Browsing Tag

Funk Pop

Airban Jee Soaked the Soul of Disco in Retro Pop Gold with ‘Are We Gonna’

Posted on 28 April 2025
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=CXuEg-fVvUo&si=hVCae7KRJQXqhecp

Are We Gonna by the internationally notorious chart topper, Airban Jee licks retro pop with swathes of funk, giving the glow of a disco ball lighting above a gyrating dancefloor. The serotonin flows as easily as the Nile Rodgers-esque staccato guitar rhythms in the melodious rapture of the track that lifts as much as it hits the sweet spot tucked away in your soul. With a voice that reaches the pinnacle of euphony through infectious charisma, Are We Gonna is an earworm you’ll want to nurture forever.

Known for rewriting the rules of pop, urban, and R&B composition, Airban Jee’s discography is a testament to his endless creative evolution. From his early start at twelve with an electronic keyboard to multiple chart-topping singles and collaborations with heavyweight producers like Simon Cohen and Steve Peach, his career has been a masterclass in soulful, lyrical expression. With accolades including Songwriter of the Year awards, multiple #1s on the World Independent Music Charts, and extensive commercial radio airplay, he’s become a driving force on the global stage.

Following successes with tracks like Will Above My Wish and You On My Side, Are We Gonna continues the momentum, proving that when it comes to creating timeless anthems, Airban Jee knows exactly how to hit the visceral marks.

Are We Gonna is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Keli Woods’ ‘Around the Sun’: An Alt-Pop Anthem Illuminating Life’s Luminous Transience

Posted on 6 April 2025

Keli Woods’ latest single, Around the Sun, masterfully plunges listeners into vivid visualisations of its emotive thematic depths. Bathed in tonal warmth from the opening rays emanating from acoustic guitar strings and magnetically arresting vocals, the song immediately invites you into its temperate bliss. As the track progresses, synths scintillate grooves and beats as a funk fusion is dripped into the soul-driven earworm,  further textured by folk-esque instrumentation, amplifying Woods’ storytelling chops.

Possessing a dance-worthy chorus balanced by verses that encourage introspection, Around the Sun leaves little unfulfilled. By the outro, the track becomes a celebration, fortifying our gratitude for the fleeting sands of time and our shared human existence.

Woods, a UK-based multi-instrumentalist and former monk, distils his diverse experiences—ranging from big band swing and Vedic kirtan to musical theatre—into profoundly soulful compositions. Once poised for West End stardom at just 11 and leading a teenage jazz band touring Swansea’s streets in their whimsical ‘Jazz Ambulance’, Woods stepped away from music to seek deeper meaning through monastic life. Returning with renewed purpose, he now harnesses music as a conduit for philosophical exploration, crafting lyrical narratives that confront life’s significant questions with fearless authenticity.

With Around the Sun, Keli Woods has delivered a luminous alt-pop anthem—a reminder of our innate desire to savour existence.

Around the Sun is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Francesca Pichierri’s ‘Amen’ Strikes Alt-Pop Gold with a Groove-Soaked Rebuke

Posted on 25 March 2025

Francesca Pichierri never lets sentimentality get in the way of precision. With ‘Amen’, her fifth single and a pivotal chapter in her concept album Cellule Stronze, she lays a satirical yet razor-sharp lens on cancer ghosting—the social retreat of those who disappear when illness walks into the room. Rather than wallowing in the emotional wreckage, she chooses to let irony march straight to the dancefloor.

Musically, Amen firmly implants alt into pop. Retro-futurist synth lines and swathes of synthesised bass bring the funk, summoning a sound reminiscent of Depeche Mode warped through the lens of South American disco and gospel. But it’s Pichierri’s performance that overrides the energy of the release. Her vocal lines carry a seraphic sanctity, acting as a vocal exorcism of all the shallow well-wishers and their hollow “thoughts and prayers”.

You plug into Amen—not the other way around. It strips you of autonomy with its animatronic pull, transposing darkness into an earworm of euphoria. The lyrical sting doesn’t get lost in the groove. Instead, it’s accentuated by it. Her vocal delivery pivots from soulful sincerity to smirking irony with a deftness that makes every line land harder. It’s funk with bite. Gospel with gall. Dance music with a grudge.

With Amen, Pichierri soundtracks the uncomfortable silence left by those who recoil from pain—and she sets it to a beat they can’t ignore.

Amen is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud and Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast.

