Pool Of Sound - XamVolo

 

Neo-soul newcomer XamVolo, aka Sam Folorunsho, is a game-changing all-rounder and as a self-taught musical polymath so it follows that his production is on a whole other level too, with analogue samples of Thelonious Monk and vinyl glitch underpinning his stark studio wizardry. When he was about 14 years old one of his friends gave him some studio software and he was fascinated by it, spending most of his time on in, making instrumentals and things for other people. His friends were into grime at the time, and he became consumed with crafting instrumentals in a bid to replicate the songs he was hearing everywhere. He was a natural. Then as the interest in grime wore off, he moved to UK rap. "I was jumping between genres and it was a big lesson: it taught me how important drums were in music. For me, drums define the genre." That was in about 2007, then in 2012 he started trying to write songs for himself, listening to a lot of Frank Ocean and a bit of early 2000s R&B as well, and put them out there. A paradigm shifting moment came when he first listened to Soulquarians such as D’Angelo and Erykah Badu, and he was drawn to the passionate, rule-breaking weirdness of it all. He says, "I thought that's what I’m gonna do with music, I wanted to take the weird time signatures and mad chords of jazz, the attitude of neo-soul, and then some of the art rock of artists like Pink Floyd."

At 18, he moved to Liverpool to study architecture at university. The city inspired him, but not in an academic sense. He was suddenly surrounded by musicians of all different genres, and Liverpool's indie rock identity and passion for live music began to fuel him. He spent more and more time at shows, and the rest of his hours in his bedroom on his laptop with a £30 microphone, playing with different ideas. In 2016, he released his 'Chirality' EP, a collection of heartfelt songs that resonated immediately, all written and produced by himself. His breakthrough hit, 'Down', quickly surpassed half a million plays on Spotify, with radio love from Annie Mac, Huw Stephens, Gilles Peterson and more. A remix by the South London production duo WiDE AWAKE has gone on to surpass 250,000 Spotify plays.
This Liverpool-based, London-born artist who has won plaudits from Annie Mac, Mistajam and Gilles Peterson, has racked up hundreds of thousands of streams, and supported Paloma Faith on her arena tour. Not bad for a tenderfoot, who only just released his debut EP, 'A Damn Fine Spectacle', in early 2018.

All The Sweetness on the Surface

"He’s the future," – that’s how BBC Radio 1 DJ and tastemaker Mistajam described XamVolo. It's a fair assessment as he has risen to the attention of critics and music fans the world over thanks to his impressionist reimaginings of neo-soul, jazz and pop. He's played Glastonbury, sold out a headline London show, and been compared with everyone from D'Angelo to Anderson Paak. In 2019 he unveiled his debut album, entitled, 'All The Sweetness on the Surface'. A powerful testament of his prowess, mastery and creative power, the album is a lyrical, melodic and quasi-cinematic oeuvre that transcends mediums while remaining in the music realm, highlighting the artist’s potential. 

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2022/05/pool-of-sound-gazelle.html