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Testimony by Rylai

Viola Karmy
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Testimony by Rylai

Almost a decade ago, I was a teenager who was trying to figure out a lot of things in life, including her own musical taste. I wasn’t fond of Rap and its subgenre back then because I used to think of it shallowly as the music that artists use to express how great they are and to brag about what they have. But as the years passed, some artists and songs made me realize how wrong I was, and I saw how these musicians use their music for good causes, for venting dark emotions, and for inspiring others. Genuine rappers like Rylai and singles like “Testimony” are what made me a fan of the genre in the first place.

The Seoul, Korea-based artist has made a piece that can easily penetrate one’s mind with its organic, one-of-a-kind sound. “Testimony” is a Pop-Rap single with jazzy instrumentation and an R&B and Funk splash. This appealing blend, with the upbeat beats, jazzy brass, and dope production, is what makes it enjoyable, allows you to vibe to it, and eases the dark ambiance in the lyrics. Vocally, Rylai strikes a balance by having both light and dark tones in his voice, sounding wise, and having a catchy storytelling style. In my opinion, the element that stands out here is the lyrics. They’re sincerely written, based on Rylai’s experience with depression, relatable to anyone who’s gone through a depressive period, and take an optimistic direction.

Giving advice to a person who’s suffering from a mental illness that can be fatal, such as depression, is not always the right move. Pip talk doesn’t mean much in these cases, but it’s different when it’s not just hot air, it’s a real experience and the one who’s gone through it is telling you: “I’m finding ways to get around. Lost in traffic, I’m still nowhere bound. But at least I feel better now.” Bars like these are what are called inspirational and hopeful. It’s not a promise that things will turn out to be great in the blink of an eye, but it’s a testimony that you’re capable of recovering and will feel fine somehow, amidst some hazy sensations.

“Bring back the music to the people who lost it in their life.” He said. And that’s what he’s certainly doing. Watch out for Rylai because you won’t find what he offers anywhere else.

To The Moon by Retrofitted

Amgad Mahmoud
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To The Moon by Retrofitted

It’s one of those nights when you’ve got yourself some weed with your homies, and you wanna play something fly whilst smoking ‘em. Something fly that is nuttin’ but a Hip Hop/Rap tune; Retrofitted is giving us the adequate EP we would need in such situations, titled “To The Moon.”

Retrofitted is a group of six rappers from Phoenix, US, consisting of:

  • Oj Stinz (singer/rapper) 
  • YBE (rapper) 
  • Big Carlo (rapper) 
  • Cevilian (rapper/producer) 
  • Pax Armani (rapper) 
  • Bflow (rapper)

Oj Stinz did most of the singing/R&B lines throughout the EP, and his warm, calm vocals were a clear advocate for the concept of the EP; influenced by Kanye West, 90’s & 00’s R&B.

“We each draw inspiration from different places. Born in Chicago, Big Carlo draws his inspiration from the streets of Chicago and Detroit. Pax Armani and Cevilian incorporate west coast vibes in their projects. YBE is originally from Angola and incorporates his African heritage. Bflow is influenced by his experience as a spoken word poet.” Retrofitted  stated.

“To The Moon” is generally about smoking and expressing the band’s vibe by getting high.

The EP begins with a track titled “Smokin Drinkin” with Oj Stinz’s robotic-vocals close to the one Kanye did in “Stronger,” which shows the influence mentioned before. And by the title, you already know the story behind that track.

The rapper’s flows are placed perfectly and their choice of simple, less complicated vocabulary is outstanding in terms of delivering vibes to listeners. Cause nobody getting high would bother to trouble their brains. Haha!

The composition and writing of the beats and melodies throughout the EP are perfectly expressing the smooth, relaxing state when someone is high.

The crew’s distinction in terms of flow was whether they were fast-paced and in a harmonic theme, or the slow, thick ones, breaking the unity of sound and adding an exciting factor dealing with the repetition a rapper could fall into.

I believe “To The Moon” missed having a lighter signature and an inhale like the one Lil’ Wayne has been using in almost all of his tracks. It would be adequate with the concept of the EP. However, Retrofitted might have ignored that signature so that no one would say they’re mimicking other rappers.

Also, one thing the EP missed was adding a breaker to the tracks’ structure, as some tracks would imply an impression of “just another rap track.” Retrofitted might need to add that game-changer to their tracks and make them a bit more catchy.

Take a hit, or a listen to the record and tell us how “dope” is the stash.

