EJ Marais has announced the release of his debut LP CUTS, out August 28th Via La Castanya.
EJ Marais was born in Brighton and currently lives in Barcelona, where he has begun to carve out his career and the crew of collaborators that feature on CUTS. Basque saxophonist Haizea Martiartu appears as a Kenny G to EJ’s Kanye on ‘Bedroom RnB’ and percussionist Ander Agudo adds joyful tambourine and tribal bongos to ‘Discotheque’, one of the certified bangers of the LP. CUTS concludes on an ecstatic high with ‘Feng Shui’, an ideal road trip tune featuring the backing vocals and co-production of Elsa de Alfonso.
On the process of creating the record Marais explains, “The album came out of a series of sessions I started in early 2018 together with Ekhi Lopetegi, at the time we weren’t planning to record an album, but an EP. Since then, the album has met many stages and has been the result of perseverance, I think of it as a mix of many stages and resources. It wasn’t recorded in the same place, or mixed and engineered by one person, some musicians have played small parts on it, hence the chaotic credits.
“The general idea was to make a contemporary album that included elements from RnB, pop, or Urban while maintaining a melancholic, singer-songwriter essence. I felt a necessity to bring real instruments into these songs because I was seeking a human, personal touch. When I put the album together I thought that it would be too eclectic but then I thought of it as a collage between digital samples and real instruments and felt comfortable with that. It was also a process of learning and experimentation, I really liked the possibilities of digital manipulation, discovering autotune and all that…
I have always thought that the result of an artist has to reflect the times that we are living. We live in crazy times with constant interruptions, over information and surrounded by the language of advertising and I wanted to make a response to that, to offer a space where people can get lost in. Barcelona as a city has also played a huge role on the album, I was influenced by the freshness of the Urban scene here, especially when it came to mixing genres and taking unorthodox production decisions. ”
Glide is proud to premiere “Bedroom RnB” a ravishing display of modern soul, pop and hip-hop. Taking hints from The Weeknd and FKA Twigs, Marais molds slow tempos, jazzy interludes, and rock approved grooves for a fulfilling display of electronic meets instrumental artistry.
“This was the hardest of all to finish,” says Marais. “It was technically really challenging for me and we kept changing the tuning which didn’t make it any easier. I found the piano sample from an old french commercial, which we tried to recreate with a real piano but it never ended up working. I’m really proud of the result and Haizea’s saxophone solo is one of the best things on the record. When we recorded with Ekhi we were all in the same room so we had to crush our excitement but I really just wanted to start shouting of joy.”
