Recommended: Xylaroo, Liam Bailey, Mahalia, Jazze Belle, Taliwhoah

By in Features Music

In Rec­om­mend­ed today, we’re track­ing love in three stages: from infat­u­a­tion (Xyla­roo, Jazze Belle), to gid­dy desire (Mahalia), and heal­ing after a brush with deceit (Liam Bai­ley, Tali­whoah).

*** Lis­ten to even more new music on The Fresh List playlist ***

‘Stranger Than Love’ by Xylaroo

Song-writ­ing and gui­tar-play­ing sis­ter act Xyla­roo (pic­tured) stole our hearts with their 2016 debut, Swee­t­ooth. Hol­ly and Coco Chant recent­ly returned with ‘Stranger Than Love’, a song that whisks emo­tion and rhythm into trans­fix­ing mood music.

Writ­ten by Hol­ly some time ago after a break-up, the song emits the cool mys­tique of chilled R&B as the girls’ sup­ple tones call out through a hang­ing gar­den of shim­mer­ing gui­tar strings. Sim­ple yet super-strik­ing. This is only the first taste of their new music, but these glob­al-trolling sis­ters have just as much going for them as fel­low con­tem­po­raries Ibeyi and Chloe x Halle.

Xyla­roo join Frank Turn­er on his 2018 Euro­pean tour.

‘Brother, Why You Gotta Love Her (feat. Maverick Sabre)’ by Liam Bailey

Per­son­al­i­ty counts for a lot. And Liam Bai­ley has a boat­load (seri­ous­ly, go watch the man’s Insta­gram Sto­ries). The Not­ting­ham musician’s lat­est sin­gle is a cathar­tic response to a bro­ken rela­tion­ship. His croons lead the way – vul­ner­a­ble, yet res­olute, as they are – and he’s backed by an aro­mat­ic groove and the brac­ing words of Mav­er­ick Sabre. There’s hints of The Heavy, Cur­tis Hard­ing and Bob­by Wom­ack on this ster­ling song.

‘One Night Only (feat. Kojey Radical)’ by Mahalia

With every hook and verse, ris­ing R&B sen­sa­tion Mahalia has been draw­ing us clos­er and clos­er. And resis­tance is pointless.

‘One Night Only (feat. Kojey Rad­i­cal)’ appears on Mahalia’s recent­ly released five-track EP, Sea­sons. It’s a stu­pen­dous, soul­ful, head-bop­ping jam of desire and deceit. Between her taut deliv­ery, her deli­cious­ly smart lyrics and the beat, this is fur­ther proof that Mahalia isn’t just imi­tat­ing her influ­ences, she’s craft­ing her own future classics.

‘Forever Don’t Exist’ by Jazze Belle

Jazze Belle are pro­duc­er-instru­men­tal­ist Justin ‘Jett’ Carter and singer-song­writer Tay­lor Simone. They hail from dif­fer­ent parts of the US (Rich­mond and LA, respec­tive­ly), but share a love for every­thing from Jill Scott to SBTRKT. ‘For­ev­er Don’t Exist’ is a melod­ic, enchant­i­ng song about the joy of new love.

‘Run Along’ by Taliwhoah

Up-and-com­ing R&B hero­ine Tali­whoah con­tin­ues to pro­vide emo­tion­al­ly charged, TLC-esque ther­a­py about a cheat­ing scrub with her lat­est sin­gle, ‘Run Along’.

*** Lis­ten to even more new music on The Fresh List playlist ***

Image: Gul­lick

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