Ronnue is taking us back to the golden age of hip-hop

A thick, bumpy bassline menacingly flexes its muscular tone. In its wake, a sizzling synth comes scorching through the center of the track, paving the way for Ronnue to drop a monstrously melodic lead vocal in “17 Days (The Hood Mix),” one of the most haunting and harmonious songs found on his latest album, Introduction 2 Retro-Funk. Ronnue is taking us back to the golden age of hip-hop here and ironically sounding more progressive than many of his experimental peers have recently. Introduction 2 Retro-Funk is an unstoppably addictive offering, and compositions like “17 Days (The Hood Mix)” are the reason why. Ronnue’s lyrical attack has never been stronger than it is in tracks like “Something About U (The Retro-Funk Mix),” “I’m a Lesbian,” “Why,” “If We Stayed 2gether” and “Give in 2 Me,” not to mention his technique is noticeably more efficient than it was in past outings. He’s using the full depth of his vocal in these songs, but more importantly than that, he’s developed a really unique flow that sets his verses apart from most anyone else in or out of his scene at the moment. There’s no question who is at the mic when he sings, and that’s half the battle in becoming an icon nowadays.

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ronnue/?tn-str=k*F

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ronnue?lang=en

This mix is boastfully unsophisticated from beginning to end. It’s downright guttural in some spots – namely “I’m a Lesbian,” “In Love” and the ferocious funk of “You Tried Me (The Man’s Anthem)” – and it makes all of the music that we hear in this record feel and sound so much more authentic, hard-edged and fresh as a result. Ronnue was brilliant to stay away from a traditional pop sound on Introduction 2 Retro-Funk; he’s getting a ton of positive press for his decision, and I can see it having a big impact on his local scene moving forward. The lead singles here, “Something About U (The Retro-Funk Mix)” and “Be Your Freak,” were definitely well-chosen from this tracklist, and I think that they hold just as much appeal to the college radio crowd as they would the occasional R&B fan curious about the new and exciting sounds coming out of the Seattle underground this summer. It’s been a rough decade for indie rappers and experimental funk artists like Ronnue, but if he can move the needle a little more towards his scene’s direction, finding a home on the mainstream side of the business won’t be very difficult at all.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/5pQtFqzcH7qj6e43XGfWcZ

Introduction 2 Retro-Funk is one of the strongest candidates for album of the year that a west coast urban pop songwriter has submitted in the last decade, and even if you’re not up to date on the Northwest beat that produced Ronnue in the first place, you should take some time to give this record a listen this August. Ronnue is making some bold moves on his latest album, striving to make something different from what his contemporaries are, and most of all, giving the summer the added dose of funk that it has been in need of since the end of last June.

Garth Thomas

The music of RONNUE has been heard all over the world due to the radio plugging services offered by Musik and Film Records. Learn more - https://musikandfilm.com

Ooberfuse releases “Call My Name” remixes

Through the thick, surface-level grooves and melodies that we find in the first sixty-seconds of ooberfuse’s “Call My Name – Push The Frequency Festival Mix,” we see specks of a bass tone that will slowly grow into a suffocating, unmatched force in this remix, which is only one of five found on ooberfuse’s new Call My Name EP. Trying to escape the clutches of this subtly surreal harmony and it’s uncompromisingly strong bassline prove futile in the next couple of minutes that follow, and as we look deeper into Call My Name, we discover this isn’t the only bit of sonic sorcery that the record contains. 

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ooberfuse?lang=en 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Ooberfuse/posts/ 

 Emotions are raw in “Call My Name – Hal St John Radio Edit,” and they all start with singer Cherrie Anderson, whose heart is on her sleeve as she lays into the first verse with a soft, Cocteau Twins-like ethereality. Her vocal is pleasant and pondering, which makes the whimsical swing of the percussion even more thought-provoking than it already would have been. It doesn’t surprise me that St John nailed this track as well as he did – after all, “Call My Name” is a direct product of the compositional chemistry he has with Anderson when they’re making music together under the ooberfuse moniker. “Call My Name - The Noise,” as well as “Call My Name – Paul Kennedy Radio Edit,” seem like ridiculously cautious efforts in their own right when compared to St John’s edit and the Festival mix, but deliberately so.

Everything – from the percussion to the very crunch that the bassline makes in the Kennedy edit – has a very specific part to play in creating as moody a narrative as producers can in these two mixes, and while they’re not the easiest to digest of this tracklist, it makes total sense that they would be included here just the same. The music video for “Call My Name,” featuring Paul Kennedy’s treatment of the song, is really good, clean electropop fun, and personally I think that it isn’t so all-encompassing that ooberfuse couldn’t make four additional videos for the other remixes as well. Each one of these tracks is so unique and different from the others that they sit next to on the EP, and as much as the generic look of the Kennedy video will probably jive with audiences from one side of the globe to the next, I think that it doesn’t necessarily represent the full artistic capabilities that ooberfuse are becoming known for with their studio work. 

