Raphaelle “Ra” Standell-Preston is having a busy year; following the release of Braids’ Shadow Offering in June, her other project Blue Hawaii have now revealed plans to release a mixtape. The six-track offering is called Under 1 House and is coming out on September 25 through Arbutus Records. The first song shared is called “I Felt Love”, with the duo saying:
“I Felt Love describes the difficulty of trying to communicate over the phone with a lover, in an airport drowned out by the loud background noise. It has a special context in the post-corona world, where we have had the opportunity to tune out distractions, dig deeper, and discover what is important to us.
The arrangement features a relentless electro baseline with dubby breaks driving forward a soothing piano/synth progression.”
Although recent albums have seen Blue Hawaii move towards more dance-inflected sounds, “I Felt Love” is the most unabashedly dancefloor-ready material they’ve yet created. Pristine production ensures these squelching beats are impactful and propulsive, while crystalline layers of synth are gently drizzled on top to give the whole thing an anti-gravitational smoothness in the way it moves. Utterly irresistible already, add Standell-Preston unusual but compelling lyrics on top and you have a total winner.
You can listen to “I Felt Love” on streaming platforms or watch the video below.
Blue Hawaii’s Under 1 House mixtape is out on September 25 through Arbutus Records. You can follow the duo on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
