vocals over the “Back To Life” beat.
Unfortunately for Young Money soldier/ New Orleans rapper Gudda Gudda, his hood-reppin’ Guddaville cut “Always Love You” won’t win the blue ribbon prize for Best Mixtape Use of a Chopped-Up Sample of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” in 2009 (that honor remains with Theophilus London’s still-impressive track of the same name from a couple seasons back), but that doesn’t mean it’s not noteworthy.
Coolly weaving Houston’s over-long belt into a chill, Southern rap groove (with a brief shout out to the Dolly Parton original nicely tossed in in the opening seconds), Gudda’s “ALY” succeeds as a fine laidback jam that’s just begging for a summer season to attach itself to.
Plus, it gives us another reason to excitedly anticipate the forthcoming solo debut from Nicki Minaj, his increasingly likable rappress labelmate who steals the show here with a trip through memory lane, where she recalls her days as a young “Harajuku Barbie” sipping Italian Icees while running amuck through the concrete jungle of the “Capital Apple”.
Snatch up the cut below, as well as another Nicki-blessed treat: a No Ceilings-birthed remix to Beyonce’s “Sweet Dreams” (also featuring a somewhat needless Lil’ Wayne) in which she rocks the mic right with rewind-worthy references to Balloon Boy, Plaxico Burress and Slick Rick (and his eye-patch) all tucked into a single killer verse.
DJ/ producer Sammy Bananas and singer Maggie Horn make up Telephoned, a duo out of New York whose sole gig apparently is to flip inescapable rap hits of recent memory into wicked, almost-unrecognizable clubby confections. But don’t dare label their efforts as “covers” or “remixes”, because, as their MySpace states, what the dual force are truly accomplishing is “(fashioning) a postmodern take on both”.
In their hands, Soulja Boy’s goofy anthem “Turn My Swag On” is transformed into a genre-blurring blob of cutesy pop, Southern rap spoofery and dubstep grime, with Horn committing the most precocious “Hopped up out of beeeeed…” wail we’ll probably ever hear and featured emcee, Ninjasonik’s Telli Federline, dishing out battle raps in support of “the average Joe who gotta work a job”.
Meanwhile, their excellent riff off of T-Pain’s ’08 slow jam “Can’t Believe It” simply consists of key elements of the original (that twinkly-eyed melody, that elongated “yeeee-ahh” hook/ ad-lib) sparsely sprinkled over one of those endlessly revolving 90′s-era party grooves.
Stay tuned to their MySpace, cause they plan to drop even more of these fantastic “non-cover” re-works in the future.
The minute MIMS‘ uber-smash introduction “This Is Why I’m Hot” made it’s way to the top of the Pop singles chart and started being goofily mimicked by all of thirty-something-plus suburbia, the NYC newcomer’s status seemed to quickly morph from promising rap newcomer to one-hit wonder punchline.
Apparently, though, MIMS isn’t ready to simply fall off the edge of memory or be this decade’s version of Skee-Lo, making an enticing return with a record that makes a better case in proving (rather than endlessly stating) why he’s, indeed, “hot”.
“Move (If You Wanna)” is the first official single from his upcoming Guilt, and it’s a stunner, immediately awakening the senses with it’s minimalist bass and snare rumblings and a soft/ loud vocal gimmick reminiscent of Busta Rhyme’s “Touch It”.
With crosshairs fixed on the much-targeted anonymous “hater”, MIMS riddles out an uzi spray of tough talk one-liners (Sample: “Get you Biz-Marked up, turn you into vapors/ If you got a problem, get you swallowed like a chaser”) to get boots shaking. And while none of them really make strides in believably defining him as an intimidating force, their simplistic, Rhyming-101 attacks against the trash-can banging production do enough to draw your undivided attention, helping re-establish the once-dismissed idea that this cat might actually have some staying power.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
New York singer-songwriter/ The Knocks road dawg Samuel has long been touted as a future pop sensation in the making amongst the music blog scene (we hyped him here two years ago), and later this year we’ll finally get to see if those predictions prove correct once his Columbia/ Startime-backed debut Trains To Wanderland arrives.
“Whatever U Want”, the first single off of Queens rapper/ Q-Tip cousin/ G.O.O.D. Music signee 
Unfortunately for Young Money soldier/ New Orleans rapper 
Plus, it gives us another reason to excitedly anticipate the forthcoming solo debut from 
DJ/ producer 
The minute
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