After a massively successful year in the UK and across Europe with her critically acclaimed debut album Devotion, Jessie Ware is now preparing it’s U.S release (April 16th). To launch the album stateside the LP will feature two additional bonus tracks – one is an upcoming remix of ‘Wildest Dreams’ featuring A$AP Rocky and the other is ‘Imagine It Was Us’ produced by frequent collaborator Julio Bashmore. By far the most uptempo record on the album ‘Imagine It Was Us’ is a fabulous disco number with an infectious bassline and seductive vocals from Miss Ware and plays as a great addition to an already excellent album.

It’s been around 2 years since KING released their much loved debut EP The Story, a lapse in time that left many of their admirers very thirsty. The trio have now returned with ‘In the Meantime’, a soul heavy ballad that in parts even recalls some undercover Sade influences. The sweet love song will please adoring fans hungry for some much needed new soul music – personally I would have liked to have heard them push the envelope a little further.

The 15th annual Red Bull Music Academy, which this year heads to New York, will take place between April 28th-May 15th and will involve a plethora of influential and respected names in music. The academy will feature 236 artists across 34 nights which will include academy lectures, special one-off concerts, A/V installations and film screenings among other things.

The first round of names taking part this year have been announced and as expected – the list (already) includes some of the most pioneering names in contemporary music. Among the first to be revealed include Four Tet, Flying Lotus, Erykah Badu, Brien Eno, James Murphy, Skream & Questlove. Head over to redbullmusicacademy.com for the full lowdown and ticket information. Expect further (rather epic) announcements in the coming days.

So… New York in April? #yesplease.

Sidenote: They’ve also just launched a new (highly distracting!) Red Bull Midi Academy site featuring “cutting-edge [midi] renditions of all your favourites like Flying Lotus, TNGHT, Mount Kimbie and more…”. The site goes in-hand with the H∆SHTAG$ series they’re currently airing on internet music culture – peep the first three episodes (featuring How To Dress Well, Zodiac, Main Attrakionz, Flatbush Zombies, Mount Kimbie and many others) here.

Not content with selling out her 10 UK tour dates in minutes, Beyonce will play her “only European festival performance” at this years V Festival held on August 17th & 18th at Hylands Park, Chelmsford and Weston Park, Staffordshire. Joining her as co-headliners are Grammy winning band Kings of Leon – who will play the festivals second date.

The festival will also host performances from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Stereophonics, Basement Jaxx, Fun., Jessie Ware, Rudiemental and many others.

Tickets go on sale 9am Friday 1st March, buy via vfestival.com

‘Eyes Like Sky’ is a previously unreleased track originally recorded to feature on Frank Ocean’s Grammy nominated debut album channel ORANGE. The airy pop aesthetic of the track reminds me of something that could have been featured on his nostalgia, ULTRA tape – a project that I still don’t find as strong as many fans do. It’s a good enough song, with a nice sentiment but I see why it didn’t make the final cut.

Newcastle’s Lulu James returns with ‘Closer’, a funky new single that sees her flexing her power-house vocals over a delicious electronic-disco-soul beat. ‘Closer’ balances the right mix of the contemporary and the nostalgic and in turn makes for an exciting new offering. Soul music (in general) has been in a state of stagnancy over the past few years so it’s good to hear artists like Lulu doing something interesting with it.

We first featured burgeoning London collective Last Night in Paris way back in December 2011 when we introduced Rainy Milo and her wonderful debut single ‘Bout You’. Since then a number of their represenatives have released some exciting sounds, now though the crew have come together to release a full-on collective project titled Roses.

While their assembled talents as singers, emcees and producers come together well across the 11-track EP, I find what the singers do between the airy, spacious productions particularly interesting; It’s the same thing that first intrigued us with Rainy Milo. And although all the artists deliver individually I’d personally be keen to explore this side of what LNiP do a bit more. And kudos to the producer(s) on here – some really interesting sounds being executed.

Look forward to seeing this grow.

The reason Erykah Badu remains a favourite artist of mine is her fearless attitude towards creating music with artists less ‘established’ (or rather, ‘known’) than her. 16 years after her landscape-shifting debut Badu has maintained her relevance by continually pushing her experimentalism – her discography speaks for itself. She’s now teamed up with another favourite of mine/ours, British producer Bonobo who in 2010 released his seminal Black Sands LP.

‘Heaven For a Sinner’ unifies Bonobo’s intricate and emotional productions with Erykah’s future-soulism, the combination of which results in something quite beautiful. The ballads understated stature is a big part of what makes this such a lovely pairing. ‘Heaven For a Sinner’ is taken off Bonobo’s upcoming fifth album The North Borders due out in April.

It’s astonishingly been 4 years since Quadron released their self-titled debut album to unanimous critical acclaim. The Danish duo consisting of singer Coco and producer Robin Hannibal wooed us all with their core-stirring brand of electronic soul. The pair have now returned with ‘Hey Love’ the lead single from their (as yet untitled) forthcoming sophomore album. The single marks a slight departure from the balladry we’ve come to expect from Quadron, instead the single is a forgoing mid-tempo with powering pianos and driving percussions – the hand claps (and some of the BV’s) remind me of ‘Rolling in the Deep’ a little.

Very happy to have these two back. No one messes with Coco’s vocals.

Jessie Ware performed an emotional rendition of Rihanna’s #1 single ‘Diamonds’ for BBC Radio 1′s Live Lounge earlier today. And just like everything else she sings Miss Ware adds her own cool-romanticism to the song and gives it a whole new elegance. In this form, this could have very easily been a Jessie Ware song.