Beloved ultramodern innovator Yung Bae has unveiled his long-awaited new album Groove Continental: Side A, out March 4th. The Portland native’s seventh studio album, Groove Continental: Side A is Yung Bae’s most musically diverse body of work to date – a twelve-track release featuring a long list of star-studded collaborators.
Kicking things off, ‘Exotica By Bae’ is a charming, breezy instrumental jam that immediately sets the tone. Next up are feelgood summer anthems ‘Silver And Gold’ featuring Australian singer-songwriter Sam Fischer and R&B favourite Pink Sweat$, and lead single ‘L.O.V.E.’ which released on March 2nd, with hip-hop duo EarthGang, 11-time Grammy 2022 nominee Jon Batiste and genre-blending music artist and producer Sherwyn.
Groove Continental: Side A’s third single then comes in the form of ‘Disco Body Parts’, a suitably dancefloor-focused cut punctuated by the slick vocals of AWOLNATION frontman Aaron Bruno. That same energy is carried into the soulful, Philly disco-inspired sounds of ‘There It Is’, before fourth single ‘Revolving’, a majestic jam with the vocals of San Francisco crooner Marc E Bassy.
The second half of the LP commences with the library music smoothness of ‘60s Spy Sh*t’, June single ‘Wonder’, an after-hours disco creation stitched together with the irresistibly smooth vocals of LA don Channel Tres, and December single ‘Straight Up Relaxin’, a hazy, psychedelic cut with Australian dance duo Cosmo’s Midnight.
Closing things out, ‘Touch The Sky’ is a rousing club jam with The Ready Set that lives up to its name, ‘Rainbow’ featuring Californian dream-pop duo slenderbodies offers the album’s most ethereal moments, before ‘Cool With Me’, featuring singer/songwriter, Nick Vyner, ensures things finish on a suitably funk-heavy note.
“The initial idea is late night disco meets Motown. I wanted to make sure I was able to really translate that concept to the album and I’m super proud of how it came out,’ explains Yung Bae.
He adds “Most people are more familiar with every track being four on the floor disco for me when it comes to albums and I think that this is my twist on that concept. Not every track is straight disco. For me it was more of a “how can I take the concept of disco and its elements and blend that into any other genre” and pay homage to the late 70s. Most people know me for how rooted in sampling I am and I wanted to make sure I kept with that but also kept this fresh twist on it. While there’s samples on the album I really set out to make samples myself and then give those the same treatment. Most of the time whoever I worked with on a track with, we found ourselves constantly resampling ourselves and making all these samples from scratch. It definitely made it more of a challenge but also I can honestly say it was the most fun I’ve ever had working on a project. For me it’s a personal goal that I set out to achieve sonically and I love how it came out.”
Throughout his rich and extensive back-catalogue, Yung Bae has overseen the rise of Future Funk, stewarding the sub-genre from the underground into a cult-like phenomena. Since signing to Arista Records/Sony Music Entertainment, he has released a slew of buzzworthy music, including a new version of his viral track ‘Bad Boy’ featuring Wiz Khalifa, MAX and bbno$. The original ‘Bad Boy’ featuring bbno$ and Billy Marchiafava has over 100 million streams, viewed with over 2 billion impressions across 1 million videos on TikTok.
More recently he has been hosting his new radio show, Groove Continental Radio, on Apple Music. The show celebrates the culture of funk, disco and soul, with Yung Bae connecting all types of songs from the genres through his music, friends, collaborators and inspirations. He has also been announced to perform at Electric Forest in June and as a special guest for Madeon on his 2022 spring tour.
A landmark release, Groove Continental: Side A elevates Yung Bae to the upper echelons of contemporary music.
Listen to Groove Continental: Side A HERE
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