Neill Frazer
Macklemore – “SORRY” (feat. Livingston): This song is taken from Macklemore’s brand new album ‘Ben’. I got to say it’s my favourite off the album, and features brilliant production and songwriting. With writing credits from both Drake Livingston and Sasha Sloan it’s quite easy to see how this is a standout track. The song is produced by Budo, an early collaborator of Macklemore’s.
21 Savage & Drake – “Her Loss”: This is a remix that is a great collaboration and showcase of 21 Savage and Drake. Be sure to checkout their album together entitled ‘Her Loss’, but until then enjoy this hot remix!
X Ambassadors – “Wasteland”: Taken from the bands 2019 album ‘Orion’, this has to be the standout song for me. For anyone that knows me they know I love the X Ambassadors. The song was written and produced by the band. Be sure to listen to this and many more by X Ambassadors.
Luca Fogale – “Every Colour”: “Amongst all these villains, I will be your friend,” Luca Fogale sang on his 2016 single “Villains,” and all these years later, he’s stayed true to that mission. It’s fitting that the debut album where that song originated was called Safety, because that’s always been Luca’s mission in music: to provide comfort and sanctuary, not just from the cruel world that can so often bring us down, but from the dark thoughts and messy feelings that can plague us in our most insecure moments. Raised on a steady diet of Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell, the singer/songwriter from Burnaby, British Columbia possesses a voice that seems soft and gentle on the surface, but cuts deep to reveal hidden truths and suppressed emotions. “I grew up in not the most expressive family,” Luca reflects, “and we were conservative both in the way that we interacted with each other and the way we all bottled things up.” He’s spent his musical career making up for lost time, creating songs that aren’t afraid to be tender, vulnerable, and brutally honest.
With Safety, we were introduced to a songwriter with a fine-tuned ear for warm, wool-sweater melodies, richly rendered narratives, and intimate autumnal ambiance, like Jeff Buckley timewarped into Bon Iver’s wood cabin. That album—and its gospel-gilded 2017 follow-up single “I Don’t Want to Lose You”—pegged Luca as an indie-folk phenom on the rise, with streaming stats well into the seven figures. But his 2020 follow-up, Nothing Is Lost, revealed there was a whole lot more to Luca than prettily played serenades on acoustic guitar and piano. Through a broader palette of synth-washed atmospheres, orchestral flourishes, and lush ‘70s soft-rock arrangements, the album sees Luca graduate from the proverbial coffeehouse to the concert hall, recasting his private conversations as cinematic set pieces.
However, his musical vision expands, Luca’s songwriting keeps drilling down into the deepest corners of his soul, as he reckons with crises both spiritual and existential in search of inner peace and redempetion. But “Something I’ve really struggled with my entire life is feeling worthy and purposeful and that my life has value,” Luca admits. “A lot of these songs are meditations and reminders to myself of how I want to live my life: the ways in which I want to think about myself and think about the people in my life, and how I want to be seen. I’m still learning about what sort of music I want to make and what kind of artist I want to be. Obviously, it’s a lifelong process.”
Rosa Linn – “Snap”: “Snap” is a song by Armenian singer Rosa Linn, the song was written and composed by Linn, with Larzz Principato, Allie Crystal, Kinetics, Courtney Harrell, and Tamar Kaprelian. The song represented Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy.
RY X – “HOWLING” and RY X – “Shortline”: Ry Cuming is better known by his stage name RY X. For Aussies everywhere he is an Australian singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the first artist signed to the Stockholm-based label Dumont Dumont. RY X’s music is just beautiful and captivating and these songs are a great introduction to the artist.
Email: neill@outloudculture.com
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