I-TUNES: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ooberfuse/id1470101291 

Though it’s fair to say that the Call My Name EP was conceived with the serious European club-pop fan in mind, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t appeal just as much to Americans and other electronic-crossover buffs around the world this summer. Ooberfuse have been peeling back one layer after another in their incredibly melodic sound for over five years now, and I think that with the release of this new record, they’re showing us their most cultured style of play thus far. I hope to hear more before the year is out, and with all the buzz they’re getting this season, I think I’m going to get my wish. 

 Matthew Rowe

Project Grand Slam releases PGS7

URL: https://www.projectgrandslam.com/ 

Outfitted with beats that are as big and boisterous as they come, a string section burning hotter than the Chicago fire, lead vocals that could make even the hardest hearts of stone melt in an instant, sax vibrancy of the most divine quality, basslines that move mountains at the right volume and a percussive thrust guaranteed to get your speakers moving as much as your hips will, Project Grand Slam’s PGS7 is, simply put, a juggernaut of an album. 

 In the Robert Miller-founded jazz fusion project’s latest full-length release, we find an exotic rhythm in songs like “Funk Latino” and “No One’s Fool,” foreboding harmonies that tell us more about these musicians than words ever could in “Take Me” and “I Don’t Know Why,” as well as scathing lyrical commentary in “Get Out!” and the brutally honest “Tree of Life,” but despite the incredible diversity of its tracklist, PGS7 is unquestionably one of the most cohesive LPs to join the Project Grand Slam discography. Miller and his collaborators are more in tune with each other than ever before here, and it’s listeners who reap all the rewards of their studious labor in this unparalleled LP. There’s really no simple way to classify a lot of the music that we hear in this record, but not because of any compositional fragmentation – quite the opposite, actually. If anything, Project Grand Slam are amalgamating so many different styles, textures and tones in these tracks that they simply defy the very concept of genre altogether. There’s as much rock n’ roll in songs like “Get Out!” and the riff-centric “I Don’t Know Why” as there is R&B in “Redemption Road,” funk in “Python” and midcentury jazz in “The ‘In’ Crowd.”

I-TUNES: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/project-grand-slam/274548453 

 What holds everything together in this piece is Miller’s dexterous leadership of the group, which finds the perfect voice to convey its message in vocalist Ziarra Washington, a singer who has become one of my very favorites in recent years. Following the release of 2017’s The PGS Experience, it became next to impossible for critics to dismiss the credibility of this group, but in the wake of what they’ve cultivated in PGS7, I think that it would be appropriate to start referring to Project Grand Slam as a top tier indie unit, regardless of genre classification. 

I’ve been listening to Robert Miller’s work for a few years now, and this is undeniably one of the tightest records that he’s ever attached his name to. In terms of physicality, it goes unmatched among the output that we’ve heard from Project Grand Slam’s contemporaries both in and outside of the underground this summer, and while I’m fairly certain that this won’t be the last time that the band’s music makes its way into the headlines on the international level, something tells me that this is going to become one of their most beloved releases. PGS7 has the look and feel of an anthology album, and even though it comes in at a full-bodied fifty minutes in total running time, its tracklist is one that I’m sure most jazz and experimental rock fans will find to be listenable time and time again. 

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/projectgrndslam?lang=en 

Janelle Washburn 

The music of PROJECT GRAND SLAM has been heard all over the world due to the promotional services offered by Danie Cortese Entertainment & Publicity. Learn more here - http://www.daniecorteseent.com/

AV Super Sunshine releases "Are You Happy?”

“Are You Happy?” from Wisconsin’s AV Super Sunshine is released in three different mixes, a radio, club, and rock version, respectively. The radio version has the same rock and electronic hybrid edge defining many of their past releases. It is fascinating to listen to a band so skilled at balancing the past and present in a single package, but it is all the more impressive to hear them do it and never lose their way or reduce the song to a mishmash of sound. The contrast between the synthesizer driven melody and live drumming facilitates a connection between the song and its listeners that crackles from the first and never loses you. The song is cut to an ideal length making it an easy choice for radio play.

URL: https://www.avsupersunshine.com/ 

Other musical instruments are present in the radio mix. The guitar and keyboards are a little lost in the radio mix, but nonetheless are present in the song. They combine in a dense way, but “Are You Happy?” retains a fleet footed musicality despite the density. The entire track isn’t that way however. AV Super Sunshine change things up at all the right points and the musical push of the song track dissipates into atmospheric bridges and instrumental breaks that round off the tune in a satisfying way. The vocals are twofold. There is a lead vocal coupled with band member Philomena’s contributions on backing vocals. She isn’t present in every line, but she comes into the song with a refreshing vocal tone that juxtaposes well with the lead vocal. 

