Every week TOW is lucky enough to pick two songs for Tom Robinson’s brilliant BBC 6 Music show, the spot goes out every Monday morning at around 2:30am. Here are our picks for this week:
Pick 1: Cherry Chan & Kiat – Samurai Waltz
TOW met Singapore’s Cherry Chan at the Red Bull Music Academy in London a few weeks ago. The Academy brings together young musicians and producers from around the globe to hang out, play music and hear some of their heroes speak – this year they were treated to the likes of Flying Lotus, Jazzie B and Roots Manuva.
Cherry Chan runs a women’s electronic music collective back in Singapore, where she says it’s very hard for anything remotely leftfield to get any attention. However, Cherry and her collective are keeping Singapore’s electronic music scene firmly alive. She blends cultural references, like the ‘shhhtzzing’ sound of a Samurai sword, with some great big beats. We love it.
Pick 2: Loan – Self-Exorcism
Loan emailed TOW a few weeks ago offering to send over her album Grigri Breakers which is out now on France’s I.O.T. Records. Whilst living and working as a grime/dubstep producer in France, Loan travels regularly to West Africa and specifically Senegal using local hip hop MC’s to lay vocals over her beats. The result is Grigri Breakers which came out in June last year and is fresh, original and BAD.