‘Just Can’t Take It’: A Heartbreak Antidote Drenched in Disco Grooves

Posted on 4 February 2025

 Ray Ramon and Elisha Solomon turned heartache into a high-energy anthem with Just Can’t Take It, a track that transcends the power ballad formula and ventures into uncharted sonic territory with its off-the-scale energy.

The Nigerian-born Australian artist and his soulful collaborator deliver an emotional tug-of-war that fuses euphoric house beats, sleek disco grooves, and funk-laden guitar chops, crafting an achingly electrifying dance-pop storm

Set against the narrative of a relationship on the verge of collapse, Just Can’t Take It juxtaposes visceral pain with a liberating dancefloor energy. The dualistic vocals amplify the emotional weight, offering a striking dialogue of conflict and longing. Solomon’s soulful tone soars alongside Ramon’s impassioned delivery, creating a chemistry that ignites the hit.

With piercing pop hooks and climactic crescendos, the track beckons listeners to lose their heads on the dancefloor while processing the raw realities of love on the brink. It’s a bittersweet triumph, perfectly balanced between introspection and escapism

Ramon, who has carved a reputation as a genre-blending powerhouse since relocating to Australia in 2002, continues to showcase his artistry with this release. Known for his work across dance-pop and R&B, and celebrated with a string of international accolades, Ramon proves once again why he’s a mainstay in contemporary music.

Just Can’t Take It was officially released on January 24th; stream the single on all major platforms, including Spotify, now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Get into the groove with Ryan Alexander’s funk-chopped disco pop earworm, Stay the Night

Posted on 31 July 2024

Ryan Alexander’s latest single, Stay the Night, featuring pop vocalist Michael, is more disco than a disco ball with its funk chops which cut through the kinetic grooves to ignite dancefloors and send sparks of serotonin flooding through the psyche of anyone who encounters this synthesis of sonic nostalgia and salaciously amplified contemporary innovation.

The hit mainlines the guitar rhythms of Nile Rodgers with the beats of Daft Punk, while the infectiously euphoric pop vocals from Michael turn up the heat in this magnetic earworm, resulting in a track that showcases the immense potential of this independent producer’s talents.

Although Alexander is currently reverberating through the underground, it is only a matter of time before he breaks major ground and storms the mainstream with his flair for expansively fusionistic songwriting and producing.

Hailing from Glasgow, Ryan Alexander’s passion for music is evident in every beat of his rapidly growing discography, which is picking up major traction through his local performances in October Café and other revered venues around his hometown. There’s no doubt that a big break is around the corner.

Stay the Night was officially released on July 22; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Get into the vibe-heavy groove of Jboz’s Cali pop hit, California

Posted on 27 July 2024

Cali pop has an irreplicable sonic flavour and after Jboz debuted his latest single, California, the geographical genre became immensely sweeter. With his vibe-driven approach to production, the earworm fills the soul as much as it commands the senses.

California is a flood of feel-good fervour which ripples through the funk-heightened, bass-heavy electro-pop beats which provide the perfect soundtrack to sun-kissed hedonic escapades. The luxuriantly paced release cuts across the contemporary curve, propelled by the San Diego-hailing singer-songwriter’s mellow with iconic style vocal lines that cruise across the hip-hop-adjacent beats.

In just a few days since its release, California has shot to the top of Jboz’s list of biggest hits which are on repeat for his 7.5k monthly Spotify listeners who know that following Jboz invites them into so much more than a fandom; they become a part of his community, knitted together with his profound love and connection to his followers.

California arrived on the airwaves on July 19; stream the single on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jeffrey A. Meyer became the superlative savant of soul with his reggae-rock hit, L.O.V.E., featuring G. Love & Special Sauce

Posted on 11 June 2024

By merging talents with G. Love & Special Sauce, best known for his single, Rainbow, created in collaboration with the soulful one and only, Jack Johnson, the accomplished fusionist, Jeffrey A. Meyer, orchestrated the ultimate source of sonic serotonin with his funk-spliced, pop-hooked and reggae-wrapped roots rock hit, L.O.V.E.

The vibe-heavy sun-bleached hit keeps you ensnared with every chameleonic shift as Jeffrey A. Meyer exhibits his dynamic vocal talent and delivers everything from funked-up soul to evidence of his command over rhythm in the revved-up with rapture rap verses.

The North Dakota-born, Cali-based artist’s creative ambition with L.O.V.E paid off in spades; you can’t help but catch the self-love fever and forge a spiritual connection to the euphonically rugged in all the right places single that proves you’re never outside of love if you project adulation inwards.

