Emmy-nominated singer/songwriter Axel Mansoor has lived in five countries across four continents but currently calls Los Angeles home. His music features themes of transformation and self-love, as well as an underlying message that one need not rely on others to feel validated.
Authentic, bold, and honest, “Wasted My Love” marked a vibrant 2017 debut for Mansoor. The single reached #5 on Spotify’s US Viral 50 chart, received radio play from Jason Kramer of KCRW, and garnered praise from several influential music blogs. Follow up singles included “Out of My Head” and “Talk To Me”, the former of which was a Hype Machine #1 and the latter of which was accompanied by an innovative vertical music video premiered by BuzzFeed on Snapchat to over 7 million viewers.
In 2018, Axel was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in the category of Best Original Song in a Drama for his work on ABC’s General Hospital. He also released his debut EP “Somerset”, which consists of five self-produced stripped-down acoustic tracks. So far in 2019, Axel has shared his latest single “The Other Side” and celebrated the release with a series of shows in New York, including a performance at the Billboard Lounge at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. His latest single “Busy” arrived in April with a headline show at the esteemed Moroccan Lounge. Song by song, Axel is showing listeners that it’s okay to make genuine and emotion-driven music without having to slap a label on it.
Los Angeles, electronic duo, Elephant Heart new single, “Lenguas” is out now and the music video is featured exclusively on Billboard. The duo says, “The songs have no actual words it’s all just spirit language. We hope that it can tap into spirit and be your inner warrior song. A good cry or a loud scream can say a lot of words when no words are spoken. Honestly just looking into someone’s eyes with no words can say a million words. That’s kinda what we were doing with this song. It’s the inner warrior inside me crying out. English isn’t her first language.”
Call it musical serendipity. Call it spiritual harmony. Call it human oneness. However you label it, there’s a certain aura to Elephant Heart, Los Angeles’s duo who are on a mission to spread universal love and positivity through their genre-bending music and uplifting message.
Officially formed in 2016, Elephant Heart is a world electronic collective started by married couple Jason and Victoria Evigan. Rooted in their shared passion for international travels, world beats and global cultures, as well as their nonprofit organization Picture This, founded in 2014, Elephant Heart creates genre-bending music that pulls multicultural influences from far and wide. A collaborative creative unit, Elephant Heart combines the studio prowess of Jason, an award-winning singer/songwriter/producer who’s worked with Madonna, Maroon 5, David Guetta, RÜFÜS DU SOL, ZHU and Ellie Goulding, and Victoria, who serves as the group’s vocalist, songwriter, lyricist and producer.
Elephant Heart first broke out with their debut double-single “HIYA” and “WARFARE,” released in June 2018 on their independent imprint, Chumba Music. An inspiring love song about truth, “HIYA” is an uplifting “worship chant” featuring hypnotizing vocals, bright melodies and an empowering chorus. A dark yet bouncy East-meets-West fusion, “WARFARE” blends electronic components with world bass elements and exotic percussions, while addressing the issues of mental illness and the global suicide epidemic in its context.
Love is at the core of everything to do with Elephant Heart. It’s what’s driven Jason and Victoria to create an ever-evolving project aimed at promoting global awareness and enacting positive change in the world we all share. What once started as a dream between two partners today stands as a global community of like-minded individuals creating music, visual art, global collaborations and impact projects that celebrate creativity for the sake of creativity. And with new music in tow, the couple now enters the next chapter in the ongoing Elephant Heart story with full hearts and open minds.
“Lenguas” is the first of many upcoming releases in 2019. The new track, alongside “HIYA” and “WARFARE” will be featured on the upcoming Elephant Heart debut album.
“When vulnerable and toying with that fear of rejection in love, we feel alive. Our new track “Alive” is about a relationship between two people who are constantly going back and forth through good and bad seasons. No matter what, through thick and thin, they always end up together. We wrote the song in our home studio, just jamming chords and melody ideas together. Originally, it was a song we had kept on the side burner and after a few months, we revisited it with a new hook on the original progression. It was so fun watching the song blossom into more than we could’ve imagined it would”.—HOFFEY
Cool waves, good music & fun times on a warm California day. That’s the idea behind Los Angeles based dirty beach-pop band Tidal Babes. Singer Lyndsi Austin and songwriter/producer Chris Qualls (Concord Music Publishing/Cutcraft Music Group) were attending a concert in Hollywood when they started discussing a potential new project together. Both grew up playing in rock bands but had switched over to making pop music for years. That night, inspired by the rock show they had just seen (and a little bit of whiskey), the two began brainstorming the foundation for a new band that combined all the things they loved about Southern California and it’s musical history; Surf rock guitars; The energy of Orange County punk rock; Beach Boys harmonies; The sassiness of the east LA socialites and fashionistas; Cruising down Sunset Boulevard.
Both were excited about the possibilities and decided to head back to Echo Park for a late night songwriting session at Qualls’ studio. When they got in to the studio, Qualls pitched an idea that ended up becoming the core concept behind the Tidal Babes songwriting process: writing each song in under an hour. As a professional songwriter, Qualls spends most of his time overanalyzing every detail of the pop songs he works on daily – so instead, he wanted to capture the energy, fun and immediacy for this project. Austin was open to the idea and loved that it would keep everything fun and light. The two then spent the next 45 minutes writing the song “Do You Wanna Come Over?”
The next morning Qualls sent the demo over to drummer Danny DeLeon of seminal LA dance punk band Moving Units. DeLeon loved the track & band concept and was excited to play drums for the group, and Tidal Babes was officially born. Their debut EP titled OMG will be released via Nevado Music.
