KWES. ROLLERBLADES

There's not much of this around, touching and understated pop songs. Not as far as I have heard anyway. If you've heard 'em, send 'em, and I'll listen to 'em. But for the moment, we have Kwes. (yes, with the full-stop apparently) with a lovely new song called 'Rollerblades'.

You heard of Kwes. before? No, neither have I. Let's discover him together. He comes originally from South East London, gaining an interest in music - and sound recording particularly - at an early age. He also has colour synesthesia, which means he sees colours when listening to music, which are associated to certain notes. Sounds cool to me, but he plays it down, saying: "it doesn't annoy me, or it doesn't amuse me, or it doesn't make me feel good, it's a normal occurrence to me." There you go.

Believe it or not, he's been quite active in the field of producing, having done work with The Xx and Micachu in the past. But, above all, he's a solo artist in his own right, and an interesting one at that, as this song 'Rollerblades' quite nicely illustrates.

It comes from the EP he released earlier in spring of this year, Meantime. But what exactly is it? It's kinda an experimental indie pop sound, but with hooks and progressions in the melody that are more pop pop than anything else. It's an altogether sparse sound, which is, the more you listen to it, actually more interesting than it first seems - there are little percussive sounds that dot the beat like simple little decorations, the bassline is on the surface quite simple but is doing a few more forward rolls and arab springs than you think, the glitchy blips that do zip in and out of earshot, and the lyrics as well are beautifully mundane (about how somebody's hair looks, going out for dinner, and above all - rollerblading).

The last minute or so of this pretty ditty are turned into an atonal mash of electro sounds and pinging percussion vague beats and only a hint of stability. This is quite exciting because it means that, alongside singing in is plaintive voice about going rollerblading set to catchy beats and melodious hooks, he can also lay down some truly experimental sounds, electric in nature and style. Good job Kwes.!

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