Browsing Tag

London Music

NOBU – Maria Kalashik: Contemporary RnB Brought into a Smouldering Euro Pop Fever

It was about time world music saw a contemporary reinvention; Maria Kalashik stands at the forefront of the monocultural mould-smashing vanguard with her latest single, NOBU. The London-based recording artist and songwriter works at the intersection of contemporary RnB and European pop, and this release makes that creative position feel like an intoxicating provocation.

Eastern flavour and Latin heat create an almost too-hot-to-handle RnB Euro pop hit, with Kalashik’s harmonies simmering through a smouldering summer anthem. Even when the lyrical details dissolve into the fervour of the mix, the soul-sustained volition stays intact through tone, texture and rhythmic pressure. NOBU possesses the kind of vitality that makes you shake off any sense of inhibition as you surrender to the lush complexity of the kinetic production.

Kalashik describes her work through the lens of conscious RnB, centred on self-determination, personal boundaries and inner resilience. That ethos sits beneath the surface of NOBU, where there’s space for confidence to speak through cadence rather than exposition. With over 146,000 combined streams in the past year, listeners across more than 30 countries, and collaborations connected to London studios, Stockholm writing camps and major international producers, Maria Kalashik is refusing to be a fixed point on the RnB map; she’s already global.

NOBU is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘No Distance’ by Crystal G Featuring Jake Doe Is AfroRnB Built for Passion That Refuses to Simmer Down

Crystal G’s cinematic approach to Afrobeat RnB has resulted in another steamy box-office hit with his latest single, No Distance, featuring Jake Doe. Passion pops as much as the rhythm in the sun-soaked production, which epitomises the sound of summer, the chasing of passion, the lust that locks onto a single target and refuses to let go.

There’s so much synergy within No Distance- the way every instrumental pools together until you’re drinking an intoxicating cocktail through your speakers; it is enough to get you hot under the collar in a way you’ll always remember. Warm piano, acoustic guitar and rolling drums give the track its sensual lift, while English and Pidgin move between both voices, turning distance into a friction-filled emotional tug that refuses to simmer down.

Based in London, Crystal G shapes AfroRnB through atmospheric melody, smooth rhythmic textures and the multicultural voltage of the city around him. No Distance deepens that identity with a mid-tempo arrangement built for intimacy, giving Jake Doe space to lock into the chemistry without overcrowding the release. Desire lands as a glossy and dangerously close force. With an official Vevo video following the audio release, Crystal G’s stamp on the Afrobeat RnB scene is as impossible to ignore as it is irreplicable.

No Distance is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Interview: Epic Sensation Unveiled the Vision Behind his Creative Empire Constructed by Bhopal Pride, Hindi Bars, and Kinetic Beats

Epic Sensation is building far beyond a string of singles, carrying his Bhopal roots into London’s cross-cultural music scene through Hindi rap, electronic production, live performance and a fiercely self-managed creative identity. In this interview, he reflects on moving from India to the UK, studying Advanced Music Technology at the University of West London, and learning how sound can pull listeners into a fully immersive experience even across language barriers. He also opens up about the confidence behind I’m Great, the foundation of Epic Sensation Ltd., upcoming clothing merchandise inspired by individuality and Bhopal pride, and Pehel, a project signalling new beginnings, international ambition and a larger world built through music, culture, technology and hope.

You’ve built Epic Sensation across India and the UK, with London now acting as a major creative base. What changed for you when you started moving through the UK music scene?

Moving through the UK music scene opened my eyes to how diverse and collaborative the creative industry can be. Back home (India), I developed my foundation as an artist, producer and entrepreneur, but London challenged me to think globally. Through studying, performing and networking, I found myself surrounded by artists from different cultures and genres. It pushed me to refine my sound, become more intentional with my artistry and approach music not just as a release, but as a long-term creative business. The UK has given me space to experiment, learn and grow while still staying connected to my roots.

Rapping in Hindi while working in an international music environment gives your sound a distinct identity. How have UK and global audiences responded to hearing Hindi language inside hip-hop and electronic production?

The response has been surprisingly very positive. Even when listeners don’t understand a word, they connect with the emotion, rhyme, flow and energy behind the music. I think audiences today are much more open to discovering music beyond language barriers. Hindi allows me to stay authentic and represent where I come from, while the production and musical influences help create a bridge for international listeners. I’ve had people tell me they don’t speak Hindi but still connect with the feeling of the song, and that’s something I find very powerful.

