James Blake gifted fans with a pre-Christmas present Sunday as the British singer released the studio take of his unadorned rendition of Don McLean’s “Vincent.”After frequently performing the American Pie song about Vincent Van Gogh in concert over the past year, Blake entered Los Angeles’ Conway Studios earlier this month to lay down the track.
Welcome to a special holiday edition of our Weekly Playlist. Pour yourself a glass of wine and take a seat by the fire and enjoy our carefully selected mix of melancholic winter-themed and Christmas tracks and reflect on the year gone by. Happy holidays! --P.F.M.
Recorded in a working dairy farm in the backwoods of West Wales, ‘Reflection of Youth’ was written during a period of EERA’s life when, she says, Norwegian society expects everyone “to figure everything out.” It’s no surprise, then, that this record is investigative, as it thrives in its experimentation, moving seamlessly between styles from honey-sweet lo-fi to angry pulsating rock with soul-searching, introspective, electronic twists.
The New York City and Seoul-based producer Kathy Yaeji Lee makes house music and pop tunes, but her vocal delivery often sounds like rap. In past songs, like “Guap” or “Last Breath,” with hard 808s, she flashed a unique flow that showed precision in both English and Korean. For her new track, “Drink I’m Sippin On,” Yaeji embraces her inclination toward the style and trades in her usual four-on-the-floor for a trap beat.
In this week’s instalment of TIG TV, we tour Virgil Abloh’s studio, peek inside Europe’s most remote restaurant, look at the life and death of Pakistan social media star and icon Qandeel, learn about the Catalonia’s independence referendum, explore the photography of the artist Gregory Crewdson and as always, much much more. –P