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Jungle – Loving In Stereo

Label:    Caiola Records – CAI001LPXX, Caiola Records – CAI001LP
Format:    Vinyl, LP, Album, White/Cream Marbled
Sealed
Marbled flesh-coloured vinyl. Embossed gatefold sleeve.
Country:    UK
Released:    Aug 13, 2021
Genre:    Electronic, Funk / Soul
Style:    Neo Soul

Tracklist

A1        Dry Your Tears
A2        Keep Moving
A3        All Of The Time
A4        Romeo
Featuring – Bas 
A5        Lifting You
A6        Bonnie Hill

B1        Fire
B2        Talk About It
B3        No Rules
B4        Truth
B5        What D'You Know About Me?
B6        Just Fly, Don't Worry
B7        Goodbye My Love
Featuring – Priya Ragu
B8        Can’t Stop The Stars

"There could be no better way to introduce the hopeful core of ‘Loving In Stereo’ than with first singles ‘Keep Moving’ and ‘Talk About It’. The latter, co-written with UK producer-of-the-moment InFlo (who’s worked with Little Simz and Michael Kiwanuka), pairs a stoic bassline with frenetic beats and stabbing disco strings. The former is unquestionably the album’s highlight: a disco banger that implores us to “keep moving” when barriers crop up. Even the fact that “you’re breaking my heart” is transformed into a reason for gratitude – “thanks for making me stronger” amid strutting drums, hand claps and a soaring choir.

Similarly tranquil tracks ‘Just Fly Don’t Worry’ and ‘Dry Your Tears’, though, do little to emote or add depth to the record, feeling superfluous on a sometimes bloated 13-track album. Yet ‘Fire’ and ‘What D’You Know About Me?’, which echo a ‘70s TV caper soundtrack and a SAULT off-cut respectively, do well to keep Jungle’s new-found tempo propelling further into the record, replete with siren synths, chants and relentless breakbeats." (NME review)

Tyla – Tyla

Label:    Epic – 196588769214
Format:    Vinyl, LP, Album, Translucent Orange With Red Swirls
Sealed
Translucent Orange With Red Swirls Vinyl.
Barcode (Scanned): 196588769214
Country:    US
Released:    Mar 22, 2024
Genre:    Funk / Soul, Pop
Style:    African, Rhythm & Blues, Contemporary R&B

Tracklist

A1        Intro
Featuring – Kelvin Momo
A2        Safer
A3        Water
A4        Truth Or Dare
A5        Breathe Me
A6        Priorities
A7        Butterflies

B1        On And On
B2        Art
B3        Jump
Featuring – Gunna, Skillibeng
B4        On My Body
Featuring – Becky G
B5        To Last
B6        Water
Featuring – Marshmello
B7        Water (Remix)
Featuring – Travis Scott 

Tyla Laura Seethal (born 30 January 2002), known mononymously as Tyla, is a South African singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Johannesburg, she signed with Epic Records in 2021 after the domestic success of her 2019 debut single, "Getting Late" featuring Kooldrink.

"Though amapiano has ascended from South African clubs to the global charts, the broad appeal of “Water” lies in Tyla’s voice, which seems attuned to contemporary R&B in the same way that Rihanna’s debut single “Pon de Replay” was geared to split the middle between pop and dancehall. Tyla’s pre-“Water” music, crafted not long after she graduated high school, inclined towards the underground; her first single “Getting Late,” from 2019, emphasized the sparse interplay between her angelic voice and club-centric 808s. “Been Thinking,” from 2021, had its own anthemic chorus and a clever interpolation of Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” displaying her admiration for Y2K-era radio hits on a rhythm whose lineage threaded through South African kwaito and back to another diasporic genre, UK funky.

