First thing’s first, Happy New Year. 2015 has arrived. This is a late 2014 addition, but it doesn’t hurt to start the new year fresh.

It never hurts to be experimental with your music, and in order to stand out from the others, you have to take some risks and step outside of the traditional boundaries of the status quo. Victoria Di Giovanni is an artist that has that uncanny style that, to me, stands out from many artists that I hear in and around the city of Toronto, because much of what’s being put out is the same sound over and over. It’s what works for them, but you need a healthy balance of variety to keep things interesting. When I first came across her, it was her voice that has stunning right off the bat, and on this project there’s nothing less of the continuation of that voice that has a lot of strength compared to a lot of singers, both underground & mainstream.

The album (mixtape, whatever you want to address it as) has a trance-like vibe around it, and certain elements I can hint towards Kanye’s MBDTF (the usage of auto-tune Never Letting Go, specifically). It also has that dark tone of Rihanna’s Rated R that doesn’t necessarily bring hits (it’s not meant to), but the feel of it is gloomy, moody, but keeps it raw with emotions. I also salute her paying a little homage to Amerie’s One Thing (something for the kids to look up). What Victoria brings is style that allows each track to not sound like the other. The flows change, the cadences change, and it’s consistent in its approach (although the heavy auto-tune on ‘Never Letting Go’ wasn’t in my particular interests). At first listen, you’d probably think that she’d hail from the UK or somewhere in Europe, because they have that experimental sound that seems to fit the culture across the pond, so it’s great that she has that ability to just go against the grain and come up with something vibrant to catch the ears off guard. Give it a listen, and most importantly, Enjoy.