The end of 2018 is quickly approaching and Kali Uchis has decided to share a new video to remind the world that she released her excellent album “Isolation” earlier this year. The psychedelic, glossy and trippy visuals for “Just A Stranger”, which were directed by BRTHR, feature the golden girl Kali herself as well as Steve Lacy who produced the track. Watch below.

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After the success of their third album “Ego Death” in 2015, Los Angeles R&B five-piece band The Internet, comprising Syd, Matt Martians, Patrick Paige II, Christopher Smith, and Steve Lacy, have been quite discrete. Actually, the collective has been quiet but its members have shined with their solo projects. In December 2017, Steve Lacy told Beats 1‘s DJ Matt Wilkinson that their new album was “95%” finished and today, by sharing a brand new single and video, he proves he was not lying. Recently, Lacy was making another statement on air, expressing their feelings of releasing a new The Internet‘s album after so many sucessful solo projects. He said:

[su_quote]It’s exciting, it’s scary, it’s so many things. And really I’m just thinking about the change component. Because I know off of Ego Death to where I am now it’s been a dramatic shit. It’s not the same as it was when that came out. I feel like this is on a higher echelon than Ego Death. I love Ego Death, that was a great record, but I know this one is a step up.[/su_quote]

Like its Joe Weil-directed accompanying video, “Roll (Burbank Funk)” is a slice of psychedelism. It’s also surprising to see that their guitarist Steve Lacy is taking the lead on vocals for this one. We don’t know yet if the track will be featured on their forthcoming fourth album but it’s so good to have them back anyways. Watch The Internet‘s “Roll (Burbank Funk)” video below and check the appearances of Mac DeMarco, Blood Orange‘s Dev Hynes, and Tyler, The Creator.

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Chicago’s Ravyn Lenae doesn’t want you to sleep on her latest EP “Crush”. Following up on the excellent “Sticky,” she has now shared an Andre Muir-directed video for the closing track “4 Leaf Clover” that she also wrote in collaboration with The Internet‘s Steve Lacy. With these colourful new visuals, Ravyn Lenae keeps the vintage aesthetics of her previous video and actually brings us back in time even further. Watch it below.

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She’s been absolutely everywhere – and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. If you still have vague memories of “Humanz”, Gorillaz’s first LP in seven years, you may recall Kali Uchis’s voice mingling with Damon Albarn’s on album highlight “ She’s My Collar”. Remember Miguel’s critically acclaimed “War & Leisure”? Well, she’s in there too. Ever heard of a guy who goes by the name Tyler, The Creator? That is Uchis singing in the best track off his last album. Are you one of the five people who still care about the Grammys? She was there too last year, nominated for two awards without even having put out an album yet. And that’s only if we’re taking into account her accomplishments in the English-speaking world – which we shouldn’t, because she’s massive outside of it (“El Ratico”, her single with fellow countryman and impossibly kitsch singer-songwriter Juanes, peaked at number 1 in Colombia.) It’s hard to remember the last time a pop singer reached these levels of omnipresence without having released an album.

“Isolation” does live up to the expectations that Kali Uchis has been setting for the past few months. It’s a surprisingly consistent album, particularly for a debut with dozens of different producers and guest artists. Sure, there’s no big single standing out from the other songs, but there’s hardly any clunker in it. Furthermore, “Isolation” is also one of the latest and most eloquent examples of pop music that can be highly accomplished at an artistic level without renouncing to a certain amount of commercial viability.

With her debut album “Isolation”, Kali Uchis proves that she is a true pop star in the real world, but she could also be one in a David Lynch film

Kali Uchis’s most valuable asset is undoubtedly her mass appeal, inarguably reinforced by her malleability as a singer. The only consistent leading thread on “Isolation” is her racy, alluring voice – this is an album where a minimalistic synth-pop Damon Albarn collaboration can follow up a reggaeton track sung in Spanish without raising anyone’s eyebrows. A cursory glance at “Isolation”’s sprawling list of collaborators and producers can be quite revealing. There’s literally a different team of producers for every track, which accounts for Isolation’s insistence on multifariousness as Uchis’s signature move. And it’s not like she’s drawing from a well-set-up group of musicians who have worked within similar circles for years. For every Greg Kurstin of Mark Spears, people who’ve added production chops to some of the biggest pop singles of the decade, there’s a Damon Albarn or a David Sitek, critically acclaimed alternative pop artists with a knack for flirting with the mainstream – fast forward a couple of generations and you can replace those middle-aged dudes with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and Brockhampton’s Romil, both also in Uchis’s production team.