You studied Advanced Music Technology at the University of West London. What did that MA give you beyond technical skill, especially in terms of how you now shape your sound?

The master’s degree at the UWL gave me much more than technical knowledge. It changed the way I think about creativity and sound design. I learned how to approach music from both an artistic and technical perspective, whether through immersive audio, recording techniques or production using new technologies and even theoretical researches. More importantly, it taught me how to experiment, solve creative problems and push ideas further. Today, when I’m producing, I’m not just thinking about the song itself; I’m thinking about the listener’s experience and how every sound contributes to the story, plus how I can glue the listener and invite them into the immersive sonic experience.

I’m Great feels like a statement of self-belief and momentum. What did that release say about where you are mentally and creatively right now?

I’m Great represents confidence built through persistence and no fear of risks. As independent artists, we face challenges constantly, from funding and visibility to balancing creativity with business or even personal life. The song reflects a mindset of continuing to move forward despite obstacles. Creatively, it marks a period where I feel more comfortable embracing who I am as an artist and focusing less on comparisons in this very fast social media lifestyle where you may never know what’s real or not kind of life. It is a reminder to trust the journey and celebrate progress while continuing to grow.

You’re independently managing production, visuals, branding, live strategy, digital growth and artist merchandise. How do you keep the creative side alive while handling all the business machinery around it?

It can definitely be challenging, but I try to see the business side as another creative tool rather than a distraction. Moreover, it is a need of the time for me in my career, where economically I have responsibilities towards family and infact myself. Everything from visuals to branding helps tell the story behind the music. I also make sure to protect time for creating, whether that’s writing lyrics, producing music or developing new ideas. The business supports the art, but the music always comes first. Its like breathing, like it’s a necessity. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I go back to why I started making music in the first place.

Epic Sensation Ltd. feels like a serious long-term move. What made you want to build a company around your artist identity rather than keeping everything purely release-based?

I always viewed Epic Sensation as more than a stage name/artist name. Over the years it evolved into a brand, a creative platform and a vision for the future. Establishing Epic Sensation Ltd. In the UK was about creating a foundation that could support music, content, merchandise, collaborations and future creative projects under one umbrella. It allows me to think long-term and build something sustainable while maintaining ownership and creative independence. I believe, it comes from my elder brother, where he always tells me this “Make sure the foundation is very strong and solid”. So, I think keeping my brother’s advice helps me in keeping the creative as well as business part on point.

Your upcoming clothing merchandise sounds like another extension of the world you’re building. What kind of visual identity or message do you want people to feel when they wear it?

I want the clothing to reflect individuality, confidence and creative freedom. And majorly I want to represent my city (Bhopal). The designs will take inspiration from music, people, places, storytelling and personal growth. For me, merchandise isn’t just about putting a logo on a T-shirt; it’s about creating something people connect with and feel part of. I want people who wear it to feel motivated to express themselves and pursue their own journey. I see myself as a small town music lover who was lucky enough to be able to move 7000 miles away from home and show it to everyone, that I CAN, SO YOU CAN TOO.

With Pehel and more projects on the way, what part of Epic Sensation do you think listeners are only just beginning to understand?

I think listeners are only beginning to see the bigger picture. So far they’ve seen individual songs, performances and singles, but there’s a much larger story connecting everything together. Pehel is an important chapter because it reflects growth, transition and new beginnings. Moving forward, I want people to experience Epic Sensation not just as music, but as a creative universe that combines sound, storytelling, technology, culture, entrepreneurship and most importantly hope.

Stream I’m Great on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Interview by Amelia Vandergast

Gloria – To Be Loved: Old-School RnB Gospel for Romance-Weary Souls

To Be Loved, the latest slow-burning session of old-school RnB from Swedish-British singer-songwriter Gloria, is gospel for the romance weary. Passion shimmers through the minimalist production, where the snares keep their veracity and the harmonies smooth over each note, aiding the overall sense of transcendence within a release that visualises the sublimity of true love with striking clarity.

