Tag: Hudson Mohawke

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Mike Slott is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, beatmaker, and producer who has released material as as solo artist under his own name, as well as a member of the mediative project Mirror Mirror, Heralds of Change with Hudson Mohawke and Lesser Pieces with collaborator Diane Badie. As a solo artist, his Lucky 9Teen EP has been considered one of the most seminal releases in the post-Dilla age of instrumental beat music, while establishing his sound and approach: delicate and ethereal electronics with quivering samples.
Slott’s forthcoming solo effort Vignettes EP can trace its origins back to 2011: Slott first wrote the material as part of a live re-scoring of Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s 2003 debut film The Return, which he performed at that year’s Edinburgh International Festival.  Serving as Slott’s return to his old label home, LuckyMe Records and his first release on the label in over a decade, the EP places the material in a different context — but without stripping it of its mesmerizing and shimmering beauty and its cinematic quality. The EP’s first single is the slow-burning and atmospheric “Simple Dreams for Simple Days.” Centered around shimmering and slowly morphing synths, “Simple Dreams” manages to bring Brian Eno to mind while evoking  peaks of springtime warmth and sun slowly appearing through icy cracks.
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of singer/songwriter Aluna Francis and producer George Reid, the renowned London-based electronic music duo AlunaGeorge can trace their origins back to 2009 when Reid remixed My Toys Like Me‘s  “Sweetheart“. And since their official formation in 2012, the duo have developed a reputation for a sound that slickly meshes 90s and 00s R&B, synth pop, house music and EDM inspired by the likes of Flying Lotus, Chris Clark, Hudson Mohawke, Destiny’s Child, Aaliyah and Mariah Carey among others.

The duo has spent most of the past year working on new material — but in the meantime, AlunaGeorge’s Aluna Francis teamed up with young, up-and-coming Liverpool-based electronic music producer, songwriter and electronic music artist SG Lewis on the house music club banger “Hurting,” a track centered around shimmering arpeggiated synths, tweeter and woofer rocking beats and Francis’ sultry vocals singing about the raw, sexual yearnings of the post-breakup blues. Sonically speaking, the song is a slick and modern take on the classic house music sound, while revealing a careful attention to craft.

As Lewis says of the track, “Aluna and I met for the first time in LA earlier this year, and I was talking to her about the album concept, and in particular, Dark. Aluna has been a part of so many dance records that I love, so I knew I wanted to make a club track with her! After we ate burritos and hung out, we made ‘Hurting’ super quickly – the whole process was super natural between the two of us, and she has such an amazing ear for production.”

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Francis Novotny is an up-and-coming Gothenburg, Sweden-born, Paris, France-based singer/songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, who grew up under the influence of his five older siblings and their eclectic record collections. As the story goes, after finishing school, Novotny moved to Paris, ostensibly to study French — but in reality, to work on music in relative peace and in new environs. Interestingly, for a brief period, Novotny felt compelled to try his hand at house music, before finding his true musical voice and sound, a sound that draws from a mix of styles including glitch-hop, R&B and electro soul while seemingly being influenced by Hudson Mohawke, Cashmere Cat and Gorillaz. And with his latest single “Hit N Run,” the Gothenburg-born, Paris-based artist reveals a imitable sound in which stuttering synths and chopped electronics, razor sharp beats and an insistent ear worm of a hook are paired  with Novotny’s ethereal yet soulful vocals singing lyrics in which the song’s narrator describes reluctance and cynicism that have hardened him a bit and made it difficult for him to open up to a new, potential romantic partner. And yet it’s an incredibly sensual song that sounds unlike anything I’ve come across in some time.