Stream: Paris - Fickle Friends

Another great track from Brighton group Fickle Friends... Paris is the second track to be taken from debut EP Velvet, out today. This is a slightly more laid back track than those we have heard from the band previously - still starry eyed but with the edge taken off. In singer Natassja Shiner's words:

“Paris is our quiet storm." explains singer Natassja Shiner, continuing "It captures the subtleties we love in Bombay Bicycle Club's instrumental layers but with our own Janet Jackson-esque spin. It's the song you hear at 3AM when things are getting hazy.

Get Velvet from iTunes or Amazon now [affiliate link].

Album Review: So Many Colours - José Padilla

I'm never quite over Balearic. No matter what happens there is always part of me digging around wondering where the next Balearic experience can come from. A poolside in a hotel, a private lawn drenched in dew and sunshine but free of connotation, the excitement of an evening in the company of people that know you for what you can be and not what you are in the drudgery of 9-5.

Once you have felt it, chances are you remember that sense of Baleria, like the one that got away. José Padilla has long experimented with this space.  Overseeing a number of Café Del Mar's compilation albums and their sunset sets in the flesh. Here on So Many Colours he expands the borders to create something a little more cinematic. 

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So Many Colours - José Padilla

So Many Colours is a druggy, slow to move and sun-caked hot-mess of a record. Padilla alternates between looting the past and frankly drowning himself inside it.

Opener Day One is a timeless shuffle, shoes squeaking on floorboards as voices shout over the hustle in order the get a drink. It's effortlessly then, now and forever... Timeless in the way it captures sun and excitement. But in comparison On The Road feels separated from the present and close to irrelevant. 

Moments like Solito are so thickly baked in the heady muddy sun that it is hard to resist getting stuck in there with them. Mojame kicks in like a crisp glass of wine, urgently suggesting we kick it back a notch, cool yet expertly insistent just as much as  track Lollipop is stark and laid back.

Album closer Remember Me is like Jean Michel Jarre after a week-long documentary concerned with mankind's brilliance: dramatic, organic, dynamic. Like much of So Many Colours it is at turns essential and frivolous. It is hard not to dream of heady days spent in Spanish sunshine when confronted with this album, yet it also over-stays its welcome... The ideas often not quite deserving all the space given over to them.

So Many Colours is out on 1 June through International Feel. Available for pre-order from iTunes and Amazon [affiliate links]. Check out a preview of album opener Day One below:

Stream: Just Words - The Night VI

Another new track from The Night VI, lifted from their forthcoming EP III, due in September. In demonstration of the talent that exists within the six-piece, Just Words sees the band hand vocal duties over to keyboardist Kristy Marie. She delivers a soulful, quivering performance as she describes the words used to lure you in to a one night stand.

We've heard a lot of great things from The Night VI already but in my view this is their best track yet, and their biggest opportunity to break out into the mainstream. Truly great.

You can order the EP on vinyl here, and ordering unlocks a download of every track released to date (three of the six tracks).

Stream: 4EVER! - LANY

More big infectious pop hooks from LANY, this time on new track 4EVER!. Check it out below and  expect plenty of snap and crackle - the rhythm section pops on this one!

Pre-order the band's new EP I Loved You on iTunes now, due out on 9 June [affiliate link].

Stream: Embrace - Goldroom feat. George Maple

Embrace originally featured on one of Goldroom's earlier EPs, and I've been hooked to it's big warm sunny synths since I first heard it... Here with the addition of George Maple's vocal we get to hear the version Goldroom always had in his head - he and Maple wrote the song together, so it's fitting we now get this new version with her lovely vocals. In the artist's own words:

"George Maple and I actually wrote Embrace together, so having this come full circle, and to have her singing on the song, feels like a dream. The song Embrace is all about re-connection, and so having George back in my studio again, singing the song, felt like it was meant to be."

I first heard the original version of Embrace back when it was a little colder and more wintery here in the northern hemisphere, so it's fitting to have it bubble up again now it is getting warmer... Particularly as it now features the awesome talents of George Maple. Love it.

Embrace is taken from Goldroom's new EP It's Like You Never Went Away, out now on Downtown Records.