California/K-rock band, FYKE is thrilled to announce their new album, Disorder, will be released on July 26th via Steel Wool Entertainment, Universal Music Group International and Empire Records. To celebrate they have released the first single, “Antisocial” along with the music video that is featured exclusively on PopMatters. The video was directed by Brad Wong.
Fyke’s Enik Lin explains, “’Antisocial’ is about living with social anxiety disorder due to a past traumatic experience or PTSD. We’re hoping that by highlighting and talking about these issues through our music, that we can begin a “much needed” dialogue that needs to be had regarding mental health awareness.”
Billboard premiered the band’s recent collaboration with Amber Liu “Get Myself,” calling the song and video “a moving synth-pop production” to “emphasize self-love” saying “FYKE vocalist Enik Lin and Amber trade off fluttery vocal notes as they detail an unwillingness to change in the face of identity confusion.” The video has already garnered over 370,000 YouTube views.
In support of the new album the band will be hitting the road in August as support to Kevin Woo and J/Mes. Tour dates and venues to be announced shortly.
FYKE is a Los Angeles-based rock band comprised of members Enik Lin (vocals), Steven Delman (guitar), Justin Wright (guitar), Mikee Fabella (bass/vocals), and Gerard Christian (drums). The group debuted with their first official single “Favorite Mistake” on February 24, 2017 through Universal Music Group International to world-wide acclaim and was featured on several influential playlists including the “Best of the Week,” Apple Music (China) and “TOP TEN NEW MUSIC” Playlist on Spotify (China). Their music has primarily fuses “Pop” with heavy electronic elements and high energy rock. Some of their material may also be described as metalcore/post-hardcore-ish. The band has stated that their sole purpose of existence is to use their music to spread positivity and awareness to current problematic social issues.
Eclectic synth rock band Daniel Ellsworth and The Great Lakes have released their new single “Way Your Are” (Ft. Ruby Amanfu).” The band says, “Way You Are (ft. Ruby Amanfu)” is the beginning of a new chapter for us. All the new songs we’ll release this year are completely self-recorded (with an assist from Kyle Andrews on this one) and self-produced. With three of us now, we’re shifting how we write, how we record, and feeling more free than we ever have to experiment with what those processes look like. I moved out to Los Angeles from Nashville a couple of months ago for a change of pace and to try and bring some new outside influences into our music. We’re trying to be less precious with songs and just put them out into the world as we have them for people to hear. “Way You Are” features our dear friend Ruby Amanfu who kindly lent us her beautiful voice. She is one of my favorite vocalists and people in the whole world – it’s a real treat to have her on this recording. “Way You Are” is a song about coping with the pain of unrequited love. It’s about being treated badly but still loving the other person as much as you try not to.”
With the band now splitting time between Nashville, Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio – DE+TGL are taking things into their own hands. Between new sounds and new cities, this year, will see the release of a handful of brand new self-produced singles.
Cody Lovaas has simple and confessional lyrics in soulful vocals, melodic acoustic performances, and smooth pop production. Lovaas plays with the boundaries of pop, acoustic, and electronic music, crafting a variant that retains pop’s effortless melodies while exchanging the genre’s cosmetic compositions for sincere and wistful love stories.
Lovaas’s records have premiered on Billboard, Idolator, Culture Collide, Ones to Watch and We Found New Music just to name a few. In 2017, he released his debut single, “Lie,” which garnered over 5MM plays and appeared on Spotify’s Chill Vibes and Pop Chillout playlists. The following year, he dropped “Find,” a single produced with artists Shallou and Kasbo that reached 16MM streams. His most recent single, “Prove It,” earned 3MM streams and a place on Starbuck’s Coffeehouse playlist. The releases, added to in-store playlists across thirty-three major retail chains internationally, propelled him into video sessions with iHeart/Z100, Daytrotter and PopDust.
Lovaas was fourteen and performing at an intimate open mic in his beachside hometown of Carlsbad, CA, when he caught the attention of Jason Mraz, who promptly began to mentor him and develop him as his protégé. Lovaas quickly emerged as an intuitive and prolific songwriter. Throughout his teenage years, he found his way up the coast and into studio sessions in Los Angeles. By writing hundreds of songs before the age of twenty, Lovaas cultivated an honest and impressionistic style. Today, his writing draws on a youth spent falling in and out of love in a small beach town and demonstrates the restraint and maturity of a seasoned artist.
He just released his debut EP, Honestly on May 31st. The first single “Talk Slow” that was added to over 27 New Music Friday Playlists and has over 450,000 streams in less than a month. He is on tour as well. Now he releasing his music video for the track “Love No More”.
Alt-Pop band,Saint Slumber new single“Sleeptalk”is out now and featuredonAtwood Magazine. “Sleeptalk” is the second single off their new EP and last chapter of their trilogy,YOUTH//3, to be released August 16th. YOUTH//3 will continue to tell the trilogy’s story of the trials, tribulations, growth and celebrations of the youth coming into their own The EP also features the first single “Mantra” out now as well.
The band says, “Sleeptalk’ is a song that tries to capture the sensation of dreaming about someone you haven’t seen in a long time: The sense of nostalgia, the tension between relief and sadness, that dreamy haze you feel as you try to make sense of it all,” Saint Slumber tell Atwood Magazine. “We wanted to create a musical atmosphere that replicated that place between being awake and asleep: We took the guitar parts of the song and processed them through heavy chorus and VHS-esque tape corruption, which gives the effect of a dreamy memory from childhood. We love what the song turned into, and we hope that people will resonate with the complex and bittersweet sensations that we tried to replicate.”
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