Stolen Velour, Floco, and Aria SL: A Fluid Club Deconstruction
From South London, the trio Stolen Velour, Floco, and Aria SL have crafted a unique sound that deconstructs club music with a liquid touch. Their debut album, Underlight, released on Bristol label Illegal Data, presents a shapeshifting approach where elements sink, dissolve, or float serenely on the surface.
The trio began as housemates in southeast London, where sounds bleeding into one another was less a creative choice and more a reality of housesharing. They pooled their ideas as producers before adding individual touches: Floco’s violin, Aria SL’s bel canto vocals, and Stolen Velour’s clubbier production chops. Their live sets have earned them an unusual spread of support slots, complementing both Jabu’s dubby shoegaze and the hardcore horror rave of Yya.
Underlight: A Full Spectrum of Movement
Following last year’s ambient EP Holdfast, Underlight finds a fuller spectrum of movement without breaking their carefully created atmosphere. Lead single “Caught Myself” bobs between sunken drawls and airy, keening vocalisations, like a swimmer in a cycle of submerging and reappearing. The trip-hop of “Moment” wobbles and pulses, while busier club styles like amapiano and gqom appear on “I Want” and “Loch.”
The album’s strength lies in the balance between states of immersion. “Cutscene,” at the LP’s midpoint, is a formless, full-body plunge, followed immediately by a cover: a refreshingly clean take on “Lilium,” the Puccini-like main theme from Japanese manga series Elfen Lied. From this high, the vocal line tumbles ever downwards, and the process of immersion begins again.
This Week’s Best New Tracks
Radie Peat – Still I Love Him
The Lankum member’s solo debut is a song of eternal loving devotion, but the narrator’s lover “knocks me about.” This sadness and horror is carried like a current of icy water through the warm, lovely arrangement.
Biita Houdei – The Ground Here
Hard to do the Laurel Canyon thing without aping the greats, but Houdei channels Joni’s open-hearted “chords of inquiry” and powers this acoustic sunbeam with her own appealingly rangy energy.
Kelela and PinkPantheress – The Bridge
Kelela effortlessly brings luxury to everything she does; the surprise here is the usually cheeky PinkPantheress harmonising gorgeously on a story of a crush so overwhelming, this aqueous ballad sounds drowned by it.
RenzNiro – Save Me
Over a drill-leaning beat with snares flitting past bass rumbles that lurk in the shadows, the Manchester rapper-producer recites self-worth mantras – just one highlight from world-building mixtape No Weapon Shall Prosper.
Gilla Band – Placeholder
Some of the Irish band’s most diabolical work yet: an arid, sucking riff – catchy to the point of torment – coils around Dara Kiely’s vocals before a frenzied constriction and manic, whacked-out high.
Edgar – Sígueme
From the Oakland-and-Guadalajara musician’s new album Pavor, this is a Spanish-language cover of Amanda Lear’s Italo disco classic “Follow Me,” glittering like a black mirrorball in a goth club.
Slow Pulp – Not for Nothing
There’s something of Bonnie Raitt’s 90s heartbreakers to this piano-driven ballad from the Chicago band, as Emily Massey sings of the gulf between someone and their ex who has already moved on.