But enough with the production talk. “Isolation” is first and foremost Kali Uchis’s album – her voice is an imposing presence on every track, dominating the listening experience with an astonishing charm rarely seen on a debut LP. Whether she’s singing over a faux-bosssanova instrumental (see opener “Body Language”) or on a festival-ready take on psychedelic pop (the Kevin Parker-produced “Tomorrow), Uchis’s swoon-worthy voice always ends up becoming the only focal point of her songs. While swapping genres seamlessly, Uchis inhabits different personae, putting on costume after costume as the music keeps playing in the background. In “Miami”, she becomes an East Coast version of Lana Del Rey, dropping a Smiths reference in a song about drug kingpins because that’s just what she does. Later on the album, she pays a visit to Damon Albarn’s oneiric fantasy, showing glimpses of an intermittent melancholy that permeates the most heartfelt songs on “Isolation”: “Why would anyone stay awake after being so sound asleep?”, she wonders in what’s arguably the album’s highlight.

There’s definitely something to be said about “Isolation”’s attempt to incorporate some sort of loose narrative into its musical backbone – “In My Dreams”, which features Uchis and Albarn mounting a strong case for their dream world as some sort of Eden unreachable in earthly life, is soon followed up by a brief and snoozy interlude where Uchis finally decides to wake up and face reality: “I’m getting tired of sleeping in / But you’re much better in my dreams / But I gotta get up / And get me something real”. But her way to confront the problems of the real always includes something of a dream element to it – see the Kevin Parker-produced “Tomorrow”, whose crude lyrical realism makes a stark contrast with the music’s hazey feel.

That striking contrast is precisely the true essence of Kali Uchis as an artist. She’s a true pop star in the real world, but she could also be one in a David Lynch film – Uchis’s presence would make complete sense both as a featuring artist on a chart-topping Pitbull track and as a mysterious neo-soul singer who suddenly begins whispering unintelligible gibberish to a giant kettle. “Isolation” is not only one of the best debut albums of the year; it’s also a powerful and successful reminder that there are times in life when you can win by playing left-field.

At age 18, Ravyn Lenae has already released two EPs (2017’s “Midnight Moonlight” was her official debut though) and waved her magic wand on some Noname and Mick Jenkins‘ songs. On this new track and for her upcoming “CRUSH EP”, the artist did not work with Monte Booker as she used to but tried new things in company with The Internet‘s guitarist Steve Lacy. “Sticky” is the first track that we get from this collaboration and it’s amazing.

For a song and maybe more, Ravyn Lenae has put the electronic production on the side to come back to something more organic and rooted in funky and R&B traditions while sounding fresh and modern. If we did not know it was unveiled this week, it would be actually difficult to date the release. Indeed, the association of Lacy‘s garage production with Lenae‘s amazing falsetto and vocal details sounds both retro and futuristic.

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“Sticky” will be featured on Ravyn Lenae‘s “CRUSH EP” due out on January 26 via 323 Music Group/Atlantic Records. Check the tracklist below:

01. Sticky
02. Closer (ODE 2 U)
03. Computer Luv (feat. Steve Lacy)
04. The Night Song
05. 4 Leaf Clover (feat. Steve Lacy)

Keep it up with Ravyn Lenae via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

[su_dropcap style=”simple”]C[/su_dropcap]olombian artist Kali Uchisis giving us some glamorous retro & pink-colored vibes with her new gorgeous video for her latest Kaytranada-produced single “Only Girl” featuring Steve Lacy and Vince Staples. Where she uses/plays with her toy-boy while Steve & Vince struggle to find her in the middle of Kali look-alike.