Yadamraft by Arimow

Amgad Mahmoud
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Yadamraft by Arimow

A misty mountain in the cold winter is your view on your suburban roadway home. Back to where you escaped from before. Been on the run for a while, but coming back to face is inevitable.

Arimow, the rising rapper, released his debut single “Yadamraft,” and it’s a really promising debut.

The track kicks off with light, mellow keyboard notes with background moans from Arimow. The track features Arimow’s outstanding straight vocals, having a perfectly timed flow.

The track is genuinely written and skilfully rhymed and sung. The rapper actively maintains his flow and control over the bars throughout the track.

Arimow’s flow slightly reminds me of Drake’s or Wayne’s, and at specific times it went closer to Wayne’s, accompanying the ad-libs and harmony lines.

Sometimes within the track, rhymes were not clear and bars were blended and not divided. Arimow usually altered the rhyme and rapidly replaced the rhymes. The rhyme usually lasted nearly two or three bars only. It risks maintaining the listeners’ attention to the beat and rhymes.

Also, using fewer melodies made the track sound normal, yet the quality of sound engineering and recording is fabulous and worth the claim.

“Yadamraft” is nearly two minutes and a half, and I believe it’s a good strategy to maintain and make an impression, especially for a young artist who is trying to penetrate the Iranian rap scene.

Check out the upcoming lit tracks by Arimow, and while you’re at it, play the track and comment your thoughts about it below!

Protected: My Mind by juracán

Ahmed El Tahan
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Protected: My Mind by juracán

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Shine aLight by Rj Bacon

Sarah Elzanaty
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Shine aLight by Rj Bacon

An ambitious and creative man from Sydney, Australia, who creates music all on his own. Russell J. Bacon, known as “Rj Bacon,” is a solo player who brings to light an amazing sound of jazz. Russell has a sweet taste in producing his music that he is so passionate about making, using his own elements with simple yet pristine notes. As a multi-instrumentalist, not many perfect such a talent. 

He released his new album this year, “Shine A Light,” on the 13th of May, with a cool vibe of soft jazz that will get you into a soothing mood during the day.

Russell constructed a life-saving album with 7 tracks to listen to with minimal instruments assembled in this masterpiece. The essence of a maroon jazz club with soulful music playing is an imaginative sensation, capturing a head-nodding yet calming rhythmic feel. Some of his tracks do not have many lyrics. However, “Shine a Light”’s have some lines in them that don’t put you out of the mood of listening but give out a more vibrant feeling to the music playing.

Every time I listen to one of the tracks, it gives me a tingly feeling inside my head. It’s a magical phenomenon that Russell created to ease our stressful days with Jazz.

One of the tracks that got my attention is “Cactus Tree.” It begins with beautiful tunes on saxophone, and the lonesome lyrics are wonderful. It caught my attention as he describes the cactus tree as if it’s a person who remains the same and never changes, as cacti are knowingly growing slowly. Also, the first track on the album, “The Positive Song,” shines positivity with the fun and active playing of the instruments that are so uplifting for the listener.

Russell tries to connect his emotions through the music he makes to his listeners. If you wish to listen to music that gets you in a sensational way and you can vibe to it with some keyboard playing, you have to give this album a shot while having a strong, homemade, fruity flavored drink.

Edited by: Viola Karmy

Black Chevy by Miles Squiers

Sarah Elzanaty
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Black Chevy by Miles Squiers

A young artist with a great talent for expressing himself thoroughly and really artistically by describing his emotions and surroundings. Miles Douglas Squiers from California has been creating his own music since 2019. He shows a great deal of blasting rhythmic music with imaginary scenery of his past self and tells us a story about how he lived through tough times, heartbreaks, and love life. 

His latest single, “BLACK CHEVY,” was released on the 1st of April, 2022. He doesn’t stick to a specific genre while producing his music as it’s a mix of everything that makes it so unique and one of a kind. I could honestly keep talking on and on about his music while listening to all of his releases since he started, and each of his creations is different in its own way.

Let’s concentrate on how he made “BLACK CHEVY.” It has an amazing steady beat with an amazing mix of goblet drums that were played in the background of the song. It added a really unusual and cool vibe there. His propensity to create such music with simply his emotions as he describes her as “the love of his life” is so admirable and cute. He mentioned that the song is about an elegant, strong, and powerful woman who stole his heart the night they met. 

Through his music, Miles shows a resilient side of himself, and his ability to phrase words in an emotional yet digestible way and to create imagery using different tones makes him a genius in his own style. 

