From the very first chords you can tell that Future City is going to be a bit more polished and violently perfect than Hello Phone’s very excellent debut album Get It Together. The sound is beefed up; still a hint of dust that is to be expected from Hello Phones but the shit is cherry picked. You can tell that Joe Velour and DonnaFran figured shit out and grew into their sound. They wear it like George Clooney wears a $10,000 suit, with a comfort and confidence. Future City has a maturity to it, that wasn’t necessarily lacking in Get It Together; I would say they just didn’t know how to showcase it. Now they do.Hello Phones has this effortless ability to bounce between the grittiest Lower East Side squat with songs like "Short Wave", "Hey You" and "Leave It"; a swank downtown boutique with shit like "Ride" and "Dream"; "The One" and "Baam" which sound like bangers played exclusively nightclubs that used to be warehouses; and shit like "Candy Love", "The One" and "Holiday Night" that sound like coming of age in NYC. Future City manages to be everything that everyone else is trying to do without actually trying. You can feel the authenticity emanating from these songs. Hello Phones lived that life

Tim Baker-Syffal.com

New Full Length "Future City" out now.


ExSo (Short for Experimental Soul) is better known as Charles Javier Jourdan’s solo project, an accomplished internationally touring session bassist, singer and songwriter born and raised in New York. His sound can be described as a mélange of Alt-R&B, Metal, and Neo-soul.

Owner of On Air Mastering, a dedicated mastering facility in Portland, Oregon.

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