I know the sexualisation of R&B has been overdone to a point where it has become sexually gratifying, big arses and jiggly tits sitting and dancing on Hummers, where the amount of fuel one can afford to consume relates to the size of your dick, and this sells records. So where does Evy Jane fit in and why are they categorizing themselves as R&B alongside Pop?
Evy Jane gives you R&B sex in a low-riding Morris 1000, running on the vocals of a harmonious Evelyn Mason, on the depth and width of the backseat from funky drop beats created by Jeremiah Klein.
R&B sex in a low-riding Morris 1000
Evy Jane are these two collaborators, Mason and Klein, that are part of a global Vancouver-based outfit of collective artists called King Deluxe, which I can categorically say are producing some far away trip pop, and what can only be described as trip breaks/core (check 'Vodka on Patio' by Aleph and Vaetxh’s 'Mass').
Evy Jane bring a smoother sexier edge to this outfit, and are the first to be released on King Deluxe vinyl. I think this is because Kingdeluxe know what they have here, and the spinning wheel complements other collaborating artists (remixes by Max Ulis of Ohso and Julien Mier Sayso push the limits of the records consummately, not so much with Taal Mala, and no comment on Andy Dixon).
EVY JANE – Sayso from Evy Jane on Vimeo.
Sayso and Ohso hold trip pop overtures in the background grooves that gives a melodic humming, and skewing of non-offensive ambience, which nibbles on your ear and jaggers the hips into action, making a sound that accompanies Evy’s talented pitched voice.
Evy Jane’s sounds of warmth and narrative, are held together like a warm slice of freshly-cut bread that would melt butter fresh out of the fridge; penetrating body and mind in their conjoined harmony, rolling on, not over, samples, each as provocative as the last and produced to the highest quality.
Evy Jane’s sound is definitely a fine specimen for the ears with enough creativity to carry the continuity, wilfully un-carried, and majestically accompanied with flag-raising lyrics.
I would quite happily have someone drop Sayso or Ohso in any rammed club, or stick it on whilst shopping in an empty Tesco’s at 4 o’clock in the morning as you graze like a zebra, and then jump into taxi with Pocahontas to carry on smoking her 100 year-old pipe, which is then interrupted by some cheaply synthesised and celebrated American R&B put on by another housemate.
A little bit like the slaughter that is celebrated every year in the form of ‘thanksgiving’, nasty R'n'B is is instead celebrated and performed at the AMA’s (such as domestically abusive Chris Brown (won 2008/performed 2011) or a homophobic Eminem (won 2009/performed 2010)).
Evy Jane doesn’t fit the mould of beaten up diva and socially incapable trailer trash. This doesn’t mean Evy Jane won't make a mark on the scene that they affiliate with, if anything they give a freshness to an archaic and typecast R&B panorama.
Sayso shows Evy Jane’s most promiscuous side, lyrically poignant in holding one under a spell, like a zebra staring at Tesco’s shopping trolleys, or your Pocahontas as you watch her every move when she rolls that stomach to mellow grooves etched into dark vinyl, bringing a throb to your fore as you wonder whether striking gold may have been too true, and that life has never been better. Sayso encapsulates all these metaphors and similes, and mingles with your thoughts correctly.
rolling drops, woody rises and knocks, a flurry of wobble and funk
Sayso’s sound holds up as much as the lyrics, a collective of rolling drops, woody rises and knocks, a flurry of wobble and funk, which together will move your feet on the club floor, and release one’s stiff joints in a wakening simulation as you go through the motions.
Like the slow movement of cumulonimbus lit up by street lights, Sayso lets your mind wonder and drift into the night, letting you be the fox of the city, and move in confident drifts of your subconscious along rhythmic vocals and toning subbass.
Ohso goes a little deeper. It propels fourth an edgier cutting sound that removes the daylight from your wakening simulation in Sayso, and gives you a ruder, 'look at me, I’m not arrogant but I know some stuff you don’t' kind of sound.
Ohso also introduces a short and rightful male voice sample, which meets the Ms./Miss. Mason with a Livingstonian Victoria Falls-styled ‘Mr. Klein I presume?’, it is an utter complement to the record and emphasised by the move-mental basslines and samples.
an eloquent and knowing entrance of tantalizing whisper, beat, and drop
Ohso enters the room like Jagger at Carley Simon’s house party: an eloquent and knowing entrance of tantalizing whisper, beat, and drop, with a sound knowledge that Ohso is just as good as Sayso, and that zebra and Pocahontas are sitting in the corner smoking their pipe enjoying the second set of fine grooves.
Ohso’s body has a different punch to Sayso, but is still on the same trip. I suppose what I mean by this is that it is definitively more punchy in beat and forceful in vocal tone. It says sit up zebra, Pocahontas wants to get deep. Put that pipe down because you’ll need two hands to keep this one down. Stop chatting shit, its time to talk through these lyrical algorithms whilst we feel the touch of these tasty basslines. Zebra, ‘ok lets go to Vancouver’, Pocahontas, ‘I’m seeing black and white, fuck me’.
Pocahontas and zebra don’t fit into your normal story lines of popular music, and neither do Evy Jane. But then again neither do Radiohead, Portishead, Massive Attack, or Nivana, but their sounds are recognised across the globe, played in shops, bars and on adverts.
it can fit into the boardroom, but chooses not to
What Evy Jane are saying through Ohso and Sayso to this black and white industry is that they can fit into the boardroom, but choose not to, and prefer to sit sexy in a truly global collective with comrades from across the globe. One glitch with this is the naming of the tracks, but I suppose it works for popular and boardrooms, and this is why they categorise themselves as they do.
If you don’t buy this LP or download it, Pocahontas will be beaten up by someone resembling Chris brown, and zebra will be mistakenly seen as homosexual and then shot by a redneck poaching under the pseudonym Eminem.
On KingDeluxe
NAP & Nico. is a writer, a painter, a poet, a illustrator and writer of a disabled squirrels children’s storybook . An academic yet to set the world on fire, but who is holding a Zippo beneath the Zepplin carrying modern society’s scene that will wonder why they hadn’t heard of NAP & Nico before.
