Shivum Sharma - New Waves

One press of play on Shivum Sharma’s bedroom demo of Flicker will explain why there’s been some blog buzz about this Londoner recently. Even although Flicker’s not a nagging earworm of a song, there’s a compelling haunting minimalism present and evidence of a developing talent. ‘Bedroom demo’ seems entirely appropriate in this case, Flicker is a tune to draw the curtains across the window and crawl under the sheets to.

“My main inspirations are Aphex Twin, Amy Winehouse, Fever Ray, Minnie Riperton, Anne Briggs, Erykah Badu, Antony & the Johnsons, Björk, André 3000 & Low,” he says. We’re never sure when an artist states that they are inspired by someone if they actually mean imitation rather than inspiration but we can certainly hear the influence of Antony Hegarty’s sweet vocal intonation on this song (as well as an earlier demo called Untouched which also features on his Soundcloud) combined with Aphex Twin’s more classically based piano pieces such as Avril 14th (here) and the intimacy of Perfume Genius.

With a list of reference points as interesting as Sharma has quoted we’ll be keeping our eyes and ears ready for further releases from this eighteen year old.

Shivum Sharma - Flicker (Demo)