20-year-old producer KA-YU, from the far north of the low lands, was our guest for the November edition of Werk Space. This Moluccan/Dutch producer and percussionist came down to the Red Bull Studios Amsterdam to rep the Dark Than Wax collective.
KA-YU came with a draft for the track titled “Near Extinction” and ended up adding some soulful rhodes to the mix. The entire thing will be released next week on the Werk Space Soundcloud page, so be patient for another week please. We’ll end 2015 with Modern Funk producer Henning, so best believe we’ll go out with a bang.
Big up to Joao Costa for shooting and editing this video!
I have confessed to this before and will do so again. I’m a sucker for good looking women who make good music. Toronto-based vocalist A l l i e is easy on the eyes, but much more importantly she is even easier on the ears!
Her new “Moonlust” EP released today (on the full moon) and features some of Canada’s most delightful producers like Nick Wisdom, Elaquent and Da-P. Last week A l l i e released her new track ‘Tundra”, on which she tells the story of the inevitable end of an intense romance. Back in April we already wrote a little something on “Remedy” produced by Nicky Buckets.
Now both tracks produced by Elaquent are a doozy, but we thought you’d enjoy a low bitrate stream of “Keep On“. When it comes to my secret crush on A l l i e, I plead temporary insanity due to the Moonlust. All four tracks are available for purchase on Bandcamp in case you were wondering where to cop the EP.
Tennyson consists of Luke Tennyson and Tess pretty, two sibling magicians from Edmonton, Canada. The duo brings you new magical Monday wonderland melodies in the form of their “Like What” EP.
So Tess is still in high school, but in their spare time the two write and make music. It seems like they’re both perfectionists and take their time when it comes to creating music. In the past year Tennyson worked on new material and today marks the release date of their free EP titled “Like What”.
I can’t imagine a better way to wake up at “7.00 am”, then this. Tennyson’s music is adorable, but in a good way. It speaks to the imagination and is youthful without sounding childish at all. We wish all of you lots of listening pleasure and make sure you purchase some of their music on Bandcamp.
Meet Boyan, a 23-year-old producer from Sofia, who’s been making quite some noise lately. The Bulgarian beatmaker grew up playing the piano and singing in a choir. In 2009 he went on to obtain a degree in sound engineering and composing music. Fresh from school he started out doing Progressive House and Electro, but a few years ago Hip Hop music came into his life. It changed the way he listened to music and opened up the way for his (in Bulgaria) forward thinking R&B/Hip Hop inspired style.
His first release came out in May on Future Beats Records and featured Atlanta-based vocalist J-Rican. Since then we’ve heard a few serious instrumentals on Boyan’s Soundcloud page and when he told us he had something new coming up we were interested in premiering it.
The idea for the track “Monday Morning” came up on a sunny Monday morning, so it seems fitting to release it on (you guessed it) a Monday Morning. On his latest trip to London, Boyan recorded his sounds from his surroundings using his phone and ended up using these recordings as a soundscape at the beginning and ending of Monday Morning. Might be good to know that this one is a follow up to Boyan’s previously released “Sunday Evening“, which was presented to you by our friends over at INFINIT. Both joints are available for free download, so don’t hesitate and go snatch them up!
East London rapper Jay Prince has found his way into modern-day Hip Hop thanks to his nonchalant golden-age-influenced flow over contemporary beats. He’s been beavering away for a while now and is receiving a lot of love from beyond the UK.
Jay Prince released a couple of self-released EP’s in the past with quite a few productions from IAMNOBODI. For his latest “Beautiful Mercy” EP, he gets some help from L.A.-based artists SiR and the mesmerizing Joyce Wrice. She features on “Promises“, happens to be our favorite cut of the EP. Now available via iTunes, so go ahead and have a listen.
Almost two weeks ago 22-year-old Virginia-based rapper GoldLink released his new album titled “And After That, We Didn’t Talk“.
It’s the official follow-up to “The God Complex” and to be very honest it took me a while to get used to this guy’s lyrics. Unfortunately GoldLink’s vocabulary consists largely of the words n*gga, f*ck and b*tch. If he would only learn how to expand it, I’d be a bigger fan of his music. Eventually I did come to enjoy the new album and found a few gems on there.
On the new album he gets some help from artists such as Anderson Paak, Jordan Rakei, Tom Misch, Brasstracks and Louie Lastic (to name a few). Needless to say you should all give this 11-track album a listen yourself.
At first The Internet was presented as Odd Future affiliates, but in 2015 it has become clear they are a distinct entity that deviates from most hit-seeking commercial R&B acts nowadays. The group’s nucleus is singer/songwriter/engineer Syd the Kyd and producer Matt Martians.
Back in 2011 the band made their debut with the tender ballad “Love Song – 1”. A few years, lots of experience and some releases later we all welcomed their debut full-length album titled “Ego Death“. This sounded very organic and featured Janelle Monáe, Vic Mensa and Kaytranada. The album debuted within the Top Ten of Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and hit the top half of the all-genre Billboard 200.
It’s safe to say that The Internet gave come a long way, but what matters most to us is that the music still sounds pure and beautiful. Two new bonus tracks of the Ego Death album were released today and both are sick. Right now “Missing You“, a romantic downtempo lovemaking jam, is on repeat. Check out both bonus tracks on iTunes and invest a few bucks in a musically flawless weekend.
At first I wasn’t sure what to think about an artist with a name like FKJ aka French Kiwi Juice, but it didn’t take long for me to turn into one of many thirsty FKJ lovers. Sure his sound is a tad slick and smooth, but I love that there is always a healthy dosis of Soul in this music.
Chances are that you have been living under a rock if you haven’t heard about FKJ. In case you haven’t let us be the first to introduce you to Vincent from the city of Paris. Two years ago he started releasing music online via Roche Musique. Some months ago he did a remix for Lianne La Havas’ song “Unstoppable” and who knows what else might come in 2016.
One thing I do know is that his forthcoming “French Kiwi Juice” album will release soon. And man with a single like “Better Give U Up” how can your curiosity not be triggered?
I remember the founding father of this site, telling me about this geeky producer from London named Floating Points back in 2009. Soon after I met Sam Shepherd and on the train he asked me why we never posted “Love Me Like This”, when it came out. Truthfully I had to get used to his sound for it might just have been a little ahead of it’s time.
Years and lots of releases later the name Floating Points has become quite big. Sam has grown as both a musician and a DJ and draws inspiration from classical, jazz, electronic and soul music. His 7-track debut album, “Elaenia“, was named after the bird of the same name. On it you here how much he has grown and at times it sounds like a canvas painted with a beautiful soundscape, rather than some electronic dance tracks thrown together.
We understand why “Elaenia” opens with the song “Nespole” and we thought we’d stream it for you to enjoy. Please support good music and purchase this album right here.
One of Amsterdam’s hottest producers goes by the name of Jarreau Vandal. This 24-year-old producer came down to the Red Bull Studios Amsterdam for our 10th edition of Werk Space.
With some help from drummer extraordinair Richard Spaven, the Dutch Soulection representative created the track “Rooftops“. This Werk Space instrumental is available for free download and might get some additional vocals added in the near future.
The artwork was done by a graphic designer from Rotterdam named Lucky Dubz. He started tattooing recently and told us he wanted to tattoo artwork on pig skin for this edition. It’s not often you see cover art tattooed and then photographed now do you? Big shout out, we think it turned out very dope.