She’s the daughter of legendary Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers, but there’s no offspring blues here – the seed from the caravan of love is strong. Blending LA/Detroit leftist Neo-Soul and spatial R&B’isms, Alex loses none of her heritage’s softness and sensuality. In some ways, I’m reminded of a more effeminate and supple take on Iman Omari’s grittier Energy, where Love Art balances an underlying sense of kilter with pretty harmonies and minimal lush.

How To Dress Well has been exploring the outer limits of radicalised R&B for a few years now, the release of his debut album Love Remains can be considered a pivotal moment in the current phase of the genre. Now readying the release of his second album Total Loss and following his sensational cover of Janet Jackson’s ‘Again’ comes a new single titled ‘& It Was You’. Reaching for the highest parts of his falsetto, Tom Krell yet again manages to capture the fundamental essence of a classic R&B, while avoiding uninspired rehashing and through very minimal production is able to keep things new jack funky. This sounds like Colour Me Badd circa 2012 – incredible.

Two exceptional British vocal talents (and former Rehearsal Rooms alumni) join forces for Daley‘s first mainstream UK single release. Premiered under an hour ago on MistaJam’s 1Xtra show, it’s ripe with Daley’s sophisticated funk influences and has an understated feature from superstar Jessie J on hook and ad-libs. A fair few of our 90s children out there will most certainly recall Blue Boy’s ‘Remember Me’ (itself a sample work of Marlena Shaw’s ‘Woman of The Ghetto’) to which this version pays homage and takes the Mancunian-born/London-based sweet-boy into his future.

Could this be the album cover for Aaliyah’s much debated posthumous album? The cover above which uses the iconic image of Aaliyah swimming during her ‘Rock the Boat’ video, along with her famous ‘A’ symbol, was was tweeted by Barry Hankerson, the founder of the late singers record label Blackground Records. Accompanying the image was a message that read: “Aaliyah posthumous 2013 16 unreleased tracks produced by @Drake @OVO40 Enough said #TeamAaliyah”.

Sounds pretty official to us. What do you think of the cover?

Listen to the albums first single ‘Enough Said’ featuring Drake here.

Shlohmo marks the 11th anniversary of Aaliyah’s passing with an enigmatic remix of her (controversial) posthumous single ‘Enough Said’ featuring Drake. Originally produced by Noah ’40′ Shebib, Shlohmo’s version uses bellowing subs, electronic embellishments and screwed vocals (from both Aaliyah & Drake) to build a dramatic new alternative.

As if How To Dress Well’s ‘Cold Nites’ wasn’t heartbreaking and delicate enough, now producer Koreless (recently inducted into the next RBMA) has applied his own tranquillised grace over it, creating an even more fragile environment. The harmonic plucks barely fill the gaps of air between HTDW’s solemnly rousing vocal, but yet somehow they create a dramatic soundbed all the same. Koreless’ use of restraint here is absolutely compelling. 

After first featuring her back in December we’ve been quietly yearning to hear more from London’s elusive Rainy Milo. Affiliated with the rising Last Night in Paris collective, she initially sparked our interest with ‘Bout You (Interlude)’ a sonically engaging record that explored the outer realms of fuzzy, jazz infused R&B/Soul. Back now with another intriguing new single produced by Oddisee titled ‘The Other Way’, Milo pours her heart out over a dark beat built on crisp hi-hats, twinkling chords and a rather abyssal bassline. A contrasting direction from her first offering, this reminds me a little of The Internet, but in a more London-enamored way. It’s a promising follow up – her voice carries a unique quirk that’s quite fascinating, I look forward to hearing it grow.

(via This Kid)

We featured a radio rip of Two Inch Punch’s reinvention of Jagged Edge’s ‘What’s It Like’ back in June, but now he’s dropped the shiny official version (finally!). Re-titled ’Brokken’ his production again contorts the foundations of classic millennial R&B but does so with his trademark Electronic disposition. TIP’s a beast at this. Download for free below.

Make sure you grab that Saturn: The Slow Jams EP out now on PMR Records too.

After spinning I/O’s debut tape a couple months back and not having felt pummeled round the head by it, his new track ‘You Slay Me’ manages to do quite the opposite. In some ways it’s quite Oceany, by way of Miguel with a bit of (criminally slept on) Cocaine 80s. The song has a driving through a Californian desert at night on the way to a seedy motel feel about it – liquored up guitar strums meeting light-headed vocals with a masochistic love-addict tone. Whilst the smart input/output epithet (a play on his name Ayo ) shows some logic and style is definitely there for a forward thinking R&B artist with a crossover sensibility… it’s good to hear him really developing that tangibly on ‘You Slay Me’.

Jeremy Rose is back. Who’s Jeremy Rose? This is Jeremy Rose. You may also know him as Zodiac.

His new single ‘Come’ essentially takes takes the template of ‘What You Need’ (also produced by Zodiac), a ground-shifting lo-fi bedroom R&B record and basically helps it realise an entirely new potential. As bleeps spin backward and subs run deep, Jesse Boykins employs his seductively calm-seas vocals in a style suited perfectly to Zodiac’s production. And although Jesse is a very technical singer and on this record sounds an interesting opposite to Abel’s soul piercing performance on ‘What You Need’, it’s still difficult to compare the two. But then this shouldn’t be about comparisons – instead this should mark an exciting return for Zodiac.

‘Come’ is lifted off Zodiac’s forthcoming EP due out September 24th on Jaques Greene‘s Vase imprint.