Hello, and welcome to a brand-new feature here at Top Five Records! Today, we wanted to dive into five great songs that we’ve heard from new artists who have submitted music to us from all over the world. Without further ado, here’s our inaugural New Artist Roundup from Top Five Records!
Interested in submitting music to us? Please email us at artists.tfr@gmail.com.
“Stuck Pig” by EIN SAM
EIN SAM is a young electronic musician based out of Bristol, UK with three songs so far under his belt. The second of these tracks, “Stuck Pig”, was released at the start of the year. The track features a meandering bassline and slow-paced drums that form a great foundation for EIN SAM’s deliberate vocal style. The song itself is, in the artist’s own words, “about inner and outer divisions”, and he does well in portraying that through his lyrics about being neither here nor there (see lyric video above). The song’s fuzzy psychedelic rock gives us vibes of Mazzy Star, so if that’s your cup of tea, be sure to give this a listen.
“Letters” by Metro
Metro is a young four-piece band hailing from Palo Alto, California. “Letters”, the band’s second song so far, starts off with dreamy instrumentals that are joined by singer Marina Buendia’s folksy, quivering vocals. The entire song is built on a concept of personified Winter and Summer writing letters to each other, and kudos to Metro for making that seem much more quaint than you’d expect. The band’s dream-pop vibes sound like a sweeter, stripped down version of Tame Impala – not bad for a bunch of teenagers. If you liked this track, you can check out their first song “Her”.
“Sinners” by Gede
Washington D.C.-based Gede makes music that defies neat little genre boxes. Gede describes his own music as a combination of big beats, distorted guitars, bass and much more, and cites artists as diverse as Tame Impala and Gary Clark Jr. as his inspirations. “Sinners”, from his 2021 album Forward, is a great example of that. The track features Gede’s contemporary rap bars set against electric blues-rock – with jazzier interplays that could easily feature on, say, a heist movie montage. If you liked this track, you should definitely give the rest of the new album a spin.
“Angel Follows Me Out” by Gallery 47
British musician Gallery 47 (real name Jack Peachey) makes introspective, acoustic guitar-driven music reminiscent of folky artists such as Elliott Smith or Nick Drake. His latest track, “Angel Follows Me Out”, is a two-and-a-half minute ditty with pretty acoustics that play well with the quiet, melancholic vocals. The song really focuses on the deft guitar work with not more than four to five sentences of actual lyrics; but the end result is a clean, simple but haunting piece of music. If you liked that track, then you’re in luck: Gallery 47 is a highly prolific musician with four (!) albums in 2020 alone.
“Space” by Nuela Charles
Canadian singer-songwriter Nuela Charles has been slowly making a name for herself since her debut album Aware (2012). Her sophomore album, The Grand Hustle (2016), featuring the slow-burning pop track “Crumbling Down”, was even nominated for the JUNOs (the Canadian equivalent of the GRAMMYs), and she’s garnered numerous awards and charting positions in her native Canada over the years. Charles’ signature sound seems to be contrasting her silky-smooth vocals – think Ariana Grande or our new fav Celeste – against a big-band bass, horns and drums type of production. Her latest single “Space” (created with Juice WRLD producer her Don Mills) falls squarely in this niche. Much like Grande’s “NASA”, space here refers to the physical and emotional distance between Charles and her lover, except as a twist, it seems like Charles is the one trying to pull the other person back in (“I don’t need space / you told me you needed space”). Great entry point into a singer that is bound to break big very soon.
Interested in submitting music to us? Please email us at artists.tfr@gmail.com.
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