Focus Music Notes. "Out of the Blues". Popular music through the decades

21 year old Salford born singer and widely rated newcomer Ren Harvieu, who was included in the BBC’s Sound Of 2012 Poll, has her much anticipated debut album ”Through The Night” released through Kid Gloves / Island Records. The album was originally set for release in the summer of 2011 when Ren suffered a terrible accident which left her with a broken back and not knowing whether she would ever walk again. Thankfully after a miraculous recovery, in less than three months, Ren is back on her feet and finally ready to release her wonderful music and perform live once again. Ren Harvieu is brand new, just turned twenty one. She sounds one way and looks and acts completely differently. No Brit School training, no showbiz connections, just a young girl with a truly remarkable voice and a set of songs that will stir your soul and break your heart. Ren sang in the odd local talent show, one called ‘Salford Superstar’ and attended what she calls the Primark version of a performing arts school

Willy Moon’s ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ was a sharp and stylish opening gambit from dapper 21 year old Willy Moon, which has already clocked up over 400,000 plays on Youtube and had Rough Trade record shop call it the “best single of the year”. Since then, this sharp-dressed rockabilly Moon has been working on new music in his home studio, and ‘Yeah Yeah’ is the first result. Taking its cue from the early hip hop block party blueprints laid down by Afrika Bambaataa and his Zulu Nation, the track is a riot of explosive beats and blues shouting built around a sample from Wu-Tang Clan’s classic ‘Wu-Tang Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’Wit’. The result is the missing link between Sun Studios and Def Jam, a rowdy, highly compressed cut-up collision that sounds like Grandmaster Flash throwing down with Carl Perkins. Don’t step on his blue suede shell toes. Willy has recently taken his distinctive sound live playing at YoYo and an NME Awards show at Heaven and Camden Crawl. A killer club remix comes from

With over 17 million views on YouTube, ‘Frick Park Market’ is the massive new single from Pittsburgh native Malcolm “Mac Miller” McCormick, one of the most exciting young emcee’s of the moment. Named after the food store where Mac once worked, ‘Frick Park Market’ is taken from the No.1 US debut album ‘Blue Slide Park’. Keeping true to his backpacker style, Mac Miller was signed independently to Rostrum Records, also home to Wiz Khalifa, in 2011, ‘Blue Slide Park’ became the first independently distributed debut album to top the US charts in 15 years. On May 21st, ‘Blue Slide Park’ gets its UK release through Island Records. Still only 20 years old, in his early teens Miller began to take his influences from the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, Big L, and Outkast, which helped him develop a reputation for delivering jaw-dropping freestyles in Pittsburgh. Like most of his contemporaries, he first came to prominence by dropping a host of mixtapes, six in all. It was with ‘K.I.D.S’ and ‘B