The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
Last year 22-year-old Londoner Jim Legxacy released a string of tracks that didn't so much as skip between genres from one song to the next, but often felt like the pleasing midpoint between having three separate tabs playing at once. In Legxacy's world R&B vocals sit atop Midwest emo guitars and flashes if U.K. drill samples in a mash-up of styles that makes the original song sound like its own remix.
His latest effort "old place" continues that run of form as he sings about feelings of indecision about reuniting an old relationship with the kind of distressed whine that links the finest emo and R&B ballads. "If u came back in my life I’d have to decide whether I want you to stay or turn away," he sings before deciding he would "would give you your old place back." This excavation of feelings is studded with a sample of Harlem Spartans' 2016 track "Grip And Ride" ("if we turn up now, weapons out") which acts almost like a tough riposte to the outpouring of emotion elsewhere.
The "old place" video blurs the vision once more, with Legxacy and his crew turning up while riding the London overground and echoing their friend's romantic dilemma. Like most things on display here, it doesn't make much sense until you ask yourself, "Why not?"
