U&C: Ross From Friends

Don't let the jocularity of the name of this artist deceive you from the talent that is shown within his music. Ross From Friends, not David Schwimmer, is another exciting artist coming out of South London supplying us with electronic music scattered with influence from early electronica, hip hop and house music. These influences are shown through an elaborate use of sampling and nebulous 80s synths. You can forget the impatient waiting for underwhelming drops with this area of electronica, instead a more reserved approach is taken, introducing an intelligent design and structure to his songs.

    (Credit - Google maps)

Ross From Friends’ ‘The Alex Brown EP’ expressed a much more vigorous attempt at electronica giving out a hectic industrial atmosphere but relaxation can be found within the heavy club drum beats, especially on ‘Golf School’ as he uses a juxtaposition of melting fuzzy piano chords. You can find this Ep’s repress exclusively on Phonica Records.

What’s to come is undoubtedly exciting - he is releasing another EP on the 7^th October entitled ‘You’ll Understand’ following on from the song ‘Talk To Me You’ll Understand’ which has already been released. The song is immaculately pieced together with tropical sounding guitars eloping with fuzzy keyboards pitch changes on heart wrenching vocals quoting, ‘Talk to me’. The song has already reached over 500,000 views on YouTube which can only exaggerate the amount he will blow up after this EP.

     (Credit - 'Talk To Me You'll Understand' artwork)

You can also catch Ross From Friends playing at XOYO on the 8^th October, a day after his Ep is released - a show not to miss.



Listen:

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/rossfromfriends

'Talk To Me You'll Understand' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tKKNV5sXUs

The Return of Pimp Shrimp

Peckham born Archy Marshall is a man of change within his musical releases; something that is not only shown by the number of his alter egos (King Krule, Edgar The Beatmaker, Edgar the Breathtaker, DJ JD Sports and Zoo Kid), but it can also be seen through an eagerness to continue to create dynamic, genre stretching music.  

            (Credit: FEEL SAFE 88 (just say no) artwork)

‘The Return of Pimp Shrimp’ is the new name that Archie will release music as, after posting a status on his Facebook page – “another age another name for the stomps”. The name alone suggests mystery and alongside the new name, the enigma is revealed even more through a new song – ‘FEEL SAFE 88 (just say no)’.

The new track shows a very different path to the hypnotising artistic project and electronic hip hop album  – ‘A NEW PLACE 2 DROWN’ (2015). He instead attempts a more disco based number, providing an almost vintage array of instruments gliding and swaying through the song. Even though there is a change, Archy’s own unique style is still clear throughout; the haziness of the synths and the guitars are placed under his strikingly soulful vocals, whilst maintaining key post-bop jazz influences.

             (Credit: Pari Dukovic / The New Yorker)

Archy evades the media, instead he likes to slowly unravel his creations, for example, he played an intimate surprise gig last week at Peckham’s Montague Arms. So, for the time being, the music to come will be announced only through his own methods, but the mystery raises excitement for a project started so intriguingly.

Listen to the new song here:

https://soundcloud.com/thereturnofpimpshrimp

So Young Magazine

In this modern day, physical outputs of media can be quite rare due to a well known competitor – the internet. But with a turn for new and more modern techniques, there comes a need for older, more comforting methods. So Young certainly does things the traditional way in regard to a physical copy of the magazine, but every other method epitomises creativity.

                   (Credit: So Young Magazine, issue 4)

So Young is a fully illustrated music magazine, supplying a modern journey into the world of both art and music. The physical copies that they supply in record stores around the country (Piccadilly Records, Rough Trade etc), can give the same intimate experience that vinyl does. Music over the last few years has been an industry that has been quickly becoming entirely based on the internet but many fans admire the physical sides of these artistic creations; as can be seen by the recent rise in the purchase of vinyl over the past few years.  

The company’s ethos can be simply understood with a quote in their website bio – “So Young is a gift from us to you under the assumption that you keep going to gigs, buying records and looking at the sleeve artwork as you listen”(Link to website below). They understand the experience of music, not just as a listening one, but as a much wider sensory overload. It’s an admirable way of appreciating music and they continue this by making every issue of their magazine hold that same experience; by making it an artistic piece exploding with uniqueness within the pages.

              (Credit: So Young Magazine, issue 10)

In regard to their choice of music, they mainly target underground guitar music, and this is illustrated by a number of contemporary artists making each copy as original as the last through illustrations and graphic design. Some of the bands that have been involved with the magazine are Fat White Family, YAK, Palma Violets, Parquet Courts and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. So the genres of music are quite clear, So Young are heavily involved with Punk, Post Punk, Surf pop and psychedelic music. They represent an eagerness to supply us with the most relevant prevailing sounds.

Recently, So Young hosted a gig for their third birthday. The night involved artists such as Fever, The Orielles, Happy Meal LTD., Shame and Life. And moving onto bigger things, they are hosting their own festival at The Old Blue Last across 10^th-12^th August. The festival is free and supplies three days of music and an art exhibition. You can catch bands such as Traam, Baby Strange, Dream Wife and many more. Events like this show So Young Magazine have a bright future ahead of them, and with their growth they continue to supply free perks like this to its fans.

                    

                   (Credit: So Young Festival Poster)

You can easily access the So Young Magazine website which offers a blog, a page representing their artists, all the 10 editions of the magazine, plus other merchandise. Be sure to take a look at this and also check them out on Twitter and Instagram to hear about the latest gigs and music news. All the links are below.

Website - http://soyoungmagazine.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/SoYoungMagazine

Instagram - @Soyoungmagazine