Tag: R&B

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: King Garbage Shares Soulful and Yearning “Busy On A Saturday Night”

Asheville, NC-based, Grammy Award-nominated production, songwriting and artist duo King Garbage — longtime friends Zach Cooper and Vic Dimotsis — have quiet put their imprint on pop, R&B and hip-hop through their work with The Weeknd, SZA, Ellie Goulding, Gallant, and even Billy Porter.

Cooper and Dimotsis made their debut as King Garbage with 2017’s Make It Sweat, an album that amassed millions of streams while receiving praise from Wonderland Magazine and Paste Magazine, who hailed the effort as a “grin-inducing collection of modern R&B and funk.”

The Asheville-based duo were extremely busy last year: They co-wrote “Sing,” which appeared on Jon Batiste‘s We Are and received eight Grammy Award nods, including Album of the Year. They also co-wrote “Sweeter,” feat. Terrace Martin, which appeared on Leon Bridges‘ Gold-Diggers Sound and received a Grammy nod for Best R&B Album.

In the middle of a prolific and wildly creative whirlwind, the duo turned to King Garbage, finding the perfect time to return. “It’s the right time, because it’s been about five years since the last album,” King Garbage’s Vic Dimotsis says. “We were lucky enough to have successes with Leon and Jon. In entertainment, it doesn’t hurt to have stuff to brag about during press releases,” he laughs. “We were also insanely lucky to have met Mr. Mike Patton and be given a chance to work with Ipecac. We had been drawn to Ipecac since we were young, so it seemed natural to respect the very source that had inspired us in the first place.”

The duo’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Heavy Metal Greasy Love is slated for an April 1, 2022 release through Ipecac Recordings. The album reportedly sees the duo breaking from the “rough and ruddy” vibe of their critically applauded debut and incorporating a rock ‘n’ roll spirit within the soul sphere they’re best known for.

“It’s a taste of retro without being a reproduction,” the duo’s Vic Dimotsis explains in press notes. “Love and life are very sweet, bitter, and heavy. You’re going to need big tires and a dense frame to cross the desert life can give you. The name felt right. The music is crispy, searing, spacious, sandy, and welded with perfect dimes at the seams. If you read anything about history, you can fall in love with its brutality. Nature is the most metal, always at war with itself and never asking ‘Why?’ when change comes. I believe if you live long enough, the crushing weight and terrible beauty begin to hold hands, and an appreciation is reached, or at least an understanding. This was the best way to describe the album as well as what we see in the world. Love, nature, past, present, and future.”

“If just one person would listen and come away with less fear, less rigidity, more human spirit, and a respect for the unknown, it’s worth it,” Dimotsis adds. “Maybe you think, ‘Well, if these bozos are taking chances and making what they want under the name King Garbage, what could I do with my idea or dreams?’”

Heavy Metal Greasy Love‘s third and latest single “Busy On A Saturday Night” is a slow-burning and atmospheric, Quiet Storm inspired soul ballad centered around shimmering, flamenco-like plucked guitar, strutting horns, jazz-like drumming skittering beats and a soulful and breathy falsetto vocal. But the acclaimed duo’s take on soul is a woozy and left field take that features elements of old-school rock, 60s and 70s soul and trap in a production that helps emphasize the narrator’s unfulfilled, aching yearning.

Interestingly, the song is inspired by a magnet that was on Vic’s Dimotsis’ great grandmother’s refrigerator. “It had a sweaty male stripper pictured on it and said, ‘Everything I want is either taken, or busy on a Saturday night,'” Dimotsis laughs. “Blurry as a memory on a slinky night out. A Tom Waits inspired roadster awaits high high heels on a sure fire adventure. Losing articles of clothing to the magnet of the pavement, the band plays on through a duct from another world, and our eyes blur from both lust and disgust. Such motion seems still, as the accelerator and brakes lose meaning. A quiet lonely brunch awakens us from a distant stare.”