Gloria clearly has a natural talent for orchestrating sonic worlds from our most visceral sensations. In To Be Loved, that ability glows through restraint; each melodic phrase is placed with intuitive tenderness, amplifying the devotional weight of the single which carries an old-school RnB softness, yet its tenderness feels entirely present, shaped by an artist who understands how intimacy can become its own form of grandeur.

Based in London and creating heartfelt R&B-influenced pop, Gloria Musique is building an ambitious catalogue of 50 songs by the end of 2026. That dedication already feels embedded in To Be Loved, a single that exhibits a songwriter refining her own emotional language with patience, grace, and quiet conviction.

To Be Loved is now available to stream on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Epic Sensation Turned Cinematic Grime into Self-Belief Warfare on I’m Great Featuring Rithvik Andugula

Epic Sensation brought cinematic grime into full-force motion on I’m Great, his latest single featuring Rithvik Andugula, where motivational hip-hop, global influence, and London-bred vindication collide with absolute conviction. Cinematic grime sounds like the ultimate paradox, and maybe it is, but it absolutely pops here, giving the track a scale that feels built for concrete skylines, late-night ambition, and the pressure of proving yourself without asking permission.

There is a garagey veracity to the menacingly monolithic production, one that bites down on rap hits that simply show their teeth. Across the dark and dominant beat, waxing lyrical is taken to a chameleonic new level, adding contagious depth to an energetically dynamic track that exhibits a refusal to find validation in the words and eyes of anyone else.

Originally from India and now based in London, Epic Sensation brings serious technical command to the release, shaped by his Master’s in Advanced Music Technology from the University of West London and sharpened through an international work ethic spanning London, Toronto, Bhoj Music, Nasty Nation, and his own Epic Sensation Ltd. After Hua Mai Chalu and Attraction on Point, I’m Great lands as another declaration from an artist building his sound through ambition, self-belief, and performance-ready force.

I’m Great is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ïgor Gives Boom Bap Nostalgia a Sun-Kissed New Life in Lisboa Na Cabeça

Ïgor unleashed a monster of alt-rap euphoria with Lisboa Na Cabeça, a single that defines the anthemic vivaciousness of his seminal LP, The Curious Case of the Man in the Mirror. It swarms with sun-kissed kinetic rhythm as the independent artist pulls on his Portuguese roots and allows them to blossom in a track that gives hints of boom bap nostalgia a new lease of lust-filled life.

Ïgor has a distinct way of allowing cultural identity breathe through the beat instead of treating it as surface decoration in his discography, ensuring that the melodic rap phrasing glides with ease, while the laid-back, atmospheric production keeps the track suspended in a state of warm propulsion.

There is reflection in the tone, but the dominant feeling is liberation, desire, and movement, all stitched into a release that feels ready to spill from speakers across rooftops, parks, clubs, and long after-midnight car journeys.

Based in London, Ïgor has been building a sound rooted in Portuguese heritage, emotional vulnerability, and lifestyle-rich atmosphere. Through releases such as L.A.W (Love After War) and now Lisboa Na Cabeça, he opens up the wider world of The Curious Case of the Man in the Mirror, a project shaped by self-reflection, relationships, and identity.

It’s a lush pool-party playlist staple from one of the hottest underground architects of urban heat in the UK; festival stages should be screaming for his presence this summer

Lisboa Na Cabeça is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Anni Hung Turned Stillness into Sublime Indie Folk Motion and Raw Yearning in ‘A Piece of Peace’

In a world that celebrates the loudest voices and overlooks the introverted minds that wind around the intricate beauties and tragedies of life, Anni Hung still triumphs in breaking through the noise with her delicate compositions, achieving the seemingly impossible by easing her international fanbase out of the frantic pace of modernity and subduing them in a hypnotised stupor. A Piece of Peace is the perfect introduction to the sublimity of her sound, which embraces stillness, puts it into languidly ornate motion, and moves people to tears in the process.

It’s the kind of song that would stick with you more than the plot if you heard it in a soundtrack. Under the euphonic sublimity of the ambient indie chamber pop instrumentals and Hung’s whispered bilingual vocals, there’s a rawness; a demonstration of what it means to yearn for peace in a relentless world, and find the bitter-sweet sanctuary. The arrangement feels featherlight, but the emotional weight settles deep.

Taiwanese singer-songwriter Anni Hung, now based in London, has built her world around minimal indie folk, warm vocals, and simple acoustic arrangements, with her live presence growing across the UK and Europe, including a sold-out headline show at The Social. That intimacy and care runs through A Piece of Peace, making it feel personal, patient, and profoundly affecting.

