Tag: Single Review: Wake Up

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s TheWhatIfMix Shares a Club Banger

TheWhatIfMix is a London-based electronic music artist, producer and mixing engineer, whose work is centered around one core question: What if you achieve your dreams? His sound sees him blend elements of deep house, tech house and atmospheric electronic textures in a way that’s designed to move both body and spirit. Thematically, each track features a much deeper — and much-needed — message of self-belief, transformation and reconnection with the self.

For the London-based artist, TheWhatIfMix as a project is anchored in the concept that music is much more than sound, that it can be a reminder, a release and a push forward.

“La Magia” reached number 1 on aBreakMusic. His recently released five-song EP Higher Self received airplay on FutureHits Radio. Thematically, the EP is a journey through self-awareness, transformation and the belief in infinite possibilities. And building upon a growing profile, the London-based artist’s latest single “WAKE UP” is a high energy, club rocking bit of techno that channels JOVM mainstay LutchamaK, complete with a mantra-like sample.

As TheWhatIfMix explains, “‘WAKE UP’ is about questioning what we are shown, seeing the system more clearly and taking that power back.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Denver’s Jordan Lucas Shares a Hook-Driven Bop

Jordan Lucas is a Georgia-born, Denver-based singer/songwriter and musician . Lucas can trace the origins of his music career to high school, when he discovered both the guitar — and the guitar heroes. Once he was obsessed with guitar, Lucas started to discover all the things the instrument could do and the pedal effects, endless possibilities opened up for him.

Lucas began to brach out to different styles, genres and instruments, and began to realize that it isn’t necessary to hew your sound and approach to what’s heard on the radio — or even deemed popular. During what was an eye-opening stage of his life and career, the Georgia-born, Denver-based supported other acts, joined bands and did studio work. Moving around a bit, he started a band with a few friends called My Instant Lunch, in which he played guitar and contributed backing vocals and some songwriting. His experience with My Instant Lunch helped to lay the foundation of his own songwriting.

Once My Instant Lunch split, Lucas relocated to Denver, where he started to build a life, while establishing himself as a songwriter and musician. And while he loved working and writing with other artists, he wanted to focus on his own work. In 2020, he began focusing on his own work as a solo artist. Back in 2020, Lucas started working on his full-length debut, Serious Musician, which touches upon his professional journey, his mental health, life experiences and hopes for the future while evoking the outward expression of all the different musical influences and experiences over the years.

Centered around shimmering guitars, glistening keys and a propulsive backbeat paired with Lucas’ plaintive vocals and a rousingly anthemic hook”Wake Up,” Serious Musician‘s first single brings Danish JOVM mainstays Palace Winter to mind — with the song being rooted in deliberate attention to craft.