Until The Ribbon Breaks – A Taste of Silver EP

R&B has gone through a transformation over the last few years. With artists like Frank Ocean and The Weeknd gaining mass appeal for their self-styled ‘Future R&B’, it’s become the latest mode of popular music to undergo a metamorphosis; finding itself fitting in to the sharp-edged electronic musical landscape of the twenty-teen era. Until The Ribbon Breaks, aka Peter Lawrie Winfield, is a British singer, songwriter, producer, DJ and visual artist whose EP A Taste Of Silver has built on the changing shape of R&B to create a debut which expertly explores the disparity between the beautiful and the desolate.

As well as with his own music in, Until The Ribbon Breaks has sent the blogosphere into one of those meltdowns it’s prone to with his re-workings of The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games” and Lorde’s “Royals”. However, it‘s the carefully woven textures and imagination found on A Taste Of Silver that really elevate Lawrie into a league of his own.

The avant-R&B found across the record can both conjure images of despair and beauty. Opener “2025” offers apocalyptic imagery with sharp, industrial production and lyrics, coupled with a video depicting the rising consumer needs of a capitalist society and the way we communicate: “I think I’ll marry a stranger, that I met online/It’s not that it’s not love, it’s just a sign of the times”. Next up “Perspective (feat. Homeboy Sandman)” – a hip hop offering starring the Queens-based rapper – exhibits UTRB’s ability to adapt his style to other genres. However, it gets somewhat overshadowed by the brilliance found in his solo efforts, namely “Romeo”; the centrepiece and most outstanding song throughout the EP, its fragile construction is built with delicate synth sections, cinematic sound-scapes and Lawrie’s breathless voice which cements itself as a lynchpin of the entire release. Lead single ‘Pressure’ (an epic inspired by film director David Lynch) follows, with A Taste Of Silver finding itself completed by the stunning “Back To The Stars”, which includes Lawrie’s best vocal efforts and by far the most touching musicality of them all.

Until The Ribbon Breaks has proved he’s on to something here. Come the time of a full length, he may well be the next man to fulfil our deepest musical desires.