D’Angelo – Untitled / How Does It Feel (L-Vis 1990 Own Way Edit)

Rainy Milo hasn’t got a massive amount of material online to put together a substantial profile piece, but the one song she’s got up on SoundCloud was strong enough to stand here on it’s own.

The London teenager is creating some lovely modern but old school soul sounds on a J Dilla-esque beat and sometimes less is more when it comes to a debut.

We’re definitely excited to hear from this lady.

Jamie N Commons’ recent interview/Q&A on The 405 has inspired me to take on a new way of listening to music.

Speaking on the interview he said that he likes to put “brackets on his listening habits” which in tow helps him when writing music and by that he’d recently been focusing on blind artists like Ray Charles, Blind Willie Johnson and so on. I’m going to give it a go as it seems fun!

Billie Holiday is where I’ve decided to start and so the first ‘bracket’ is going to be female musicians in the 40s – it’s an obvious choice but nonetheless one of the most important.

We join Billie alongside some of the finest percussionists to have ever lived – Ben Webster, Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge – and it’s so clear to hear their own personal struggles and hardships through the music they play, but that emotion channeled through their music is absolutely awe-inspiring and makes you wonder, when looking at today’s music charts, where it all went so wrong.

I get a little cagey when big companies and brands invest money in music-based projects when their own business operations couldn’t be further from music – yet every now and then there will be a worthwhile project which gets together the correct creative minds and comes away with something meaningful and even inspirational.

Car manufacturer Hyudai are cross promoting their new car with a project called RE:GENERATION which sees the likes of DJ Premier, Skrillex, Mark Ronson, Pretty Lights and The Crystal Method come out of their typical musical comfort zones and delve into genres that have been fundamentally influential to them and team up with some legends in the process to create brand new sounds.

The result, as you’ll see in the YouTube trailer, are moments of revelation and frustration but the key aspect here is that an album of sorts featuring all the work is being given away as a free download on the official website with a feature length film to follow.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLlxvrXURoo

Amongst all of the melee, one of our favourite UK producers/artists Bonobo has remixed the huge collaborative Mark Ronson track – have a listen!

Mark Ronson ft. Erykah Badu, Mos Def and Trombone Shorty - A La Modeliste (Bonobo Remix) – download here

Download audio file (Mark Ronson ft Erykah Badu Mos Def and Trombone Shorty – A La Modeliste (Bonobo Remix).mp3)

Alice Smith – Love Endeavor (Maurice Fulton Remix)

At about 3am this morning I watched upcoming singer-songwriter Josh Osho’s reinventive acoustic cover of Kanye West and Jamie Foxx’s Jesus Walks and I was left absolutely speechless by it.

The guy has broken the song down to it’s absolute core elements and carefully built it back up in a beautiful fashion – utilising his guitars in more ways and demonstrating some stunning vocal abilitiies.

Virtual pat-on-the-back to Mr Osho – I hope Kanye’s seen it.

Etta James passed away today from complications rising from a long battle with leukaemia. She had a voice like no other and she will be sorely missed. Here are just some of the songs that made her a soul legend. R.I.P.

Etta James – I Would Rather Go Blind

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YApNirMC9gM

Etta James – Sunday Kind Of Love

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfNLspDL3ns

Mahalia is a 13-year-old singer and song-writer from Leicester (UK).

She’s just released a stripped back performance of herself on YouTube.

It warmed my heart and made me smile.

She was a great musical future ahead of herself.

Michael Kiwanuka covering Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love for BBC Radio 1.

Only thing that I can think of is wow.

Miami-based Danny Daze and Australia’s Young Edits have teamed up this month and created a rather special bootleg of the late Aaliyah’s One In A Million.

Perhaps this will spark an ongoing musical relationship between the two and based on the final result, it could be incredibly fruitful.

Danny Daze & Young Edits – One In A Million (Aaliyah bootleg)

Aaliyah’s death is still to this day such a huge loss for the music industry on a whole and you can only imagine how huge of a star she would have been if she were still alive and making music.