The ‘electric soul’ hashtag attached to LA-based artist NoMBe’s latest track ‘Drama’ on Soundcloud is one of the more accurate tags I’ve seen. It’s smooth, layered electronica with a healthy dose of stylised acoustics. Feature artists Big Data add their touch to the song, resulting in a lush sound that drove the track straight to the top of Hype Machine last week. With a debut album dropping for NoMBe at the end of the month, it’s a good taste of what to expect.
‘Drama’ sounds like something straight out of the late 90s – think a more upbeat version of White Town’s ‘Your Woman’. It’s got the funky guitar loop, the washed-out vocals, and a boppy chorus. It swings back and forth between chill verses with surprisingly heavy lyrics, back to the tight drums and guitars that accompany the “ain’t nothing but drama” of the chorus. Even the build at the beginning is reminiscent of this late 90s sound. Similarly, so many of NoMBe’s songs sound like they’d work as syncs for hip new TV shows (he’s already had one used as the theme for the HBO documentary ‘Outpost’), and ‘Drama’ is no exception. It’d be right as home playing out of the stereo as a party ramps up, or even as another theme. I’m not saying this is the main attraction of the song, but it definitely doesn’t hurt.
Overall, this is a tune with a nice throwback vibe and the potential to launch NoMBe to the heights he deserves. Fingers crossed that the upcoming album will be just as good!
This article first appeared on Outlet Mag. The full article can be found here.