Lusty and alluding to an unspoken yet clubbish energy that could turn the temperature up in just about any room it’s played in, the groove beneath the lyrics in the new single “19” from up-and-coming pop singer/songwriter Taylor Jules is certainly one of the main reasons to give the track a listen this spring – but hardly the lone attribute I’d cite as a source of chills. For Taylor Jules, it isn’t enough to merely attack us with a clandestine beat in this song; she wants to utilize as much of the mix as she can to impart a warm, almost ethereal harmony as rich as it is piercing, and from where I sit, she does a fine job indeed.
URL: https://www.iamtaylorjules.com/
There’s so much more to this release than its percussive pulsations, and when looking a little closer at the strut of the bassline in the background, it’s hard to have a conversation about this artist and grooves of any sort without discussing her interest in squeaky-clean bass work. There’s almost a postmodernity to the low-end tonalities in this song, and while it comes in contrast with the lead vocal, it’s the sort of positive contrast that is becoming increasingly difficult to come by on the FM dial in 2023.
The harmonies here are as sleek as any of the instrumental melodies are, and while they allude to a clubby overtone that I would expect to hear a lot more of from Taylor Jules, they never even come close to skirting a plasticized sound more common among electronic artists than anyone else in the pop spectrum. She’s got a lot of vocal prowess, but rather than making that the focal point here, I like that she’s being stealthy in her performance and thus demonstrating a bit more versatility as a player.
Though it’s inarguable that the bass is getting as much attention behind the board as the vocal is, there’s nothing muddy about its role in the grander scheme of things at all nor the melodic wonderment it contributes to the song as a whole. In all actuality, every piece of instrumentation in this single is playing clean and with a gilded presence in the mix that made me feel like I was listening to an intimate live performance over studio-recorded material in my initial sit-down with “19,” and that’s something I haven’t been able to say about a lot of other new songs this month.
If what I’m hearing in “19” is just a sneak preview of what Taylor Jules is going to be bringing to the table throughout her career in the future, then I sincerely doubt this will be the only time you see her name making headlines among the indie music press.
APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/19/1676326927?i=1676326928
She’s unreserved and resiliently going after a big climax in this cut which is no easy challenge for a young artist and creator like herself, but through what I can only imagine being a God-given swagger on stage, she’s breaking off some exciting vibes here without question.
Troy Johnstone