Aussie by birth, Londoner by reputation, Jess Higgs (a.k.a George Maple) has stumbled upon good fortune with her handful of eclectic tracks making their way into listeners’ playlists this year. With a love for the underground dance scene, which has thrived and grown within the UK for years, her relocation to the home of UK garage music seems to have had a major impact on the songs she’s released thus far. With only two singles and a few collaborations to her name, her success on the blogosphere indicates the momentum behind her music will not be dissipating any time soon.
The second of her singles, “Fixed,” dropped just a few weeks ago and has already garnered intense interest from an international community of listeners. Joining a growing group of artists turning to a more relaxed and nuanced spin on the garage/house formula, her soulful vocals are a perfect accompaniment to the stripped down beats and filtered melodies that position her on the chilled-out side of the electronic continuum.
An unmistakable trend of ambiguity defining many of her lyrics may be equally refreshing as her soulful recordings. With concepts of hate, caution, and persistence all wrapped into a single song, Higgs is certainly proving herself an equally talented lyricist. In regards to the future, she’s assured fans that an album’s worth of material is waiting in queue for individual releases over this year. Her intentions for an eventual album involve newly written and collaborative material that she wants written all at once at some point. If you’ve enjoyed what she’s released so far, it seems 2013 should be an exciting year for new music.