Shuffling your music library can be risky if you have some guilty pleasures and album-fillers lurking between less embarrassing tracks. However, take a look at what hidden gems we found and rediscovered on shuffle this week…
She (Ft. Frank Ocean) – Tyler, The Creator
Ex-OFWGKTA head honcho Tyler, The Creator along with fel
low Odd Future team mate Frank Ocean dropped the haunting ‘She’ back in 2011 on his second album ‘Goblin’. A slow jam rooted in juvenile affection but riddled with perverted lust, Tyler and Frank paint an eerie tale of stalking and obsession to form a subdued track showcasing Tyler’s typically controversial lyricism. Accompanied by Tyler’s sinister production, featuring layers of percussive crashes, sharp syth stabs and ghostly backing vocals, Tyler, The Creator almost manages to make a track torn between luscious R&B and horrorcore. The track’s beat and the echoes of chilling vocals both contribute to conjuring the encapsulating sound-scape that will leave you checking behind your curtains for the alternative hip-hop figurehead Tyler, The Creator whenever ‘She’ is played.
Hear it here: She (Ft. Frank Ocean) – Tyler, The Creator
FAKE ID – Rat Boy
Fired from Weatherspoons only to sell out tours and feature on some of the 
biggest music festivals’ line-ups, Rat Boy has made an incredible musical adventure in the last few years out of seemingly nowhere. Epitomising a youthful rejection of order, in exchange for chaos and limitless fun, Rat Boy cultivates his disorderly attitude is his music. ‘FAKE ID’ features vocal samples from bouncers and other members of the public in it’s attempt to mock authority and the law. It’s narrative form tells the tale of Rat Boy being the victim of theft having been rejected from a nightclub for being under-age, but humourously, Rat Boy’s phone isn’t worth the robber’s time. Driven by high-tempo indie rock instrumentation, Rat Boy combines his manic, distorted production with frenzied guitars and drums to accomplish a unique sound mirroring the mentality of bedlam maintained by fans at his shut-down concerts. Show N Prove have remixed Rat Boy’s track adding a feature from grime’s Big Narstie to bring even more madness to a cacophonous uproar.
Hear it here: FAKE ID – Rat Boy
Cardinals – The Wonder Years
Daniel ‘Soupy’ Campbell, frontman for US rock and pop-punk band The Wonder Years, has 
stated that ‘Cardinals’ expresses grief about him “being too self-involved to see when someone you love needs your help.” The aggressive surges of roaring passion that carry the lead single from the band’s 2015 album ‘No Closer To Heaven’ evoke a powerful sense of guilt and desperation as Soupy sings of acceptance and remorse. Epic guitars and Campbell’s gritty vocals are juxtaposed with delicate acoustic sections jumping any listener up from their seat and into the mosh pit to yell out their angst. However, The Wonder Years’ sound appears heavier than previously as the band mature from pop-punk to melodic hardcore in their fifth album.
Hear it here: Cardinals – The Wonder Years
Shapeshift – DELS
‘Shapeshift’ is the first single from UK rapper/graphic designer DELS on his début 
album ‘GOB’. Released in 2011, the track was produced by Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard whom DELS met on Myspace during the hight of its popularity. Forming imaginative imagery with witty wordplay over a grimy electronic beat, DELS creatively boasts of his rapping talents whilst simultaneously demonstrating them as he switches up his cadence and dominates the robotic beat that features a sample from Greek singer Demis Roussos. DELS asks how we would act if we were given superhuman abilities, would we use them for helping others or would we selfishly manipulate them?
Hear it here: Shapeshift – DELS
Contact (Ft. Noisia) – Foreign Beggars
Lifted from their third album ‘United Colours Of Baggattron’ in 2009, ‘Contact’ is an 
explosive collaboration from UK hip-hop/dubstep group Foreign Beggars and drum n bass heavyweights Noisia. The collaboration led to the formation of their supergroup named I Am Legion under which they released their self-titled LP in 2013. The track featured on E4’s series ‘Skins’ and was released as a promo single prior to the album dropping. The Foreign Beggars are individually MC Orifice Vulgatron, Metropolis, DJ Nonames and producer Dag Nabbit. This intense fusion of hip-hop and thunderous drum n bass is smashed together into a colossal track of head-banging bliss with all MCs spitting sharp flows over the pounding beat until the shuddering half-time drop.
Hear it here: Contact (Ft. Noisia)
Written by: James Wijesinghe
Reverb Music 