Listen: Juliet - Cal Maro

Inspired by Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, the song Juliet represents the latest release from Charlotte, NC born and Brooklyn-bred musician Cal Maro.

Maro’s track sidles in with a lump in its throat and its heart on its sleeve. Soulful vocals slide across the surface of Juliet’s sublime production work, which itself consists of deep, throbbing bass and crisp clicks and snaps. It’s a little like what D’Angelo would sound like produced by Junior Boys’ Jeremy Greenspan, which basically means: sublime. Modern, human and cinematic.

Growing up surrounded by music, Maro was inspired by his band-playing father to get his own instrument. Starting with a guitar playing in a hardcore band, Cal began experimenting across various genres, including rock, folk and indie before falling for the grooves and melody of soul and R&B. In 2015, Cal started the Cal Maro project, drawing on influences that include Frank Ocean and James Blake, conjuring a new, modern yet earthy approach to R&B.

Written, Recorded, and Produced by Christopher Tyler Brown in Brooklyn, NY Mastered by Dan Millice Additional Production by Christian Spence, Sarah Register, & Joshua Thomas

Listen: Break In - Urchin

Break In arrives with clouds of bouyant energy, laid back guitars strummed whilst a hushed vocal gradually steps out of the dark… Fingers slowly fall on keys and taught percussion snaps like raindrops hitting the pavement, before suddenly the clouds break and the sun hits your face. Glitchy electronic wraps around you like a festival crowd appearing from nowhere.

Urchin is the musical project of London musician and producer Leo Appleyard. Having originally started life as an 8-piece band that performance at the London Jazz Festival, Urchin has evolved into something entirely different. In 2018, Appleyard took a break from regular gigging and travelled to Australia, where he quickly got lost in Melbourne’s progressive music scene. Enraptured with the mixture of house, disco and modern jazz eminating from the northern districts of Fitzroy and Brunswick, Leo ultimately ended up releasing his debut EP, Take Time, in reflection of a more upbeat and electronic sound.

Urchin’s sophomore EP is Night Light EP and it was made far away from the world of jazz and gigging, capturing the feel of today’s supercharged metropolis (albeit when not in lockdown). Along with Break In, Night Light EP includes three further songs that deal with loss, blame and the determination to keep moving forwards. Check out Break In below to get a taste of what to expect:

Listen: I Thought I Knew Better - I Know The Chief

I Thought I Knew Better is the new single from Melbourne band I Know The Chief. Having originally formed out of a shared love of music, the band initially found pleasure in the simpler trappings of being young and in a band - those first press shots, sharing inspiration and ultimately losing themselves in Melbourne’s music scene. In time the group got deeper into the process itself - producing music in a studio rather than performing live, and the opportunity that provides to create texture, tone and colour.

The result is the kind of bright pastel synths and soft falsettos you hear on I Thought I Knew Better. The vocals soar in a way that is highly reminiscent of Friendly Fires, and the result feels intimidate and yet polished and modern. With big synths that build into an epic, consuming climax, the track establishes an irresistable feeling by its conclusion. In particular the track feels underpinned by deep bass and solid drums, as called out by the artists themselves:

“We had played a version of this track live for a while and I’d always loved the groove but for whatever reason it hadn’t made it out into the world yet. I re-visited it at the end of 2019, re-wrote the lyrics and a lot of the instrumentation and felt like I’d breathed new life into it. As always, there’s a tonne of layering both instrumentally and vocally but with this track I put a particular focus on trying to nail the interplay and feel of the bass and drums.”

Check out I Thought I Knew Better below:

Stream: https://ffm.to/iktc

Watch: Furniture - Maude Latour

Furniture is the new single from NYC-based musician Maude Latour.

Latour exhibits her multi-cultural background through her music... Whilst she considers her self a real New Yorker, she grew up spending time in Sweden, London, New York and Hong Kong. In high school, Maude started to experiment with poetry and stories, before moving to work in melody and lyrics.

Last year saw Maude release her debut EP, entitled Starsick, and with that came a significant fan base and popularity on streaming services. Now she has returned with her new single, Furniture.

With a fun, grunge-y, lo-fi pop feel, the production on Furniture captures the feeling of a new breed of alt-pop. A retro chip tune bassline and simple drum track meld with scratchy guitars and Maude’s energetic vocals to give the track an accessibly fun-yet-cool vibe.

The song itself is deeply personal to Maude, as she described:

”This song actually saved me. I didn't think my heart could actually break, but it turns out I'm human like everyone else. I wrote this song at the lowest moment of my break-up, and the power and healing I had after creating it started me on a road to finding myself again.

“But the song became itself when it became the anthem that I needed. I remember waiting outside on a cold November morning to accidentally run into my ex. I was blasting this song, and suddenly I felt invincible. He and I had a conversation, we both cried, and he started to walk away. I was sitting on the steps to the library at Columbia University, watching him look back once more. But for the first time I wasn't crushed as he walked away. I had a secret. I had this song.”

Both the song and the video capture the sense of chaotic emotion Furniture depicts, and the video actually features people staring as themselves, including Maude’s ex’s friends:

“The Furniture video was made on one of the last days before Corona [the virus] ended school. We spent an entire day with so many of my close friends, and we had the literal best time... This all takes place in my dorm, with my suitemates, the kids who live on my floor, with a $0 budget... Everyone's reading my philosophy books from my shelf (read the titles, they all have some meaning). The hand sanitizer, my friends' relationship, my friends who are mentioned in the songs, my ex's friends (such troopers for participating, respect). The coolest thing is that everyone is playing themself. I will never be able to separate the joy of making this video from the video itself.”

Check out the video to Furniture below:

Listen: Bit - Seattic

Seattic is the solo project of Melbourne-based musician Adrian Osman. Having previously play in Brisbane band Tourism, Osman has left his rock days behind him to focus on something entirely different - synth pop.

Taking inspiration from Robert Smith and Phil Collins, Seattic’s latest single Bit is a lush, 80s influenced slice of electronic pop. A tribute to the 8-bit computer architecture of the 80s but also an acronym for “back in town”, Bit tells the story of a past relationship that was previously thought dead until the point when both participants find themselves back in town.

With hushed, soulful vocals and a underlying, driving bass, Bit moves with a sense of pace... The hurried rush and butterflies that come with the anticipation of seeing someone you haven’t connected with in a long time. Check it out below: