The L.A.-based indie pop project NVDES, produced by Josh Ocean, is releasing its first ever 7-inch on B3SCI Records today. Accordingly, we’re premiering NVDES’s second single from the release, “The Other Side,” a juicy explosion of a track that has serious sexy summer dance party potential. I wanna keep the lights on and play with you all night, teases a breathless voice, which then shouts, All my best friends say you are/ The worst thing that happened to me. Hot.

“‘The Other Side’ is based on a fling with a girl who liked to dress me up in some of her clothes before we would hook up,” Ocean confessed to The FADER over email. “This song is an attempt to capture the strange and the fun that went along with it.”

Read the rest of this article at The Fader

Los Angeles producer and master of non-marketing ZHU had begun to release songs from his debut album, GENERATIONWHY, all the way back in February – but he’s had this one, titled “Palm of My Hand,” on the back burner far longer, having dropped it in his sets for over a year now.

The track begins with a melancholy electric guitar solo before ZHU’s own vocals share the arrangement with a series of other instrumental samples. A female voice speaking in French accompanies a violin melody at the end of the track, making it one of the artist’s more acoustically rich productions.

Read the rest of this article at We Got This Covered

Jamila Woods – HEAVN

If the name Jamila Woods rings a bell, that’s because she’s the soulful voice featured on Chance The Rapper’s “Sunday Candy” and “Blessings” (and, less impressively, on Macklemore’s “White Privilege II“). She’s also, of course, an artist and musician in her own right, and she’s gearing up to release her solo debut, Heavn, later this year. Today, she’s shared the title track from her record, and it’s a play on the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” that also incorporates a sample from the Roots’ “Eve,” as Woods adds her own flair on top. “I was thinking about all the barriers set up against love,” Woods told The Fader. “I thought about stories of black love in slavery times, how my ancestors had the audacity to love in spite of trauma and violence waged against them. The song became an ode to that history and a call to choose love in spite of the storms we weather.”

Read the rest of this article at Stereogum

Philly/L.A. based quartet NAC releases a new song “Flashlight.” Somewhere between electronic soul, southern crunk, and Hip Hop, NAC is the sum of emcee Sugar Tongue Slim and producers/musicians Butta, Bizkit, and Schoolie V.

“Flashlight” is the first taste of the group’s forthcoming EP Let’s Make Some Music, which will be available for free download come August 5. With a mission to put both fun and funk back in modern music, NAC is a full functioning band. In the live setting Slim provides the lyrical motivation, Butta co-writes the music and brandishes the Keytar and Bizkit adds drums and vocal hooks/chants throughout.

Read the rest of this article at HipHop DX

Skott recently won my heart with “Porcelain,” her heartfelt, falsetto-fueled debut single. She’s returned with her follow-up, “Wolf.”

What I love about her music is the intricate instrumentation and complex melodies. She brings a unexpected sophistication to indie pop, blessing an overdone genre with a fierce individuality that still feels accessible.

“Wolf” is a breathless testament to finding strength within unbridled desire. Her voice trickles through icy highs complemented by brassy lows, encompassing an impressive range of notes and emotions alike.

Skott grew up in a commune of outcast musicians, and this song is meant to communicate the wildness our roots

Read the rest of this article at Inddie Shuffle

David Foster: The Enduring Impact of Talent

I have witnessed several decades of the latest fads and newest genres in the music industry. I have seen the one-hit wonders, the birth of new stars manufactured by the recording industry and the artists that have come and gone with the changing times. Whatever is popular today may not be popular tomorrow, not to mention 30 or even 300 years from now. Is it even possible to say if we have any Mozarts or Da Vincis in our midst today? One might be able to fathom the Beatles, Baryshnikov or Bowie qualifying for such a distinction, but we will never really know in our lifetime.

To even qualify for consideration, one must have talent. Talent is a powerful force, but it isn’t talent alone that breeds success. Creators must be willing to constantly challenge themselves and adapt their talent over time. A strong will and drive are also hallmarks of lasting success.

Over the past decade, I have come to respect and admire David Foster. He is first and foremost a composer, songwriter and producer. He is also a performer, arranger, host and bon-vivant. He is a tireless force of nature and the modern manifestation of multi-faceted talent. His name may not role off of everyone’s tongue, but he has almost five decades of hits and Grammys under his belt. He has also been responsible for mentoring and launching the career of many a star and pop-icon.

Read the rest of the story at Forbes

James Rhodes: ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’

After the inevitable “How many hours a day do you practice?” and “Show me your hands”, the most common thing people say to me when they hear I’m a pianist is “I used to play the piano as a kid. I really regret giving it up”. I imagine authors have lost count of the number of people who have told them they “always had a book inside them”. We seem to have evolved into a society of mourned and misplaced creativity. A world where people have simply surrendered to (or been beaten into submission by) the sleepwalk of work, domesticity, mortgage repayments, junk food, junk TV, junk everything, angry ex-wives, ADHD kids and the lure of eating chicken from a bucket while emailing clients at 8pm on a weekend.

Do the maths. We can function – sometimes quite brilliantly – on six hours’ sleep a night. Eight hours of work was more than good enough for centuries (oh the desperate irony that we actually work longer hours since the invention of the internet and smartphones). Four hours will amply cover picking the kids up, cleaning the flat, eating, washing and the various etceteras. We are left with six hours. 360 minutes to do whatever we want. Is what we want simply to numb out and give Simon Cowell even more money? To scroll through Twitter and Facebook looking for romance, bromance, cats, weather reports, obituaries and gossip? To get nostalgically, painfully drunk in a pub where you can’t even smoke?

Read the rest of the story at The Guardian

All Songs +1: A Conversation With Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood

A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead’s ninth and quietest record, owes much of its sound to the band’s visionary guitarist, violist, electronics wiz and arranger Jonny Greenwood. On this week’s All Songs +1 podcast I talk with him about how A Moon Shaped Pool came to be.

Jonny Greenwood explains that Radiohead approaches each record with a different recording style or new technique. For this latest record, the group traded in “traditional Pro Tools” for an analog 8-track tape machine. “It’s kind of a miracle,” he says. “This is going to sound very conceited, but it’s a surprise to me how well so many of these songs came out and the one or two frustrations I have are nothing compared to the eight or nine key things I’m just amazed we got good recordings of. We all feel really lucky and happy to have this as a record.”

Plus, we joke about Greenwood’s lifelong affair with the recorder and how, as a teenager, he was more likely to be practicing his viola than getting into trouble.

Read the rest of the story at NPR