PREMIERE: Riah – Lick Your Wounds EP

PREMIERE: Riah - Lick Your Wounds EP

There is something inherently soothing about Riah Knight’s expressive vocals; the brand new self-titled EP by the Berlin-based singer together with producer, musician George Fellows from Bristol, captures a timeless essence, the end result is a body of work that conjures an otherworldly experience.

Channelling hints of jazz, soul, hip-hop and electronica over Riah’s meditative, haunting vocal delivery. The duo say: “The texture we aimed to create was inspired by something that was said by Russell Elevado, the engineer who worked on acclaimed neo-soul, R&B and hip-hop records in the 90s including D’Angelo’s Voodoo album. When speaking on Voodoo he said that he wanted to create something that sounded like it was off an old, dusty cassette tape from the 70s that had been completely forgotten about but had all this amazing music on it that nobody knew about. I liked that idea and wanted to try and make something that sounded like a lost tape from some unknown time, perhaps in the future, perhaps the past, that had somehow found its way here to the present day to be plugged in by an unsuspecting listener.”

Riah Lick Your Wounds is the coming together of childhood friends, Bristol-based producer and pianist Lickya Wounds (George Fellows) and Berlin-based singer-songwriter Riah Knight. Last seen as shy teens left to chat awkwardly at family parties, Riah and George avoided the small talk by playing music. Their debut project is the amalgamation of those sessions spent playing together and has been produced over the last two years from their respective homes. Their EP has taken on an intergalactic sound, as it travels seamlessly between classic Jazz vocals, Hip-Hop beats and electronic production, reminiscent of the early works of Little Dragon or Hiatus Kaiyote. The sound imitates that of a lost tape that fell to earth from the future; warped, buried, dug up and plugged in.

This self-titled EP is a three-track release with one short interlude. The opening track ‘Indigo’ is a dreamy journey through a sea of synthesisers and soul vocals, jazzy ambience and sub-bass. ‘Bodies Formed’ is characterized by its soulful hip-hop groove reminiscent of J Dilla and its evocative lyrics weaving a story of the early days of romance in the city. The final track, ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ aims to put this classic ballad into a new form, accenting on its original themes of “moon” and “stars” to lure the listener up into the blackness of space.

Riah explains: “One of the first songs we played together was ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ so it felt right to pay homage to those early sessions and do a version of it on this release. It’s still one of my favourite songs and I love Lickya Wounds latin twist on it. We really had fun on the production of this one and it gave the song a whole new meaning to me.”

Listen to ‘Lick Your Wounds EP’ – BELOW:

‘Indigo’ single out September 4th 2021 / ‘Riah Lick Your Wounds’ out September 24th 2021

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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