AKALA

AKALA is back with a new single “Bit By Bit”, which is out on September 17th on Illa State Records. His sophomore longplayer, “Freedom Lasso” is out on October 1st. “Bit By Bit” sees MOBO Award winning AKALA rhyming on the difficulties of love over a wasps nest of synths and Kraftwerk-style proto-techno breaks. Think Jean Michel Jarre having a synth-off with Aphex Twin while Timbaland share a blunt with Plastikman. It’s urgent, shape-shifting beats underpin a simple message: that the one you live with can be the one who pisses you off the most. “That’s the truest reflection of love I can think of”, he says. Remixes are by red-hot French Electro-house producers Baxter Baxter. New album “Freedom Lasso” draws influences from the whole spectrum of music – dance, rap, indie, rock, punk and folk. Together with producing partner Rex, the pair have created a body of work that shifts even further from Hip Hop’s dominant beats and rhymes and braggadocio model. The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Prince, Andre 3000, The Prodigy, Tricky and Nine Inch Nails make strange bedfellows, yet they all feature as emerging influences on an artist who’s put in time figuring out how he sees rock ‘n’ roll history fit together.