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DOWNLOAD: Anjulie - Rain
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(Photo: Sheryl Nields)
Anjulie, the rapturous, Billboard-chart-topping songstress we discovered last month, has us giddy for her R&B confections again. Her latest single “Rain” is a slinky, flamenco-tinged aphrodisiac, and the video might be better suited for after work (sexy writhing alert!). Her eponymous album has heartbreak and soul, and her North American tour with legend Raphael Saadiq kicks off November 16th.
Sounds like: Nelly Furtado, Corinne Bailey Rae
Previously:
Anjulie - Love Songs (Bimbo Jones Dub)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Mayer Hawthorne - Green Eyed Love (Classixx Remix)
(Photo: Doug Coombe)
Hey. You look foxy today. Can I light that for you? These are just an example of the sort of things you might say to people once you fall under the spell of this killer-smooth track. “Green Eyed Love” closes Mayer Hawthorne’s immaculate time-capsule-soul album, A Strange Arrangement, on which the son of Detroit sings in a silky falsetto and plays nearly everything. For the remix — courtesy of the folks at Stones Throw — L.A.’s Classixx glass it up with ionized pillows of synth, a flawless Beach Boys break and the zen-like cool that blooms when confident hands are on the wheel. Grab it now and click yourself on through the turnstile below to find out when Hawthorne is bringing that incredible voice into your airspace (including three dates with Ghostface).
Mayer Hawthorne - Green Eyed Love (Classixx Remix)
DOWNLOAD: The Invisible - Come Together (Beatles Cover)
When The Invisible sing it always sounds like one, long sigh. What's wrong, sadsacks? This cover of "Come Together"'s the best thing you've ever done, I think: not one to silence the incessant TV On The Radio comparisons, but to quieten them at least. It's odd, but the London trio do seem to have found a sound more their own here, synth bleep rising and falling like someone just opened up your little sister's music box, guitars at times weirdly and vaguely ska-sounding - please excuse the crude turn of phrase, but all that the Mercury nominees seem to have been striving toward really does 'come together' here; a wide awake, electronic soul. And sighing. Still lots of sighing.
Sounds Like: Telepathe, Wild Beasts, Jackhigh
The Invisible - Come Together (Beatles Cover)
Previously:
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Jonathan Jeremiah - Happiness (Quiet Village Remix)
Usually when you meet people at parties and they tell you they "only really listen to old music" it's kind of a conversation-killer. That's because "old music" usually means Jimi Hendrix, or Led Zeppelin, or The 'Stones or whatever, and lord knows it's hard to find new ways to talk about the music those men made. But you sense it'd be different with Jonathan Jeremiah - listening to this Quiet Village remix of his "Happiness", lapped at by tides and bursting with elegantly swollen strings, I feel like I could maybe talk all night about "old music"; about Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Otis Redding. Graceful man music, not just rock'n'roll sounds for sexually buzzed-up boys. This song's as smooth as air and as great as those it loves. Maybe I should start going to better parties.
Sounds Like: Scott Walker, Martin Denny, Nick Drake
Jonathan Jeremiah - Happiness (Quiet Village Remix)
Previously:
DOWNLOAD: Shafiq - Nirvana
We all know music like the music Shafiq Husayn makes with Sa-Ra Creative Partners is great to chill solo to - that soul and jazz fused hip-hop that takes as much from Sun-Ra and Fela Kuti as it does thug rap and siren sounds - but when weekend late nights swing around, it ain't always that great. You're liquored, and done with everyone else for the evening, so you head back to a friend's and you put on some Afro-beat-hip-hop-soul thing, and sometimes it'll just fall flat. People will look at you with scorn, like you're the eyes-shut, nodding-head, dreadlocked trustafarian piously filling the party with joint smoke while everyone else is all lager rampage and shouting. This though - check its bass. Shafiq knows how to keep a party going and keep it spiritual at the same time, and that's deep, man - find more on the man's debut Shafiq En' A-Free-Ka, out now.
Sounds Like: J Dilla, Sun Ra, Outkast
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Coma - Reprise
(Photo: Manuel Schwiertz)
Aren't photo shoots against techno lore? I guess you deserve all the self promotion you can get when you're as understated and as capable as Coma, a duo from Cologne who make subtly affecting, minimal dance music that doesn't use its genre ties as an excuse to waste itself in dull techno brainspunk. "Reprise" will tug at your heartstrings, whether you notice at first or not - its sore ache is sly like that; the musical equivalent of a camera-toting Peeping Tom. Catch it on their new, three-track Crystal EP, out now through Kompakt.
Sounds Like: Karizma, Invisible Conga People, Panthu Du Prince
DOWNLOAD: Reigning Sound - Stick Up for Me
In the Red’s profile may have risen in recent years through releases by King Khan & BBQ, Vivian Girls and Jay Reatard, but for years the L.A. label’s been buttering your croissant with permanently cool, stylishly unfashionable garage-rawk like what this here Reigning Sound band makes. Frontman Greg Cartwright (who had the wheel on Shangri-La Mary Weiss’s comeback record) leads the group from North Carolina, but it’s his original base of Memphis that provides the R&B flavor on the Reigning Sound sound. This tune (a cover of ’60s American psych band Glass Sun) makes the personal political, but it’s Reigning Sound that makes you pump your fist to it. Look at those mugs up there—don’t you wish these guys were your dad uncle high-school janitor?
DOWNLOAD: Anjulie - Boom + Love Songs Remixes
(Photo: Sheryl Nields)
Here at RCRD LBL, we sometimes have a proclivity for the obscure (Sam is the Tri-State arbiter of small-imprint German techno—trust). So when some gorgeously unadulterated pop comes our way, it’s more than a burst of minty-fresh. It feels like a fiery rebirth. Anjulie is a Canadian-born multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and all around ingénue who we’ve fallen in love with for her 60’s-style soulful beats, her captivating MTV-nominated video, but most of all, those velvet pipes. There’s nothing better than listening to these spun-sugar melodies as the summer slips away.
Sounds like: Nelly Furtado, Corinne Bailey Rae
Anjulie - Love Songs (Cutmore Remix)
Anjulie - Love Songs (Bimbo Jones Dub)
DOWNLOAD: Wax Tailor - Say Yes (feat. ASM)
Lately, we’ve been into high-def hip hop. The elevated throwback stuff—sultry horns, big bass strings, politicking. Wax Tailor’s message on In The Mood For Life, out October 27th, is pumped with jazz, soul, and 60’s pop melodies. The first single “Say Yes” is a great replay track: rich, layered and deftly composed. But the video might be the trump card because it made us realize Wax Tailor and ASM look just like the heads of the French-Reggae crew in high school who both had the best KB in the county and vacationed in Croatia, and never explained either. Tour dates after the jump.
Sounds like: J5, Mos Def
DOWNLOAD: The Static Jacks - My Parents Lied
Jersey scruffians and RCRD LBL signees the Static Jacks have a new EP due September 15 called Laces, produced by Andrew Maury of RAC. "My Parents Lied" is its closer, a capably rousing guitar-soul song from kids that are way too young to sound this good. They are having a release party at Webster Hall's The Studio on October 7th, so, uh, get those Fake IDs looking purty.
The Static Jacks - My Parents Lied
Previously:
The Static Jacks - Stay A Lover
The Static Jacks - Fire On The Bridge And In The Tunnel Below (RAC Maury Remix)
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