It's interesting how music is perceived by different ears. Tags on this single from London artist Shan include post-rock and folk, but really this sounds like a modern form of soul. Taken from his current EP 'Waypoint', 'Stay' could maybe be considered to be folk music for a new generation. Surely over the centuries folk music has changed, yet our notions of pure folk remain the same as they were fifty years ago. Is this track simply 21st century folk? We'll leave that to the musicologists because really there's no way to accurately give a convincing argument one way or the other.
To our ears this track is purely and simply soul music that's been brought bang up to date. And in doing this you're treading on incredibly thin ice. When people think of soul music they either think of classic artists of the '60s and '70s or the super-slick and sterile filth that followed it in the '80s and continues to this day. You know the sort. There's someone trying it on at least every other episode of Jools Holland while you wait for the good band to come on. 'Stay' is slick, that's for sure, but it's not cliched and it's not overdone, a trap that's all too easy to fall in to. Shan has managed to get the balance right here, we just wish everyone else would follow suit.
Shan's website
Buy the EP
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