With music production software available to download at two clicks and sigh, chances are your annoying neighbour who claims to be a DJ isn’t lying. With the ease of access, comes saturation and where there’s saturation, it’s imperative to distinguish oneself. Indie electronica has seen a boom in recent years around the globe for this very reason. Hailing from Hyderabad, Yung Raj’s Instagram bio contains the succinct ‘I mek beats’ and the link to his SoundCloud page. This minimalism echoes throughout his sonic palette as one traverses through his recent output.
Yung.Raj burst onto the SoundCloud scene last year with two short EPs that had a lot to say. His hip hop inspired debut, ‘Laced Loops’ pulled no punches with its charming and glitchy production, catchy rap-genic beats and a steady flow of left hooks. He quickly reinvented his sound in a span of three months with ‘October Heat’ with a much grander presentation, while not foregoing his hip hop roots. With these releases in rapid-fire succession, Yung.Raj distinguished himself from the derivative soup of his contemporaries.
His latest release, Recovery Package eschews his hip hop driven past in favour of a more ambient aesthetic. While it is not impossible to rap over these batch of beats, that is clearly not his intention. Like his previous releases, the tracks barely breach the two-minute mark; however that is not to say that they lack the punch of longer songs. The EP is textbook Lo-Fi, giving it a rustic finish. We are treated to artsy jazz and vocal samples over hypnotic beats like on the song, ‘Zazz‘.
Yung.Raj throws away the grandiose and catchy tunes of his previous releases and comes through with a low key and laid back vibe throughout the ten-minute runtime. The EP contains wisps of subtle elements of jazz, acoustic and folk music, all bundled into an atmospheric dream. Like his previous releases, Recovery Package pushes his artistic trajectory in new, uncharted terrains and establishes him as one of the artists to look out for.
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