Az&Tor

Hometown: Bristol. The lineup: Aisha Zoe and Rich Main. The background: Aisha Zoe and Rich Main are a Bristol duo specialising in soulful house, with some UK garage influences, positing their work as contemporaneous with Disclosure and AlunaGeorge, although their songs arent quite as blatantly poppy as the latters. Its tempting to think of theirs as a peculiarly Bristol take on that kind of sound, with some of the fuggy drag that has distinguished much of the citys R&B music all the way back to Smith and Mightys Wishing on a Star. But the fact is, Az&Tors Aisha Zoe and Rich Main arent from Bristol and maybe they havent lived there long enough for it to have seeped under their skin. Actually, Zoe was born in Jamaica and Main is from Detroit and they met in Bristol on a music production course after she saw his moustache and "thought he must be cool". She had been in a hip hop band and then a jungle outfit called SpaceKuggies and had spent her young life listening to dub, reggae, garage and rap, while he was the disco fan who played sax and piano at school before graduating to decks and DJing in his teens. An early collaboration, Save My Soul, introduced Az&Tors soulful brand of house with a two-take video and a pleasing blend of rawness and polish - Mains beats are created on a laptop while Zoes melody lines are sung into her phone. A new EP, Sit Back, on Madtech (home of, among others, Rinse FM DJ/disco artist Krystal Klear), finds a good balance between house at its more "upful" and a dolorous, introspective feel. "I thought you made me confident, but now Im insecure," sings Zoe. "I thought you made me happier, but now Im simply hurt." The EP, she says, is about "love, expressing self-respect and establishing how positive outcomes can triumph from your struggle". It has found favour with Skream & Benga, Wretch 32 and Toddla T. Sit Back is cool summer garage/house pop with a vocal that is just the right side of soulful (i.e. not the gushingly effusive side). Feels Like has an itchier, 2steppier beat, some distant jazz sax deep in the mix and some cosmic keyboard sounds to match the planetary lyrical motif. On Carry Mine Zoe recaptures her hip hop youth with a rap about compassion and emotion but shes more effective when she sings. The EPs remixes are nice, especially the Polkadot revamp of Sit Back, which ups the 2step quotient and makes Az&Tor even more likely to benefit from the current good feeling among daytime radio programmers towards UKG.