Lava La Rue is a 20-year-old Londoner who does it all. She founded underground DIY arts collective NiNE8 when she was a teenager with some of her friends, and they have built a creative community that encompasses clothing, visual art, and music.
Her debut EP Letra was released last year, and it’s a richly textured, thoughtful mixture of woozy hip-hop and R&B. Rapping and singing over warm, often funky beats, the world Letra creates is soothing, but listen carefully and she’s tackling important issues ranging from systematic racism to femme representation in hip-hop.
Inspired by unapologetic artists like Erykah Badu, Bahamadia, and Three 6 Mafia’s Gangsta Boo, Lava La Rue is writing her own story in London, building a movement in the most sustainable way possible—from the ground up. This year she has already unveiled two new songs.
Natasha Khan – the one-woman dream-pop vehicle better known as Bat for Lashes – has spent a decade crafting a musical persona that defies easy categorisation. But in her personal life, much of that time has been spent grappling with questions of identity and commitment. Three years ago making fourth album The Bride – an imaginary road-trip of self-discovery – taught her what it takes to feel whole.
Now the British artist, has announced a new album titled Lost Girls and she has released the song “Kids in the Dark.”
London based quartet GHUM have been organically fusing post-punk with grunge for over three years, resulting in dangerously dark pop that is often as hostile as it is haunting. Their ghostly sound has continued to evolve during this time; from the brooding atmosphere of their 2017 self-titled EP, to the raw emotion of their 2018 double A-Side single: ‘I’m The Storm / Undone’. The Coldest Fire’ EP is the last release from the band hailing from Spain, Brazil, London, and Malaysia,
Only few artists have had such a meteoric rise in recognition as the twenty year old bedroom pop singer Clairo. In the past few months, Clairo has gone from an underground singer to a lo-fi pop sensation with millions of views on YouTube and thousands of followers on social media.
Clairo’s music is perfect precisely because it doesn’t go with anything: it’s sweet pop with guitars instead of bedroom electronic beats; it’s young and fresh without falling into urban clichés; it’s new but it makes you feel at home.
K Á R Y Y N is a Los Angeles based artist whose Syrian upbringing is intrinsic to her art. A case in point is debut single ‘Aleppo’, an emotional tribute to the Syrian city, torn apart by the civil war that has devastated the country. Questions of identity and dislocation are clearly at the heart of her practice, a point further emphasized by the use of her track Moving Masses in Marina Abramovich’s opera ‘Of Light’, which received praise from none other than Björk following its premiere in the Icelandic capital.
While parallels between the two singers can be found, both in K Á R Y Y N‘s astonishing vocal range and in her favouring of glitchy, electronic production, it’s the latter artists’ sensibility to her upbringing and her desire to join the ancient to the modern, the east to the west, and the underground to the mainstream in her music that marks her out as a true original. “Sometimes I feel like my voice belongs to my ancestors”, she has said, in relation to her Armenian grandparents, who escaped the genocide of the previous century, only to experience the current war in this one. With a voice that seems to contain all this inherited pain, while at the same time having the ability to soothe it, K Á R Y Y N‘s performance at SonarComplex will be nothing short of revelatory.
Since releasing “Movement” a decade ago, Herndon has consistently pushed at the boundaries of music creation, in the process further erasing the line between programmer and musician. Concerned intimately with the internet and the networked individual, her 2015 LP Platform is considered a watershed moment in the scene. As we approach the end of the decade, Holly continues to explore the nature of our reality as humans through technology like no other being. Today at 16.30 at Sónar.
Tash Sultana is a dynamic young artist who has commanded world attention since homemade videos of Tash went viral. A true virtuoso, Tash was soon selling out massive theatres globally and playing at the world’s biggest festivals – no mean feat for an artist who just a year before was recording songs on a go pro in a bedroom. Since Tash’s grandfather gifted a guitar at the age of three, the self-taught artist quickly developed a unique style that has people lining up to see around the globe. Tash has mastered over 15 instruments, vocals that shine with a magical quality and a live show that needs to be seen to be believed. The one-person powerhouse started out playing open mic nights on a fake id and busking on the streets of Melbourne. Now Tash is selling out every headline show, from theatres to arenas across multiple countries and playing dozens of high profile festivals around the globe.
Tash Sultana last release is ‘Can’t Buy Happiness’ – the first new music since the globetrotting phenomenon’s J Award nominated debut album Flow State. Tonight in concert at Razzmatazz.
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Radio Magazine about Barcelona's indie and alternative music & culture scene. Live broadcast every Thursday from 10.00PM to 11.00PM and Saturdays from 1.00PM t0 2.00PM at Barcelona FM 100.5
