88RISING – midsummer madness ft. Joji, Rich Brian, Higher Brothers, AUGUST 08
88rising, the LA-based hip-hop label focused on tapping the burgeoning market for rappers of Asian descent, has seen its share of ups and downs since its inception in 2015. The “hybrid management, record label, video production and marketing company” came under fire due to its controversial artist Rich Brian’s original moniker, Rich Chigga, which many condemned as a racist troll for attention. After convincing the young Indonesian rapper to change his name, it looks like the label is shifting into high gear promoting Brian and its other artists, Joji, Higher Brothers, and August 08, with a music video for “Summertime Sadness,” the first single from the label’s upcoming compilation album, Head In The Clouds.
The video does what it says on the tin, featuring grainy, home movie-style footage of the label’s artists hanging out during typical summertime activities like pool parties and beach days. While Japanese-Australian singer Joji handles hook duties, August 08, Rich Brian, and Chinese hip-hop group Higher Brothers provide the verses in both English and in Sichuanese Mandarin.
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Mahalia – I Wish I Missed My Ex
Rising UK songstress Mahalia continues to hit all the right notes with latest single “I Wish I Missed My Ex;” her best release yet.
Produced by Maths Time Joy — the man responsible for Mahalia’s cracking debut “Sober” — and newcomer Swindle, “I Wish I Missed My Ex” has an old school ’90s vibe to it. Mahalia discusses an ex who just won’t leave her alone over a classic R&B beat with a touch of jazz.
Along with the track the film clip for “I Wish I Missed My Ex” is a fantastic visual accompaniment. Shot in LA by Director Andrew Litten, over a 22-hour stint, the clip is shot in reverse, with Mahalia having to learn all the lyrics backwards.
Read the rest of this article at indie shuffle
Ross From Friends – ‘Project Cybersyn’
Ross From Friends is moving on up in the world. Felix Clary Weatherall, the rising London-based producer who is almost certainly not David Schwimmer, first caught our attention with his 2016 EP You’ll Understand, and he signed to Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label earlier this year for the release of another EP called Aphelion. Now he’s announcing his debut full-length, Family Portrait, along with his first run of Stateside tour dates.
Family Portrait, which finds Weatherall “trying new things, making a bit more of an explosive sound,” is coming out in July. “Every time I went to make music the things which would really grab me are the emotional things, and while I’m in that place I felt I could really focus on the track,” he explains in a press release. “That was a massive part of this album, tapping into my emotions … into my emotional instability.” Although the album also features Weatherall recording his own voice for the first time, “Project Cybersyn” is another instrumental, a warm, analog dance track of the caliber we’ve already come to expect from him.
Ross From Friends’ may technically be Weatherall’s solo project, but for his live shows, he’s enlisted the help of a couple of friends. John Dunk plays saxophone and keys while Jed Hampson plays electric guitar, and Weatherall and his band will play their first-ever US shows when they head out on a headlining tour in September.
Read the rest of this article at Stereogum
Fort Romeau -Pablo
The song of the summer is typically a subject of heated debate, but in dance music, you know them when you hear them: They are those uplifting anthems capable of inspiring eyes-closed and arms-raised euphoria across muddy fields and palm-fringed beaches—ecstatic mood rockets designed for the express purpose of transporting us to a higher place.
Derrick May’s “Strings of Life” set the template and remains the gold standard; the canon stretches through Inner City’s “Good Life,” Octave One’s “Black Water,” and, more recently, Lindstrøm’s “Closing Shot.” Now, we might just add Fort Romeau’s “Pablo” to the list. The London producer (aka Michael Greene) has been swinging for farther fences in recent years, super-sizing his moody deep house into bold, big-room fare that often sounds huge and restrained at the same time. But he’s never sounded as unabashedly emotive as he does here, stripping away all the excess and honing in on a restless synth arpeggio that tugs, inch by inch, at the heartstrings.
The beat is the very picture of efficiency, just a nice fat kick and snare to frame his sidewinding melody. All the action is in that synth, which burrows up from below, restless and ruminative, before bursting through the surface in an explosion of color. There are two extended breakdowns where the beat falls away, leaving the synth melody to shine in all its glory, and the second one is particularly awe-inspiring: Just when you think it’s cruising toward the kind of climax that might be a little too obvious—maybe even a little corny—he changes course and sends it tunneling back into the darkness again. When he finally brings the beat back, the release is all the more delicious for the way it has snuck up on you. Fort Romeau’s finest work to date, “Pablo” is as summery as dance music gets: It offers the promise of deliverance in nine minutes of perfectly controlled rapture.
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
Joji has released his first new music since February’s breakthrough ‘In Tongues Deluxe’ EP. The Japanese artist is fresh from an extended studio hibernation and will also be taking his live show to a few festivals this year including Blurry Vision in Oakland, CA this weekend and 88rising’s Head In The Clouds Festival in Los Angeles in September.
New single Yeah Right is entirely written and produced by Joji himself. Although the song seems like a superficial party track on its surface, after multiple listens it reveals itself to have a sort of warm and relatable self-loathing. The tracks muted samples along with its sultry drum machine hits and watery piano make for something special, sure to hold Joji fans over for whats to come down the line from the 88rising artist.
Yeah Right is accompanied by a simple, yet smart lo-fi music video that shows Joji going through a series of mixed emotions as he almost reluctantly recounts the lyrics to his own song
Read the rest of this article at Culture Addicts
