Tag: Sigma

Sigma feat. Birdy – Find Me

“It’s solid Sigma.”

Tim: The anonymous person who sent this is said the chorus sounded like a news theme tune…

Tim: …and weirdly it does have elements of the current BBC one – the rolling strings, the important but not overpowering drum beat, and even the melody itself isn’t far out.

Tom: As someone who normally notices things like that: I don’t hear the similarity. It reminds me more of Emeli Sande’s Heaven.

Tim: Hmm, yes, that’s not far off either. As for the rest of it: it’s solid Sigma – good dance beat, good featured vocalist, good lack of tropical vibes.

Tom: And a great video: playing with framerates and timelapse like that is always a good trick, and finding someone who can emote for that length of time in close up isn’t easy.

Tim: All in all, pretty good.

Sigma feat. Ella Henderson – Glitterball

“YES. MORE LIKE THIS PLEASE.”

Tom: A massive European smash with their Kanye-less Kanye remix “Nobody To Love”; a follow-up number one — and then a bit of a misfire, although even that got to Number 12. How’s their next one going to do?

Tom: YES. MORE LIKE THIS PLEASE.

Tim: Ooh, yes, that’ll do nicely.

Tom: I’ve said before that I’m a sucker for string sections, and this one’s got a brilliant one. Match that with a great synth line, a drum and bass percussion track straight from the textbook, and an astonishingly good vocal. If this doesn’t crack the Top 10, I’ll be very surprised.

Tim: Likewise – a fantastic dance track with everything you could ask for.

Tom: Bit of a weak ending is my only real criticism: that seems to be in vogue these days, though.

Tim: Also in vogue would be my disagreeing with you each time that’s brought up – more a coda than a standard STOP, and I like it.

Tom: It still baffles me, mind: this has been on YouTube for a couple of weeks, it’s getting airplay already — and yet, the public can’t buy it until the end of July. Lots of people will have pre-ordered it, sure; and yes, that may push it to the top of the charts that week. But it hardly seems right: does nobody pirate tracks like this in the intervening two months?!

Tim: Apparently not it would seem, but it’s hardly unusual – the lyric video for that amazing Rachel Platten track we reviewed got put up almost a year ago, but it’s not out here until 17th July. No idea what’s going on.

Sigma feat. Labrinth – Higher

“Sadly, a bit generic.”

Tim: Ah, what’s brought this out of the woodwork?

Tom: Sigma, drum-and-bass duo responsible for the best Kanye West remix ever (in that it removed Kanye and got to number one). Labrinth, brilliant vocalist and writer. This should be…

Tom: …hmm. Sadly, a bit generic.

Tim: Not a fan, then?

Tom: That introduction — like the quiet middle eight — is wonderful, and promises so much.

Tim: Really? Because I find that part a bit tedious.

Tom: Well, yes, it is a bit too long, and crucially the payoff just isn’t quite worth it. I know drum and bass is ultimately a bit limited: once you start switching things up too much, it slides into being a different genre entirely. There’s a lot you can do in that relatively small sandbox — but there’s just not enough of interest here. The melody isn’t good enough to save this track.

Tim: I don’t know – ‘generic’ it possibly is, but I’d say that chorus with it’s ‘what is love?’ mantra delivers vastly more than what the meandering intro suggests. I really like this track.

Tom: My main problem with it, though: after a couple of repeats, I started hearing “higher, higher” as “hiya, hiya” and wondering how many people he was going to greet before the song was finally over.

Tim: See, I’m now working on chopping that up and setting it as my ringtone.

Tom: It’s better than that endless loop of the One Show theme you had.