The two vocalists do a five star job of adding a lot of oomph to the track and those aforementioned atmospheric moments and they are clearly singing with the music rather than positioning their voices against the music. They do an exceptional job of making the lyrics come alive for listeners without ever outshining the music. The club mix is an extended treatment of the radio track, a little over six minutes long, and AV Super Sunshine takes the chance to stretch the song out to its limit. The same dynamics at play in the radio mix are present in the club mix, but this version obviously pushes more percussive elements of the song and develops the melodic elements of the song in a much slower fashion. The rock mix is cut from a different cloth. There are none of the frills present in this version we hear from the other mixes, though the presence of keyboards obviously nods in a way to their electronic influences. The drumming, guitar, and vocals possess a lot of bite.

I-TUNES: https://music.apple.com/us/album/are-you-happy-radio-mix/1449259740?i=1449259745

AV Super Sunshine is continuing their ascent into the musical consciousness of music devotees around the world and “Are You Happy?” will only hasten their rise. It is a memorable single that doesn’t take shortcuts, shows discipline and focus alike, and sparks with fire and passion. It bodes well for the entirety of Candyland Vol. 1 and will undoubtedly leave a mark on anyone encountering AV Super Sunshine for the first time. 

 Jodi Marxbury

Fenix & SM1LO release hot new music

SM1LO URL: https://www.sm1lo.com/ 

Beats rain down on us like devilish sonic daggers as we find our way through the fog of Fenix’s “House Remix” of “Where We Begin,” the darkest mix of the title track on his all-new album. This record isn’t his artistic baby alone, though; SM1LO is on board for this affair, as well as Llexa, and they’re dead-set on creating an electronic-tinged quicksand with tracks like this one, “Where We Begin (Radio Edit),” Fenix’s “House Radio Edit,” and the instrumentals “Club Radio Dub MIX,” and “House Dub Mix.” 

 If there’s something that you don’t like about one mix, there’s another almost guaranteed to ignite a passion within your soul that only premium EDM can, and despite the fact that there’s a repetitiveness to some of the content here, all of these mixes – instrumentals included – sport something more unique and brooding than what any of the headline artists associated with this project have dispensed on their own. Good things come to those who wait, and if you’re one of the millions of pop fans that has been eager for some virtuosity in 2019, Fenix & SM1LO have you taken care of with Where We Begin. BEATPORT: https://www.beatport.com/track/where-we-begin-feat-llexa-original-mix/12046088 Fenix’s “Club Radio Edit” is my favorite of all the tracks in this record. 

Unlike other versions available to us in this collection, this take on “Where We Begin” has a torturous overtone to it, partly influenced by the shimmering, yet melancholy-soaked, acoustic guitar parts that play such a prominent role in the ascent towards the chorus. Llexa’s vocal has a lot of reverb on it, more than I probably would have used, but it definitely makes her words so much more haunting than they are in SM1LO’s remix or the standard “Radio Edit” version of the song. The melody is evocative, and its interplay with the percussion is reminiscent of a torrid love affair that has suddenly been met with an impasse. The house mixes were built for the world of runways and supermodels, but these club cuts have something much more intelligent and artistically savvy about them. Some legitimate emotion went into making these tracks, and that’s easy for even the most novice of pop aficionados to pick up on.

There have been only a couple of electronic acts to really impress me this year, but this record is certainly among the best pop music that I’ve been rocking out with this summer. Since its release last June, outlets that wouldn’t normally cover EDM have been taking an interest in Where We Begin, and specifically, Fenix & SM1LO. I haven’t a doubt in my mind that there are going to be a lot of calls for a follow-up to this fourteen-track wonder, and whether they bring Llexa back into the fold for another go-round or not, I hope to have the chance to review the finished product when all is said and done. Their charismatic studio techniques alone would be enough to warrant even more experiments together, but even without considering that, there just isn’t another electronica record out right now with the kind of spunk that Where We Begin has. FENIX 

FENIX URL: http://www.djfenix.com/

 Matthew Huber

Integriti Reeves releases new Single

Latin jazz crooner Integriti Reeves is stunning the critics in her new single, the swinging “Eu Vim Da Bahia,” from her debut extended play Stairway to the Stars. In “Eu Vim Da Bahia,” Reeves draws from old fashioned jazz influences while flanking her stylish grooves with a sleek, cosmopolitan sway that is anything but uncontemporary. There’s a lot of grandiosity in the composition of the instruments, but even at their most attractive, they’re never potent enough to steal the limelight away from her lead vocal, which stands out as one of the most seductive that I’ve personally listened to this summer. Much like the record that it was spawned from, “Eu Vim Da Bahia” is an exotic, multidimensional offering that will leave you begging for more from this sensational new singer.

