In last week’s Sunday Funday Playlist, I mentioned Air Dubai, a group of hot young things from Denver, Colorado who are turning my musical ears around with their fresh take on hip-hop. Yes, I do listen to things other than singer-songwriters!
Mixing hip-hop with jazz, R&B, and their own funkadelic style, the seven-piece just released a devilish little new EP called Day Escape, just over a year after putting out their full-length album Wonder Age. Guess you can’t keep a band on the rise down!
And an escape is exactly what this new EP is. The toe-tapping, head-bobbing, booty-shaking, trippy little six-song journey is the perfect cure for your daylight savings blahs. It’s sonic overload in the best possible way. Keyboards, trumpets, guitars, drums, claps, insanely ear-wormy rhymes and beats layered on top of gorgeous little melodies… And if the musicality doesn’t grab you, take a good listen to the lyrics: these kids are confident in who they are and the message they’re putting out there. And they’re doing it well. Live life to its fullest. Love. And have a damn good time doing it.
My favorite track is the young band on the road anthem, “Summer Solstice,” but I’m also deeply in love with the lyrics of “Magazines” (the line “If I return to you a broken thing, then lay me down, down…” just floors me) and the Kool and the Gang-esque 70s awesomeness of “Lights Down.” And they prove their depth with songs like “Crashing Down,” a self-reflective ditty that contemplates the future of music and the staying power of a band.
Check out this video of the kids doing a little in-apartment performance of “Magazines” from the new EP. Then go pick it up for $4.99 at iTunes or put money into the band’s pocket by buying it on their Bandcamp page.
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