Sylvan Esso (DJ set), Tama Gucci, Swaya

Who they are

• Sylvan Esso

  North Carolina

  “Sylvan Esso was not meant to be a band.”

  their own biography

  the whole biography

  Sylvan Esso was not meant to be a band. Rather, Amelia Meath had written a song called "Play It Right" and sung it with her trio Mountain Man. She's met Nick Sanborn, an electronic producer working under the name Made of Oak, in passing on a shared bill in a small club somewhere. She asked him the scramble it, to render her work his way. He did the obligatory remix, but he sensed that there was something more important here than a onetime handoff: Of all the songs Sanborn had ever recast, this was the first time he felt he'd added to the raw material without subtracting from it, as though, across the unseen wires of online file exchange, he'd found his new collaborator without even looking. Meath felt it, too. Schedules alligned. Moves were made. And as 2012 slipped into 2013, Sanborn and Meath reconvened in the unlikely artistic hub of Durham, N.C., a former manufacturing town with cheap rent and good food. Sylvan Esso became a band. A year later, their self-titled debut - a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance - arrives as a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don't suffer the longstanding complications of that term. These 10 tunes were realised and recorded in Sanborn's Durham bedroom during the last year, an impressive feat considering the layers of activity and effects that populate them - the dizzyingly crisscrossed harmonies of "Play it Right," the gorgeously incongruous elements of "Wolf," the surreptitiously minimalist momentum of "HSKT." Sanborn's production is fully modern and wonderfully active. He enlists obliterating dubstep stutters and crisp electropop pulses, hazy electrostatic breezes and epinephrine dancefloor turnarounds. But this isn't a workout in production skills or a demonstration of electronic erudition. Instead, his music syncs seamlessly with Meath's melodies, so that the respective words and beats become a string of ready-to-play singles. The irrepressible "Hey Mami" webs handclaps and harmonies around a flood of bass, a strangely perfect canvas for a tale of dudes hollering at neighbourhood tail (and, finally, finding the chivalry not to do so). "Coffee" sparkles and quakes, patiently rising from a muted spell of seasonal affective disorder to a sweet rapture of schoolyard glee. These pop cuts condescend neither to their audience nor their makers. They are sophisticated, but with none of the arrogance that can imply; they are addictive, but with none of the banality that can entail. There is sensuality and sexual depravity, homesickness and wanderlust, nostalgia and immediacy. Sylvan Esso acknowledges that the world is a tumult of complications by giving you a way to sing and dance with those troubles, if not to will them away altogether. When Meath and Sanborn talk about Sylan Esso, they came back to context - to how, before this project, they felt that their solo endeavours often felt short of it, as if they were lacking a crucial component. That is no longer a concern. When Meath sings to Sanborn a melody that she's conjured and captured, he almost instinctively knows how to respond. And when he delivers to her the backbone of a wordless beat, she adds lyrical bait where he'd only seen white space. Sylvan Esso represents the fulfilment of their fortuitous encounter by, once again, linking parts that too often come stripped of their counterparts. Here, motion comes with melody. Words come with ideas. And above all, pop comes back with candor.
  Their RA profile lists Inertia and City Slang.
• 

  Tama Gucci

  New York City · 14 bookings since Aug 2023

  SoundCloud ↗Bandcamp ↗

  Recently at Bossa Nova Civic Club, Little Island, Chemistry Creative · often with Mazurbate, flirty800, Angel Arias, none of them here that night

• 

  Swaya

  New York City · 33 bookings since Aug 2023

  “Massachusetts born and Brooklyn based artist, producer and audio engineer Sophie Sawaya MacArthur, better known as Swaya, has spent a lifetime exploring the possibilities of storytelling and meaning making through sound.”

  their own biography

  the whole biography

  Massachusetts born and Brooklyn based artist, producer and audio engineer Sophie Sawaya MacArthur, better known as Swaya, has spent a lifetime exploring the possibilities of storytelling and meaning making through sound. Raised by Brazilian and American parents, she spent her childhood studying violin before becoming disillusioned by the lack of creativity classical studies offered. She found her musical home on the internet becoming obsessed with hardcore punk, hip hop and experimental electronic music. A graduate of Communications Studies at Concordia University, she spent 5 years in Montreal where she was an active member of the music scene, performing her music at MUTEK, Pop Montreal, Slut Island, Never Apart, Datcha and more. Since she began posting her music online in 2016, Swaya has released 5 EPs and countless tracks, edits and mixes, consistently pushing and reinventing herself with each release. Beyond her personal artistic work Swaya is also an established producer and audio engineer, currently working with Brooklyn producer Tony Seltzer at his studio Seltzer Sounds. She has worked with the likes of Zelooperz, Babyxsosa, Key!, Hawa, Marti, Mercury, Michael Christmas, Magella and more.
  SoundCloud ↗Bandcamp ↗
  Their RA profile lists Purple Tape Pedigree, Tobago Tracks, s.M.i.L.e. and Ultra Rare.

  Recently at Silence Please, Honey's, Nowadays · often with Battygyal, Lil Zé, Jetty, none of them here that night