The EP Move Me from Mélat and Jansport J is a very smooth-sounding, R&B record, and the opening track “Everything” demonstrates this perfectly. Despite being a very short track, spanning a total play time of only two minutes and twenty seconds, it manages to pack in a bunch of experimental and musical merits.
First of all, the track consists of exceptional vocals from Mélat, with a crisp underlay of more experimental, electronically produced vocal sounds. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of electronically produced vocals, but if they are done well, they can add a nice quality to musical tracks, and this is indeed one of them. The track also provides its listeners with a somewhat catchy melody and a strong rhythmical element, making it a great track to open the EP with. This track definitely has a very crisp sound to it, a strong R&B tone, and I would highly recommend listening to it below.
The next track I would like to mention is entitled “Good Morning“, and is the third track on this nine-track EP. The track opens with very smooth, deep male vocals, and then breaks into a more rhythmic sound with female vocals overlaying the male ones. Indeed, the difference between the higher female vocals and the darker male vocals works very well and serves to provide a stunning contrast between vocal types. If you like a very chilled out, relaxed R&B sound, this EP is definitely for you. Thus far, Move Me seems to make very good use of intensely soulful vocals and very smooth, very sedate melodic lines.
I would also like to discuss a track entitled “Bad Habits“. This track, I feel, explores a slightly different musical style. There’s still that relaxed, sedate R&B approach, but the chilled out melodic line is overlaid by rap music. This rap style accompanies Mélat’s beautiful vocals incredibly well, providing listeners of this track with a very crisp, well produced, and fresh sound. Indeed both this track and “Good Morning” seem to rely heavily on beautifully composed contrasts in both vocals, and here in musical styles, to earn their successes.
Every track on this EP so far has been undeniably stunning; they are the sort of tracks one can’t help but tap one’s feet to, while listening, and that is indeed, at least for me, one sign of a quality record. “Bad Habits” later tends to move away from the rap style vocals, only very seldom overlaying the female vocals on top of background rapping. Personally, I would have liked to have seen this track experiment more with the dimension of rap as it added a different, quite interesting element to it. Nevertheless, the track is still a solid one, and I would highly recommend listening to it.
One of the strengths of the EP thus far has been that it can undoubtedly keep its listeners interested in the track they are listening to without having any real musical structure. Tracks seem to move very smoothly through a melodic line, refusing to make any way for verses and choruses; indeed, it very much feels like a free musical style, unrestrained by the strict forms of hit songs one might hear on the radio. The downside to this is that such a free musical style allows for each track to sounds quite similar to the last, but I would be lying if I said this devalued the EP in any way because each track, despite this, is both vocally and musically stunning.
Overall, it would be incredibly wrong of me to assert that this EP was anything less than fantastic. If I could choose three words to describe this EP, they would be: crisp, smooth, and structurally free. The main highlight for me while listening to the EP was that it held my attention for its entire duration, and that each track had its own merits. Despite tracks sometimes sounding slightly too similar to others on the EP, I have no trouble in finding that Move Me would definitely be a good addition to anybody’s music collection, and I would highly recommend downloading it here.
Words by Jay Sullivan // Edited by Ayo Adepoju