Between the wind in the harmonica blows, the staccato rhythms pulsing through vintage tubes and the delicious grooves, L.O.V.E is as authentic as euphoric earworms come; each instrumental vividly paints the radiance of the track’s emotional underpinnings.

With more fresh, feel-good, funky jams ready to drop through Jeffrey A. Meyer’s sophomore album in 2024, there has never been a better time to affix the orchestrator of tonal transcendence to your radar.

L.O.V.E. was officially released on May 24; stream the single on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Candy Rush debuted with her quirky pop revelation, Don’t Even Wanna Know

Posted on 5 June 2024

Don’t Even Wanna Know is the satirically sweet quirky pop debut from the Romanian London-based artist, songwriter and producer, Candy Rush (Elena Ilie). Play it loud and amplify the voice of this generation that is becoming increasingly tired of plastic pop protagonists who shirk autonomy while rattling a begging bowl for commercial success.

The debut is stylistically saccharine enough to implant a voracious sweet tooth in anyone who swims in its honeyed tides of the single which allows idiosyncrasy and autonomy to ebb and flow throughout the avant-garde mix of alt-pop, neo-jazz, funk and soul.

“It feels like an infection to deal with your perfection” is just one of the introspectively enlightening lyrics which embody the lyricist’s ability to move far past the tired tropes and deliver lines that catch you off-guard with the resonant obscurity. Her playful approach to vocal arrangement and unorthodox grooves resulted in a ground-breaking debut which embodied her desire to exhibit the quirks and contradictions of modern life.

With the accessibility of the proverbial girl next door and a talent that could rival HONEYMOAN, Candy Rush will prove to be a force to be reckoned with as she rises up from the alt-pop underground.

Don’t Even Wanna Know was officially released on May 24; stream the single on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

NASRUS has unleashed their fearlessly unfiltered funked-up debut, Neurotic Goddess

Posted on 27 May 2024

The pop/R&B duo NASRUS, comprised of Grammy-nominated artist Shawn Rivera and acclaimed singer-songwriter Norm Adams, exhibited a testament to their fearlessly unfiltered lyrical approach by unleashing their genre-fluid debut single, Neurotic Goddess,

Eschewing the typical ilk of funked-up, synth-laden hits, Neurotic Goddess dives deep into the psyche of the kind of narcissistic nightmare that you’d hope to only encounter in your subconscious and not the streets.

The audaciously infectious anthem leaves over-explored female archetypes behind, opting instead to explore the chaotic magnetism of neurotic femme fatales. The playful, devil-may-care narrative spills swathes of catharsis for anyone who has ever tangled with such a personality, providing a vindicating outlet for their pain.

The funk guitar chops against the rhythmically compelling beats, 90s aesthetics and synth-pop melodies paired with the augmented dualling vocals positioned NASRUS as one of the hottest duos since Daft Punk brought the funk.

Stream Neurotic Goddess on Spotify now and let NASRUS take you on a wild ride through the depths of neurotic euphoria.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

London’s Forsylver became indie royalty with their latest release, Promethazine Queen

Posted on 3 May 2024

Launched to a capacity crowd at 93 Feet East in Shoreditch, the latest single, Promethazine Queen, from London’s hottest breakthrough indie outfit, Forsylver, is the perfect introduction to the expansively influenced outfit who have hit the ground running straight out of the gate.

With a vocal style that shifts between invokes the sticky-sweet euphonic magnetism of The Feeling harmonising atop the flares of funk in the eclectic indie-pop-rock tapestry to Arctic Monkeys-reminiscent cutting commentaries Forsylver’s distinctive style emboldens the sincerity within Promethazine Queen. From the Daft Punk-esque riot of a middle eight to the jangle pop guitars to the complex time signatures in the rhythm section, Promethazine Queen is a perfect circle of expression and innovation.

Instead of following trends, the fourpiece, fronted by Joe Ewer with Will Farrow carving out the funk-pop guitar chops, Alex McKenzie feeding the rhythms on bass and Shunya Matsumoto giving the percussion a Radiohead-art-rock flair, are etching their innovation into the tapestry of the future of indie.

Forsylver may have only been on the scene since late 2023, but they’re already an unreckonable force. With plenty more planned for 2024, they should be the epicentre of every indie fan’s radar.

Promethazine Queen was officially released on May 3rd; stream the single on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast