Talk About… Pop Music!
[MP3 + Music Video] Daniel Caesar – We Find Love / Blessed
We never really caught it until listening to these two just released tracks from Toronto’s Daniel Caesar but he’s kind of the Canadian version of John Legend or are we crazy for making that comparison?
[MP3 + Music Video] Knox Fortune – Lil Thing
We caught this one on our Soundcloud feed (BTW, WTF, Soundcloud??!) but when we checked our email (a rare occurrence nowadays so act accordingly but still please don’t expect a rapid response, life is busy nowadays!) we saw the homies from Biz3 had sent this to us too with the following promo blurb attached:
Chicago producer / artist Knox Fortune has his solo LP coming and here’s a new track / video from it. Shot with a super 16 camera and at his former abode (his recently torn down home dubbed Chillers Paradise) the track is drenched in summer vibes and easy to see why he’s frequently called on by many of Chicago’s elite artists for guest vocals (Chance The Rapper) and production (Towkio, Joey Purp, KAMI)
Now go hit play on this while you head outdoors and enjoy the glorious weather this Sunday and the rest of the weekend!
[MP3] DYLYN – Secret
Another one from the inbox that struck us as being a potentially big record:
DYLYN is the new project from singer/songwriter Gwendolyn Lewis who has been making music for a bit and already has a loyal following on socials. After a chance meeting with Colin Munroe (Sky Ferreira, Drake, Kendrick Lamar) in LA, Gwendolyn had a sort of revelation and decided she didn’t want to end up a pop puppet. Enter DYLYN – 80s synths, sultry vocals, and a dose of rock and roll. Her last single, “Mimosa”, saw streaming numbers in the hundreds of thousands. The song premiered with an in-depth interview at Popdust!
“This one is personal. My life was turned upside down and as a result this song emerged. ‘Secret’ became therapeutic, it helped me deal with this crazy thing that happens to so many people, yet often remains a taboo subject; especially in song. ‘Secret’ gave me a chance to connect with people, with my fans whose parents also split up due to infidelity; it became a way of reaffirming for myself and others “You are not the only one going through this.” Like I said, this one is personal.” – DYLYN
[MP3] Sir Sly – High
One from the inbox last week that we were digging:
Hello, this is Hayden from Sir Sly and I am writing the press release for our new single “High”.
Initially, we had someone else write it and they did a nice job—in fact, my favorite quote said that our new song “turns a hotel-room panic attack into a creative breakthrough” (true!). Still, I wanted to give you a bit more background, in chronological order, formatted by bullet points
April 20, 2014: It’s a day off on tour with The 1975. We’re colonizing a beige, Spartan room at the Courtyard Marriott in Oakland. Landon, our front man, steps out for a smoke.
Shortly thereafter, he becomes one with the universe. Additionally, my man sprawls out on the bathroom tile, smiling, scared, and stoned, naming off a list of people to whom he must give this newly discovered, all-encompassing, cosmic love.
September 16, 2014: The trip subsides, we finish the tour, and release an album called You Haunt Me. It does pretty well. My Mom tells all her friends about the time we played Conan, and how she heard us on the radio.
Deep inside, I’m a little disappointed because I read somewhere on the internet that we were supposed to be the next Coldplay, yet I still drive a 2001 Nissan Pathfinder with a check engine light.
Over the next six months, we start, and later abandon, a sophomore album full of minimal electronic songs. The lyrics are mostly outward facing, obtuse, anxious. It was good, but Jamie xx we are not.
June 2015: Back at square one and thinking hard about words like “sonic” and “identity,” Jason makes a round, booming instrumental in his studio in Costa Mesa. I cobble together a sampled, sauntering drum beat on a bus in Italy. Landon comes up with this sticky melody that’s part talking, part singing, all feel. We get in a room and they meld together.
It ends up being a revisionist retelling of that April 2014 night with a wink and some rose-colored glasses, borne of a desire to have a song to dance to every show.
We feel like it’s good sh-t.
I play it for an anonymous Uber driver and he’s all in. My Dad hears it and says it is “poppier” than our old stuff. My brother loves it and posts it to his Instagram months before it’s released because he thinks it’s already out.
Now: “High” comes out. “It’s an upbeat anthem about ego death” lead singer Landon Jacobs told the biographer, while I was on the other line of the conference call. “It really opened up the honesty of the record.”
Fittingly, it’s the first song from a forthcoming album that is lived-in, loose, and against all odds, a celebration. Thanks for listening.
So there you have it. Y’all dig?
[MP3] Benny Cassette – Sunrise Sunset
Here’s a cool record an old friend from my days at Jive records put me up on. RIYL the more ‘Island’/’World’ sound of Drake (‘One Dance’) and Rihanna (‘Work’). This is the official PR blurb with the background on it:
World-renowned as an influential and in-demand GRAMMY® Award-nominated producer with credits as diverse as Kanye West, The Band Perry, John Legend, Miguel, and The All American Rejects, Benny Cassette continues to simultaneously evolve as an artist in his own right. Today, Cassette announces his debut single “Sunrise Sunset” from his anxiously awaited full-length debut album Broken Hearts And Dollar Signs, due out later this year.
“Sunrise Sunset” is about trying to get to a place where life is simple and not letting the stress and happenings in the world get in the way of your happiness,” says Cassette. “I wanted the song to feel like the neighborhood I lived in as a kid like MacArthur Park (in southern California) and also something my grandma could dance to since she loved Spanish music so much.”
A born storyteller, Cassette quietly assembled the Broken Hearts And Dollar Signs album while traveling around the world. During his travels, he penned a series of letters addressed to those closest to him—everyone from old flames (inspiration for “Sunrise Sunset”) to his beloved grandmother. Now, each letter inspires its own song on the tracklist. Signed and sealed with his inimitable production, he delivers these songs with impassioned vocals and raw lyricism. He’ll unravel this narrative over the course of the next six months, debuting one music video per month until the record’s release.
ABOUT BENNY CASSETTE:
Benny Cassette has established himself as one of the music industry’s most sought-after visionaries behind-the-board. His influence can be felt throughout Kanye West’s groundbreaking Yeezus—for which the creator personally tapped Cassette’s talents after hearing him. Signed to West’s G.O.O.D. Music as a producer, he went on to produce for other A-list superstars such as The Band Perry, Miguel, and many more. Born and raised in Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park Latino mecca, the multi-talented Spanish-Italian personally took the spotlight with the single “Empires,” which Rolling Stone extolled as “emotive like Sting.” Meanwhile, Mass Appeal described his 2016 track “Be Wild” as “like you’re watching a tribal ritual in the woods, but the twinkling piano notes and Benny’s voice reassure you that the ritual is for blessings for the coming year.”
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