She’s a savvy singer, capable of a full belt while mostly residing in the realm of sensuous breathiness, which gives her songs the air of an internal monologue. The vocal intimacy betrays her influences—she’s studied the Aaliyah canon—and her rendition is committed but cool, like she’s singing from the back of the club and hasn’t yet removed her sunglasses. In “On and On,” the Babygirlest of these tracks in name and execution, she unwinds the chorus as though whispering a secret, her easy melisma slinking through the bass." (Pitchfork)

"Album opener Safer is a straight dive into the slick world of Afrobeats, complete with multilayered chorus. Ditto the previously released Truth or Dare. Nigerian singer Tems gives a brief jolt of energy to No.1 but the song itself is too flighty to make any lasting impression. American performer Becky G makes On My Body more memorable than it has a right to be. The album was never going to match the hype of Tyla’s industry-anointed era. The sexy, shrewd alchemy captured and bottled on Water was one of those major pop events that simply cannot be replicated – at least not so soon. In the meantime, Tyla’s first album still makes for a good time." (Continent review)

Shakira – Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran

Label:    Sony Music Latin – 19658881001
Format:    2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Diamond Edition, Clear
Sealed
Gatefold Cover
Barcode (Text): 1 96588 81001 5
Country:    US
Released:    Mar 22, 2024
Genre:    Electronic, Latin, Funk / Soul, Pop
Style:    Reggaeton, Bachata, Afrobeat

Tracklist

A1    Shakira X Cardi B–    Puntería
A2    Shakira X Bizarrap–    La Fuerte
A3    Shakira–    Tiempo Sin Verte
A4    Shakira X Rauw Alejandro–    Cohete

B1    Shakira X Grupo Frontera–    (Entre Paréntesis)
B2    Shakira–    Cómo Dónde Y Cuándo
B3    Shakira–    Nassau
B4    Shakira–    Última

C1    Shakira X Rauw Alejandro–    Te Felicito
C2    Shakira X Ozuna–    Monotonía
C3    Shakira–    Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53
C4    Shakira X Karol G–    TQG

D1    Shakira X Milan + Sasha–    Acróstico
D2    Shakira X Manuel Turizo–    Copa Vacía
D3    Shakira X Fuerza Régida–    El Jefe
D4    Shakira–    Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 (Tiësto Remix)

""Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran obsesses over the demise of Shakira’s 11-year relationship with Gerard Piqué, the former Spanish soccer player she now calls “Voldemort.” The album title originates from a lyric in the standout “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol.53,” the diss track originally recorded for Argentine DJ Bizarrap’s popular video series, and Shakira’s first all-Spanish song to reach the Hot 100. More than a year later, her digs still sting, from belittling her ex as a rookie to comparing his new girlfriend to a Twingo. Even when she’s not saying Piqué’s name, she kind of is: Imaginative, shady wordplay like “Yo solo hago música, perdón que te salpique” (roughly, “I only make music, sorry if it bothers you”) turned the song into a viral sensation. Then there’s the Kill Bill moment when Shakira reveals her intentions for this track, and perhaps to some extent, this album: “Esto es pa’ que te mortifique’/Mastique’ y trague’, trague’ y mastique’” (“This is for you to be mortified/To chew and swallow, swallow and chew”). Beneath her visceral rage is the heartbroken lover who simply wants to hurt her ex like he hurt her, to guarantee this record follows him forever.

The saga begins as a fantasy on flirty nu-disco opener “Puntería,” with Cardi B, where women are goddesses and men are horny centaurs with washboard abs. Bizarrap appears again on the squelchy electro-pop track “La Fuerte,” which pulses with 2 a.m. club heat as a post-breakup Shaki seeks refuge on the dancefloor. But as the chorus swells and the tempo quickens, it sounds as if she’s on the brink of calling her ex. “Dime dónde, cuándo y cómo,” she repeats (“Tell me where, when, and how”), her voice breaking into the high-pitched plea of romantic anguish that first defined Shakira’s music—good thing she deleted his number.

At its core, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran is a pop album for a mainstream audience, a colorful concoction of EDM-infused dance tracks, generic disco beats, and the occasional rap that’s practically designed to be edited into glossy TikToks. Under its plasticky umbrella, Shakira also flexes her chameleonic powers, fusing Afrobeats with Dominican bachata, ska with northern cumbia, and electropop with reggaetón. Angsty alt-rock songs like “Tiempo Sin Verte” and “Cómo Dónde y Cuándo” harken back to her Alanis Morissette-esque 1998 album ¿Dónde Están los Ladrones? The latter song has a scrappy, start-stop guitar riff reminiscent of “Where Is My Mind?,” recalling her affinity for Aerosmith and the Cure." (Pitchfork)