RELATED ARTICLE: https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/integritireeves 

I hear a lot of Django Reinhardt in these guitar parts, and anyone who knows jazz will tell you that this is no small statement to make. They’re so incredibly colorful, and yet enjoy an understated presence and simplistic construction. It doesn’t take more than a single listen to see why there’s been so much buzz around this track – from the get-go, every stitch of audio is awash with a supreme polish that emphasizes the emotion underpinning every note the strings emit. It’s almost overwhelming in a couple of spots, but Reeves is careful to curb the more indulgent moments in “Eu Vim Da Bahia” with a clean-cut vocal track that holds everything here cohesively together. I dig the approach she’s taking in this song, and would like to see her expand on the formula a little more in future efforts. 

The rhythm in this single is quite intoxicating, and when combined with the soft serenade occupying the top of the master mix, they yield an unbeatable hook that I’ve admittedly become addicted to. There’s a lot of excellent pop music being made on the mainstream side of the dial at the moment, but I don’t know that I’ve heard anything with the sultriness, not to mention impressively-appointed complexities, that “Eu Vim Da Bahia” has. It’s a fascinating treat for jazz fans, and moreover, anyone who has been in the mood for something a little more stimulating on their stereo this summer. It’s a far cry from the pseudo-vocal pop that frequently draws comparisons to the vintage jazz that Reeves takes inspiration from, and perhaps one of the few Latin singles I’ve heard this season that would appeal to audiences across the board. 

 AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Stairway-Stars-Integriti-Reeves/dp/B00J49XK14 

July just got a lot sexier with the addition of the string play contained within “Eu Vim Da Bahia,” and I for one am very excited to see how Integriti Reeves follows-up on its release in the years to come. She’s got a lot of momentum behind her, and for being a relative unknown to most of the world, she’s already got quite a following building around her brand right now. I have a feeling that we’ve yet to see what she’s fully capable of as a performer, but at any rate, this is a great way to familiarize yourself with her enticing style of jazz. 

Kevin Huber

Victor PEDRO drops hot new Single

Hip-hop is having a really incredible year, and independent rappers like Nigeria’s Victor PEDRO are the reason why. In PEDRO’s new single “Call Me, I Miss Ya!,” he sets his sound apart from everyone else on the eastern side of the Atlantic by incorporating elements from American R&B as well as Jamaican mento, ska, and melodic rap, yielding one of the most diverse sonic profiles of anyone in the underground today. “Call Me, I Miss Ya!” isn’t his most multilayered material ever to see international release, but it can be said that it’s perhaps his most emotive and direct by a landslide. 

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/victorpedroofficial/ 

 Hybrid tonality is the name of the hip-hop game in 2019, and no one seems to know that better than Victor PEDRO does. As previously stated, his sound is an amalgamation of a lot of worldly influences, and even though it might be hard to cohesively structure a song that includes every stitch of the patchwork comprising his style, he makes it look remarkably easy here. There’s a touch of R&B in his vocal, a little reggae in his bass, and a cosmopolitan rap groove holding all of the intricate pieces together like a superglue that was designed to last forever. PEDRO is still pretty much the new kid on the block for American and British rap aficionados, but he’s grown so much since his debut hit the airwaves all the way back in 2013 (which, for those of you who are as bad with time as I am, was an astounding six years ago now). An exercise in maturity in the style of “Call Me, I Miss Ya!” simply would not have been possible during his initial campaign in the early/mid-2010’s, and I think that most anyone who is familiar with his early work would be inclined to agree with me. 

 The bass isn’t nearly as loud and boisterous as the percussion is in this single, but it doesn’t hurt the harmony in this dirge in the least. In addition to being a killer songwriter and master arranger, PEDRO proves himself a worthwhile harmonist in “Call Me, I Miss Ya!” by cultivating one of the smoothest melodic duets of the spring with his bassline in the track. It’s something that I heard Seattle’s Ronnue do earlier this year in his remix of “Something About U,” but other than him, I don’t know that there’s anyone else with the depth of vocal talent to pull off something as elaborate in tone as this charming example is. I don’t think we need to argue about this one; Victor PEDRO is an artist that R&B, rap and pop fans alike need to be following right now, and he’s giving audiences around the globe something to get turned on by in his most recent studio cut. 

“Call Me, I Miss Ya!” is emotional but sure of itself in the most important of ways, and in today’s cold and calculated pop culture, it’s a rather unique track to come across. I definitely can’t wait to hear more from PEDRO in the future, as he’s yet to disappoint me with his music so far.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/track/106270859

Melissa Pratt