Developing his talent through producing and writing his own music is incredibly spectacular. Listen to the rest of his music that bursts out of lyrical emotions to see for yourself where this creativity came from and how he tells his stories in a unique and genuine emotional way. I can’t wait to go back and hit the whole list on Spotify.

Edited by: Viola Karmy

Twin Moons by My Friend The Chimpanzee

Ahmed El Tahan
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Twin Moons by My Friend The Chimpanzee

A powerful vortex of electronic music lasts for a few seconds before beats begin to pierce your ear and Lukas Wieser’s voice to your heart, followed by dazzling bursts of guitar that burst into epic color and vibrato. All of this makes a track with another mix of pop, hip-hop, and dirt beats.

After releasing their first singles “Time Traveler” and “I Love This Place”, the Austrian duo My Friend The Chimpanzee return with their third single, “Twin Moons/Bearwolf, Pt. I,” with a vocoder voice, electronic, and funkadelic drums through psychedelic synths, a futuristic wave, and lyrics inspired by Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84.

A magical link is made by MFTC through their words between perceived reality and space. They come up with fantasy scenes that reflect real-life experiences in poetic sentences, so you feel as if you are flying with them while you are still standing on the ground.

“Twin Moons” is a track that you’ll be able to get into; it’s a really fun track and I’m sure it will help the duo get more of a foothold in the Austrian music scene.

Serving Pressure by 416DEDE

Ahmed El Tahan
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Serving Pressure by 416DEDE

“Serving Pressure” is a song with all its melody and lyrics about a life experience that rappers like Jackson Henderson or 416DEDE might have experienced in a stress-induced rage, so it’s made into a flurry of fast, angry sentences on the latest rap beats.

A fast-paced track immersed in the sounds of bells and strings needs speakers to live with and enjoy. It makes you feel like you are on a powerful, explosive, and dynamic journey, surrounded only by bright lights.

In “Serving Pressure,” the solo rhythm is broken, giving way to tiny gaps of chorus and a feminine element. While the strong poetic activity is characterized by resonant rhymes that depend on the freestyle, to sensually grab you and not leave you the opportunity to breathe with the help of rhythm until the end, this track makes you feel more stable and contemporary at the same time.

416DEDE is carving his name among a large number of rappers, presenting himself as a new and innovative person, expressing himself through rap, hip-hop, and dirt tracks. He strives to build his group and create cutting-edge music; he is an artist you will never be able to get enough of.

Edited by: Viola Karmy

Interview With The Art Crimes Band

Moataz Gwaily
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Interview With The Art Crimes Band

In 2020, The Art Crimes Band decided to end their career performing at local pubs to focus on creating their own music after a decade of playing together. ‘If Only’ is a song of theirs, recorded in 2015, and stripped down into a gorgeous piano bar version in 2022 for International Jazz Day. Join us for a little chat with the band and get to know more about them, where they have been, and where they might be headed.

Q1. Interesting name for a band. What is an ‘art crime’ in your point of view?

I think a few of our early demos from ten years ago could be classed as an “art crime”.

Q2. How did the band get together?

Was it a professional foray from the get-go? Or was there a period of discovering each other’s interests and directions at the beginning?

We were all professional musicians and friends who happened to gig together with different ensembles. Then around 2011 a bunch of us just started jamming around a table in the back of a pub in our hometown of Cork City every Tuesday night. We had no objectives or a name then, it was just all like-minded people having fun. Then we decided by September 2011 to book our first gig at a live showcase night called the KC Sessions.

Myself and Gary Baus (Saxophone) are the only two original members from that era but by 2015 we settled on the group we have now. Takes a while to find your tribe I guess, but that’s life, isn’t it?.

Q3. How do you go about creating music? Is it a group work affair? Or more solo-based?

Six people all trying to compose in the same room at the same time can be chaotic. So we adopted a production line method for writing and recording. One person has an idea, they show it to us on a guitar or send a voice memo to the group chat online. We read in Keith Richars autobiography that if a song doesn’t sound good on just an acoustic guitar it’s not a good enough song. So with that in mind, three or four of us go into a room with just the basics. Vocals, bass guitar, and percussion are usually in the form of a cajon and acoustic guitar. Then we make an arrangement out of the idea and throw some lyrics ideas around and record the entire session. We upload a mix of the results afterward to share with the rest of the band so they can hear the progress and share ideas too. That can take a few sessions over a couple of weeks. Then when we feel we are happy with the arrangement we go into the studio and record the drums to a click track with bass and vocals and begin to build what will become the final version. Each new version and the mix are shared with the band online. Band members come in the recording studio individually and add their parts and we layer on top each time. The song evolves and builds in ProTools really. Sometimes we used to try out songs before they were fully finished at live shows. That can be fun at times but generally, we try to wait until they’re fully finished.