The recently released video for “Busy On A Saturday Night” begins with something we’re all too familiar with — a Zoom conference, where its viewers are introduced to a choreographed dance routine, called “The Scorpion Dance” featuring four extremely similar women, who perform in different rooms with different lights. Clearly influenced by our weird and uncertain moment, the video evokes the deep longing for people — and the gatherings with people we couldn’t have during the bulk of the pandemic.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s Fredy V. & The Foundation Release an Uplifting and Anthemic Ode to Self-Determination

Montreal-based collective The Foundation features some of the city’s best musicians, who also play in the Canadian city’s top R&B, hip-hop, funk, gospel, soul and jazz acts. The members of The Foundation gained collective experience from production and performing on a weekly, nationally aired TV show — and they used their momentum of their show to write and record their critically applauded debut EP One Step.

The Foundation also collaborates with some of the French Canadian city’s top and upcoming R&B, hip-hop, soul and funk acts, including Mel Pacifico and Fredy V — both, who are full-time members of the collective. The collective’s latest single “On The Rise,” marks the one-year anniversary of the release of their debut EP. But song is also a bold mission statement of stops, description the group’s current direction and mindset.

Featuring glistening synths, twinkling keys, thumping beats, hand-claps, Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar, wobbling bass synth, “On The Rise” is centered around a warm and roomy, New Jack Swing meets neo-soul with a hint of classic Chic-like production. Fredy V. contributes self-assured and thoughtful verses describing the sacrifices he had to take to get to where he is right now, including distancing from the people and habits that didn’t align with his goals. Pacifico contributes her soulful vocals to the song’s uplifting and infectious hook.Unsurprisingly, the new single is informed by and inspired by the collective’s experiences during the pandemic: Both individually and as a collective, The Foundation was forced to reflect on the direction of their careers in music — and their lives.

Thematically, the song touches upon self-empowerment, maturation, self-determination and accountability — that come about as someone matures and is actively attempting to make serious moves for themselves. The song — and the band — seem to say to the listener, “well, if you wanna fulfill your dreams, stop the bullshit and get to work. It ain’t easy but once you get there, it’ll be worth it.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Maria Isabel Releases a Sultry Banger

Maria Isabel is a rapidly rising New York-born and-based Dominican-American singer/songwriter and R&B artist. The New York-born and-based artist quickly exploded into the national scene with the release of last year’s EP Stuck in The Sky, which revealed an artist who while being influenced by Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Selena and Shakira could writer material that thematically touched upon mental health, her family history, her Dominican heritage and her romantic relationships with an unvarnished honesty and vulnerability — in both Spanish and English.

busy year: She released the “Buy Your Own Flowers”/”Love song” single earlier this year, which led to her performing in a COLORS session last month — and to her signing to Warner Records. Maria Isabel’s major level debut “No So Para Ti,” features a reggaeton inspired take on R&B centered around skittering tweeter and woofer rattling trap beats and glistening synth arpeggios. The song’s production serves as a silky and lush bed for the rising Dominican-American artist’s sultry vocals singing lyrics in Spanish.

While being a summery, club banger, the song is a bold feminist anthem with a wisdom and self-assuredness beyond her relative youth: The song’s narrator comes to the powerful conclusion that that loving and appreciating herself is much more important — and a much stronger love — than what she might find with most people.

Directed by Alfred Marroquin, the recently released video is a a sort of feverish yet intimate behind-the-scenes peak of the young artist’s life that sees her returning to her home and bedroom, talking to and hanging out with her girlfriends and coming to the realization that she doesn’t have to give a fuck about anything that doesn’t serve her in the way she needs.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Edmofo’s Club Banging Remix of Emma Peters’ “Fous”

usic scene through her YouTube channel, which initially featured attention-grabbing covers of Lartiste’s “Clandestina” and Lomepal’s “Trop Beau” — with her cover of “Trop Beau” receiving over 40 million streams on Spotify. As a solo artist, Peters quickly established herself a songwriter, who writes heartfelt and lived-in material, based from her own life experiences and with an unvarnished honesty with the release of her debut EP Fous, etc.

don’t be a pleaser and most importantly, don’t lose yourself. Be you at all costs. Interestingly, EP title track “Fous” features the rising French artist’s coquettish yet self-assured vocals over a lush production featuring shimmering Flamenco-styled acoustic guitar paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer beats.

Recently, Edmofo gave “Fous” the remix treatment. While retaining the original’s looping Flamenco-styled acoustic guitar and Peters’ coquettish yet self-assured vocals, Edmofo adds harder-hitting, beats, bursts of twinkling keys, turning an earnest R&B/pop ballad into an urgent, club friendly banger.