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Chilled Soul Vol. 10

Sixty-five tracks and the longest volume in the series — and the one most interested in singers who had not yet been discovered.

chill10ed

Chilled Soul Vol. 10

The tenth volume is the point at which the series stops being a personal mixtape and starts behaving like an A&R department. Sixty-five tracks, assembled around 2018, and an unusually high proportion of them by artists who were either unsigned or on their first release.

Several have since become significant, and a few have vanished entirely, which is exactly what an honest snapshot of a moment looks like.

What to listen for

WILLOW and SZA's "9" is the most prescient pairing here — both artists were at very different points in their visibility and the track treats them as equals.

Jorja Smith's "February 3rd" is early and essential, and Lianne La Havas's "Empty" recorded in Paris is the best vocal performance on the list.

JP Cooper's BBC session reading of "Ex-Factor" is the bravest thing here — taking on a Lauryn Hill record is generally a mistake, and he gets away with it by not attempting to out-sing her.

Ravyn Lenae's "Sleep Talking" is the Chicago discovery, produced in the Zero Fatigue circle, and her voice is unlike anyone else's in this music.

Lolo Zouaï appears twice, and "High Highs to Low Lows" is the pick — a French-Algerian-American singer whose records sit between R&B and French pop.

MorMor's "Heaven's Only Wishful" is the best-produced track on the list, and Mac Ayres' "Show Me" is the warmest.

Mandalay's "Not Seventeen" and Jhelisa-adjacent British trip-hop selections are the archival inclusions, and Oddisee's "Slow Groove" and DJ Okawari's "Bounce" with Talib Kweli are the instrumental hip-hop entries.

Coldplay's "Magic" is the inclusion that will make people check twice, and in context it makes sense — it is essentially a bassline and a whisper.

Go deeper

Jorja Smith's Lost & Found and Ravyn Lenae's HYPNOS are the two albums this volume most clearly recommends.

Lianne La Havas's self-titled 2020 album is her best, and MorMor and Lolo Zouaï are both worth following properly rather than through single tracks.

How to use it: sixty-five tracks is a set to leave running rather than to navigate, and it is best approached as a radio show. Some of these artists became stars and some disappeared entirely, and the playlist makes no distinction between them — which is exactly what makes it a useful record of a particular year.

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