Recently, more and more often I catch myself listening to my peers, and often younger artists. A strange feeling, because I’m used to the fact that I mainly get recordings of older vintages on playlists, and younger ones are either inactive or have absolutely nothing to say.
Fortunately, they are not an isolated case, and there are more rapids just as well, or maybe even better at dealing with electronics.
In quite a long list of young artists with an idea for their own work, one cannot omit Maya Jane Coles. She had her first adventures with music creation software at the age of 15. Warmly received in the house backyard EPs, she built a position on the stage, which resulted in remixes for Delphika, Massive Attack and Gorillaz. All this she managed to reach around twenty. Then a series of flawless deep-house hits on subsequent releases and gaining the status of a sought-after DJ. That would be enough for many youngsters.
Many, but not Mai, for whom the clubs turned out to be too tight. She wanted to go beyond them, beyond the beat, beyond simple schemes. Most surprisingly, it worked out great. “Comfort” is a complete, coherent, cleverly arranged album, which is difficult for artists of the generation of EPs and popularity built on hashtags. However, this is not the most important thing. Before hearing Maja’s debut, I was almost sure that I would put it on the record shelf next to Magda Chojnacka’s album, an album filled with a measured, deep beat, rarely embellished with vocals. Meanwhile, the album fits perfectly into the gap between SBTRKT and Emika. Because Maya decided that from now on she would write songs. You can hear her deep roots in them, because the koimpositions are striking with deep bass. However, I’m often not sure if it’s more deep-house bass, or maybe we’re already entering dubstep? On this bass, the debutant builds quite economical, but captivating with elegance arrangements. However, without spoiling too much about her talent, I admit that they constitute only half of her success. Because the girl is lucky to be vocalists. “Comfort” hosts, among others, Tricky, Miss Kittin, Karin Park. Everyone is flawless, but the biggest show was given by Thomas Knights, disarming soul mannerism, which is in vain to find in other white vocalists of the young generation.
It’s not that it’s a brilliant record. But I’ve certainly lacked that kind of brilliance and versatility on the electronic scene lately. And for this Maya deserves an additional 100 points and a huge credit of trust.