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RTKaL – SLENG TENG

Big movements coming out of Birmingham right now in the form of rising star RTKaL, blowing fresh air (and a whole lot else) into the UK Urban scene. Following brief flirtations with UK Hip-Hop in the last few years via his Bandcamp, RTKal a.k.a. RTillery a.k.a. RTizzy a.k.a. RTiculate seems to of found his lyrical feet within a more upbeat tempo framework, swinging from Grime to UK Dancehall with devastating energy. His freestyle over the digital reggae blueprint riddim Sleng Teng, created by King Jammy and Wayne Smith back in 1985 (one of the ‘foundation stones of digital dancehall’) is mindblowingly good, and it’ll keep us going till the rest of his new music drops on his forthcoming mixtape 48 Hours.

The Invisible – Wings (Floating Points Remix)

After 3 years of silence from the English trio, Experimental-Indie band The Invisible may well have escaped your memory. To give your mind a little jog, their debut album was nominated for the Mercury Prize and selected as the critics choice for iTunes album of the year back in 2009, being hailed as the ‘British Broken Social Scene’ and ‘masters of Ambient Pop’. Since then the band have been keeping busy working on other projects, with frontman Dave Okumu co-writing and producing Jessie Ware’s debut album ‘Devotion’ (released 20th August 2012) and drummer Leo Taylor recording on Adele’s multi-platinum selling ’21’. But after a long wait the band have finally regrouped to release follow up record ‘Rispah’ (out on Ninja Tune), a dedication to Okumu’s late-mother. This remix, by London producer Floating Points, fuses the dreamy vocals and guitar riff found in the original track with ambient synth lines that rise and fall over the ghost of a garage beat, elongating each strand of frequency to 7 minutes of ultimate chillout.

New Artist: Joey Badda$$

Be warned, if you’re looking for some progressive Hip-Hop with innovative beats and provocative lyrics, look away now. If, however, you need to silence your rumbling appetite for Hip-Hop in its 90s heyday with something new, then Joey Bada$$ is your guy.

Rainman – The Stars

When a track sampling Coldplay’s Yellow dropped in our inbox the other day, courtesy of London producer Rainman, we were a bit sceptical, but fear not. This glitchy, dripping, cosmic rework stands well alongside the original.

Wiley – Glam Nightclub

You would’ve thought signing to Warner could allow Wiley to loosen the reigns a bit, but this boy just don’t stop working. His latest effort sees him rapping over Julio Bashmore’s Battle For Middle You about (unsurprisingly) a nightclub called Glam. A quick Google leads to a club “in the heart of Wales’s capital city” so this may not be the said venue but they’ll definitely be getting more hits in the next few days from inquisitive Wiley fans.

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