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Kidnap is an artist whose music overflows with emotion - rich and powerfully evocative.

Recording in London, Kidnap (real name Matthew Relton) likens his process to that of a sculptor, starting with a block of sound and chopping away until a shape emerges. As such, each song exists ornately carved with a handcrafted subtly.

Still just 33, Relton is already something of an industry veteran. Releasing his first single in 2012 kicked off an eight-year stretch of global touring that came to a grinding halt when the pandemic put the world on pause.

2024 marks a new chapter for Kidnap, with his next body of work on the horizon. Set against the backdrop of a changing world and the arrival of a baby daughter, Relton offers a bittersweet reflection on the passing of time. ‘It’s about looking back on the last 12 years — the touring and the friends and the sleeplessness,” says Relton, “and realising that in order to embrace the life I have now, I need to let it all go.’ The music shimmers with nostalgia. Signature sad melodies dance deftly around commanding synth lines, altogether sounding like an artist with a new found sense of purpose.

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Jamil Rashad, who performs under the name Boulevards, loves the word brother. For him it’s a greeting, a spoken handshake, a verbal high five with his listener. “Growing up, I would see my father interacting with other African American men, using that word as a greeting. What’s up, brother? Brother, let me talk to you. That’s what they said a lot in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but you don’t hear it as much now. It’s such a great word.” That word inspired a new song simply called “Brother!” a slow-motion funk groove with the gravity of the blues, the ebullience of gospel, and the socially conscious sentiments of Sly Stone singing “Stand!” or James Brown saying it loud, “I’m black and I’m proud.” It’s a song that draws on pop history but speaks to our troubled present. “It’s smooth,” says the Raleigh, North Carolina, artist, “but it’s rough around the edges. Smooth but raw—that’s what Boulevards is.”

When it came time to find a title for his new EP—about race and reckoning in America, about broken hearts and self-inflicted suffering—Rashad couldn’t get those two syllables out of his head. That word became his way of getting your attention and addressing his songs to you specifically, and he added an exclamation point to make his message sound all the more urgent and excited. “I wanted people to listen to these songs and think, He’s speaking directly to me. When you’re a fan of music, you want that feeling. You want the performer to talk to you.”

Brother! represents a pivotal moment for Rashad. It’s his first release for the New West Records imprint Normaltown Records, for one thing. It’s also his first time working with Blake Rhein, guitarist for the midwestern soul revival outfit Durand Jones & the Indications. More than any of that, however, it’s a culmination of several years of writing and playing and touring and recording as Boulevards. During that time he has earned a reputation as an eclectic synthesist of sounds and styles as well as an electric performer whose set at the 2015 Hopscotch Festival cemented his status as one of North Carolina’s most thrilling young artists. He followed it up with a string of adventurous albums that drew on old soul and funk sounds but sounded fresh. 

“I had to make those other records to get to this point,” he says, noting that Brother! signals a shift toward a heavier, funkier, but no less idiosyncratic sound. It’s not a reinvention, but something like an expansion of what Rashad can say and do as Boulevards. To help make his ideas a reality, he reached out to Rhein on social media after being impressed with the Chicago-based instrumentalist’s mastery of different musical forms. The pandemic made it impossible to travel or work together in person, but they traded ideas and recordings over email. “He understands the funk,” says Rashad, “and he’s a music nerd like me. He immediately understood the sound I was going for and what I wanted to do, and he pushed me to do some things that I’ve never really done on a record.”

The songs they created draw on the albums Rashad heard growing up. His father was a radio DJ at 88.9 WSHA in Raleigh, which meant there were always records spinning at home: early Funkadelic, Sly Stone, Rick James, Curtis Mayfield, and Shuggie Otis, among others. “My dad put me on to that music, and I’ve always been attracted to those artists. Not just the sounds, but the styles—how those Black men dressed, how they presented themselves onstage, how they posed in photos, the whole aesthetic. That’s who I was inspired by, but I wanted to make it my own, make it Boulevards.”

Sacred Bull EP out now on all streaming platforms

Annahstasia Enuke is a Los Angeles/New York City based soul musician who weaves her spiritual evolution into hypnotic vocal tapestries. 

In her 2019 EP "Sacred Bull", Annahstasia evokes a nomadic, spiritual journey through the desert. Transcending her Catholic roots to seek empowerment from the sacred bull symbol, she creates a sonic, soul-lifting experience that inspires freedom, independence, and spontaneity.

she is now exploring other musical genres.

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Act One, the debut full-length from songwriting duo Marian Hill, was written and produced in its entirety by Jeremy Lloyd (music/lyrics/production) and Samantha Gongol (music/lyrics/vocals). The multi-talented duo, who have been collaborating in one form or another since high school, have shifted the classic paradigm of a woman on a stage and a man with a piano to a woman on a mic and a man with a laptop -- and the results are seductive and vivid. Tempting paradox with a blend of blues and bass, acoustic and digital, classic and modern, Marian Hill have arrived.

Two years ago Sam and Jeremy wrote and recorded “Whisky” over spring break in Jeremy’s parents’ basement. When they released it for free on Soundcloud later that summer it was the only song they’d written for the project, and in a little over a year’s time they had recorded their first EP in a bedroom, amassed millions of plays on various platforms, sold out shows across the country and featured in high profile commercials. They signed to Republic Records in early 2015, released the Sway EP, and settled in to write and record their debut album over the course of the following year with a plan to push their unique sound to its fullest potential.

For the first 50 seconds of “Down” you might think you’re at a supper club in the 1920s, but when the bass drops out of nowhere you couldn’t be anywhere but 2016. Act One then takes you on a journey through the complexities of modern relationships, with each song inhabiting a specific and charged relationship lyrically, melodically, and sonically. “I Know Why” constantly transforms and reinvents itself as the vocals grapple with a secret while “Mistaken” is the hardest of sax trap with a classic songwriting backbone. “Same Thing” is the saddest part of the album, a haunting ballad depicting serene resignation of a doomed relationship, but castanets rise from the ashes as “I Want You” closes out the night in a pure moment of optimistic electricity, a glance across a crowded room that changes everything.

Marian Hill’s one of a kind sound is present throughout — blues harmonies blend with sparse hip hop drums, horns blast under classic vocal melodies, and soloistic vocal chops sit side by side with clear, intimate lyrics. You’ve never heard this before, yet it’s surprisingly familiar. And it’s only the beginning.

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