A Piece of Peace is now available to stream on all major platforms. For the full meditative experience, stream the official music video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Nico Cann resurrected the reckless romance of 80s rock in his nostalgia-fuelled anthem, Lose My Mind

Nico Cann proved there’s room for more than one iconic Nico in the annals of alternative music with the sweeping choruses and riff-rife radiance of Lose My Mind. Britpop influences, in the vein of the Manic Street Preachers, shine through the augmented intensity of the radio-ready anthem that demands total surrender, while its transatlantic roots hum with the defiant electricity of 80s Americana. It’s a sonic collision of nostalgia and vitality that finds Cann standing at the intersection between youthful longing and adult reflection.

Written in Milan and produced by long-time collaborator Thomas Mitchener, Lose My Mind carries a cinematic sense of romantic disillusionment, as Cann reflects on innocence lost and the ghosts of childhood loves that never quite existed outside imagination. There’s a sense of reaching for something half-remembered and half-invented, a yearning that seeps through every verse until it gives way to a closing riff that hits like a last gasp of catharsis. The track’s energy feels effortless, built on chemistry between instinct and intention, heart and precision.

Born in Milan and now based in London, Nico Cann has spent the past few years shaping his own lane within rock revival. His history of recording at Abbey Road and performing with his band, The Air Traffic, shows both reverence for tradition and a hunger for reinvention. In Lose My Mind, that balance reaches its sharpest focus yet—a reminder that rock’s spirit has been waiting for the right hands to reignite it.

Lose My Mind is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Alice SK constructed a space for quasi-histrionic indie reverie in ‘When You Leave’

There’s an effortless vitality to When You Leave, the latest single from breakthrough singer-songwriter Alice SK, with hints of Johnny Marr’s fretwork in the angular new wave jangle pop guitars. When You Leave revisits the trend of quasi-histrionic lyrically conversational indie pop, giving fans of Kate Nash and Lily Allen a new icon to follow through the pits and falls of their diehard romanticism.

Rather than orchestrating singles with mainstream appeal clouding her mind and creative appeal, Alice SK finds new indie intersections to explore, giving the genre the free spirit of jazz. This can most perceptibly be noted in the untamed nature of the instrumentals, which even throw in Hammond organ notes for eccentric good measure.

While the emotions are firmly rooted in the ache of realism, Alice SK abstracts the listener from the confines of heartache, giving them a space of voracious reverie to escape into. With melodies that seem to frolic rather than progress in a traditional sense, there are no bounds to the catharsis you can prise from this track.

Through her Hollywood Sunset EP, which was released on the 21st of November, Alice SK continues to channel the vocal richness of Joni Mitchell and Ella Fitzgerald, while staying rooted in her own lyrical immediacy. Her EP launch at Signature Brew, Haggerston, on the 27th, no doubt affirmed her place as one of the most exciting voices in the current indie landscape.

When You Leave is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

N4T3 – Fall Apart: Where Alt-Rock Harmonies & UK Hip-Hop Vulnerability Collide

With N4T3 and Meyrick De La Fuente joining forces on Fall Apart, the hottest alt-hip-hop collab of the summer arrived fully loaded to shatter any illusion that UK-based indie luminaries can’t reach the emotional intensity once reserved for the Linkin Park era.

The way the emotion breaks through the melodicism between the fiery rap verses as the alt-rock harmonies stretch into tonal transcendence while reaching for sanity with shaky hands, it’s impossible not to feel every stitch fall away from composure.

The production is a masterclass in how lo-fi aesthetics can help rather than hinder, especially when a track is as intimate, raw and bleeding as Fall Apart. Here, you can hear the melancholy cascade across a track that swerves the cliché of swagger and lands close to the bone with every line delivered.

Born in South East London and raised in Kent, N4T3 is an emotionally driven genre-hopper who fuses raw honesty with razor-sharp lyricism. Meyrick De La Fuente’s presence only amplifies the impact, further cementing Fall Apart as a cataclysmic moment for UK alt-hip-hop. If there’s a crown gathering dust for the ultimate UK sad boy of hip-hop, N4T3 more than earned it here.

Fall Apart is now available on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast