The Listening Pod: Episode I

Welcome to The Listening Pod, a new series on this blog where people from QM Records can share the music that they have been listening to with you. The focus will be on emerging and breakthrough talents, as well as artists that belong to the underground music scene. Expect variety, expect new listening experiences, and most of all, expect regular updates to your playlists.

Col3trane

Nineteen-year-old Col3trane just dropped his new mixtape titled BOOT, an acronym for ‘Breathing Out of Time’, and I am here to instruct you all to go out and cop it right now.

It builds on his debut EP called Tsarina, which dropped late last year and caught the eye of current pop sensation, Dua Lipa. As a result, she added him as a support act on her UK & Ireland spring tour. In a very recent BBC 1Xtra interview, Cole let us know that — start to finish — the mixtape took about seven months to produce. This newcomer is bursting with creativity on BOOT, bringing a sophisticated melting pot of R&B and trap sounds that would have people thinking he’s been in the game for more than a couple of years.

BOOT takes you on a trip through the winding path of self-growth as a burgeoning young-adult in a world that flings him between countries and cultures frequently; a kaleidoscopic reflection of the people he meets and the fickle state of mind that his sudden life changes have brought to him. The EP starts us out on a hallucinatory trip that took inspiration from the cult film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), with the track bearing a similar name to the film. It’s an introduction to the first single from the mixtape, Britney. The two tracks sit interlinked and although initially, it seems that Britney is about a young girl Cole is trying to court, the track actually reveals a hallucinatory trip that is reminiscent of the visuals from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This is all wrapped up in warped sounds juxtaposed by a thumping distorted drum beat when the pre-chorus comes in.

The energy undulates throughout the mixtape and the closing track is a soulful contemporary R&B/hip-hop track titled Tyler with yet another film reference, although this time its Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom: “Bringing Camp Ivanhoe problems / got Suzy in the closet”.

BOOT is an accomplished project that tantalises its listeners with the promise that Col3trane’s talent is only in the making. He is one to put on your radars now because this kid is about to blow up, for real.

Bellaire

Another nineteen-year-old next,