Frances - Grow [Capitol Records]

We've got something special here today, an amazing piece of vocal and piano work from Frances. Honestly, there's nothing better than to hear from the artist themselves what a song means to them, and in Frances' own words from her website: "The song is really special to me. It's about loving someone and wanting to keep them close, but deep down you know you need to let them go and experience new things. You tell them that you'll wait for them, as long as they need, and will be there at the end to hear every story." The lyrics are also included at that link if you're interested. Really, there's nothing more to say other than you really need to listen to this - it's a beautiful piece.

Grow is available as part of Frances' upcoming EP of the same name.  You can pre-order the EP and get the title track right away, though it looks like the EP is currently only in the GB iTunes store.  Keep an eye out for an international release or track down a way to get your hands on it if you love it (and how couldn't you?). Keep watching Frances' pages (Soundcloud, Facebook) and her website for more.

What, you thought we were all just dance music all the time? ;)

- KJ

Gravez and ELHAE - Call Me Back

Atlanta artists Gravez and ELHAE teamed up to bring you this emotional hip hop and rnb jam called Call Me Back. I won't go to hard into lyric analysis, as you can tell where they're coming from just listening to the track. Think calling the ex. In any case, this track is a beautiful blend of production and vocal prowess alike in the style.

Call Me Back is up as a free download, scoop it here.

- KJ

Mar - She's A Dancer (Produced by Sebastian Carter)

Mar brought some new material to Soundcloud this past week with She's A Dancer, the backing track produced by Sebastian Carter. This is a fairly chilled out tropical deep house track for Mellow Monday.

Starting off with some simple evolving synth pads and also adding in some subtle percussion, Sebastian Carter lays the perfect backdrop to showcase Mar's always spectacular vocals. The buildup finally drops in at the 1:10 mark, with She's A Dancer moving into tropical deep house territory. Mar is still very much still present in the track, and the backing track calms back down for the second verse only to drop back in at 2:55.

Mar has also released this for free download through Toneden, so hit the shopping cart in the player below and grab your copy.

- KJ

Yugen - Calgary

We wanted to share this track earlier, but felt like it would fit best as a Mellow Monday post and held off until today. Abbey Fontaine and Edwin O'Hara are long term friends and a duo out of Melbourne working under the project name Yugen. After both having had to pull through some tough personal battles, they were faced with the choice of whether or not to continue with their musical project. As you can tell since you're reading this here, they decided to continue and put everything into their music.  This approach definitely comes across in their first track. Yugen sent some of their material my way through freshdrops email, and I'm glad they did - Calgary blew me away with the emotional depth and vocal chops exhibited on it. The backing track is a fairly simple but driving beat, but the real strength of this piece comes from the ambience created in the background along with the slow evolving melodic elements all working in unison with Abbey's superb vocal work and lyricism. Best of all, Calgary is released as a free download from their Soundcloud, which can even be downloaded from the embedded player below.

Yugen has already had some attention from Triple J, and have also put together a short teaser video available on Vimeo. Calgary is the first piece of work from Yugen, but it has me just waiting on their next piece. Make sure to follow their pages and watch for this duo as more material becomes available.

- KJ

Sina. - It Was You

Three tracks not enough for Mellow Monday?  We thought not.  Sina. is an artist that I've been listening to for a while, but have yet to post on freshdrops.  That ends today. The Irish producer has started to tease a couple of the tracks from his upcoming free EP on Soundcloud, and It Was You is the latest he has uploaded in advance of that release. This is a really chill piece of work, and full of emotion - perfect for winding down Monday evening.  Just hit play and drift into the soundscape offered here for the next 4 minutes.  You'll be glad you did.  Then hit play again.

Watch for Sina.'s EP dropping soon for free, and in the meantime grab his remixes collection for free from his Bandcamp page - remixes of Passion Pit, Odesza, Kilimanjaro and more.

- KJ

Soundpalette - Desires

Seriously, does Soundpalette release much of anything that isn't awesome? From where we stand, we haven't seen it... Desires is fresssshhh off of his Soundcloud, and up for free download. As usual, Soundpalette creates an emotional soundscape of pads and ambient sounds, leading up into some really interesting beats. He also enlisted the help of  vocalist Emy Zaluzna to lay down some emotional lyrical content for this track.

This has been up for about an hour, hop on it while it's fresh.  Or hop on it after a while, it'll still be just as good.  But don't sleep on this one - hit the download button in the player below to add it to your collection.

- KJ

Shura - Touch (CANVAS Remix)

Those songs that tug at your heartstrings while still sounding so amazing that you can't get enough. You know the ones, that bring back memories or events from a while back - often with flashbacks of bittersweet thoughts attached, but still manages to leave you with a bit of a smile.  

This is a powerful track, full of emotion.  I came across it and loved it right away. Shura's vocals are still prominently featured for the most part, then chopped up by CANVAS in a way that somehow retains the emotional depth.  The overall track is stripped back from the original and enhanced with melodic and percussive elements to give it a really distinct feel from the original production.

This is one for the books. Get this into your ears as soon as possible.  You'll be glad you did.

- KJ