Beats & Pieces #16: Jai Paul

I wrote this two months ago for Clash Magazine, but completely forgot to put online. Then, just last weekend I managed to pick up one of a hundred prints of the vinyl (above) from Independent Record Label Day in London, so it felt apt to post. It’s panty-dropping slow jams from mutoid r&b’s incognito of the moment, Jai Paul. He’s taking things at a leisurely pace, and ‘Jasmine’ is yet another step in the right direction, with plodding synths, rough edges and smooth vocals.

Another excerpt from Issue 73 of Clash Magazine.

(Source: designscene.net)

Beats & Pieces #15: Only Real

Only Real is a West London half-pint who’s scoffing fruit loops and posting on Facebook, whilst making raw and edgy grunge-grime that personifies the idiom ‘diamond in the rough’. ‘Cadillac Girl’ sees him thumbing a guitar to slow drum beats, whilst rapping along with a sharp colloquial tongue.

Beats & Pieces #14: Willis Earl Beal

Willis Earl Beal… Where do you start? His story is fascinating. A lot of people claimed to have unearthed the 27 year old, but my personal discovery was through a writer at the Chicago Reader. Said writer published a feature last year, revealing a flyer he’d found stuffed into a book at his local library. The flyer was a handwritten self-portrait of a young black man. It stated “I want some friends & stuff”, and beside it lay a telephone number and an address. More flyers, and even CDs, began to be discovered (as above), with some suggestions: call Willis, and he will sing to you. Write to Willis, and he will draw you a picture.

Fast track two years, Willis Earl Beal is signed to XL Recordings’ Hot Charity imprint for a stunning five album deal. His flyers, drawings and poor quality demos are collectables. He’s received more than 300 calls, and charmingly; he still answers them. Below is ‘Evening’s Kiss’, the earliest track to leak. It’s a tender, eloquent and romantic ode to a waitress he never approached, with subtle nods to the bleakness of his initial homeless life on the streets of Albuquerque. His ability to lyricise metaphorical imagery to describe his feelings is just wondrous.

Willis Earl Beal - Evening’s Kiss by HotCharity

Beats & Pieces #13: ∆ (Alt-J)

Band names go through subconscious phases (name four bands containing ‘Crystal’, GO!). This Leeds bunch are the first geometric clan to gain notoriety, and more can be expected. 2013 festival line ups will come to resemble a Toy r’ Us Shape Sorter. Their band name is simply a triangle (or a ‘delta’, if that’s how you choose to live your life). ∆. Pronounced aloud as Alt-J, in reference to it’s shortcut on a mac keyboard.

Debut double a-side ‘Tessellate/Bloodflood’ brought them to my attention back in November, but neither track quite carried the bolshy oomph of latest offering: ‘Fitzpleasure’. I’m also a sucker for portmanteaus (SPORK!). The lead singer likes to wield the vocals of someone still learning the English language (as popularised by Sting). Compliment that with some masonic chanting and a wall of rattling bass, and you’ve got ‘Fitzpleasure’.

Fitzpleasure by alt-J

(answers: Crystal Fighters, Crystal Stilts, Crystal Castles, Crystal Antlers)

Albums Of The Year #2: Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Not many expected the remarkably candid and revealing window that Lykke Li opened to the world on the release of ‘Wounded Rhymes’. It was a scene painted with introspection. Anonymous heartbreak, post-tour depression and her own reluctant coming of age. Each of her chosen topics were tackled with a brutal realism; a refreshing raw emotion and eloquent expressions of pain, favoured over any rose-tinted tableau of deluded romance. On every track, her wise and weary vocals glide over rattling percussion like a train over tracks. Some chugging at tender speeds (‘Love Out Of Lust’) and others careering into magnificent chaos (‘Get Some’). And as much as Lykke rejects the labelling of Swedish pop, there is a definite gust of Scandinavian atmosphere through everything she does, but a much bleaker perspective than we’re accustomed to. She’s the thinking man’s Robyn. A devastated Abba.