Abel Tesfaye is a Toronto-based singer/song writer/producer. He steps outside of the box and challenges the structural definitions of genres, particularly R&B. He is the one-man project of The Weeknd; a futuristic, drugged-out, after-after-party take on R&B, yet I would not consider it R&B nor dubstep. Alongside R&B vocals, he incorporates dubstep and indie rock style instrumentation. As a result, he creates some amazing atmospheric elements to involve the listener into pure euphoria. His astounding debut, House of Balloons, truly hits you in the gut--not only emotionally, but as a music fan as well. He breathes life into the boring and stale R&B music culture today.
Experimental Brit artist, James Blake, arrived with a large splash following his stunning cover of Feist's beautifully elegiac Limit to Your Love. As an artist he is a disciple of the less-is-more school with his self-titled debut album characterized by a predominant sparsity. His music is often introspective and undefined, charting to strange landscapes and unknown textures. Unlike The Weeknd, James Blake's atmosphere is a lot more experimental and minimalistic. There is something about how he provokes emotion in silences and spaces that lie in his songs--makes you want to lye down in them for a while.
British producer, Jamie Smith of indie-pop band The xx, made himself a powerful ingrediant of dubstep overnight from his debut, We're New Here, with Gil Scott-Heron. Jamie xx knows how to seamlessly sample poetry and spoken-word into trance-inducing music. As a result, he creates some cutting-edge, high-quality post-dubstep tracks. His sound is said to be influenced by fellow British acts Burial and Kode9.
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