Caro

(coldsummers)

As soft as a butterfly’s touch in both instrumentation and vocal performance, the most easy listening yet endlessly re-playable.

While most 'Jazz Rap' consists of conventional rapping over instrumentals with jazz elements, The Mocking Stars truly feels more jazz than rap. It regularly passes up rigid verse-chorus-verse-chorus structures in favour of a stream of never-ending free-flowing rhymes and smooth jazz which I wish could last forever longer.

The marriage between ... read more

Very understated and low-key compared to SIMBI (which I really need to give a relisten), but still manages to pack the same emotional punch.

The best of Lotus has Simz spilling her heart over gorgeous jazzy instrumentation with punchy drums and perfect string sections, like on Only and Lonely which are obvious standouts in my eyes. Blood has the most creative concept I’ve heard in a rap song this year, and shows her songwriting capabilities better than any song since Introvert

Young and ... read more

Listening to PRODUCT, you will hear sounds you never even knew your headphones could produce

SOPHIE was obsessed with morphing and bending digital synths to her will, creating the most unique and interesting tones I’ve ever heard in electronic music. Some sound like popping bubbles, some sound like flicking bells, and some I literally couldn’t be able to describe with words if I tried

This focus on realising technology’s full potential to create unnatural sounds that ... read more

For me, Hell Hath No Fury is somehow teetering right on the edge of being unrealised potential and minimalist rap perfection - but it’s winning me over.

Hello New World combines a gorgeously textured mist of bassy synths and sharp drums to introduce a near-perfect beat, but then Pharrell jumps on with horrible vocals and a nursery-rhyme ass hook. Why?

Chinese New Year is ugly as sin - a beat so messy and unconventional that the feature sounds completely lost trying to flow on it. Pusha ... read more