Featured Artists

Our latest luxe selection of precious tunes, ‘Silver Vibrations’, treats you to a cool and collected compilation of ten polished, yet personal creations – for your ears only!

Kaleem Taylor

West London in the house! Always up for a bit of fun and (musical) mischief, Kaleem Taylor adores soulful sounds from Nat King Cole to Lauryn Hill – and who wouldn’t want to learn from the greats? Already spotted and featured by BBC 1Xtra’s Home Grown Talent show, it’s high time we, too, explored the promising young Brit’s latest vocal acrobatics: Check out his featured Mixed Tape track – or get his new “Smooth” EP. For more information visit his website.

Foxbird

Dispersed all across Germany and Switzerland, Foxbird exchange their sounds and missives via the modern equivalent of the carrier pigeon (e-mail and file uploads) for something that is massively greater than the sum of its parts. Need proof? The glorious art rock of their recent debut, “Only So Much Time”, touches on influences as unusual and – at first glance – disparate as the animals brought together in their band name. The result, however, comes into its own with atmospheric, keyboard-driven and hook-laden pop guaranteed to get your toes tapping. For more information check out their website.

Steven Smirney

Growing up, freedom and exploration ruled in Steven Smirney’s home, so he tried his hand at drums, trombone, piano and, finally, computer-based music wizardry to beam his beat-heavy ideas to a set of speakers near you. With his ever-surprising, vibrant tightrope walk between hip hop and electro pop, this Italian’s exciting, energetic and emotional live sets often threaten to usurp the main act – including standout artists like Jamie Lidell, Apparat, Ladytron or Caribou. For more information visit his website.

The Never Years

Old World meets New in this excellent electro rock collaboration: In search of that inimitably soft and fuzzy dream pop sound, Houston’s finest The Never Years turned to Swedish star remixers The Sound of Arrows (a. o. Nicole Scherzinger and Lady Gaga) for a beautiful, guitar-drenched post-shoegaze anthem offset by tight electronic rhythms. A hypnotic must for fans of The Radio Dept., Washed Out and Air France. For more information visit his Facebook page.

o F F Love

Based between London, Paris and Berlin, this international man of mystery tend to hide behind scarves during his choreographed live performances. Yet despite this overt introspection, o F F Love is remarkably open when it comes to outside influences, name-checking anyone from Arthur Russell and Arvo Pärt to Panda Bear and even the Backstreet Boys. Mixing slow dance, R&B-inspired broken beats and fragile vocals, the resulting works wrap sharp beats, dusty melodies and luminous melancholy in a string of well-rounded songs, now available on CD-R label Disaro. For more information click here.

The Decent Lovers

A maker at heart (and in his day job), Elijah Wyman likes to whittle away at fun, frivolous pop tunes with witty lyrics until the result takes shape under his hands. Blessed with a deep love of auto harps, samplers, marimba, Sufjan Stevens and Missy Elliot, this North Carolina-based self-made man likes to litter the American North East with elaborately hand-packaged CD-Rs, records and cassettes, occasionally opening for kindred spirits like Danielson, Damien Jurado, John Vanderslice or Vic Chesnutt. Find more information here.

Soledad Vélez

Chilean songstress Soledad Vélez sings of airplane- and wire-free skies with a voice that is ancient, profound, and imbued with a rich timbre. As part of this vintage sound and feel of times gone by, of mid-20^th century nostalgia, her goosebump-inducing songs easily carry without a microphone. So, turn off your mobile, tune out, close your eyes and delve right into this captivating sound – captured for posterity on “Four Reasons To Sing” and “Black Light In The Forest”. For more information visit her on Bandcamp.

Wyla

From no amps and too much reverb to more contemporary sounds: Born out of a circle of (school) friends, this North Carolina quartet has evolved in leaps and bounds, mirroring the valleys and peaks of their native countryside – and flirting with chillwave, dream pop and folktronica on the way. But before we start to compare “Apples” with oranges, let’s celebrate the band’s multi-faceted output, held together by a welcome sense of gentle melancholia. For more information check out their blog!

Summer Underground

Fancy a slice of baroque-flavoured chamber pop? This New York duo took a while to turn their collaborative intentions into reality, but the result is well worth the wait. Summer Underground allows these two former high school friends to get some stunning songs out of their system with just a few instruments (including toy piano, ukulele and bouzouki), two sweet and melodic voices, a laptop and some recording software. “Beneath This City“ is their first album: an intimate, yet anthemic celebration of being young and growing up! For more information visit their Bandcamp Page.

The Ugly Club

There’s nothing ugly about the soundscapes of this eclectic – and ever-growing – East Coast five-piece comprised of two Ryans and three others: With razor-sharp songwriting skills, poured over progressive psychedelic indie rock, they proclaim “the new beautiful”: live in the tri-state area or, for your home-listening pleasures, via their self-produced EPs “Sing What You Want” and “Visions of Tall Girl.” For more information check them out on Bandcamp.

FEATURED COVER ARTIST

Time to get artsy! In order to promote the rich seams of culture beyond music, every Mixed Tape sports a beautiful bespoke cover created by a newcomer artist from photography, installation, painting or graphic design.

Cover

Rich, evocative and suffused with slivers of silver, our latest cover design plays into Benjamin Edmiston’s faible for unusual substrates: He prefers distinctive surface structures and materials to lend his tactile illustrations a unique appeal. In this particular case, “the bursting vibrations behind my main character explore a diverse range of coloured and patterned papers, enhanced by silver-leaf to accompany the compilation theme.”

Benjamin Edmiston

Benjamin Edmiston loves to reinvent himself – and his work. Now based in New York City, the avid illustrator has assembled an extremely varied output, ranging from painting to collage, based on an equally eclectic set of influences. Often inspired by music – akin to synaesthetic perception, he invariably detects parallels and synchronicity between art and sound – his occasionally cartoonish, yet always instantly recognisable oeuvre encompasses slightly crude, outsized heads, aquariums, icebergs, Greek vases, snakes and even potted plants. And if you are wondering where this broad palette comes from, look no further: Like many New Yorkers, Benjamin tends to swap the city’s sweltering summer heat for distant shores (e. g. Tibet) to get some rest, recreation and plenty of new inspiration.