Nat Kendall: Presents Songbird Sing

You wouldn’t think a fusion of emotronica, folk-rock, and R&B/hip-hop would work — it certainly looks bad on paper, I’ll give you that — but the second installment in the Nat Kendall Presents series proves it can hold its own. The instrumentals typically mesh simple drum machine beats, light synth tones, bit crushed guitar, and canned strings, all of which would be way too easy to come off cheeseball if left to their own devices. Luckily, Nat’s whiteboy love rhymes play off the deeply satisfying tones of Paige Rasmussen to push Songbird Sing into a league of its own. It sounds futuristic when it could so easily be slap-and-dash reactionary. I can’t imagine there’s a very big scene for this kind of music, being too soft for indie and too soulful for mainstream, but those who open their heart to the experience won’t regret it.