Stream: Afterglow - Flores

Afterglow is the debut single from Flores. Born and raised in LA with half-Philipino, half-Mexican heritage Flores now resides in Norway. Her influences include both Björk and Lauren Hill together with net-soul artist Maxwell.

Flores has previously collaborated with producers Maths Time Joy (who produces here) and Woodz Stockholm, but Afterglow represents her first solo release. It's a cool combination of minimal progressive electronic sounds and R&B. Flores and MTJ have worked up a series of tracks for the forthcoming EP, which is set to be released through Maths Time Joy's own True Colours label.

Stream: Focus - P'aris

Anonymous Canadian electronic duo P'aris are back with a brand new track featuring vocals from WILLA. The track is based on the coping mechanisms we use together when dealing with loss and grief. In the bands' own words:

"It’s a song about two people experiencing the loss of a pregnancy. There’s a very particular type of gentle empathy that both partners must offer each other when going through a miscarriage. It’s a strange type of loss, especially from a pragmatic standpoint – you haven’t so much lost something as you have lost the idea of something.

So in a way you’re mourning the loss of control over your own future, control over your body, your biology. And you’re also faced with the fact that you have failed at the one thing humans exist on earth to do. ‘Focus’ is about making sure the relationship doesn’t suffer while you’re each processing things in your own way…"

The track itself has the brittle sense of emotional fragility that you can only imagine if you haven't been through such an experience, but it combines it with a sense of positive determination to work together to keep on loving. Together with WILLA, P'aris have managed to create a song as catchy as it is emotionally charged. Love this.

Stream: Invisible Tears - Patti Yang Group

Invisible Tears is the new single from Polish musician Patti Yang ahead of her forthcoming debut album, due next year through Giant Rock Airport. The track is a cosmic-acid-rock song concerned with the sense of alienation and isolation we can feel even within busy crowded spaces as we go about our lives.

Whilst finishing up the album Yang is dividing her time between London and California, working with Jagz Kooner, Matty Skylab and Chris Rotter to bring her sound to life as she combines her influences in both electronic music and punk.

Album Review: Close Eyes To Exit - KRTS

Close Eyes To Exit is the second full length album from KRTS, and a worthy successor to his debut album The Dread Of An Unknown Evil, a release that made my shortlist for best of the year. Where his debut album felt like a taughtly wound piece of urban clostrophobia, Close Eyes To Exit is a broader body of work that encompasses a wider range of styles. 

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Within that range we have some of KRTS' most upbeat moments. White Priveledge is more carefree than the title would suggest, and perhaps that is the point... Upbeat drum & bass rhythms roll along whilst KRTS conjures a warm, uplifting pattern of chords. My Head Is Jumpin' deals with the mental traps and emotional turmoil that shape us all from the inside without those on the outside even necessarily noticing. The track features Charles Larson and Tito Ramsey of the Brooklyn based band Legs. Glittering production and deep rumbling bass gives the song a sense of momentum, the whole thing sounding like it is spinning around your head. 

In contrast to this is Serve And Protect, a dark and angry rebuke of a media that normalises violence against black people, Mad Flows' vocals painting a picture of disillusionment and frustration. 

The instrumental cuts provide plenty of the sophisticated, soulful sounds that KRTS excels in. In Your Head is warm and choral, rhythms and scattered handclaps giving it an organic and earthy feel. Marriage Is Between Lovers is cinematic and romantically free of cynicism. In contrast If This Was Your Child, the album's closing piece, feels like a veiled threat - pitch black aggressive bass and distortion envelopes the listener before abandoning them in silence. 

It is clear KRTS has poured a lot of emotional anguish into Close Eyes To Exit - even the title sounds like a desperate attempt to escape the frustration of modern living. In contrast to The Dread Of An Unknown Evil, this album feels harder to trace and pin down - that previous album did so much with so little time that it couldn't help but be very focused. On his second album proper, KRTS' ideas are bigger... They just don't quite come together to make a relatable whole. 

Close Eyes To Exit is released on Friday through Project: Mooncircle. Listen to White Privilege and Serve and Protect below.

Stream: Life Ain't So Sweet - Tyrer

Born in London but now based in Manchester, musician Tyrer cites both cities as an influence on her sound. Having worked with Leeds producer MYK whilst still at school, Tyrer went on to further develop her sound at music college and release Wait and See with Alex D featuring Lab Man in 2013. Having worked with co-writer and producer Steven Griffiths she released her first two tracks Breathe and Walk Away earlier this year.

Life Ain't So Sweet is a soft, soulful R&B track and comes ahead of Tyrer's debut EP, due in January 2016.