Shivum Sharma - All These Years

Languid electronic vaguely R ‘n’ B influenced pop has been flavour of the month for a lot more than just a month now (we’re wondering when the backlash is going to come?), but for the moment there’s still a lot of dudes kicking out these late night tunes. Shivum Sharma’s new one is the latest addition to the collection. Despite the lyrics All These Years isn’t a cover version of After All These Years by 80’s power ballad rockers Journey, although the song certainly takes you on a journey; a chilled zero gravity sounding spacey trip. Sharma himself has also been on a journey – although his hasn't been by a rocket to the stars but to Asia for a couple of months, which apparently left him inspired with many fresh ideas for his songwriting.

Production credits go to ex Sneaker Pimp (remember Six Underground?) Liam Howe who has worked in the past with the likes of Marina & The Diamonds and FKA Twigs. The song is taken from Shivum’s forthcoming EP due on December the 8th via National Anthem on either iTunes or 10” vinyl. If you pre-order on iTunes you get this track straight away.

Shivum Sharma - All These Years

Shivum Sharma - New Waves

One press of play on Shivum Sharma’s bedroom demo of Flicker will explain why there’s been some blog buzz about this Londoner recently. Even although Flicker’s not a nagging earworm of a song, there’s a compelling haunting minimalism present and evidence of a developing talent. ‘Bedroom demo’ seems entirely appropriate in this case, Flicker is a tune to draw the curtains across the window and crawl under the sheets to.

“My main inspirations are Aphex Twin, Amy Winehouse, Fever Ray, Minnie Riperton, Anne Briggs, Erykah Badu, Antony & the Johnsons, Björk, André 3000 & Low,” he says. We’re never sure when an artist states that they are inspired by someone if they actually mean imitation rather than inspiration but we can certainly hear the influence of Antony Hegarty’s sweet vocal intonation on this song (as well as an earlier demo called Untouched which also features on his Soundcloud) combined with Aphex Twin’s more classically based piano pieces such as Avril 14th (here) and the intimacy of Perfume Genius.

With a list of reference points as interesting as Sharma has quoted we’ll be keeping our eyes and ears ready for further releases from this eighteen year old.

Shivum Sharma - Flicker (Demo)