Edward Scissortongue
Universe bless Spotify’s ‘Experimental Hip Hop’ playlist. I’m not going to pretend I’ve permanently got my ear to the ground, or am constantly somehow in the know; I’m winging this and most of the time it’s a fluke. But fuck me what a fluke in the case of Edward Scissortongue. After coming across track ‘The Wipeout Soundtrack’ by checking the newest tracks on aforementioned playlist, I immediately got into checking into Edward Scissortongue and ingesting his back catalogue for the rest of the day.
Having started out as a part of UK hip hop collective Contact Play, Scissortongue has been carving out a solo career for a couple of years now, shaping a sound that shows a significant shift in style from more traditional hip hop. His solo output can be found exploring soundscapes as much as metophor, wordplay, and storytelling, through expansive instrumentals that take their atmospheric cues from trip hop, film scores, and electronica – suiting Scissortongue’s low, slow, and gravelly flow, that comes across like a menacing and rhythmically ambidextrous spoken word.
toyface
Because sometimes a fluke has more to offer, and so was the case with hearing Edward Scissortongue’s track ‘The Wipeout Soundtrack’, featuring as it did toyface, who I also immediately checked out, and was quite delighted to find quite the songwriter behind that quite wonderful voice. Quite.
At this point, I would love to tell you lots and lots about toyface, but frustratingly toyface seems to be one of those artists who churns out consistently brilliant music but does not get the coverage it deserves; it’s either that or I’m incompetent – a real possibility. Anyhow, you, yes you, reader-right-there; listen, consume, absorb, spread! toyface’s poignant yet fun, jazzy yet poppy, awesomeness doesn’t need your love, but it should have it, and everyone else’s too.
Lamplighter
Because sometimes a fluke has more to offer, and so was the case with hearing Edward Scissortongue’s track ‘The Wipeout Soundtrack’, because as well as leading me to toyface and Edwards Scissortongue, obviously, it lead me to frequent collaborator, Lamplighter, when looking into Scissortongue’s back catalogue. I say ‘frequent collaborator’, but Lamplighter has produced the entirety of Scissortongue’s debut album, Better.Luck.Next.Life., his latest EP, Chavassian Striking Distance, and his upcoming LP. Oh, and on both their individual Facebook pages they cite the other as a member. Maybe constant collaborators is more appropriate.
Though, saying that, Lamplighter has released material all of his own, and that’s what I’m highlighting here. As I mentioned previously when discussing the soundscape exploration in Edward Scissortongue’s music, obviously plenty of that can be attributed to Lamplighter and whilst the two work in sync with one another – interweaving and appearing to be the lyrical and instrumental mood equivalents of the other – Lamplighter’s production and composition works amazingly well on its own, generally taking on a more ambient approach, creating pieces that cause an intrigue in the listener, drawing you in, but at the same time playing around the listener, allowing you to listen to the musings inside your ahead too – placing you as a kind of stream of conscious lyricist with in the tracks.
Frances
What was I doing at 21? Not releasing my stunning debut EP, that’s for sure. God, this quarter life crisis of mine is getting a bit much here, isn’t it? Ah well, fuck it, not like you’re not getting some amazing music in exchange for me smuggling whinging and whining into these write-ups. Amazing music like that of France, for example.
Frances and her music have been garnering quite a buzz of late, and rightfully so as it’s all come to fruition with her genuinely stunning debut EP. Over the course of its four tracks we are exposed to proficient songwriter of quite stark and stripped back tunes, that create quite effective and emotive intimacy. Also, one of contrasting ability, perfectly capable of sitting within piano lead pop ballads as well as subdued RnB.
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