Naughty Palace has peppered the city of New Orleans and beyond with something these ears are normally not that accustomed to: taking deep, crystalline soul and marrying it to the fringes of Balearic and island shuffles, slinky electro, vintage R&B, cerebral funk, and ghostly adult contemporary, among other influences. It is a beach rarely visited, particularly in the confines of the city from whence it was birthed, yet it strangely feels in place with the older stalwarts of New Orleans’ music scene, particularly their ability to mesh, boil and warp the cores of funk and soul and shape it into something else altogether.

With the new self-titled EP, Naughty Palace has inadvertently staked a claim in land that has been traversed by few, namely the genre-benders and musical adventurers who forego the usual in favor of discovery. This is a journey for the artist as much as it is for the listener, with neither party able to decipher what comes next. From beach-body tanlines to spectral galaxy soul, the limits are ever-expanding, and the future is as wide open as the universe itself.

-Nite Sweats