CAN I FEEL ENOUGH: MEDITATIVE BEATS EXUDE A MELANCHOLIC LOVE FOR LIFE, CONJURE EMOTION SUSPENDED IN SENSORY MEMORY, RECALL THE LOSS AND GROWTH OF SUMMER EVENINGS.

Madeleine is a London-based keyboardist, singer and songwriter. Classically trained on keys, she made a name for herself on the London jazz and neo-soul scenes pre-pandemic, playing with acclaimed and up-and-coming artists like Arlo Parks, Chloe Bodur and Poppy Ajudha. We’re thrilled to reveal that lockdown has provided Madeleine with the time and space to focus on her own music for the first time in many years. The result is her debut EP, Colour Me, released by IXCHEL this summer.

Can I Feel Enough, the forthcoming single, transports the listener right from its opening bars. The warm shimmer of chords from a Nord electric piano, the slow-rocking groove of a drum beat looped from an old session recording, immediately conjures the haze of summer’s transitions. As warm evenings slide into blue night-darkness, Madeleine as composer, performer and narrator is happy to swim between these state-changes. While the textures of the track enhance, the lyrics recall emotions wrapped in the memory of this sensory environment.

‘Midnight glow/Follow me home’ she sings with gentle soulfulness: ‘Hold me blue/Darling I thought I knew you/Night so warm/All I did for you’. The moment of collapse in a relationship is suspended in the tranquil sense-memory of a summer evening. This dual image of loss and growth, underscored by a serene, head-nodding beat paints a bittersweet picture that embodies the soul of the track – an appreciation for the inevitability of change, both personal and seasonal.

The influences of jazz-inspired beat makers like Stones Throw’s Kiefer, J Dilla and DJ Harrison are evident in Can I Feel Enough, as is the lush electronic production of Brainfeeder artists like Lapalux and Flying Lotus. Madeleine’s mellow singing voice, whether solo or joined in beguiling harmony, recalls the bittersweet soul of Lianne La Havas. Her voice is warm, flowing and utterly at home in this sunny soundscape – languid scat-singing reaches between phrases like the branches of a light-dappled canopy.

Released alongside the original track is a heavy dub from UK scene stalwart Ash Walker. Leaning into the song’s organic sound, drums lurch into a heavy backbeat, shuddering with analogue delay. The original’s smooth development becomes colossal yet carefully balanced, picking out the delicate highs of the mix, while bedding the bassline deeper, to window-shaking effect.