 

Q4. Is the songwriting process for you an intuitive and flowing one? Or a process that’s mental and calculated?…

The next chord, is it the sound that rings in your ear the chord that makes more sense theoretically?

It’s usually a flowing one. All our song ideas have a real story behind them, they refer to a moment in time, a memory, a place, an encounter, or a story someone told us. For example one of our latest singles Guy Like You began with Grace swiping on Tinder and she was just singing the main melody and title of the song to herself. The song unraveled from there. So when you start there things tend to unfold quite naturally. The only time it gets calculated is if we get stuck or hit writer’s block, and then you have to figure out a way to complete the song without making it sound too forced.

Q5. Does the music come first to you or the lyrics? Which of those aspects would you prefer the listeners to notice first?

Usually, it’s the music first. There might be a couple of words to accompany but it’s really music first for us. As for listeners taking notice, I am the drummer so I will be biased and say the groove if what I’d like them to catch onto first. If we get a righteous groove going before the lyrics to kick in I think we’re off to a good start.

Q6. How does performing live compare to working on songs in a studio? Which reward feels more fulfilling to you?

I love the studio. Aside from playing drums in The Art Crimes Band I also own and operate a recording studio which also serves as our HQ. So we have the luxury to work as long as we want on something, experiment with ideas, and “nerd it out” on ProTools all night. Which is fun and exciting but that said, as much as we love our studio nothing beats getting in front of a crowd and making them smile and dance. We are just half of the gig. The crowd is the other half.

Q7. How does a band take a decision to change their direction entirely 10 years into their career? Was it a leap of faith or a planned move?.

I guess it was a mix of both. We knew it was time for a change. We knew if we didn’t move on to something new we would just be doing the same thing over and over. We have had a few different chapters or eras in this band over the past 10 years. This is just the next one and won’t be the last I’m sure.

Q8. How does the reward compare between releasing ‘If Only’ as a fully arranged piece and stripping it down to piano and vocals? How does the band perceive each take on the song?

The fully arranged songs are more fun to play but it’s fascinating for me to hear the songs stripped down. It’s like breaking something down to its base elements. Dismantling the engine of a car just to see how it works. You get their greater, more in-depth insight into the song and it takes on a new meaning and perspective.

Q9. Where can fans find your music? When can we expect more from you? And what would that ‘more’ be?

You can find our music on all streaming platforms and we’re on almost all social media. So you can search us on whatever you use but also our website www.theartcrimesband.com is updated regularly and you can find all the links to everything there. We are putting the finishing touches on our next single which will be out later this summer. We will be playing some shows at SoulFest in our hometown Cork City this August 26th – 28th and possibly a few more shows in the Fall. We might even get a sixth single out before the end of the year, we’ll see but all focus is on making an album, and would like to see it released next year sometime. Followed by a tour. So stay tuned.

 

If Only (Piano bar version) by The Art Crimes Band

Moataz Gwaily
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If Only (Piano bar version) by The Art Crimes Band

It takes talent to craft a beautiful song full of lush instrumentation and layered arrangements. But it takes much more than that to strip it down and lay it bare enough for it to be frugal and exposed yet retain all its charm and joy.

The Art Crimes Band is a jazz/R&B/Soul band that hails from Cork, Ireland. With a rich history of playing pubs and bars nightly for a decade. This shows in this piece, a stripped-down version of their 2015 song ‘If Only’ released in honor of International Jazz Day.

It sees the whole band fall to the background to leave only Grace McMahon (vocals) and Katie O’Donnell (piano) on stage for an intimate and sweetly short take on the song. The mix is very simple. When you only have one piano line and one vocal line, it becomes easy for them both to shine. It helps if the piano sounds rich and warm and the vocals are confident and snazzy… and they do.

The motif is strongly jazzy. Full of complex chords and modulations. Yet it feels very easy to digest and understand, as it is cut into short segments with minimal movements that are beautiful and easy to grasp. One might be tempted to call it lazy if it wasn’t so expertly executed and purposefully delivered.

I, for one, would be thankful ‘The Art Crimes Band’ decided to walk away from playing all those pubs if it means more beautiful works like this are to come our way in the future. I will be waiting.

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