Jams of the Week: Lady Leshurr, Raveena Aurora, Hotel Books, and more

New music this week from Lady Leshurr, Raveena Auro­ra, Abat­tior Blues, Hotel Books and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.

And don’t for­get to check out our UK Fresh List on Spo­ti­fy, updat­ed week­ly with new music by fledg­ing artists we can’t get enough of, and return­ing stars.

‘Queen’s Speech 7’ by Lady Leshurr
Vying for the rap throne with more of her side-split­ting cheek is Birmingham’s Lady Leshurr, who returned this week with anoth­er ‘Queen’s Speech’. Enter­ing on a camel (because, why not?), Leshurr march­es down a motor­way dressed like a black Lara Croft, mix­ing mis­chief with a fair bit of social com­ment (“Who stood up when Grenfell?”).

‘Sweet Time’ by Raveena Aurora
Indi­an-Amer­i­can musi­cian Raveena Auro­ra recent­ly shared the bliss­ful ‘Sweet Time’. Harp strings sing like blue­birds in spring and Raveena com­pletes the pic­ture of this mel­low neo-soul groove with her sup­ple tones. A major tal­ent to watch for lovers of Corinne Bai­ley Rae or Tweet.

‘Blind­ed’ by Abat­toir Blues
Brighton new­com­ers Abat­toir Blues (named after the Nick Cave album) unleashed their grave­ly punk rock with the rau­cous ‘Blind­ed’. It appears on their forth­com­ing debut EP of the same name, due on Novem­ber 24 through Telharmonium.

‘Mat­ter of Time’ by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Last year we lost soul leg­end, Sharon Jones. Ear­li­er this month, her label, Dap­tone Records, shared this lit­tle nugget of spir­it­ed soul, tak­en from her posthu­mous final album, Soul of a Woman. It’s due to be released on Novem­ber 17.

‘I’m Almost Hap­py Here’ by Hotel Books
Cal­i­forn­ian vocal­ist Cam Smith – who’s cadence could see him mas­quer­ade as a jour­ney­man ver­sion of Sage Fran­cis – deliv­ers a haunt­ing, poet­ic mono­logue about love lost in Hotel Books’s lat­est sin­gle. The rock group’s new album, Equiv­a­len­cy, is out in Feb­ru­ary 2018.

Image: cour­tesy of Lady Leshurr