Grosvenor

Grosvenor is a smooth Londoner named Rob Smoughton, who is taking the Yacht Rock phenomenon to heart. Fans of Hot Chip will recognise his name from their recent DJ-Kicks comp, which his blue-eyed soul, classic-in-the-making "Nitemoves” (hear it on his MySpace page) commences with a chilled, midnight hour groove. He’s clearly a fan of the ’80s soft rock scene — he does Daryl Hall circa Voices better than Hall could himself now — and you want to scream "novelty” at the top of your lungs… but Grosvenor is conscious of his shtick. So like UK R&B slickster Omar or madcap Warp soulman Jamie Lidell, Smoughton’s as focused on production as much as his rich vocal. "Wallflowers” is the double a-side to the "Nitemoves” single. In a nutshell it sounds like LFO having a go at producing a neo-soul record, as the IDM blips mimick an almost two-step pattern. Smoughton keeps his softness though by running up and down his pitch-shifted-perfect harmonies thanks to a caked-on vocoder mask that would have Cher yelling with a snicker, "Ha! See, that guy does it even more than I do!”

Note: this video stops at 3:18 when the song ends despite saying it has a six-minute running time.