New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Puma Blue, recently deemed by Complex as "a prodigious young talent with greatness in his sights," has released his hotly anticipated debut album In Praise of
Shadows (Blue Flowers) to glowing international raves. On Saturday he was profiled on NPR's Weekend Edition, where he revealed how sleepless nights, pure love and the music his parents put on led him to his most emotionally available and personally representative music yet.
Recent pieces exploring Puma Blue's "hazy dreamland" (NME) have run with MTV and Ones To Watch, and this Thursday, February 11, he will broadcast a full-length concert featuring an expansive 8-piece band from the historic Battersea Arts Centre in London. Tickets for 'A Late Night Special' and more information here.
Puma Blue (real name Jacob Allen) wrote and produced each track himself, but taps special contributions from Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) and
Marta Salogni (Björk, Frank Ocean, FKA twigs). He samples the score of Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, sources inspiration from teenage obsessions like Jeff Buckley, Björk, Sade, and D'Angelo, and shows why he's emerged as one of the UK's vital new voices.
Built from laptop demos created in coffee shops, hotel rooms and plane rides, In Praise of
Shadows marks a personal transition and a bright new perspective following a decade-long bout with insomnia. With a delicate croon and a palette of spine-tingling sounds, these fourteen songs find light in the darkness of pain that's filled his past, coming to terms with anxiety, insecurities, loss of innocence and traumatic experiences like almost losing his sister to depression, which Billboard says he "processes with a hypnotic tenderness."
Puma Blue has surpassed 70 million streams to date, as singles like "Opiate" remain staples of Spotify's Pollen playlist. He's recently been profiled at Vinyl Me, Please, HERO and HUNGER, and In Praise of
Shadows continues to amass praise from outlets like HYPEBEAST, CRACK, CLASH and more you can find below.
Raves for In Praise of Shadows:
"Magic hour R&B" - The Fader
"Tipped by just about everyone as a prodigious talent with greatness in his sights" - Complex
"Like mist, or a dream, or the pale lavender melancholy that cloaks his warm voice...he sees the light and feels it deeply. He simply understands the shadows more" - MTV
"A hazy dreamland for listeners to get lost in" - NME, 4 out of 5
"Sleep and dreams dominate Allen's imagination, not just lyrically but in the hushed, hallucinatory quality of his sensitively-rendered arrangements" - CRACK
"Jazz-tinged late hours soul to languid hip-hop beats … music of real tension and originality" - The Sunday Times
"Xx-esque dream pop" - Gigwise
"Tailor-made for nights under the duvet" - DIY
"A wonderfully bleary-eyed focus that ties-together jazz, ambient, acoustic singer-songwriter and blues in one beautiful stretched reverie" - Loud & Quiet (8/10)
"Intimate bedroom R&B…soulful and grainy and intoxicating" - American Songwriter
"Traverses a winding road of insomnia, wandering dreams, sombre days and lustful nights" - CLASH (8/10)
"Puma Blue processes [his] pain with a hypnotic tenderness" - Billboard
In Praise Of
Shadows is available here. Physical formats include a limited edition 180 gram milky clear double-vinyl packaged with an optional signed album polaroid.
In Praise of
Shadows Tracklist:
Sweet Dreams
Cherish (furs)
Velvet Leaves
Snowflower
Already Falling
Sheets
Olive / Letter To ATL
Oil Slick
Silk Print
Is It Because
Opiate
Sleeping
Bath House
Super Soft.
