After a summer of major milestones, the Seattle-based trio the Flavr Blue is about to deliver their most anticipated release yet: The Love Notes EP, a collection that marries the group’s crackling energy with a soulful musical wisdom inherited from influences ranging from Cut Copy and Miike Snow to Feist and Sade. Within just this year, the band put on a show-stealing main stage performance at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Block Party that landed them on the front page of the Seattle Times, has seen their single “We Can Go Blind” play in heavy rotation on Sirius XM, and had one-off collaborations “U Crazy” and “Pretty Girl” crack 100,000 plays on Soundcloud. Their latest single, “Feathers,” was Song of the Day and in regular rotation at Seattle’s vaunted indie station KEXP, and they’ve gotten enthusiastic coverage from the likes of Billboard and Complex.
The band’s success is driven by the way its members — lead singer Hollis Wong-Wear, whose voice graced the Billboard Top 20 hit “White Walls” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and singer/producers Lace Cadence and Parker Joe, each with a litany of Seattle hip-hop and R&B releases under their belts — weave their voices and eclectic experimentalism within a rich electronic landscape. It’s been that way since the beginning, when they first built tracks in a half-bedroom turned studio in Parker’s Beacon Hill townhouse. It grew as they translated the sounds to wild live shows, for crowds both charmed and electrified by their combination of heartfelt soul and energetic electronica. Even Questlove tweeted his affection for the band’s live performance after watching their set at the Brooklyn Bowl.
The Flavr Blue: Supply
From the ‘Love Notes’ EP. Written and produced by The Flavr Blue. Mixed by Stephen Kaye. Mastered by Adam Straney.
Love Notes pushes the Flavr Blue’s sound further still, toward an even deeper musicality; they effortlessly blend a range of textures that recall Aaliyah’s slinky sensuality, Beach House’s washed out reverberations, and Prince’s fidelity to the pop hook. The music is still passionately handmade; Love Notes, like releases before, is a true collaboration between three creative minds (and, like their earliest music, was recorded mostly in that same half-bedroom). It’s that spirit — a collective enveloping and integrating of new sounds, their DIY ethos matched with a captivating polish— that truly defines the Flavr Blue, and makes their future so promising. In celebration of the release of Love Notes, The Flavr Blue will be performing in select cities nationwide, with a more extensive tour to come at the top of 2016.
The Flavr Blue: Supply Lyrics:
All the moments I have folded
Could not define you, divide you from me
Thoughtless I keep holding on to you
Its touch turn dust into something new
And this is a love that I don’t recognize
Out of my body, so high I find the
Supply, supply, supply, supply
Overflowing, I’m unbroken
Pieces of me now lie with you
I found, I lost my love
But know we have become inseparable
And now we often loose ourselves
And this is a love that I don’t recognize
Out of my body, so high I find the
Supply, supply, supply, supply
(x4)
And you’re diving into the depths of me
You don’t know what you’re looking for
But I’m overcome by your energy
Baby, I can’t let you go
