Some beautiful hip-hop, R&B, and funk is in our midst this week, plus local fave Madeline Kenney delivers more wildcard magic, boogified shuffle from Ubiquity Records, and Andy Shauf returns with warm Foxwarren. It’s Under The Stars, people. Spend some time with us…
WILD GLORIOSA, GROWING PAINS
The traditional Aboriginal name of Melbourne is Naarm. It would seem that with the release of the five-song EP Growing Pains, Wild Gloriosa a.k.a. Gloria Ragesh is the next creative to put Naarm on the global map. It’s one thing to sing, write, and compose transfixing R&B; it’s a whole other realm to hold space like Wild Gloriosa does in these slow, enraptured grooves, leaving a mark, a lasting impression between neo soul and jazz. The release is like the sun keeping golden hour extended just a bit longer… you get the point.
This 24-year-old sings about depression, uplifting community and better days with a veteran’s resolve. Nothing is ever rushed, every note and idea takes it’s own time to find its proper direction and resolution.
With uplifting performances at Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Queenscliff Music Festival, and having recently won the 2024 Music Victoria Diaspora award, Wild Gloriosa is a name and talent soon to be seen traveling the world over.
Purchase here.
FLYING MOJITO BROS, JUST PASSING THROUGH (UBIQUITY RECORDS)
Forget that it’s on popular label Desert Disco. There is a track here, a collaboration between the famed Flying Mojito Brothers and the vocalist Pearl Charles, who known for her interpretations of the sun-drenched sound of the ’60s and ’70s and also cosmic country to boot. It is just a portal to the pool, the bar, and wherever you need refreshment, so that you can keep this little boogiefied shuffle going.
It’s laden with hooks, guitar riffs that land on some interpretation of four on the floor business, and just a tinge of acid-fried atmosphere to keep the purview dry and oh-so-dusty.
Yeah, I guess now I can see how disco so drained out, but still so quirkified would be on rotation in Twentynine Palms, California.
Stay hydrated and pick it up here.
MADELINE KENNEY
I think it was Madeline Kenney’s video for “Sucker,” shot at Lois The Pie Queen’s restaurant in Oakland, that immediately got my attention. I had known about her collaborations with Chaz Bear (Toro y Moi), and the fact that she’s a beautiful wildcard. Meaning, you never know which direction her production will go, project to project.
That ability to move with or against the wind is an asset. In “Sucker,” the listener is brought into a scenario amid wispily hued arrangements, and within Kenney’s new single “All I Need,” there is tenderness crossed up with experimental noodling of percussion and arrangements. That’s her, never afraid of the new, of making that twist, that little tweak, her type of beautiful.
Kenney’s new album Kiss from the Balcony was created in collaboration with Ben Sloan and Stephen Patota, having emerged from a two week-long studio session in Oakland. It will be available in July.
Pre-order here.
YOUR GRANDPARENTS, “THE DIAL” (drink sum wtr)
The words “The way life can go/don’t waste your time” waft into the beginning of their manifesto, a declaration of being, and some of the smoothest R&B meets hip-hop connections in a minute. Cole Thompson, DaCosta, and Jean Carter, a.k.a. Your Grandparents, make tranquil and trippy urban music that can feed everyone. There is veteran musicality, a wisdom put into ‘dem bars, and most importantly, this trio thinks the highest of their listeners. Energy flows in both directions, people, and it truly cascades down on this debut from a young and talented bunch of creatives who seem as though they’ve held nothing back.
Tap in here.
FOXWARREN, “YVONNE”2 (ANTI-)
Someplace between Nick Drake’s docility and pristine ’70s AOR environs, Andy Shauf has become a reliable singer-songwriter who delivers some of the most unreliable storyteller characters in songs—that we just adore. It’s impossible to get enough of these small-town heroes and cynics working their way through rudimentary challenges. In Shauf’s hands, their observations are delivered with unique, warbled glory. Shauf’s Saskatchewan accent guides these high-sung, stirring vocal harmonies down a path of mellow, freaky folk cleverness.
He’s rejoined with his Canadian quintet Foxwarren, and track “Yvonne” operates with a subtle tenderness that still celebrates a ’70s southern California (somehow?) walkabout groove. Your “short-fiction folk” appetite is whetted once again.
Pre-order here.
MONONEON, “BEYONCÉ” (COLOR RED)
AT YOSHI’S OAKLAND, JUNE 24 AND 25
Just to put it on front street… Dywane Thomas Jr., a.k.a. MonoNeon, the American bassist and experimental musician from Memphis, Tennessee, looks like young George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Snoop Dogg. Now that seems like a lot of weight to put on one person, a big ole slab of funk for one pair of shoulders… until you hear “BEYONCE,” the third single from his upcoming project. It makes you understand why Prince worked with this musician just before the Purple One passed.
It’s the tone, the attitude, the keyboard highlights, that rolling funk that makes you believe in Mononeon, who has also collaborated with Mac Miller, Ne-Yo, Sudan Archives, and Georgia Anne Muldrow. It’s clear that he has that natural ability and has studied all that came before him—including his father, a Memphis legend who played for years with the legendary Bar-Kays, Pops Staples, Rufus Thomas, and others.
For a quick primer, get lost in a YouTube K-hole following all Mononeon’s interesting, bizarre bass videos, which feature otherworldly neon ski outfits. Glad to see he’s keeping the funk alive with that attention-grabbing outer visual appeal. He’ll be touring Yoshi’s in Oakland on June 24 and 25 and then opening for Primus later in the summer.
Pre-order here. Yoshi’s tickets here.
YAYA BEY, DO IT AFRAID (drink sum wtr)
If it’s warm weather time, it’s truly the right time for another Yaya Bey release. Do It Afraid, the follow-up to Ten Fold, an upcoming release that already has three different singles and music videos, assures us that no dust has settled on this creative’s output. Bey’s furtive pool of inventiveness—as made visible via a collaboration with Butcher Brown—seems to be well intact and popping on this project.
Be sure to keep in mind a performance at The Independent on September 26.
Pre-order Do It Afraid here. Tickets to The Independent here.
